Violin randomly doubling notes

December 7, 2022, 4:11 PM · I'm so confused - this shouldn't be physically possible according to my understanding, but it is happening.

My student's violin, when she plays either open A or Bb on the A string (and occasionally other notes on A string), is somehow doubling the note an octave lower.

I tried playing the Bb on her violin and got the same thing. It's definitely not that her bow is playing 2 strings; the violin is spontaneously doubling itself.

How??? Does anyone know what's wrong?

Replies (10)

Tom Holzman

December 7, 2022, 6:27 PM · I have no idea why that is happening. It has never happened to me. It seems to me that your best bet is to go to your luthier and get a professional opinion from someone expert who can actually test the instrument. There may be some problem with the setup. Someone else on this site with more experience may be better able to opine on this. Good luck!

Andrew Victor

December 7, 2022, 6:51 PM · Try tapping the top and back around the edges - it could happen with a glue failure. When these things happen they might result in a frequency related vibration - it has happened to one or two of my instruments.

David Burgess

December 8, 2022, 2:00 AM · It's likely that something loose on or in the violin is buzzing at these frequencies. This could be about 50 different things. Some are easy to find, and others can be quite difficult. A good and experienced luthier should be able to track it down with the violin in hand.

Neil Poulsen

Edited: December 11, 2022, 3:26 AM ·

Uneven fingerboard???

Thomas Dunn

December 11, 2022, 12:01 PM · Ditto on what David says- the whole source of the well known "wolf notes" is an over resonance at a particular frequency and this can have many possible physical sources. This is not necessarily a wolf note, but could be a similar idea. Definitely have it looked at.

Nikhil Natarajan

December 14, 2022, 9:11 PM · We had one of these and it turned out to be a bad string - Frayed G.

Nikhil Natarajan

December 14, 2022, 9:11 PM · We had one of these and it turned out to be a bad string - Frayed G.

Tom Holzman

December 15, 2022, 8:24 AM · @Sylvia - people have suggested a number of possible explanations, but, the bottom line, including from luthier David Burgess, is have your luthier look at it. Get thee to a luthier!

George Huhn

December 15, 2022, 10:01 AM · Make sure no fine tuners on the tailpiece are over-extended and touching the top of the violin.

David Burgess

December 15, 2022, 12:26 PM ·
Tom, hopefully the "luthier" will really know what they are doing, as apposed to being a scammer. I wish I could vouch for everyone who claims to be a lutheir or a "master", but so far, I am unable to do so.

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Violin randomly doubling notes

Replies (10)

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