Sound hole

Sound Hole

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Sound hole

A sound hole is an opening in the upper sounding board

Sounding board

The sounding board or soundboard is the part of a string instrument that transmits the vibrations of the strings to the air, greatly increasing the loudness of sound over that of the string alone....
of a stringed

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones....
musical instrument

Musical instrument

A musical instrument is an object constructed or used for the purpose of making music. In principle, anything that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument....
.

The sound holes can have different shapes: round in flat-top guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....
s, f-holes in instruments from the violin

Violin family

The Violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The modern violin family consists of the violin, viola and cello, along with the double bass....
or viol

Viol

The viol is any one of a family of bow , fretted, stringed instruments musical instruments developed in the 1400s and used primarily in the Renaissance music and Baroque music periods....
families and in arched-top guitars, rosette

Rosette (design)

A rosette is a round, stylized flower design, used extensively in sculptural objects from ancient history. Appearing in Mesopotamia and used to decorate the funeral stele in Ancient Greek....
s in lute

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
s. Mandolin

Mandolin

A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It is descended from the Mandora, a soprano member of the lute family. It has a body with a teardrop-shaped soundboard, or one which is essentially oval in shape, with a soundhole, or soundholes, of varying shapes which are open and are not decorated with an intricately carved grille lik...
s may have round or oval holes. A round or oval hole is usually a single one, under the strings. F-holes are usually made in pairs placed symmetrically on both sides of the strings.

Though the purpose of sound holes is to help acoustic instruments project their sound more efficiently, the sound does not emanate solely (nor even mostly) from the location of the sound hole.

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Encyclopedia

A sound hole is an opening in the upper sounding board

Sounding board

String instrument

Musical instrument

Guitar

Violin family

The Violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the sixteenth century. The modern violin family consists of the violin, viola and cello, along with the double bass....
or viol

Viol

Rosette (design)

Lute

Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
s. Mandolin

Mandolin

Surface area

Surface area is how much exposed area an object has. It is expressed in square units. If an object has flat Face , its surface area can be calculated by adding together the areas of its faces....
of both sounding boards, with sound holes playing a part by allowing the sounding boards to vibrate

Oscillation

Oscillation is the repetitive variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value or between two or more different states. Familiar examples include a swinging pendulum and Alternating current power....
more freely, and by allowing some of the vibrations which have been set in motion inside the instrument to travel outside the instrument.

Alternative sound hole designs

Some Ovation guitars feature a unique soundhole design with multiple smaller soundholes that, being combined with a composite

Composite material

Composite materials are engineered materials made from two or more constituent materials with significantly different physical or chemical properties which remain separate and distinct on a macroscopic level within the finished structure....
roundback guitar body are said to produce a clear and bright sound.

Tacoma Guitars

Tacoma Guitars

Tacoma Guitars is a guitar manufacturer in Tacoma, Washington. It is currently a subsidiary of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation....
has developed a unique "paisley" soundhole placed on the left side of the upper bout of their "Wing Series" guitars. This is a relatively low-stress area that requires less bracing to support the hole.

External links

- brief explanation of the effects of sound holes, with a closeup diagram of an f-shaped soundhole
- title of an online serialized memoir by independent author