What was the precursor to the violin?

Answer 1

in the very late Renaissance. It would have been around the mid 1500's when the violin pattern started to really develop. After that, it became kind of standardized. And it really took off during the Baroque era. The Baroque era started somewhere around 1600. In the very last part of the 1500's, the violin started to emerge. At the time, the instrument most like it was the viol but the violin was still very different. (Currently, the viol is now what one would call the Viola de Gamba.) Instruments in the viol family were more sleek, and plaintive and soft. Then somebody invented an instrument that became more brilliant, with a brighter sound. No one actually knows who invented the first violin, but Andreas Amati is considered by most authorities to be the maker who invented the violin as we know it today. Then, at the beginning of the Baroque era, two things happened: Opera and the violin family took off. Through the Baroque era, they become more and more and more popular. This was called the Golden Period for violin making. It was Stradivari's time, and with that, high quality violins were being sold, so composers wrote a lot of music for the violin. Bach, Handel, Corelli, and so many Baroque composers that we don't even know about wrote music for the violin. Most people have never heard of so many composers that have awesome Classical Music. One of the first great violin makers was Amati. I actually had a teacher who owned an Amati.Well, the actual body shape of the violin is the same. In the Renaissance, there were a few that were shaped minimally different, but basically, it is the same instrument from the Baroque era on. And for instance, most of the Stradivari instruments, the only difference is that most of them had their necks broken off and they put a longer, skinnier neck on, so it was possible to play higher on the soundboard, and to make it easier to shift. As well, they added a chin rest. These two things are really the only differences other than the strings and the bow. The strings and the bow were the only things that changed significantly. The strings eventually went from being gut strings in the Baroque era to having metal windings added around the gut, and that happened. Eventually, the high E string became completely metal. The bow actually changed quite dramatically. Originally, it actually bowed the other way; it was convex as opposed to the current concave bow. By the time you get to Mozart's age, the classical era, and then a new kind of bow came in style, which looks more like a modern bow. Currently, we call it a transitional bow. Right at the very end of the Classical era, and the beginning of the Romantic era, the bow became more modern.

Answer 2

Rebec