"Is it not strange that sheep's guts
should hale souls out of men's bodies?"
~William Shakespeare~
Check out the following websites below to find out how traditional gut strings are
(and were) made for violins:
"Making Gut Strings" By Daniel Larson
A comprehensive and very informative lengthy article.
http://gamutmusic.squarespace.com/making-gut-stings/
| Historical String Making (Video) by Aquila Corde Shows how gut strings were historically made back in the 18th and 19th centuries. |
OTHER VIDEOS
By Kochava R. Greene, eHow Contributor
- 1Obtain the raw materials---sheep intestines, called a "set" by abattoir workers and butchers. According to Walter Kolneder, the author of "The Amadeus Book of the Violin," domestic sheep have intestines that are too rough for strings; young mountain or prairie sheep, about 8 months old, are the preferred source for gut for strings. Gut must be taken from the animal's body while the fibers and muscles are still warm and then stripped of fat and fecal matter and put into cold water. As abattoir workers process animals, the sets are tied together, creating a long rope. They are sometimes deep-frozen for shipment to the next step in their journey to becoming strings.
- 2Clean the sets. In the string-making industry, the sets are shipped to a dresser, who prepares the intestines for further use. The dresser soaks the sets in cold water for up to 2 days, then gives them a hot-water bath and soaks them in a chemical solution (sometimes lye-based) to remove any last bits of membranes. The dresser then sends the sets through a machine that scrapes them down to the muscle, leaving only a long tube of casing about 30 feet long. The casings are bleached for aesthetic reasons and cut into strips of the same length and thickness using either a splitting horn to separate the casings into strips or a machine designed to cut them equally, and they are stored in salt and other preservatives until the string maker is ready to use them.
- 3Soak the strips in an alkaline solution---traditionally wine or lye---to remove the salt until thoroughly wet and then attach at one end to a turning machine or rack. Strips of the same length are tightly twisted together. The more strips twisted together, the thicker the string will be. For example, it takes only three strips to make a violin E string, but 64 strips to make a low A string for a bass. The strings are twisted almost continually until they are dry and have "glued" themselves together.
- 4Polish and round the strings using a centerless grinder, rubbed with almond or other natural oils to prevent them from becoming brittle. Dry under low, warm air heat. Once dried, low strings are wrapped with alloys---usually silver, but also copper, aluminum, and bronze---and are tuned and checked for pitch trueness, often using specialized software. The strings are now ready to be used, although players must keep them supple with regular applications of oil.http://www.ehow.com/how_4828903_catgut-strings-violin.html
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07/10/2010 10:54
The best, most supple, intestines for making violin strings come from lambs that are no more than 4 months old. But it isn't the gut per se that is used. The string makers extract from the guts a fibrous tissue called collagen, which is cleaned and salted, killing off any bacteria which may be present. The excess salt is rinsed off leaving a stringy pile which looks like spaghetti. The collagen fibres are then chemically treated; hydrogen peroxide is used to bleach the fibres and fabric softener is used to help them retain their natural elasticity. After another rinse, the fibrous tissue is ready to be sorted and graded. It takes training and experience to identify the quality fibres that will produce the best sound in a concert hall.
When the best parts have been selected, a separating machine is used to split the fibres into smaller strands. Tiny cuts are made at the top of the fibrous tubes before they are fed over a piece of metal with a blade at the end. Bands of various thickness are then cut from the collagen strips. Thicker bands will be used for the larger instruments like the cello or harp. The thinner bands will be reserved for the more delicate instruments such as the violin. But the fibres aren't ready to be played just yet. They must first be combined. The deeper the note, the thicker the string needs to be. An E for example is made up of five fibres, an A needs seven and a D comprises ten. The string maker winds the fibres together and attaches them to a knotted piece of ordinary string. These string loops can then be attached to a ringer which spins the fibres together. This squeezes out any excess water and twists them tightly so that they bond.
The newly fashioned strings are then hung up and left to dry for four days. The string maker keeps a close eye on the drying process to ensure there are no kinks, warps or loose fibers. When they are done, he cuts the strings from their holders and takes them to be finished. Because each string is a combination of fibers, they are rough and this would make playing problematic. Therefore, the next step is to smooth each string down. Using a laser guide that finds the thinnest part of each string, a grinder then reduces the whole length to this same uniform width, smoothing any rough edges as it goes. The final stage of the production process is to cut the strings down to the correct length. No sophisticated equipment is needed here - a ruler and a pair of scissors are fine. The string maker will measure out sixty centimetres and cut each bundle down to size. All that remains is to pack individual strings into their respective packets ready for use by the most demanding musicians looking for that special acoustic quality that is only produced by natural gut.
