Can the sound of the violin altered in any way to produce different effects?

Answer 1

The sound of any instrument can be modified in many ways to produce different sounds. The violin is no exception.

Traditional violin playing consists of bowing the strings (arco) and stopping the strings with fingertips to select pitch. The manner of handling the bow itself has changed for the common stroke over the centuries, resulting in a change of the tone and volume-shape of the violin sound, appropriate to changing styles since the Renaissance era. However, the manner of bowing is not a simple back-and-forth smooth operation: many different techniques already cause the violin to emit very different sounds from bouncing the bow on the string to tremolo, where the violinist moves the bow back and forth very quickly, creating a kind of shimmer in the sound.

Back in the Baroque and early Classical era, it wasn't uncommon to have the violinist use the wooden part of the bow on the string to get a pinging effect, and this has survived until the present time. Two most notable uses of the bow in this fashion (called col legno and col legno battuto) are Rossini's overture to Il Signor Bruschino and the graveyard segment of the last movement of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique. (Most modern violinists, having paid a great deal of money for their bows, will use a wooden dowel, instead!)

Departing from the bow, the violin has always had the ability to be plucked (pizzicato), strummed like a Ukulele, etc.

Another technique is harmonics, where the violinist presses very lightly against the string in certain locations, then bows, producing a particularly different tone. This is because their finger is on a 'node', and by stopping the string's motion in that point but letting the rest of the string vibrate on either side of their finger, they are making the string vibrate in subdivisions. For instance, placing the finger lightly at the same point that they would use for the musical forth above the open string's sound, they cut the string into four parts, and the pitch of the note is two octaves above the open string. Placing the finger where the musical fifth sounds normally will cut the string in thirds, producing a note an octave and a fifth above the open string's pitch: these are called harmonics and sound almost like a bird singing or like whistling.

Also in the Classical technique, the use of a mute will change the sound of the Violin. The word mute comes from the Italian muta, changed, and the mute for the violin is a weighted addition to the bridge. The bridge carries the sound of the string to the top plate of the violin, where it causes the body and air-cavity of the instrument to produce the normal sound. By adding the weight to the bridge, the tone of the instrument is changed. The sound is generally quieter than without the mute (causing most people to think that "mute" means "to silence or make quite".)

In modern use of the violin, many avenues for sound-change are available: since the instrument can be easily electronicified by microphone or conductive pickup, the entire battery of electronic sound-amplification and sound-modification available to Electric Guitar players or synthesists are available to the violinist. Some makers produce entirely-electric violins, which, like solid body electric Guitars, produce no sound without added amplification. Additionally, it is possible for a violin's sound to be fed to a synthesizer, modified and played back in real-time with the violin's own sound.