Mondo Knows Facts
A violin's four strings are tuned in fifths
G, D, A and E cover two octaves and a sixth between them Fifths let a player stop two adjacent strings together for double stops without awkward fingerings. The body is a wooden box with a soundpost and bass bar that shape the tone. Bow hair is horsehair, treated with rosin so it grips the string. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
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More facts like this
Hundreds of Stradivari instruments still surviveAntonio Stradivari made well over 1,000 instruments in CremonaVivaldi's Four Seasons was paired with poemsThe concertos were published in 1725 alongside sonnetsA bow makes sound by sticking and slippingRosin gives the hair enough friction to catch the string and release itA string quartet is two violins, a viola and a celloFour lines let the parts be heard separately without a conductorHalving a string raises it an octaveOther simple length ratios give fifth, fourth and thirdA grand piano carries around 20 tonnes of string tensionA cast iron plate holds the load so the case does not fold
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Tags: strings, violin, instruments
A violin's four strings are tuned in fifths: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- G, D, A and E cover two octaves and a sixth between them. The figure is taken from Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.