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Medieval violin.
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NoirVelours
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May 11, 2012 - 10:19 pm
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Ever wonder what the ancestor of our modern violin sounded like? No I'm not talking about a baroque violin tongue. This is a vielle, it sounds gritty and weird but it has it's own character! the violin evolved a lot since medieval times violin I think the sound reminds me of a vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy).

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"It can sing like a bird, it can cry like a human being, it can be very angry, it can be all that humans are" Maxim Vengerov

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myguitarnow
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May 12, 2012 - 2:32 am
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The styles are kind of the same. Look at the bow hold.

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DanielB
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May 12, 2012 - 7:58 am
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Highly cool, VN!

 

Minor technical inaccuracy in that vid though.  He is using a modern type of bow.

One like this would have been more accurate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....tGp_XZb33A

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman

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Fiddlerman
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May 12, 2012 - 8:21 am
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As far as their technique goes remember that these are modern day violinists that begin to play baroque instruments for the fun or switch but obviously keep their techniques pretty close to the same.

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but the one who needs the least."

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NoirVelours
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May 12, 2012 - 11:59 am
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Daniel I saw the other too, just wanted something with other instruments and the flute was very popular. It is true that the bow was.. a real bow :D how cute!

I'm interested in knowing what you guys/gals think of the sound compared to our modern violin?

"It can sing like a bird, it can cry like a human being, it can be very angry, it can be all that humans are" Maxim Vengerov

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DanielB
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It has a nice sort of sound of it's own.  Rather different than violin, a bit more midrange sounding to me.  A little hard to tell how much of the difference is the instrument and how much is from how it is being played.  Reminds me a bit of the sound of using a bow on an Appalachian dulcimer.  

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman

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Fiddlestix
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Here is a bow of the same type.... I wonder if it eliminate's bounce.

   dunno

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DanielB
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May 12, 2012 - 1:09 pm
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Looks like it might be an "Incredibow".

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman

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myguitarnow
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Interesting stuff. I play the mountain dulcimer Daniel and just use my fingers or a wooden slide and I don't see the comparison in the sound. I did do a little research just now and sure enough they make a bow for the dulcimer.

I love the old and new sound myself. Love medieval music myself. 

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Oliver
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So happens that my luthier is making a bowed dulcimer for a customer.

Picture shows two dulcimers in his shop but I know nothing about them.

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dionysia
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Love the medieval music folks!!

 

@Fiddlestix - Thank you thank you thank you for that clip!!! Now I know that "Faded Love" is the tune that runs through my head all the time when I think of fiddle music. My Grandpa must have played it quite a bit. Now I know the name of the tune to put on my "must learn" list. clapclapclap

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springer

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Man its amazing what people find and put on the forum. COOLdancing

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DanielB
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I don't usually play dulcimer with a bow, myguitarnow, just fingers.  But sometimes I've played it with a little hammer from a hammered dulcimer, bottleneck slide or metal fingerpicks, for variety/experimentation.  Well, a bit more often with the glass bottleneck, since it's kinda fun to alternate between standard dulcimer and slide blues riffs.

I don't use bow on dulcimer much because it makes the strings kinda sticky for fingerpicking.  But right after I'd ordered my violin, I had a bit of insecurity about whether I'd be able to work with a bowed instrument, since I'd never tried one before.  So I bent up a bit of stiff wire and made a loop of cotton thread to stretch over it, like a sort of crude psaltry bow.  "Rosined" it by alternating between semi-hard pine pitch from a tree outside and some hard beeswax until I could get a steady tone with it, and played qaround a bit with it on my dulcimer.  It was kinda fun.

But a few days later (still waiting on the violin) I showed a friend a pic of the violin I'd ordered.  He started going on about how he'd always wanted to play fiddle, but figured he'd get nothing but squeaks out of it for about 2 yrs.  Well, I'd been studying parts of the violin and basic construction.. so a few hours later, we'd cobbled together a sort of crude one string fiddle out of a little wooden box and a dowel and some assorted scraps of wood and a bow out of a piece of thinner dowel and a couple little pieces of wood. LOL  It didn't sound horrid.  Kind of thin and reedy, but easy enough to get notes out of.  And the fingerboard and nut to bridge length were about right, so he found out he could play a little bit.  He still has it and plays on it for fun.  Swears up and down he's going to buy himself a violin/fiddle one of these days.  Time will tell.

Pardon that long-winded digression, but I guess my point is that I try all kinds of crazy things with instruments and sometimes build little instruments to find out what sounds I can get out of them or to get a better idea of the construction or just for the heck of it.

The recording of the vielle isn't exactly like the sound of bowing a dulcimer, but the way it holds onto the midrange and some of the overall harmonic tone reminded me of it a bit.  I would agree though, that it doesn't sound much like a dulcimer being "played proper".

The vielle is definitely a neat sounding instrument, though.

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman

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Crazymotive

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NoirVelours said
Ever wonder what the ancestor of our modern violin sounded like? No I'm not talking about a baroque violin tongue. This is a vielle, it sounds gritty and weird but it has it's own character! the violin evolved a lot since medieval times violin I think the sound reminds me of a vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy).

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Nice !!  I like it.

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NoirVelours
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By the way this is a vielle à roue (hurdy gurdy) for those who were wondering. The droning sound fits so well with the vielle imho! and I also was deeply in love with this instrument for a couple years, until I realized I couldn't afford one haha. but if I have to own a second type of instrument one day it will be either this or a celtic harp.

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"It can sing like a bird, it can cry like a human being, it can be very angry, it can be all that humans are" Maxim Vengerov

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DanielB
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Have you seen this, NV?

http://dennishavlena.com/fiddlegu.htm

If you are good with tools or perhaps know someone near you who is, it might be interesting. 

"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman

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NoirVelours
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May 13, 2012 - 10:01 am
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It's cool thanks! But I don't own a single tool for wood not am I skilled with building stuff. My biggest achievement was screwing the curtain hangers all by myself facepalm but it's not a real vielle à roue with keys to press, still a cool instrument.

"It can sing like a bird, it can cry like a human being, it can be very angry, it can be all that humans are" Maxim Vengerov

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