Probably a half hour or so into the film, the young protagonist is at a ritzy party with a live orchestra playing. One of the members of the orchestra is playing something that looks like the bastard offspring of a drunk violin and a cornet. It’s a stringed instrument tucked under the chin and played with a bow, just like a violin. However, it has no sound box (correct term?). Coming out just past the player’s jaw is the bell of a brass instrument, slightly smaller than a trumpet and about eight or nine inches long.
I havn’t seen the movie but I think it’s a violin. With the bell it’s louder than a conventional violin. I read once that they were designed for use in the recording studio. In early studios, a band with several musicians might be recorded with only one microphone, so it was helpful if the volume of violins/violas was closer to that of percussion, horns, etc. Of cource this is useful in other situations as well. It was a couple of years that I read this, but I think I’m remembering correctly.
Does that explain why it didn’t have a sound box (still wondering if that’s the correct terminology)? The thing really did look like a stick with strings and a horn’s bell.
I haven’t seen the movie, so my first instinct was to ask Phouka what she’d been smoking during it (you know that’s a violation of fire laws, doncha sweetie? ) But then I vaguely recollected seeing something like that, at some point in the past, so I’ve been driving around on Google for the last 20 minutes, and blessed if I can find it.
Shoot. :mad:
“Jazz violin” sounded like it was the closest, but jazz violinists today either use a solid-body violin, or plug a microphone into a regular violin.
I asked a jazz violinist I work with and, without seeing the instrument himself, he assumed that it was an old style electric violin. He thought that instead of an amplifier, the bell served the same purpose. He thinks that those have been out of fashion for many decades however.
) But then I vaguely recollected seeing something like that, at some point in the past, so I’ve been driving around on Google for the last 20 minutes, and blessed if I can find it.