End of Whistling

April 9, 2012 at 02:02 AM · I recently switched to a plain gut, heavy gauge E string and it cut down tremendously the whistling. The rest of the strings are Evah Pirazzi.

April 9, 2012 at 01:07 PM · There is also the Kaplan wound non-whistling E which is pretty nice.

April 16, 2012 at 05:40 PM · John, will the audience realise that you are only pretending?

April 17, 2012 at 07:41 AM · Seriously, though, I have noticed that my E often fails to start when slurring from an A-string note to the open E; perhaps the bow can't "grab" the string because it's already in motion due to the previous notes vibrating in the bridge?

April 17, 2012 at 10:17 AM · Adrian - what rosin are you using? I think you have to match the rosin to the string type - though some will grab anything (sometimes even too well) :D

Also are you SURE you are bowing straight?

April 17, 2012 at 01:14 PM · I don't know that it's just a problem of cheaper violins. The only thing that really solves it for me is an aluminum-wound string. I think the Kaplan is a little overpriced, and prefer the Dominant #132.

April 17, 2012 at 01:22 PM · Elise, yes I AM bowing straight, thank you! It's true I am not a great lover of loads of rosin, and my violin is a bit sluggish. I have noticed the E-whistle often on students' VSOs.

Scott, I like the Dominant E, too. I thought I was the only one!

It's a pity we can't use italics on these posts: I always feel I am SHOUTING when I use capitals..

(never mind the speling mistaks, or th eclums ythumb..)

April 17, 2012 at 09:18 PM · Interesting...the Pirastro Gold E was the only E that would never whistle on my violin. With my Thomastik Infeld gold E, I have to square off chords or risk whistling.

April 18, 2012 at 12:49 PM · Here, from a reference file I keep, are a couple of comments and an explanation of the whistling phenomenon from two members here (dating from a year or more ago - sorry, I don't have the links):

[David Burgess]

Any E string can be made to whistle, by starting a fast bow stroke before contacting the string, and then bringing it gradually into contact. This is similar to what happens with a slurred string crossing to the E, or a chord. Sometimes experimenting with the sounding point on the string will yield results, or a slower bow, or a little emphasis when hitting the E string, sort of like a small accent.

Probably the biggest cause though is another finger lightly lightly contacting the E, often one stopping the A string. Let's say you're playing a fast ascending A major scale. The third finger D can still be down on the A string when you start playing the E, and may have just enough contact with the E to cause a harmonic. It can also be the base of the first finger.

[Fan Tan]

The open E squealing problem, which I call whistling, is caused by the string vibrating in a torsional (twisting) motion rather than the normal Helmholtz (transverse or sideways) motion. For unwound steel E-strings, the frequency is approximately 4,800 Hz (open E is 660Hz). It is not a compression wave, which is an end-to-end motion.

A plain steel E string has very low damping (damping is how quickly the vibrations die away), so once the string starts to vibrate with a twisting motion, it takes a long time to stop and that interferes with the proper starting of the normal Helmholtz motion. With stopped notes, the soft fingertip will increase the string damping, causing any such motion to die away extremely quickly, so that is why the whistling happens only with an open E string.

Changing the string, or the shape of the string notch in the nut or bridge, or adjusting the violin may be enough to fix the problem in some cases, but all plain (non-wound) E-strings can whistle under the right conditions. Wound E-strings have higher damping and are more whistle resistant. For the most serious cases, I designed the D’Addario Kaplan Solutions non-whistling E-string (KS311W) using both a stranded steel core and a winding to increase the damping even further. We cannot make a loop end for it, so we include a hook fine-tuner adapter (I use it!). This string also has a much sweeter tone than solid steel core E-strings.

There is anecdotal evidence that gold-plated E-strings whistle more easily. If true, it might be due to the smoothness of the gold plating, which reduces torsional damping from the string rubbing against the bridge string notch and nut. But that is speculation.

I’ve heard the world’s best violinists whistle their E-strings. You can alter your bowing technique to prevent the problem, such as using more bow force and slower bow speed, but this is usually musically unacceptable.

[End of comment and explanation]

As you see, there's some physics in this, but the solution for the individual basically lies in bow control. On one of my fiddles I use plain gut strings with a gold E. At one time I was experiencing the whistling phenomenon more than I liked, so my teacher got to work on this aspect of my bowing technique, and now it never happens.

April 19, 2012 at 12:28 AM · Adrian, using italics here is very simple.

The secret is what I did with that first sentence was to precede it with < i > and end it with < /i >. Please don't use spaces within the brackets when you do this; I've only inserted them in this explanation to stop the system from getting confused and turning the text of the explanation into italics!

If you want to underline then you'll be using < u > and < /u > similarly; and if you want to make a point with bold you'll use < b > and < /b >. Again, don't use spaces within the brackets.

The above are all examples of HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) which is the language underlying every web page and email you'll come across. Learning a little of the basics of HTML is quite useful, and I use it in preference to a higher level language when editing my own website because it's more versatile and I have more control.

April 20, 2012 at 08:30 PM · I have only ever had trouble with whistling strings when I use a high tension E string. Pirastro Gold E does not ever whistle for me.

Another theory I have heard is that putting a groove in your rosin can cause this as the bow hair is forced to bunch up as it is rosined. This causes uneven coverage of the hair.

Are there any groovers out there that whistle?

Cheers Carlo

April 20, 2012 at 09:40 PM · I think it is quite possible that a violinist who makes a deep groove in their cake of rosin will be over-rosining their bow, and that will generate its own set of problems.

April 22, 2012 at 12:23 AM · Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but that silly adapter Kaplan makes you use eliminates the string for me. No way.

April 22, 2012 at 02:09 AM · Pirastro's "No. 1" or "Universal" E string is a pretty good wound E string that's supposed to be resistant to whistling. It's a nice, warm sounding string; it came installed on a violin I was loaned once, and it sounded better than the Pirastro Gold Label and Lenzner Goldbrokat E strings I tried on that violin in its stead (on that particular violin only, of course). It's chromesteel wound on a carbon steel core.