Today most gut strings are wrapped with metal, usually steel and occasionally copper. Gut violin strings are the natural choice for many classical and baroque players, who find the inimitable tone produced by gut strings the only choice for their repertoire. Pure gut violin strings (such as Pirastro's Chorda) are often combined with a 'period' set up instrument, with the aim of creating an authentic and historically accurate aesthetic. http://www.violinstringshop.com/blog/making-gut-violin-strings/
Natural Gut Strings Factory:
part 1
Other information about Gut Strings:
Everything you wanted to know about violin or viola strings made out of gut.
They sound amazing, but can be a little tricky -- we explain why.
Presented by Zack Rosenthal
A. During the last decade of the 19th century there were
two notable players, Willy Burmeister and Anton Witek, who because of excessive
perspiration, began to use the steel “E” string when playing in public. But the
use of gut “E” “A” and “D” continued to be widely used until World War I, when
shortages of material and the disruption of international commerce made it
difficult to obtain high quality gut strings. At this time many violinists were
forced by necessity to begin using the steel “E” string, adapting to it rather
quickly. Among these players were Jascha Heifetz, Fritz Kreisler, Maud Powell,
Jacques Thibaud.
It must be said that there were many players who were
critical of the steel "E" string, stating that the "wire
string sounds distinctly different to the artist than does a gut "E" {Toscha Seidel};"I cannot use the wire strings that are in such vogue here
(meaning the U.S.){Tivadar Nachez}. David Mannes the American violinist was
quite eloquent on the matter: “The whole question as to whether gut or wire strings
are to be preferred may, in my opinion, be referred to the violin itself for
decision. What I mean is that if Stradivari, Guarnerius, Amati, Maggini and
others had wire strings in view, they would have built their fiddles in accordance,
and they would not be the same as we now possess. I can see the artistic
retrogression of those who are using the wire “E,” for when materially things
are made easier, spiritually there is a loss."
In America, musicians adopted the steel "E" string
more quickly than did violinists in Europe. This was partially due to the difficulty
of procuring quality gut strings from Europe. This was also the time of cast
iron architecture, when steel was seen as a new and revolutionary material;
much like graphite is viewed today. This was an age of “progress.” But as we
know today, the notion of progress is an illusion. There’s no progress without
some consequent sacrifice of value. In Europe, however, violin soloists such as
Mischa Elman and Samuel Gardner continued to play on the gut “E” string. And as
late as 1920, violinists in many orchestras in Germany still had to bind themselves
by contract not to use steel strings. http://www.damianstrings.com/sh-faq.shtml
Violin Strings Were Never Made Out of Actual Cat Guts
DAVEN HISKEY NOVEMBER 11, 2010
Myth: Violin
strings were once made out of cat guts.
Violin strings were not made out of
actual cat guts. Catgut is (and was) made from the walls of various animal
intestines though. Generally sheep or goat intestines are preferred, but
occasionally other intestines are used, such as intestines from pigs and cows.
This practice of making strings and cord from animal intestines can be found
going all the way back to the Ancient Egyptians, who revered cats, by the way.
Both the Ancient Egyptians and catgut makers all the way up to today tend to
prefer making these cords and strings from herbivorous, rather than carnivores,
like cats.
So if catgut was never made from actual
cat intestines, where did the name come from? One theory is that it came from
“cattle-gut” and was eventually shortened down to just “catgut.” An equally
plausible argument is that it derived from “kit-string” also known as
“kit-gut,” a “kit” being a fiddle.
Another theory, which is probably
dubious, is that makers of these strings in the 17th century chose the word to
fool people into thinking the strings were actually made from catgut, thus,
protecting their trade secrets.
Bonus Factoids:
Catgut strings are prepared by cleaning
the intestines of fat and other undesirable additions. They do this by soaking
the guts in water, then using a knife to scrape off the various things, such as
fat, attached to the intestines. From there, the intestines are soaked in an
alkaline substance and smoothed out. The surviving microbes on the catgut are
then killed via sulfuric fumes. From there, the intestines are ready to be
stretched/wound/etc. into appropriately sized strings.
Animals that are quite lean tend to
produce significantly higher quality strings than animals that poss large
amounts of fat. This is one of the reasons pig gut isn’t typically preferred.
Catgut isn’t just used for instruments,
but is also often used in very high quality tennis rackets; bow-strings; for
hanging weights on high-end clocks; and sometimes used for stitching wounds,
though that practice has gradually given way to using cotton and synthetic
threads, which seem to make wounds less prone to infection.http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/11/violin-strings-were-never-made-out-of-actual-cat-guts/
This video on the following link is very graphic in depicting the process of how lamb guts are processed into strings so instead of putting this video here on my Blog use this link if you want to watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1aYaHEl9Rg&feature=related
Don't worry, we use ONLY synthetic violin strings in class.
