As a non-musician, it has always interested me how string instruments are played and the complexity of the user’s interactions with them, at least in comparison with other musical families such as brass, or even keyboard instruments, which seem to engage the user’s body in a more predictable way. The StroViol -or phono-fiddle- is a four-string, turn of the century instrument that incorporates an aluminum horn, also called bell, sometimes two. The horn is attached to a diaphragm, and replaces the resonance chamber of the traditional violin, the closest relative of this instrument. The StroViol also incorporates sound directionality as a key feature, as well as distinct acoustics, as a direct consequence of its design. With a body made of pear wood or mahogany, the StroViol is a rather awkward-looking instrument. It has certain ad-hoc character that resembles an object in its early developmental stages, a prototype in the process of being tested, modified and redesigned. This almost mechanistic quality, places the StroViol slightly outside of the music tradition and in the realm of object invention. Several patents prove that it was a German engineer named Augustus Strohl who invented the instrument in 1899, at the end of his life. The StroViol was then produced by his sons until 1924, and then further manufactured and commercialized by others until the early 1940s. After 1942, the StroViol has been recycled into traditional Rumanian, Burmese and Breton music, and has been used by contemporary composers too.
