String Length or Scale Length
The length of the string from nut to bridge on bowed or plucked instruments ultimately determines the distance between different notes on the instrument. For example, a double bass with its low range needs a scale length of around 42 inches (110 cm), whilst a violin scale is only about 13 inches (33 cm). On the shorter scale of the violin, the left hand may easily reach a range of slightly more than two octaves without shifting position, while on the bass' longer scale, a single octave or a ninth is reachable in lower positions.
Read more about this topic: String Instrument
Famous quotes containing the words string, length and/or scale:
“Supposing everyone lived at one time what would they say. They would observe that stringing string beans is universal.”
—Gertrude Stein (18741946)
“At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore
He paused, a wide and melancholy waste
Of putrid marshes.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (17921822)
“Another armored animalscale
lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they
form the uninterrupted central
tail-row!”
—Marianne Moore (18871972)