Vertical Viola Top
Carleen M. Hutchins American
Not on view
Unfinished white viola top, with thickness measurements written on the underside by Carleen Hutchins.
Carleen Hutchins' work in plate tuning is one of her most important contributions to the craft of violin makaing. Her system made use of the vibrational modes discovered at the end of the eighteenth centure y the German physicist Ernst Chladni. These modes become visible when a light powder is sprinkled on the surface of the plate and the plate is made to vibrate. By gradually removing wood from the underside of the plate, these "Chladni patterns" can be made to emerge at optimal frequencies.
