The diversity of strings for string instruments
Strings for bow instruments exist in diverse versions, because they either consist of natural gut, steel, plastic or synthetic material and they differ in their gauge and tension. Strings aren’t just sort through the material they´re made of, but also through the string instrument for which they were designed for. The strings for the bow instrument, thus for the violin, the viola, the violoncello and the double bass are specifically aligned with the generation of the sound with the help of the bow stroke. There is the biggest selection of violin strings, then followed by cello strings, viola strings and double bass strings. As the majority of string players are violinists, the diversity of violin strings is legitimate.Humans command the craft of producing strings made out of natural gut already since thousands of years. The gut strings were made out of guts by ungulates. At the production of steel strings, cast steel is drawned thinner and thinner with diamond die. The synthetic strings own a plastic core, what gives it the ability to resist to temperature and humidity fluctuations . The wrap spinning of the string core with different metals allows a sound diversity, that satisfies the quality requirement of sensitive string players.
The violin - a demanding bowed instrument
A violin
consists of a neck, the fingerboard, as of a corpus and the nut.
Furthermore there are strings leading into the pegbox and then ending in
the pegs of the spiral. With help of the pegs the violin can be tuned.
For violin
making different types of wood are used. The corpus consists of several
elements. The top of the violin is made out of spruce wood, the back of
maple and the frames or side parts of the corpus are also compromised
of maple. For the fingerboard hard ebony wood is applied.
There are violins in the most different sizes, but the normal size of this string instrument
is the 4/4-violin. Children or violinists with smaller hands have the
possibility of choosing between the different violin sizes from 3/4 to
1/16, mostly offered as a set, thus finding the right violin.
To make a violin playable, it needs a bow,
matching the size of the instrument. For the stringing of the violin
bow, about 250 hair of the tail from a special horse race are used. The
bowstick is made out of brazilwood. Nowadays it increasingly consists of
carbon fibre (carbon bow). The so-called frog is often nicely decorated
and assigned with a screw, with whose twist the tension of the bow can
be increased or loosened.
Making the bow hair useable, the bow has to be treated with rosin first, whereby the bow stroke only then properly grips. Besides a violin bow, a violinist also needs a chinrest, a tuner and a shoulder rest for an optimal position of the violin. The selection of violin strings testifies the different sound ideals of the violinists.
A distinction is drawn between shaped case and regular case. On the outside, a carrying handle and a shoulder strap are added to the violin case, so that it can be carried without any problems. It is well padded on the inside, protecting the string instrument from damages at the corpus caused for example by falls. In the violin case there is also, next to the violin, place for the corresponding violin bow, shoulder rest and rosin. Some violin cases are also covered with nylon and have an extra pocket on the outside, in which the sheet music can be packed in.
The notes make the music
With the help of sheet music
it’s possible to record the sequence of notes in written form, for
example in compositions. With the aid of the clef and the staves can be
read off, what the note is called and which note accordingly has to be
played.
The selection of notes for stringed instruments is almost exhaustless, notes for violin
and notes for cellos clearly build the majority. That is why the degree
of difficulty of the compositions diversifies in several music books.
For experienced string players there are exercises and solo works from
famous composers, for school lessons there are many cello concerts or cello schools. Notes for chamber music, for a violin concert or a cello concert
are just as standard as literature for string orchestras. For almost
every music genre there is the matching music book. There is also a
great collection of music books available for string players in the
genres of rock & pop, jazz and film score.