Intonation on the violin

a compromise between science, art and musical intuition

Abstract

The objective of our work was to investigate the intonation in the violin, in relation to its sonorous, musical and general context, knowing and integrating some laws of acoustics and psychoacoustics, applying the technical principles in relation to the practice, and putting all this knowledge in function of the musical work. For this we carried out a search of bibliography and of articles that could approach the subject from a wide and diverse look, and on the basis of them we carried out a task of empirical verification in the application of each one of the principles. In this sense, the recorded record of the preparation process of the Recital and Thesis Concert (Villafañe, 2017), and the subsequent feedback between reflection and practice, allowed us to arrive at conclusions. In this paper, we will try to prove that the practical application of the different systems of theoretical tuning is unfeasible and inconvenient within the professional activity of the violinist. The strict and rigid implementation of these guidelines often force the musician to ignore his own musical intuition, preventing him from recognizing the sound context in which he is working, causing disconnection with it, and consequently the lack of certainty in the performance. Explaining the importance of the handling of intonation in the violin, as a form of global and holistic understanding of the sonorous and musical context, is of vital importance for the formation of musicians since, in the last instance, the theory of intonation must be in function of the musical work and not as an end in itself.