Talk:Tenor violin

Violin octet

Perhaps it's important to mention the tenor violin of the Violin octet? I'm not sure whether that is distinct from the tenor violin described in the article. RosinDebow (talk) 14:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

The two instruments are distinct if you take the perspective that Hutchins' development of the violin octet was not as much an effort to "fill out gaps in the existing family of violin instruments" as much as it was to develop a set of "acoustically matched instruments" based on balanced proportions (i.e. the soprano is proportionately equivalent to the contrabass whereas in the common violin family neither the violin, viola, cello, or bass are proportionate to one another). The dimensions of the mezzo violin do not match traditional violin dimensions and thus they are not functionally equivalent. I would treat Hutchins' octet as a specific branch of the violin family altogether rather than as variations of other violins bearing the same "title." (The Hutchins' baritone is a 5th below the "other" baritone. IMHO, I would again, treat the Hutchins' baritone as a part of that set/branch.)

Petechen (talk) 10:05, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The size of octet violin tenor violin (close to the size of a small cello) is also very different from the size of the historical tenor violin (not much larger than a viola in length). Ericjs (talk) 19:30, 22 October 2025 (UTC)

Misleading picture

Anyway, the picture on the top right "A man playing a tenor violin on the chin" is misleading. The picture is from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahNNHAW5GjI The video description and the comments indicate that the gentleman, Alexis Krames, Orléans, professor of music education and choral singing at Ministry of National Education and Youth, merely strung a completely normal, standard violin with special strings to achieve the sound effect of a tenor violin. Here in the article, special construction forms are described, which differ from the a completely normal, standard violin in terms of construction, not by the choice of stringing. 147.142.185.67 (talk) 09:09, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

The bottom picutre is also misleading. I'm pretty sure that is a tenor violin of the "violin octet" family, which is entire different instrument. It is the size of a 1/2 size cello far larger than the tenor violin. Ericjs (talk) 06:31, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I've confirmed that this an an octet violin family tenor violin. The image appears to be from a video also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIxeu0aQ0RM&t=6s. It's not clear to me if this image belongs in this article, since it seems largely to be written about the historical tenor violin, and only mentions the (quite different) instrument from the octet violin family in passing. I'll just clarify the caption. Ericjs (talk) 19:39, 22 October 2025 (UTC)