Thomastick-Infeld in strings history

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Thomastick-Infeld in strings history.

Two of the greatest innovations of the 20th century come from Thomastick-Infeld, a company based in Wien:

in 1914 they patented a machine to use the flat wire for the winding of a string, before of that the winding wire was always round, sometimes polished by hand after the winding process

just before 1980 they patented the first synthetic core string for bowed instruments (winded with a flat wire): the Dominant string. Keep in mind this date, we tend to forget it. We are so used now to synthetic strings with a flat wire that it is hard to remember they are out for only 40 years now...

Ps: when I play modern I love Dominant: all that aluminium gives me the feeling of the roaring 20s, and it is easy to find nice colors and a sound full of overtones with almost no vibrato at all.

Italian gut string Factories Process, part 1

The “fresh gut” part Let’s get started, and of course we start from Salle, in Abruzzi (Italy). We’ll go and see how a factory was organized in the 18th century. Yes, I said factory, not workshop. When you take out the intestine from a sheep, the first thing you need to do is to empty it someway.

Original gut strings on a little old violin

1/8 violin, seen by chance in a workshop in Italy. 1/8 violin, seen by chance in a workshop in Italy. What can we see from this? Same gauges as big violins, so violin strings. 1st missing. The 4th has as a core a 1st string. So, strings from the 20th century. 2nd and 3rd medium twist angle, 4th

Conzertgebow strings in the 60s

If you were to play in the Conzertgebow Orchestra in the 60s, which strings were you using? Some news on the strings used in Amsterdam in the 70s… (and we are not speaking of early music…)

Thomastick-Infeld in strings history

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Italian gut string Factories Process, part 1

Original gut strings on a little old violin

Conzertgebow strings in the 60s