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Jack Rushing
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Joined: 23 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Tue Jul 06, 2010 10:56 pm Post subject: Gut Strings |
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Is anyone using gut strings on their violin? I have been playing mine
about an hour a day for two weeks now, and they don't sound to me like they are breaking in right. The A String is beautiful, but the D&G still sound
scratchy and squeeky. Is this the norm for gut strings? |
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Shirley
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Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 178
Location: West of Denver, Colorado, USA
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| Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 1:28 am Post subject: |
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Hi, Jack - I hear such wonderful things about gut strings, but I had the same experience with them on my viola that you are having - they just continued to sound awful. So then I tried Olives, and they were OK, but they didn't do it for this viola.
(What I don't understand is that gut strings were all I had to play on in HS, but I guess I just didn't notice back then.)
Maybe there is a trick to using them now that I didn't catch - I will monitor this thread and see if I learn anything!
Shirley |
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Amalia
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Joined: 05 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 11:31 pm Post subject: |
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| Even my oldest violin (1650) sounds better with non-gut strings. I don't know why, but gut just doesn't do it for me. |
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Andres Sender
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| Posted: Fri Jul 16, 2010 1:22 am Post subject: |
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Some things which have to be considered:
Which gut?? Different brands sound different and work differently.
What tension? Several people who have adopted the setup of great early 20th c. violinists are using gut at fairly high tensions. What works best depends on the instrument, the player, etc.
Which rosin? A rosin which works fine for modern strings may not work well with gut.
Which bow? A bow which works nicely on a given violin with modern strings may not work well with gut.
How's your setup? Gut strings introduce a level of fussiness into the system, so everything else has to be working well for them to work. If the setup has problems gut reveals them clearly where a modern string might let you live with it.
The instrument--whether an instrument is old or not, it may in its current condition favor modern strings. This is partly about setup but may also be about other things like fingerboard projection and the bassbar.
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techfiddle
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Joined: 17 Jun 2009
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| Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2010 9:32 am Post subject: |
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I'm curious why you would want to use gut strings on a contemporary instrument? They're not designed for that.
Gut strings are used for baroque instruments and sold as the Corelli brand or (better) hand made by Damian Dlugolecki:
http://www.damianstrings.com/
Baroque instruments have an entirely different setup than our modern violins; the tension is less, there's no fine tuners, the bridge is flatter, the fingerboard is shorter, and a host of other differences.
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Andres Sender
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| Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 1:40 am Post subject: |
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With some exceptions, violins in modern setup had pure gut Ds As, and Es from the early 1800s (when the modern setup evolved) to WW I in the US and somewhat beyond that in Europe. The use of pure gut petered out slowly but as late as the 1960s Heifetz is said to have still used a pure gut D and A, and Milstein a pure gut A.
Recent research by Mimmo Peruffo and George Stoppani in Europe indicates that string tensions during the baroque may have equaled or even exceeded the modern range. There is much work yet to do on these questions.
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Lemuel
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Joined: 12 Aug 2010
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Location: Mt. Elgin, Ontario
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 12:59 am Post subject: |
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| Andres Sender wrote: | Some things which have to be considered:
Which gut?? Different brands sound different and work differently.
What tension? Several people who have adopted the setup of great early 20th c. violinists are using gut at fairly high tensions. What works best depends on the instrument, the player, etc.
Which rosin? A rosin which works fine for modern strings may not work well with gut.
Which bow? A bow which works nicely on a given violin with modern strings may not work well with gut.
How's your setup? Gut strings introduce a level of fussiness into the system, so everything else has to be working well for them to work. If the setup has problems gut reveals them clearly where a modern string might let you live with it.
The instrument--whether an instrument is old or not, it may in its current condition favor modern strings. This is partly about setup but may also be about other things like fingerboard projection and the bassbar. |
Excellent list of variables.
Andres, can you describe more about the "setup of great early 20th c. violinists"? |
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AntonPolezhayev
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Joined: 18 Jan 2010
Posts: 53
Location: Long Island NY USA
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| Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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| Lemuel wrote: | | Andres Sender wrote: | Some things which have to be considered:
Which gut?? Different brands sound different and work differently.
