I would think that the neck angle for violin and cello resulted from the high bridge needed for bowing. With a very high bridge, if you don't angle the neck back (especially with the strings under very high tension) you have an increasingly difficult time fretting as you move down the neck.
Tim On Friday, June 17, 2005, at 08:24 PM, Howard Posner wrote: > Michael Thames wrote: > >> One more example would be a cello or violin which has an EXTREME neck >> angle, >> this doesn't effect the action, now does it. > > Of course it does. That's why the bridges on those instruments have > to be > so high: if they weren't the strings would lie on (or slide off the > sides > of) the fingerboard. If you were to lower the neck angle on a cello a > few > degrees, the action up the fingerboard would be impossibly high. > > HP > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
