Santu De Silva <[log in to unmask]>:

>Meanwhile, in the east, violins are still played with gut strings, with the
>shallow angled necks, and played underhand, with the instrument rested on
>the chest.  Look at any number of Indian violinists.

The Indian violinists I heard all held their violins in a very different
way from Baroque fiddlers (as far as I can tell from reading contemporary
accounts and looking at pictures).  The Indian fiddlers held the violings
low on the chest AND ALSO SAT cross legged on the floor, with the scroll of
the violin braced in the left instep of the foot.  One of the violinists
dipped his left hand fingers in oil, in order to perform glissandi (slides)
more easily.  In Western music, there are different kinds of slides
...
the Indian ones were even more varied and many of them were downward as
well as upward, thus making the holding position imperative.  Westerners
use the chinrest (invented by Spohr, by the way) to brace the instrument.
I assume then, from holding positions, that a lot of sliding was not
possible on instruments that had neither foodholds or chinrests.  As far as
I could determine, the fourth finger of the left hand was not used.  I
don't know if this was idiosyncratic.  And I never heard chords played.
...

>[Mimi, telling you more than you wanted to know.]

nOT at all; I had not realized the relationship between the bracing of
the violin on the foot, and the free use of glissando in Karnatic music.
(Of course, it is this possibility of glissando that makes the violin
attractive to South Indian musicians.)

This is all good and interesting stuff- -to me, at any rate.  Your
observations all are in line with what I've seen (except for the fourth
finger thing, which puzzles me).  My point about Indian violins was not
principally about the way they were played, but rather about the sound of
the instrument; in any case I'm fascinated with the kind of thing you're
describing.

The violin itself: that's the interesting question.  Was the neck angled
like that of a modern western violin?  Was it steel-strung?  I'm guessing
that the answer in bothcases is no.

At any rate, there *are* ancient gut-strung instruments out in India and
Sri Lanka, still being played by members of the families of the original
owners.  They have a gentle, sweet sound appropriate to chamber music.  I
believe, though, that in public performances, rather than use a powerful
instrument to fill an auditorium, they use the same gut-strung instrument,
but use microphones and loudspeakers.

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