What tension? Several people who have adopted the setup of great early 20th c. violinists are using gut at fairly high tensions. What works best depends on the instrument, the player, etc.
Which rosin? A rosin which works fine for modern strings may not work well with gut.
Which bow? A bow which works nicely on a given violin with modern strings may not work well with gut.
How's your setup? Gut strings introduce a level of fussiness into the system, so everything else has to be working well for them to work. If the setup has problems gut reveals them clearly where a modern string might let you live with it.
The instrument--whether an instrument is old or not, it may in its current condition favor modern strings. This is partly about setup but may also be about other things like fingerboard projection and the bassbar. |
Excellent list of variables.
Andres, can you describe more about the "setup of great early 20th c. violinists"? |
Great post by Andres ^^^
Heifetz (good example of setup of early 20th century greats) set-up was:
- Gut G (silver) similar to todays Olive (rigid)
- Gut (raw) plain thick and stiff unvarnished D and A identical to that made by GAMUT (Daniel Larson) today. Ask for Lyon Gut (stiffer)
- Goldbrokat medium E for concerts, and gut E for some recordings.
One of the biggest disasters of violin making, especially modern making is thin decks. Violins with thin decks make a nice beautiful sound UNDER YOUR EAR yet are useless in large halls and/or in bad acoustics situation, as they don't carry. Putting thick stiff gut strings on a thin upper decked violin chokes the violin in no time  The sound will be poor and response slow and unpredictable, the tone scratchy etc etc etc
However, going thinner gauge for gut strings in an attempt not to choke the violin brings another evil to the table - pitch stability issues and lack of projection.
The key is to find a nice compromise that works for YOUR violin.
And like Andres said if your violin has ANYTHING wrong with it, like an uneven neck, too thin soundpost, too thin bridge etc gut strings will simply not sound well on your violin.
It's best to have your violin adjusted by the best in the world. A worthy investment!
Think of synthetic and steel strings like leg press VS squat, or car VS walking. Surely the first is more convenient, but it's not better than the later.
I have recently switched to the Heifetz set-up. Listening to my recordings and comparing them to old masters I have come to sad conclusion that even with studying their playing in greatest depth we will NEVER play as good as them if we don't throw away dead strings. Gut simply sounds better for classical applications, no way around that simple fact. Both kreilser and Heifetz strongly stressed the paramount importance of gut strings, yet we, the very people who idolize Heifetz and Kreisler are neglecting their #1 advice and are playing on easy to play dead and soulless strings.
In fact Heifetz MADE his students use real gut uncovered strings.
So, a big +1 from me on gut strings use guys!
Soon I will have gut strings recordings up so you can compare Dominants to the GAMUT.
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Lemuel
Site Admin
Joined: 12 Aug 2010
Posts: 515
Location: Mt. Elgin, Ontario
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| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 1:48 am Post subject: |
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| AntonPolezhayev wrote: |
....
Heifetz (good example of setup of early 20th century greats) set-up was:
- Gut G (silver) similar to todays Olive (rigid)
- Gut (raw) plain thick and stiff unvarnished D and A identical to that made by GAMUT (Daniel Larson) today. Ask for Lyon Gut (stiffer)
- Goldbrokat medium E for concerts, and gut E for some recordings.
One of the biggest disasters of violin making, especially modern making is thin decks. Violins with thin decks make a nice beautiful sound UNDER YOUR EAR yet are useless in large halls and/or in bad acoustics situation, as they don't carry. Putting thick stiff gut strings on a thin upper decked violin chokes the violin in no time The sound will be poor and response slow and unpredictable, the tone scratchy etc etc etc
However, going thinner gauge for gut strings in an attempt not to choke the violin brings another evil to the table - pitch stability issues and lack of projection.
The key is to find a nice compromise that works for YOUR violin.
And like Andres said if your violin has ANYTHING wrong with it, like an uneven neck, too thin soundpost, too thin bridge etc gut strings will simply not sound well on your violin.
It's best to have your violin adjusted by the best in the world. A worthy investment!
