A well-made violin can last a long time. Surprisingly, some masterpieces created by violin masters in cremona in the early16th century were still played by professional musicians, even though their structures were relatively fragile. The service life and performance of the instrument are of course closely related to the maintenance of the instrument by the instrument owner. Key factors such as ventilation and other hazards (such as vibration and shock) also constantly threaten the performance of the instrument. The owner of the violin, viola or cello can protect the instrument through proper cleaning, observation of cracks and visual inspection of general adjustment. Proper installation of the chord shaft can reduce the wear of the chord shaft log, and careful owners will regularly check the bridge horse, string pulling plate, tail pillow and fingerboard. However, perhaps the most important thing is to consult a skilled pianist. The humidity and dryness of the air have a great influence on stringed instruments. In Egypt, archaeological exploration found that ancient wood products more than 3,000 years ago still have moisture absorption reaction, which can absorb and discharge water in the surrounding air. Wood likes humidity, and the amount of water in the wood core often changes constantly to adapt to the surrounding air. When the air is dry, wood will shrink and may be damaged by internal tension. Long-term moisture in the air may lead to mildew and wood fiber rot. It is generally believed that the ideal relative humidity level suitable for preserving wood products is 55%. Under the relative humidity of 30%, the violin is likely to crack after a certain period of time. Of course, the ideal air environment for violin is the environment in which it is made, but in fact, it is impossible to completely adapt it to the new environment. Musical instruments should not be placed too close to the radiator, or exposed to the sun in the car, so as not to cause great damage to musical instruments. In order to avoid sudden changes in humidity and temperature, musical instruments should be stored indoors with a relative humidity of 45-55%. In winter, when the central heating system completely dries the air in the building, the occasional cold solidifies the moisture in the air, and the wood begins to shrink. If the belly and back plate of a violin instrument are too tightly bonded and cannot be separated at the joint with the side plate, cracks will occur. You know, it's much easier to repair a cracked joint than to re-glue it. In summer, the humidity is too heavy, and the wood begins to expand due to moisture absorption, which weakens the structure of the material and reduces the resistance of the relatively thin abdomen of the piano to the great force generated by the tight strings. These stresses acting on the belly of the piano and the changing resistance of wood work together, which will lead to the increase of the bridge horse and the decrease of the fingerboard in summer, but the opposite is true in winter. Another harm of moisture in summer is to twist the neck of the piano. In a humid environment, ebony fingerboards and maple necks with different densities will also expand differently, thus starting to distort. In addition, it is easier to add water to musical instruments in winter than to remove water in summer.

Qin Ma Qin Ma's function is to support the strings and transmit vibration. According to the cutting, modeling and material of the bridge, various flexibility/hardness can be adjusted, which greatly affects the timbre of the sound and the resistance to the bow. Therefore, the expertise of experienced piano makers is to accurately adjust the piano horse. When modeling the piano and horse, the side facing the stringed board should be absolutely straight, and the side facing the fingerboard should be arched. In fact, the plane of the bridge horse should be perpendicular to the belly of the bridge, which is why it seems that the bridge horse is inclined to the side of the string drawing board, as shown in the figure. This is of structural and functional significance, because in the process of continuous tuning, the deflection of the bridge horse gradually tends to the direction of the fingerboard And the strings should not be embedded too deeply at the top of the bridge, which will suppress the sound of the strings. Therefore, it is a good practice to put a piece of parchment under the E string, which will not weaken the pronunciation of the strings. It is very important to clean and protect the surface of stringed instruments from rosin, dirt and dust. Rosin is slightly acidic, and long-term residue on the surface will affect and corrode the topcoat. In extreme cases, the accumulation of rosin and dirt to a certain extent will inhibit the vibration freedom of the belly, and adhesion to the strings will also affect the vibration of the strings. As long as the player can wipe off the rosin and sweat on the instrument every day, then the difficult cleaning work is left to the experienced piano maker. Please don't use commercial "detergent" to clean musical instruments. They usually contain solvents and abrasives, which may damage musical instruments. To a large extent, the best example of classic topcoat is that it is not polished often, which is really for preservation reasons.

There are two main ways of wood cracking: cracks or cracks parallel to the texture and cracks perpendicular to the texture. These cracks or cracks may be caused by vibration and impact, or wood shrinkage caused by lack of moisture in the air. Of the two, vertical cracking is relatively rare, mostly occurring in the air-drying process before making musical instruments, because the change of the board is along the circumferential direction when the wood grain begins to shrink (as shown in the figure). Cracking is a common problem. When cracks are formed or cracked, remember not to touch them, because even if there is grease and sweat on clean fingers, they will easily enter the cracks, and will not form a strong adhesive force during gluing, and these cracks will be more conspicuous after repair. Once the crack seriously affects the structure of the instrument (for example, the crack is close to the sound column, bass beam or ff hole), the strings should be relaxed immediately. New cracks (such as small cracks near ff holes) can be repaired on the outside. In most cases, it is necessary to disassemble the instrument and repair the cracks from the inside. Cracks can be repaired by: 1 Nails or diamond-shaped small wooden blocks are stuck to the inner surface along the cracks; 2. The patch is embedded in the original board; 3. Various fabrics and parchment patches. When using parchment and other leather patches, be very careful to avoid deformation of the board, because the skin will shrink sharply after drying. According to centuries of experience, this kind of repair will not adversely affect the sound quality of musical instruments.

