Violin Forum/Message Board

[ollieken]

It has been quiet here for a while . I would like to know what
makers idea is in having a scoop on the finger board
I find a fiddle without one hard to play . What are your thought on this
I find the strings loose is it just me with my big bent meat hooks fingers ???
Ken

[Michael Darnton]

What I'd always heard was that it was to prevent buzzing. Then I discovered that classical guitar makers don't do it any more and no one misses it, so I tried it on our rental violins for a while. The teachers hated it.

Apparently the scoop keeps higher positions relatively low, while building height quickly in the lower positions. The result is that the amount of pressure needed as you go up the board stays RELATIVELY similar, rather than constantly going up as you move into higher positions. They noticed right away, so I stopped doing it, and everyone was happy.

Mostly the way that they expressed it was that the violins "felt mushy in the middle". I wouldn't have known what that meant, except that I knew what I'd done to cause it, and eventually figured out what was going on from their perspective.
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[kjb]

thanks for that info.

[ollieken]

Michael Thank you for the reply so it`s not my fingers the fiddle I
Played on was like having a low bridge with no string tension
is how the string felt (Bad on double stops.) Ken

[Dave Chandler]

What is the best profile for fingerboard scoop? Where should the lowest point be? And the total amount of scoop?

I would think the greatest amount of scoop would be required about half way between the nut and the bridge, where the greatest oscillation would be playing the lowest notes.
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[Michael Darnton]

Since it's only about playability, and players seem to like the usual, the usual is in the middle of the board, a circular scoop. If one were doing it for the buzz, it would be more towards the nut, because that's the end where the relief is the least--the lowest angle of take-off from the board--and buzzes usually happen right in front of the finger, not anywhere else as you would expect. In fact one of the advantages of a scoop is a slightly cleaner sound because the string makes a more definite departure from the board.

But players seem to like it in the middle of the board, so. . .
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[John Masters]

I use a lot of Chinese violins for various experiments. As they come, the fingerboard does not make a slight rise at the end of the neck, which I like. Otherwise there seems a kind of "sad" drooping. (Needless to say, these come 'tacked' onto the neck and are removed.)

There is not enough material to carve the flat side properly.

I bend these slightly like a bow, after a good heating over a gas flame from my kitchen stove. I do this to the extent that the large end rises a mm or so when the small end is pushed to a flat surface.

The two surfaces are belt-sand to two chords and this removes only a small amount of material. The small angle can be adjusted with this opperation. I make pencil marks on the underside to get the two surfaces just beyond the neck. A small displacement of the "vertex" seems invisible if it is kept within a couple mm beyond the neck.

The I make the fingerboard extension to the bridge less and one can sight down the fingerboard to make the bridge look a little lower. but it works well and one can still keep the bridge the height you wish.