Think of synthetic and steel strings like leg press VS squat, or car VS walking. Surely the first is more convenient, but it's not better than the later. |
Hi Anton,
Great to hear from you again. I've been catching up after the holiday break, and haven't had the time to respond to your post.
In general then, would you consider the Heifetz setup the model setup? Do you know other example setups of early 20th century great violinists that perhaps may not have been as strict with gut strings?
How about today's great violinists such as James Ehnes, Hillary Hahn and Gil Shaham. What setup do they have?
| AntonPolezhayev wrote: |
I have recently switched to the Heifetz set-up. Listening to my recordings and comparing them to old masters I have come to sad conclusion that even with studying their playing in greatest depth we will NEVER play as good as them if we don't throw away dead strings. Gut simply sounds better for classical applications, no way around that simple fact. Both kreilser and Heifetz strongly stressed the paramount importance of gut strings, yet we, the very people who idolize Heifetz and Kreisler are neglecting their #1 advice and are playing on easy to play dead and soulless strings.
In fact Heifetz MADE his students use real gut uncovered strings.
So, a big +1 from me on gut strings use guys! |
I wonder if it is as simple clear cut as this - thick decks plus raw gut strings equals rich and live sounds (assuming the list of the other above variables are optimally in place). Are you able to tell from just the sound of a recording or live concert of today's professional violinists whether they are using gut strings or not? If any of them do not, I would hardly classify their sound as dead or soulless.
| AntonPolezhayev wrote: |
Soon I will have gut strings recordings up so you can compare Dominants to the GAMUT. |
Yes, I would be very interested to hear your recording. |
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AntonPolezhayev
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Joined: 18 Jan 2010
Posts: 53
Location: Long Island NY USA
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| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 1:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Lemuel wrote: |
In general then, would you consider the Heifetz setup the model setup? Do you know other example setups of early 20th century great violinists that perhaps may not have been as strict with gut strings?
How about today's great violinists such as James Ehnes, Hillary Hahn and Gil Shaham. What setup do they have?
I wonder if it is as simple clear cut as this - thick decks plus raw gut strings equals rich and live sounds (assuming the list of the other above variables are optimally in place). Are you able to tell from just the sound of a recording or live concert of today's professional violinists whether they are using gut strings or not? If any of them do not, I would hardly classify their sound as dead or soulless.
Yes, I would be very interested to hear your recording. |
Hello Lemuel!
Given that Heifetz is widely regarded as the best I would say that while the mountain top is always wide and there are many ways of doing things but yes if we were to consider someone's set up to be model, it would be his.
Interestingly Paganini likewise wanted thick and stiff gut, very similar to Heifetz's and our present day's GAMUT.
Kreisler likewise believed that one MUST play on gut. Of course after the war Kreisler changed to covered gut (easier to play) as his career and energy were coming down. Think of a passionate bike rider finally just getting a comfortable car after his 60th birthday 
In defense of gut strings I can add that contrary to popular belief steel strings were around since 16th century, so if Del Gesu and guys like that thought they sounded better they would use them. I think it's somewhat arrogant and perhaps even ignorant of us to think that hundreds of years of violin making that came before Dominants were not spent productively with regards to string choice. Gut produces live sound filled with tension, stress and sorrow, what we call soul, thus we enjoy the recordings of the old masters. In fact if we dig even deeper into the subject of tone and sound we will find that playing violin was a very religious experience back in the day, Paganini crossed himself on stage before first note in every piece, there is a reason why lamb (think Lamb of God) is used for violin strings, and they made a big deal back in the day about the cross and crucifixion (strings and the bridge) etc etc So the gut sound is there for a reason, it's the sound makers and players were after for centuries.
Many top modern soloists are using and many are coming back to gut strings. I recently spoke to Boris Sverdlik who is considered by many to be one of if not the best luthier in the world, and he noted an interesting trend he has observed recently of a massive migration of soloists and orchestra players switching to gut (Olives and Passionne) He expressed shock that it happened overnight kind of, and he believes gut does sound better. He also read me a lecture about how violins should be made with thicker wood than what is done today. I must say his own violins sound extremely awesome. He always used olives, and recently switched to Passione.
