nail violin

musical instrument

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July 1, 2026

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The nail violin, also known as a nail fiddle or nail harmonica, is an 18th-century musical instrument. It features a semicircular sounding board with graduated-sized nails or iron pins along its edge. This unique instrument is played using a violin bow.123

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percussion instrument
Idiophones
… were introduced, among them the nail violin of Johann Wilde (c. 1740), with its tuned nails bowed by a violin bow. More characteristic of the period were the friction-bar instruments arising as a result of the German acoustician Ernst Chladni’s late 18th-century experiments, particularly those concerned with the transmission of…
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… were introduced, among them the nail violin of Johann Wilde (c. 1740), with its tuned nails bowed by a violin bow. More characteristic of the period were the friction-bar instruments arising as a result of the German acoustician Ernst Chladni’s late 18th-century experiments, particularly those concerned with the transmission of…
Read More