Five string violin Five string violin A five string violin is a variant of violin with an extra string tuned to a pitch below the violin's usual range. In addition to the G, D, A, and E strings of a standard violin, a five string violin typically includes a C string. (Six and seven string electric violins also exist, adding lower strings tuned to F and B.) The five string violin was created as a solution for improvisers that allowed musicians to combine the pitch ranges of violins and violas. Bobby Hicks, an award-winning bluegrass fiddler, popularized the five-string violin in 1963 as
String (structure) playability. The invention of wound strings, such as nylon covered in wound metal, was a crucial step in string instrument technology, because a metal-wound string can produce a lower pitch than a catgut string of similar thickness. This enabled stringed instruments to be made with less thick bass strings. On string instruments that the player plucks or bows directly (e.g., double bass), this enabled instrument makers to use thinner strings for the lowest-pitched strings, which made the lower-pitch strings easier to play. On stringed instruments in which the player presses a keyboard, causing a mechanism to strike the strings, such