Bass violin

The bass violin is a member of the lutes (Hornbostel–Sachs 321.322-71). Learn how it makes its sound and explore related instruments.

How the bass violin makes its sound

In the Hornbostel–Sachs system, which classifies instruments by how they produce sound, the bass violin belongs to the lutes: strings run parallel to a soundboard and along a neck – the family of the guitar, violin, sitar and oud.

More broadly it is one of the chordophones (string instruments), where sound comes from vibrating strings, amplified by a resonating body.

Press play above and watch the spectrum: the evenly spaced peaks are harmonics, and their relative strength is what gives the instrument its character.

From Wikipedia

Bass violin is the modern term for various 16th- and 17th-century bass instruments of the violin (i.e. viola da braccio) family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern cello, but tuned to the same nominal pitches or sometimes one step lower. Contemporaneous names for these instruments include "basso de viola da braccio," "basso da braccio," or the generic term "violone," which simply meant "large fiddle." The instrument differed from the violone of the viol, or "viola da gamba" family in that like the other violins it had at first three, and later usually four strings, as opposed to five, six, or seven strings, it was tuned in fifths, and it had no frets. With its F-holes and stylized C-bouts it also more closely resembled the viola da braccio.

The name "bass violin" is also sometimes used for the double bass.