Goal: Make a 17.

5 inch long deep sounding viola which is easy to hold to reduce the chances of
player injuries.

The new viola design (figure 1) has several new interrelated ergonomic, acoustic, and structural
features which will be briefly described.

figure 1

Ergonomic features:

The upper right bout is narrow (figure 2) to make it easier to reach upper fingerboard positions.

figure 2

The fingerboard is twisted with its A string side tipped a few mm lower than the C string at the
nut end (figure 3). This tipping enables the left elbow to be tucked inward less which reduces
the stresses on the left shoulder, arm and wrist.

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 figure 3

But the bridge end of the fingerboard is kept level as normal. This provides adequate bow
clearance over the right C bout top plate edge and provides clearance for the right hand. If the
entire fingerboard was simply tipped to be lower on the A string side then there wouldn’t be
enough bow clearance over the C bout.

The top’s right hand corner points on the are eliminated and the corners are rounded off
(figure 4) to provide more bow and bow hand clearance. The bow hand can be less arched
which helps to reduce stress. All of the other corner points are also eliminated for appearance
continuity and to reduce weight.

figure 4

A normal tailpiece that is attached to the end of the instrument with a tail-chord and tail-pin is
not used. The tailpiece is instead made as an integrated extension of the fingerboard (figure 5)
that passes through a slot in the bridge. This declutters the bottom end of the viola and enables
a wide range of chin rest positions and shapes.

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 figure 5

The chin rest is held in place with screws going through the top plate into an internal block
(figure 6) so the usual chin rest clamps and tail-pin are not needed which is more comfortable
for the player’s neck. A very low chin rest can be used because it doesn’t have to be above a
tailpiece. The chin rest’s height and tip angles can be easily changed by inserting various
spacers inserted between the chin rest and the top plate.

figure 6

Several weight reductions were made by making material substitutions and design changes to
reduce muscle stresses on the left shoulder and arm.

The viola is made from low density woods to reduce weight. Paulownia wood (0.26g/cc) is used
for both the back plate (normally made from maple wood at about 0.55g/cc) and for the top
plate (normally made from spruce at about 0.38g/cc). The interior upper, lower, and corner
blocks are also made from Paulownia wood instead of spruce.

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The ribs are made from tough 3 ply birch model aircraft plywood only 0.8mm thick instead of
the traditional thicker maple wood around 1.0 to 1.5mm thick. The integrated one piece
neck/fingerboard/tail piece is made from Sitka spruce instead of more dense maple, ebony, and
box wood or similar tailpiece woods. The chin rest is made with a low density Paulownia/birch
plywood combination instead of higher density woods such as ebony, boxwood, rosewood etc.

The traditional spiral neck scroll is eliminated (figure 7) to reduce weight.

figure 7

A conventional added-on shoulder rest to raise the viola higher above the player’s shoulder is
not used. Instead the back plate is bowed outward (figure 8) to take up this space which saves
some weight. (There also nothing to fall off).

figure 8

A fully setup 17.5 inch viola with chin rest and built in shoulder rest weighs only about 580g
which is around 200 or 300g less than a conventionally built and set up viola so it is easier to
hold.

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Acoustic and structural features:

The sound output of a vibrating body is inversely proportional to its weight so the weight
reductions mentioned above also increase the sound output of the viola.

A Viola’s C string has an open string pitch of 130Hz which is 2/3rds the pitch of the violin’s open
G string at 196Hz. Since an instrument’s top or back plate bending vibration frequency is
inversely proportional to its plate length it has often been suggested that a viola should be 1.5
times longer than a violin in order to have equally satisfying low notes.

A violin’s top plate and back plate lengths are typically about 14 inches so a viola should be
about 21.5 inches long but this is far too long to be comfortably held so violas are often made
much shorter. This increases the plate frequencies and therefore increases the “brightness” of
the viola’s sound character which is opposite of what some people prefer.

Plate bending of small areas is responsible for much of viola’s high frequency sound output
however much of the instrument’s lower frequency sound is a result of a bellows-like
movement where the entire top and bottom plates bow inward and outward to compress or
decompress the internal air. These volume changes produces internal air resonances that
produce sound from an in and out air movement through the f holes. The lowest frequency of
these air resonances is the “A0” resonance and its frequency and amplitude are very important
for determining the sound character.

