I don't think the main reason is the lack of frets. Fretless acoustic
guitars, nylon strings or not, are both fretless and plucked and their
sound is decent, both with regards to tone and sustain.
On Sun, 30 Jun 2019, 16:59 Miles Dempster,
<[1]miles.demps...@gmail.com> wrote:
Violins, violas etc. don't have frets. When plucked (rather than
bowed) the string vibration is dampened by the soft fingertip at the
stopped end. I don't think that the sustain depends significantly on
how the bridge connects to the soundboard.
Miles
> On Jun 30, 2019, at 9:01 AM, Edward Mast
<[2]nedma...@new-old-mail.cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
> A good question, Dr. Mardinly. What one notices, though, is that
when violins, violas, cellos and string basses have their strings
plucked rather than bowed, the sustain of the note is short (string
basses doing by far the best, and violins doing the worst with
pizzicato - plucked notes). It thus seems to me that the method of
having the strings stretched over a non-fixed bridge as they are for
the bowed instruments, works very well for transmitting the
vibrations of the strings to the instrument when they are bowed, and
not so well at all when they're plucked. The fixed bridges with
strings attached as on guitars, lutes, etc. seems to be the best way
of transmitting the vibrations to the instrument when the strings
are plucked, rather than bowed.
> A luthier's explanation of this would be welcome.
> Ned
>
>> On Jun 29, 2019, at 3:50 PM, John Mardinly
<[3]john.mardi...@asu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Spot on explanation of what physics does to sound boards. The big
question that I have never had answered is why do plucked string
instruments have the string tension carried by the soundboard
itself, instead of having the string tension carried by the body of
the instrument via a tailpiece the way violins, violas, cellos and
string basses do?
>>
>> A. John Mardinly, Ph.D., P.E.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
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--
References
1. mailto:miles.demps...@gmail.com
2. mailto:nedma...@new-old-mail.cs.dartmouth.edu
3. mailto:john.mardi...@asu.edu
4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
