I was reading a long series of articles by a maker of fine violins, and he pointed out that what we are looking at is not a pair of holes, but the two edges of

I was reading a long series of articles by a maker of fine violins, and he pointed out that what we are looking at is not a pair of holes, but the two edges of a single resonating area on an instrument which has been decoupled from the instrument on two sides. I found that a very helpful when understanding the design of these instruments.