A typical violin has a A0 frequency of about 280 Hz and, with the 2/3 frequency ratio concept, a
viola should have a A0 frequency of around 187Hz. But typical size 16.0 to 16.5 inch violas have
A0 frequencies much higher at about 220Hz and as a consequence their lower C string’s notes
don’t sound deep. Since the purpose of using a viola is to produce lower frequency notes with
its C string it is helpful to make the A0 frequency low and with a high amplitude.

The A0 frequency is inversely proportional to the square root of the cavity volume so it is
helpful to have a large volume (this is why large violas are often desired). Violas are frequently
used with a shoulder rest to take up space between the player’s shoulder and the bottom of
the instrument. This empty space is wasted and, as was mentioned earlier, the bottom plate of
this new viola is bowed outward to act as a built in shoulder rest. This increases the cavity
volume which is helpful for lowering the A0 frequency.

The AO frequency is also directly proportional to the body cavity wall stiffness. Thus it is helpful
to have flexible ribs and the thin 0.8mm plywood reduces their stiffness in addition to lowering
their weight. The low density Paulownia wood used for the top and back is less stiff than
spruce or maple so this also helps reduce A0 frequency while increasing its amplitude.

The arching of violin plates help make them stiffer than a flat plate which is helpful for
producing the violin’s high pitch notes. But for a viola we want the opposite— we want lower
pitched notes. Therefore the top plate arch height/width ratio should be lower than a violin’s.

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The lowest stiffness could be achieved with a flat plate but a flat isn’t very strong—the top
plate has to avoid breakage from the downward force at the bridge feet from the tensioned
strings going over the bridge’s top edge.

Rather than using thick, highly arched plates made from stiff and strong wood to withstand the
downward string force it is better to simply reduce the string force by making the string bend
angle over the bridge less acute than the typical 158 degrees. A straight angle of 180 degrees
would completely eliminate the downward force on the plate but some string downward force
is needed to keep the strings in the bridge notches during bowing. Therefore a relatively
shallow string angle of about 168 degrees is used (figure 9).

Figure 9

A conventional viola couldn’t use such a shallow string angle because the saddle holding the
tailpiece cord would have to be unusually high and it would interfere with a chin rest. The
integrated fingerboard-tail piece avoids this problem.

The string’s downward force on a conventional viola top plate goes through the two bridge feet
with each foot transmitting about half of the total string force. The top plate’s bass side is
reinforced with the bass bar placed directly under the bridge’s foot while the treble side is
partially supported by the sound post which transmits some of the force to the back plate.

The new viola design uses only half of this bridge system. The bass side bridge foot is the same
but the bridge foot on treble side doesn’t touch the top plate at all. A rectangular cross section
sound post goes right through a hole in the top plate and the treble bridge foot rests directly on
top of it (figure 10). Thus the treble bridge foot doesn’t apply any force on the top plate. This is
not a new idea and was used in the ancient Welch crwth stringed instrument dating back to the
12th century which also had a flat top.

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 Figure 10

The combination of a shallow string angle and having only one bridge foot touching the top
plate reduces the downward load on the top plate to about one third the normal amount. A
flat plate is adequately strong so arching isn’t needed.

The combination of a large body cavity and compliant plates and ribs results in an A0 frequency
of 184Hz as was desired.

The bridge rocks back and forth when the strings are bowed. One bridge foot goes up while the
other foot goes down and in a traditional design instrument the top plate follows this
movement. Some of the sound coming off of the area where the plate going up is cancelled by
the out of phase sound coming off of the other area which is going down so some of the
instrument’s sound output is unfortunately lost (this is the idea behind phase cancelling head
phones which eliminate background noises).

The hole through the top for the treble bridge foot and sound post changes this. When the bass
side bridge goes up or down the plate area on the other treble side moves along in the same
direction thus avoiding any sound cancelations—the viola is therefore louder in its high
frequency range.

Since much of the top plate’s area is moving in the same direction the volume change of the
cavity is also increased—the viola is therefore also helpfully louder in its low frequency range
and the total result is a louder, richer and deeper sound.

The reduction of the weight and stiffness of the viola’s ribs and plates allows it to produce a
relatively loud sound output without much bowing effort. This enables lighter tension strings
to be used which improves bowing response.

Problem

There is a big disadvantage with the new viola design—special cases have to be built.