July 21, 2006 at 9:11 PM
Our wonderful intern, Caeli Smith, has posted a new wiki to our Violin Help section:The Violinist.com Guide to Choosing Violin Strings
Wondering which strings are the correct ones for your violin? Sorta, kinda happy with your strings, but wondering if there's something better out there? Caeli's guide will orient you to the possibilities and set you on your way to making the best choice.
And, as with all our help articles, it is a wiki, meaning that registered Violinist.com readers can log in and make additions to the page.
and
http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20066/5303/ (Announcement at the bottom of the piece.)
If I could offer one suggestion: under gauge, maybe you could mention weich, mittel, and stark, and what they mean? That was the thing that confused me most when I first started learning about strings.
With all this information, there are bound to be some inaccuracies. The one I noticed right away is the final statement under "gut strings": "However, gut strings go out of tune very easily, are more sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity, and are more expensive."
I use gut strings, and based on my experience this is wrong on all 3 counts. My bare gut strings (including a bare gut e) are more pitch-stable than my Eudoxas or Olivs have been. I have found them no more sensitive to changes in temperature and humidity (though perhaps they are if comparing steel strings). They are certainly no more expensive than the strings I replaced. This needs to be revised, and the differences between bare gut and wound gut pointed out.
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