It is sometimes very hard to tell what strings people are using just by listening. This is because microphones on recordings are different, acoustics at concert venues are different, and violins are different. But gut sound is preferred in blind tests (I have also ran such tests on many people, I would play the same violins with different strings and asked people to pick what sound they enjoyed more)
Long post ^^^  But it's an awesome subject!
Time to practice. Happy New Year!
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Lemuel
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Joined: 12 Aug 2010
Posts: 515
Location: Mt. Elgin, Ontario
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| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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Happy new year to you too.
| AntonPolezhayev wrote: |
....
Kreisler likewise believed that one MUST play on gut. Of course after the war Kreisler changed to covered gut (easier to play) as his career and energy were coming down. Think of a passionate bike rider finally just getting a comfortable car after his 60th birthday |
Would you say this is the reason why many modern great violinists also used the covered gut and advanced synthetic strings (i.e. ease of playing)?
| Quote: | | ... Gut produces live sound filled with tension, stress and sorrow, what we call soul, thus we enjoy the recordings of the old masters. In fact if we dig even deeper into the subject of tone and sound we will find that playing violin was a very religious experience back in the day, Paganini crossed himself on stage before first note in every piece, there is a reason why lamb (think Lamb of God) is used for violin strings, and they made a big deal back in the day about the cross and crucifixion (strings and the bridge) etc etc So the gut sound is there for a reason, it's the sound makers and players were after for centuries. |
Whenever I play in church hymns, many people express to me how deeply they are affected - and I was using Dominants. For a properly setup violin, at what point does live become dead and soul become soulless? To the advanced violinist, these things are most definitely discernible, but not to an average person.
| Quote: | | Many top modern soloists are using and many are coming back to gut strings. I recently spoke to Boris Sverdlik who is considered by many to be one of if not the best luthier in the world, and he noted an interesting trend he has observed recently of a massive migration of soloists and orchestra players switching to gut (Olives and Passionne) He expressed shock that it happened overnight kind of, and he believes gut does sound better. He also read me a lecture about how violins should be made with thicker wood than what is done today. I must say his own violins sound extremely awesome. He always used olives, and recently switched to Passione. |
Now this is entirely new to me. Out of curiosity, do these players go looking for new violins with thicker decks if their old ones cannot handle the thicker stiff tensions of gut?
| Quote: | It is sometimes very hard to tell what strings people are using just by listening. This is because microphones on recordings are different, acoustics at concert venues are different, and violins are different. But gut sound is preferred in blind tests (I have also ran such tests on many people, I would play the same violins with different strings and asked people to pick what sound they enjoyed more)
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You mentioned same violins...do you mean taking one violin, playing it with a set of strings (say dominants), taking the strings off and putting another set of strings (gut) OR do you mean different violins with different strings?
In these blind tests, did any of your "blind-folded" subjects find the non-gut strings sounding better? |
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Chad48309
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Joined: 26 Sep 2010
Posts: 110
Location: Michigan
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| Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2011 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Lemuel wrote: | | Whenever I play in church hymns, many people express to me how deeply they are affected - and I was using Dominants. For a properly setup violin, at what point does live become dead and soul become soulless? To the advanced violinist, these things are most definitely discernible, but not to an average person. |
I would consider this not a matter of setup or fitting, but a matter wholly dependent on the violinist and his audience. There are many experimental and lo-fi musicians whose entire performance is based around the poorest, most broken violin set-up and the lowest-quality, most rusted strings possible. And, to me, the performance is very interesting and very moving. I don't think you can codify something as personal as the emotional connection of the audience, nor correlate it to something as simple as strings and setups.
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AntonPolezhayev
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Joined: 18 Jan 2010
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Location: Long Island NY USA
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| Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2011 12:41 am Post subject: |
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| Lemuel wrote: |
1)
Would you say this is the reason why many modern great violinists also used the covered gut and advanced synthetic strings (i.e. ease of playing)?