Traditionally, the fingerboard was ebony. In the Baroque period, ebony was coated with softer wood glue. Due to the change of ecology, it is not surprising to adopt this practice again a few years later. Ebony has excellent wear resistance and shiny surface without polishing. Although its primary function is to provide a surface that can support the strings, its weight and shape also have a great influence on the vibration of the whole instrument. One end of the fingerboard extending into the body can also produce strong vibration due to its own vibration, which greatly affects the sound of the body of the musical instrument. When installing a new fingerboard, if you want to keep the sound unchanged, it is a good practice to pay attention to the tone when the fingerboard vibrates. The transverse curve of the fingerboard more or less follows the curvature of the bridge (the curve of the bridge is often slightly modified), while the longitudinal excavation into a concave shape can avoid the buzzing of the strings, because a vibrating string, especially a relatively heavy string, has the shape as shown in the left picture. If the fingerboard is loose, even if it doesn't fall off, you should immediately relax the tension of the strings to avoid the distortion of the neck, because the neck without fingerboard is very fragile.

Chord chords are used to tighten the strings to achieve the correct pitch, and can be adjusted by their conical shape. The installation hole of the chord can be accurately drilled with a special reamer, and the chord can be trimmed with a chord scraper. Improper installation of the chord shaft is very troublesome, and it must be adjusted by professionals. Continuous use will make the chord shaft and/or the chord shaft hole wear, so the constant wear will also make the chord shaft hole gradually larger. There are three ways to readjust: 1) Re-drill the hole of the chord shaft gently, and then install a larger chord shaft; 2) When the shaft hole is not seriously worn, it is enough to trim the shaft handle slightly; 3) Install a new wood bushing for the chord hole. If there is not enough shaft handle between the shaft head and the shaft box (violin is 10- 12 mm), installing a new shaft and/or wood bushing may be the best solution. Pay attention to avoid using composite materials and other materials, such as grinding chalk, which will shorten the service life of chord shaft and shaft hole due to premature wear. It is also dangerous to wind too many wires on the shaft. Sometimes too many wires will wedge into the base of the axle box under the axle, causing the back of the axle box to crack.

The tail pillow/chord pillow can prevent the tail rope from penetrating into the cork cross section of the chord belly, but its height above the chord belly can change the angle between the chord and the bridge. Sometimes the tail pillow only extends into half the thickness of the web, sometimes it is flush with the end block, and sometimes it is embedded in the lower side plate. This is only the characteristic of different production styles, not the result of real practical consideration. The notch of the tail pillow should not be too tight. The belly of the piano will contract slowly with time, and the tail pillow will become tight easily, because the tail pillow will not contract, which will cause annoying cracks in the abdomen perpendicular to the end of the tail pillow. Once the tail pillow is too tight, the piano maker must take it off and cut it short. The shape of the string pillow should make the distance between the strings suitable and make the strings higher than the fingerboard by a suitable height. The string pillow should be round without annoying protrusions, which is very comfortable and feels much better when playing musical instruments. In addition, it is equally important that the groove should be made so that the strings can easily slide on the string pillow and not make the strings hum. Graphite lubricant is the first choice for the groove of chord pillow, because it is black and looks very suitable for ebony.

Adjustment in order to make an instrument show its sound quality most effectively, the adjustment of the instrument is very important. The word "adjustment" means various changes, including: height, or the distance from the surface of the panel to the plane of the extended fingerboard. This height determines the angle between the strings and the bridge, and then affects the force exerted by the strings on the instrument panel. There is also the distance between strings and fingerboards, which affects the performance and resistance of strings. Other adjustment aspects include: the shape and height of tail pillow and chord pillow, the distance between strings, and the selection of strings. The adjustment aspects that have a direct and significant influence on the sound and performance of musical instruments include: the cutting of the bridge, the position fastening and installation of the sound column, the height of the strings above the fingerboard, and the selection and/or state of the strings.

The only function of the string-pulling board is to tie the string at a certain distance from the bridge, but it also has natural and inherent vibration (you can hear it clearly by pressing the string). The distance between the drawstring board and the bridge, the quality of the drawstring board and the length of the string tail rope will all affect and adjust the vibration frequency, thus changing the degree to which the drawstring board absorbs energy from a certain vibration mode of the piano body. String tail rope used to be made of sheep intestines, and now it is often made. However, because the humidity of sheep intestines often changes, it is inconvenient, so using synthetic materials instead can generally make the timbre of musical instruments consistent.