Contrabass Digest

1999-08-09

From: "David Neubauer" <dnmagic@earthlink.net>
Subject: re:subharmonics
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 16:41:29 -0700
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

I agree with John.  I've taken out the 'ol violin, and have been
trying to generate the lower pitch for awhile.  Maybe I can't hear it
while playing it, but I've never heard of it happening.  I can make it
sound higher (harmonics and such), but not lower.  Paul (my bro) is
playing at the Santa Fe Music Festival, but I'll see him next week in
LaJolla.  I don't think he's checking his e-mail.  I will keep him
apprised of the thread.  He'll have the definitive answer.
David Neubauer
www.dnmagic.com

Thread:
I've heard about a technique on violin and cello that enables the player to
play subharmonics one octave below the fundamental note of a string,thus
virtually extending the range of the instrument by an entire octave as well
as for special effects.Anybody know how this is achieved or how it sounds?
Mats 0ljare

Mats, I played Violin since I was a kid and have never heard of that.
Harmonics, yes, but subharmonics?
David Neubauer

David, Is it possible to play two strings at the same time, so that the difference
in pitch is the frequency of a much lower note?
Fred McKenzie

Doesn't happen.  Or if it does, I've never heard it or even heard OF it.
The only mechanism I can think of is the one used by organ makers to create
a "virtual" 32-foot octave by tuning smaller pipes so that the difference
tone is heard as a low note.  But on a stringed instrument the volume of
the sounding notes is so much more powerful than the difference tone (yes,
it's there, and you'd play a 4th or 5th interval to generate it) that the
difference tone is virtually inaudible.
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music

(end of thread)

---------------------------------------------------------

From: LeliaLoban@aol.com
Date: Sun, 8 Aug 1999 20:48:28 EDT
Subject: re:subharmonics
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Mats 0ljare wrote,
>I've heard about a technique on violin and cello that enables the player to play subharmonics one octave below the fundamental note of a string,thus virtually extending the range of the instrument by an entire octave as well
as for special effects.Anybody know how this is achieved or how it sounds?>

My husband, who began playing violin at age 5 and is now 51, says there's no such technique.  Kevin studied seriously, has read a lot of the literature about the violin, does a bit of dealing in violins on the side, and would not likely have forgotten such a technique if it existed, since his most memorable teacher, the small but mighty red-headed Russian, Mischa Mischakoff (who honed his teaching skills during 17 years as Toscanini's concertmaster) dinned in the lessons over the years by beating Kevin with a fly swatter.  Mischakoff kept a row of Kleenex boxes lined up on a shelf in the room where he taught.  He wrote the name of a student on each box.  Kevin alone never got his own Kleenex box.  Mischakoff claimed it made him livid that he couldn't make Kevin break down and cry at a lesson.  (Kevin's mother still treasures a post card that Mischakoff sent to her from Chautauqua one summer. The postcard says, in Yiddish, "Thank you for the salami.  Someday I may teach your stupid son to play the violin."  I'm not *advocating* the fly swatter, you understand; and I suppose that today this great teacher would get arrested for child abuse -- but Kevin recalls Mischakoff with the greatest affection and respect.)  Gregg Bailey's suggestion of playing strings a fifth apart, while emphasizing the lower string, makes sense, but doesn't actually produce an audible or usable acoustic bass on the violin.  If it did, it would be very obvious, since the violin strings are tuned in fifths and solo violin music frequently calls for double-stops in fifths, often with the lower note emphasized.

Lelia

 
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