Bass-bar

Bass-bar (Fr.: barre, barre d'harmonie; Ger.: Bassbalken; It.: catena), a long, narrow piece of softwood usually glued to the underside of the belly of instrs. of the viol and violin families; in a few instrs. it is carved right out of the belly. It lies under the left foot of the bridge, running almost but not quite parallel with the grain of the belly. The ends are tapered. Nowadays a violin bass-bar measures ca. 28 cm. (11 in.) in length and is ca. 5 mm. wide. Its function is to stiffen the…