Types of Violin Strings

Video Transcript

" Hi! I’m David Kaynor for expertvillage.com. I’d like to talk about types of violin strings. I think that there are three overall categories of violin strings and they have to do with the core of the string, and briefly most E-strings are simple wire strength, some have a wrapping of material like gold or aluminum or steel, but most of them are just wire. The cores of the A, D and G on the other hand are either metal core, nylon or synthetic core or gut core, a lot of people think that the gut in a gut violin string is cat gut. In fact I believe it’s sheep gut. The synthetic cores are often made of various kinds of nylon, some of them are called nylon, some are called Perlon—I think there are couple of other trade names as well. But basically it’s like very, very high grade of fishing line and then the steel core strings have either a wire core, or in some cases a braided a braided steel core with very, very fine steel fiber and different characteristics are a tribute to all those categories. Gut strings are thought to have the most pleasing response for orchestral playing for classical music. Steel core strings are often thought to be the string of choice for many different kinds of folk fiddling, and synthetic core strings like Perlon and nylon are thought to be some kind something of a compromise between gut and steel. One of the advantages of steel strings is that they tend to stay in tune, they’re not susceptible to changes in humidity; they are susceptible to changes in temperature but not humidity."