An investigation of the f-hole shape’s influence on the modal response of the violin

The violin’s f-hole shape plays a significant role in determining the instrument’s modal response. Researchers have long studied the influence of the f-hole shape on the A0 or Helmholtz mode through simplified lumped-element representations of this resonator-like mode. Nonetheless, the f-hole shape’s impact on the violin’s other modes remains ambiguous, partly due to the difficulties of modeling the instrument’s coupled acoustic and structural modal response. This work presents a coupled structural-acoustic model to predict how the f-hole shape alters the violin’s signature modes. The simulated results suggest that increasing the f-hole aperture size increases the radiated sound power of the A0 and B1− modes. The enlarged f-hole size also augments radiated levels for some higher frequency modes, including modes in the bridge-island region. Sequential measurements on a fractional-sized violin using two different f-hole shapes confirm the trend, highlighting the utility of altering the f-hole shape to tune the violin’s modal response.