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Ben Clapton

Changing Strings, Pt. 2

June 25, 2007 at 1:48 AM

At the End of May, I changed my strings from Evah Pirrizi's to Larsen's. They've now had a month on my violin. I did say that I would write about them more often, but I didn't get around to it.
At first I was really impressed with them. They sounded great, really resonant, really fitted well with my violin. Then about a week into having them on, the A string started playing up. I had trouble tuning it, and it had trouble staying in tune. It would be going flat within seconds of having tuned it - I was afraid that it had gone false on me already. I kept it on, hoping that a few more days of playing on it would eventually settle it in. This was the case.
After about two weeks, these strings had fully settled, and are producing a really nice tone on my violin.

Has anyone else had a similar problem with the Larsen A string? Or was this just a singular occurrence?

From Susanna Turner
Posted on June 27, 2007 at 10:14 AM
Hi Ben!
Thanks to Christmas I was able to change my strings to Larsens in late December.
Whilst I can't say that my experience with the strings is quite like yours, I too have had trouble with my A; I am onto my third A string now, both predecessors having broken within about 2 months. Not snapped - started to unravel where my fingers touch the string (around C#/D when in 1st pos.)
This is a very odd occurence for my violin; I think prior to the Larsen A I had about 2 strings break in a total of almost 6 years.
Knowing that nothing else about my violin has changed, nor have I suddenly become really rough, I can only assume the fault is something to do with the strings...

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