Making a violin
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Overview
Using this Resource
Connecting to the Curriculum
Marking Student Responses
Further Resources
This task is about listening and recalling information.
Listen to the story about a visit to a violin maker and answer the questions.
Task administration:
This task can be completed by pencil and paper or online (with auto-marking).
In order to follow the same procedure as the resource trial and thereby ensure the reliability of the difficulty estimates, we suggest you follow these instructions.
- Hand out the student sheets, which should be turned upside down until you have finished reading the passage.
- Say: "This is a test of your listening skills. I will read the passage and then you will answer questions about it. Listen carefully."
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Read the introduction:
"Violins are musical instruments. Listen to this report about a visit to a violin maker."
(Please note the suggested reading time of the text is 1 minute.) Then read the article. - Say: "Now turn over your sheet. Listen to each question and circle the best possible answer. Circle only one answer per question. If you wish to change your answer, cross out your first answer and circle your new answer."
- Read out each question and set of options with a 10-second gap between each option.
- Except in the case of a significant interruption, read the article, each question, and its options only once.
Singing Trees
The way a violin is made hasn't changed much for over three hundred years. That's what I found out when I visited Noel Sweetman, a violin maker. He told me that his violins follow the pattern of the ones made by Antonio Stradivari, who lived in Italy in the seventeenth century.
So there are no noisy power tools in Noel's studio. He uses hand tools only, including some tiny planes that he made himself out of deer antler.
Noel told me that a violin has as many as a hundred parts - and each has to fit perfectly and work properly with all the others. Even a millimetre can make a difference to the final sound.
A violin is hollow - a sound-box with a front or belly, a back, and sides. Specially shaped holes allow the air to move in the sound-box.
The belly is made of spruce, from trees grown in the forests of Europe. The close and even grain of this slow-growing wood is good for sound.
The back has to be strong, so it's made from a hard wood such as the European sycamore or maple.
The fingerboard is from South American ebony, coal-black and very hard. Other parts of the violin may come from trees from England, or India, or Brazil.
How does the violin get that shiny look? For the colour, Noel uses dyes that he makes from plants or roots or tree bark from Australia. The shine is eight or nine coats of a varnish that's made from New Zealand kauri gum.
Now, when I listen to a violin, I seem to hear the trees of the world singing.
Source: School Journal, Part 2, No. 1, Learning Media Limited, 1994.
Level:
3
Curriculum info:
Keywords:
Description of task:
The context for this listening comprehension assessment is an extract on violins. Students listen to the extract and answer 6 multiple-choice questions. SJ-2-1-1994. Text not provided.
Answers/responses:
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Y6 (10/2000) |
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a) |
three hundred years. |
moderate |
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b) |
hand tools. |
very easy |
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c) |
as many as a hundred parts. |
easy |
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d) |
Europe. |
moderate |
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e) |
kauri gum from New Zealand. |
easy |
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f) |
Lots of different trees go into making a violin. |
difficult |