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Good gut strings: where do they come from?
What does really make a difference for the quality of a gut string: in my opinion, the first factor which really affects the final quality of a string is that the numbers of gut strands used is balanced to the gauge we want to obtain. This is why they used bigger guts for bigger strings, and smaller gut for smaller strings.
Try to imagine an extreme situation: If there will be not enough strands (like two) the string will be hardly polished and weakened.
This is why Paganini asked for cantini made out of four strands, when normally they were of 3...
twisting is the main factor to the capacity of our string to vibrate....
Imagine a string made with too many strands, like 100 (for a normal small gauge): it would be almost impossible to twist it and it will become stiff. Imagine a big rope of a ship. There is a close relationship between the number of strands and the twisting to obtain stiffness, resistance, or elasticity....
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baroque music, double-bass strings, early music, gut strings, gut strings history, gut strings maintenance, gut strings manufacture, viol strings, viola da gamba strings, viola strings, violin strings, violoncello strings
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.
Read MoreDrying, polishing, packaging The strings dried and still on the frames were polished by hand, using horse hair, or equisetum, polish stone or powder, or, later, sandpaper. About horse hairs: equisetum is also called horse tail, so for a long time wi thought that when they say we polished with horse tail, they were referring to
Read MoreWhat happens to a string while polishing. (one more way to save money) The difference between a slightly polished string and a perfectly smooth string and why it is definitely worth to choose the first One. Want to know more? There’s a downloadable report here, it’s free, no opt-in required!
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