Pochettes, Backpacker Fiddles and Ergonomics: A Short Primer

What is a Pochette?

A pochette was a violin-like instrument of the 17th and 18th Centuries that was small enough in girth to fit into a longish sheath sewn into one's coat. The sheath came to be known by the instrument's name: "pochette". This is where the modern English word "pocket" comes from. Pochettes were also known as "kits" or "kit fiddles", primarily in England and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland. The name "kit" is an example of impossible-to-comprehend (to a non-Englishman) English humor. The idea is that, if a full-size violin is analogous to a cat (a reference to "cat gut" strings…actually never made from cat guts, but rather sheep intestines), then a small violin would be, by analogy, a "kit", the English and Scottish nickname for a kitten.

Pochettes were primarily used by people known as "Dancing Masters." Dancing Masters were the 18th Century equivalent of a personal trainer who comes to one's home. After the Articles of Union, which resulting in England and Scotland having a shared Parliament, there was high motivation among the mercantile class in Scotland to learn to speak like the English (i.e. without a Lowland brogue) and to learn the latest in English dances. Dancing at lavish parties was very much like the game of golf is today in the world of business networking. 

The profession of Dancing Master filled a percieved need for which people were prepared to pay money. Most of the Dancing Masters were either French or Italian. They used their pochettes to provide the music for their clients to practice the dance steps.

Pochettes, particularly the earlier ones, often had shorter playable string lengths than a full-size violin. The later ones, on the other hand, generally had a full 4/4 string length, but with much skinnier body, and usually a shorter body (in the 11.5" to 12" range) than a full-size violin, which has a 14" body. Short bows were often used to play pochettes, without a doubt contributing to a less than pleasant sound. Most historic pochettes and replicas sound horrible beyond comprehension (and we have heard many!). A toy kazoo, comb and waxed paper, or slide whistle would have sounded better.

The poor sound of historic pochettes and their replicas is curious to us, as we were able to design and make two nice-sounding pochette versions by essentially copying the external aspects of a late 18th Century pochette (in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow) and make plausible guesses about the internal components (e.g. bass bars and, in the case of our better-sounding pochette, a sound post as well as a bass bar).

The Ergonomics of Historic Pochettes

With the 17th and 18th Century pochettes, ergonomic concerns were not considered. Ergonomics (the British term) and Human Factors (the preferred American term), or the study of the relationship between people and things, are 20th Century fields of expertise. The only concern in the 1700s and 1800s was making the pochette fit into the sheath (pocket) sewn onto the Dancing Masters' coats. Indeed, the whole idea of making a tool fit its user was not yet part of the zeitgeist—one simply learned how to use the tools of the trade.

One could even argue that the violin itself is ergonomically sub-optimal. This is why so much attention has been devoted to making the violin more usable in the last century (e.g. chin rests, ergonomically-correct shoulder rests, etc.). In the case of pochettes, a playing technique involving resting on the instrument on the arm and tucking the tail into one’s underarm evolved. In order to envision this playing technique, imagine the “on-the-arm” instrument hold that some violinists and fiddlers in various musical genres use even today.

"Backpacker" and Travel Violins and Fiddles

Modern backpacker and travel violins are the highly-evolved descendents of the pochettes (pocket fiddles, also known as “kits” or “kit fiddles”) of the late 17th through the late 18th Centuries.

When one refers to a backpacker or travel violin, he or she is talking about a small and physically robust instrument that:

• Will withstand far greater physical and environmental impacts than a regular violin or fiddle would normally be subjected to
• Is substantially smaller in width than a regular violin (usually between 2” and 3.5” wide); in other words, “skinny” enough to fit into a high-strength tubular case (usually about 4” in diameter) that is attached to a backpack instead of a Dancing Master's coat pocket

The Physical and Environmental Impacts

The physical impacts include being constantly being jarred due to be being attached to a backpack and even dropped.

Environmental impacts include:

• Extreme high and low temperatures
• Extreme low and high humidity levels
• Radical rapid changes in temperature and humidity

The Size Constraints

Much design research, by Don Rickert Design, Don Rickert Lutherie and others, involving experimentation on many variables, has gone into achieving good sonority and projection volume from these small instruments whose body size, materials and construction method departs radically from what is commonly thought to be the perfection of the conventional violin design.

While some backpacker violins are shorter in length than regular violins, the norm is a playable string length (nut to bridge) identical to a 4/4 size violin, with an overall length approximately the same as a 4/4 violin. Sometimes, backpacker violins will have a slightly shorter body and/or peg box.

Many, but certainly not all, designers of modern backpacker/travel violins and fiddles, pay great attention to the ergonomic aspects of these small instruments. Primarily, these "human-centered" ergonomics efforts are focused on removable chin rests and shoulder rests that, when installed on the backpacker/travel violin, replicate the critical ergonomic dimensions of a full-size violin or fiddle. The images below illustrate the point. Click on the thumnail images for larger views.

A modern travel violin without its ergonomic fittings

This instrument, one of our designs, as a 3.25" wide but full 14" long body and a full 13" +/- playable string length. Nevertheless, as is, it cannot be played like a modern violin or fiddle.

 
The same instrument with its ergonomic fittings installed

Owing to the high adjustability of the shoulder rest (fore and aft position, height, lateral angle), this instrument with its fittings installed is actually more ergonomically optimal than the average violin.