Scroll (music)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A scroll is the decoratively carved end of the neck of certain stringed instruments, mainly members of the violin family. The scroll is typically carved in the shape of a volute (a rolled-up spiral) according to a canonical pattern, although some violins are adorned with carved heads, human and animal. The quality of a scroll is one of the things used to judge the luthier's skill. Instrument scrolls usually approximate a logarithmic spiral. Although many references assert that the instrument scroll closely follows the golden spiral (a specific form of the Logarithmic spiral) this assertion is demonstrably false.
Scrollwork is a common feature of Baroque ornament, the period when string instrument design became essentially fixed.