Why a Violin Sounds Like a Violin

[A] A vibrating string moves very little air, and on its own it would be almost inaudible. Almost everything you hear from a violin comes from the wooden box beneath it. [B] The bridge carries the string's vibration to the front plate, the front plate drives the air inside the body, and the body in turn drives the air in the room.

This transfer is not neutral. [C] The body resonates strongly at some frequencies and weakly at others, so certain notes emerge louder than their neighbours even when the player does nothing differently. A violin's characteristic sound is largely a map of these preferences. [D] Two instruments given identical strings, identical strings tuned identically and played by the same musician will still sound unlike each other, because the shape, the thickness and the age of the wood differ. This is also why a maker cannot simply copy the outline of a famous instrument and expect the result to match it. The interior dimensions and the stiffness of each plate matter far more than the silhouette, and neither can be measured from a photograph.