2)
Whenever I play in church hymns, many people express to me how deeply they are affected - and I was using Dominants. For a properly setup violin, at what point does live become dead and soul become soulless? To the advanced violinist, these things are most definitely discernible, but not to an average person.
3)
Now this is entirely new to me. Out of curiosity, do these players go looking for new violins with thicker decks if their old ones cannot handle the thicker stiff tensions of gut?
4)
You mentioned same violins...do you mean taking one violin, playing it with a set of strings (say dominants), taking the strings off and putting another set of strings (gut) OR do you mean different violins with different strings?
In these blind tests, did any of your "blind-folded" subjects find the non-gut strings sounding better? |
1)
Yes, IMHO synthetic and gut strings are there for convenience, not for superior sound. I say this because we know that gut produces more overtones and greater depth as well as spectrum than metals or nylon. The modern shift to synthetics and metals started due to gut being hard to obtain during the war.
It is also often difficult to come back to gut, because it requires time to learn some new things about violin playing and UNlearn some things. Not many people have that luxury. Most soloists have difficult concerts almost daily and can not undergo such a sharp change right away, but they are still switching to Passione and Olives, slowly and gradually.
2)
Yes, you're totally right, without a doubt one can play beautifully on Dominants or any other strings. It is simply a question of what is optimal for sound.
3)
Vast majority of people switching back to gut are using covered gut (Olives and Passione), those strings are not thick or stiff, almost any violin can handle them with ease. it is the real raw gut that is a problem on many violins.
4)
Yes, I would use the same violin for the sound tests. I strung up my violin (Gaetano Chiocchi) with my usual medium Dominants that I have used all my life. They work great with a heavy Westminster E. I would then play a few minutes different pieces for people. Then I would put on a set of Eva, then Olives with Goldbrokat E which works better with gut, then Passione, and then Gamut (with Olive G). I did this both in small and in large rooms.
Every time people preferred gut over synthetics. Much to my dismay I must add as I have always used Dominants.
The most hilarious reaction is always to Gamut. people go WOW HAHA! That is like 2x as loud and old school, sounds like a Heifetz recording, this must be gut.
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Lemuel
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Joined: 12 Aug 2010
Posts: 515
Location: Mt. Elgin, Ontario
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| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:01 am Post subject: |
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| AntonPolezhayev wrote: | ...
It is also often difficult to come back to gut, because it requires time to learn some new things about violin playing and UNlearn some things. Not many people have that luxury. Most soloists have difficult concerts almost daily and can not undergo such a sharp change right away, but they are still switching to Passione and Olives, slowly and gradually. |
I would appreciate if you could elaborate on some of those new things that must be learned and old things that must be unlearned.
| AntonPolezhayev wrote: |
Yes, I would use the same violin for the sound tests. I strung up my violin (Gaetano Chiocchi) with my usual medium Dominants that I have used all my life. They work great with a heavy Westminster E. I would then play a few minutes different pieces for people. Then I would put on a set of Eva, then Olives with Goldbrokat E which works better with gut, then Passione, and then Gamut (with Olive G). I did this both in small and in large rooms.
Every time people preferred gut over synthetics. Much to my dismay I must add as I have always used Dominants.
The most hilarious reaction is always to Gamut. people go WOW HAHA! That is like 2x as loud and old school, sounds like a Heifetz recording, this must be gut. |
Truly, you have got me curious and desiring to try this setup on a few violins. Please let me know as soon as you have your recording up. |
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Lemuel
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Joined: 12 Aug 2010
Posts: 515
Location: Mt. Elgin, Ontario
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| Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:06 am Post subject: |
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| Chad48309 wrote: |
I would consider this not a matter of setup or fitting, but a matter wholly dependent on the violinist and his audience. There are many experimental and lo-fi musicians whose entire performance is based around the poorest, most broken violin set-up and the lowest-quality, most rusted strings possible. And, to me, the performance is very interesting and very moving. I don't think you can codify something as personal as the emotional connection of the audience, nor correlate it to something as simple as strings and setups. |
Yes, Chad, you're right. I was seeking clarification on the words "dead" and "soulless". How do you relate to these terms? For no doubt, they are emotional words. |
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