Friends, I have some experiments I’d like to run. But I know I’m in over my head to explore them completely on my own. So I’ll need some help. But first, let me tell you what I have in mind. I think many of you might be curious and willing to lend me a hand.
Experiment 1: What is the best way to clean the rosin off your strings?
A quick internet search will tell you about half a dozen ways to clean the rosin off your strings. But I’ve also heard that some of these will damage your strings beyond all usefulness. There’s using rubbing alcohol on a cloth to dissolve the rosin, for example. Sounds workable (though extremely risky to the varnish on the violin!). But I’ve been told that the dissolved rosin sinks down between the windings of the string into the core. Then it hardens, ruining your string. Or there’s extra fine steel wool. I’ve tried it, and it really does remove the rosin faster than anything else. And quietly, too! But my friend and I both found that the string becomes less responsive. Does it polish the metal of the strings? Or are we imagining things?
I would like to buy several new sets of violin strings and stress test them with different cleaning methods to see the effects of each one. But a set of good violin strings isn’t cheap! And to test this thoroughly, I would need to destroy them in the process. For the alcohol method, for example, I would cut open the string to see the core. For fairness, I should do the same to all the others to see if there’s a difference. A set of PI strings (what I use) would run me about $100 each, so we would be looking at around $500 in strings. Or I could go for a cheaper string like Dominants, at $70/set. Still not cheap enough to do on a lark. And definitely not on my pandemic-sized musician salary.
Another piece of the puzzle is that I would need access to a microscope that can take pictures for me. I might be able to get this through connections at the University of Chicago. I’m working on that.
I would like to test the following methods:
- Microfiber cloth only
- Green scouring pad
- Extra fine steel wool
- Denatured alcohol
- ??? I’m open to searching out other methods and trying them out. Is there anything you’d like tested?
Experiment 2: Problems with string responsiveness filmed with a high-speed camera
There are some things I simply don’t understand about how the violin works. My current model is that the bow starts the sound by catching and pulling the string. The string snaps back and gets caught and pulled again by the bow. This transmits energy through the bridge into the whole body of the instrument. It sounds logical and reasonable. But then how do wolf tones fit into that? Wolf tones are notes that don’t want to speak on the violin. Somehow the vibration of the violin and the vibration of that note don’t get along. So the sound breaks. That means that the body of the instrument is interfering with the cycle of catch, pull, and release. Also, when my luthier taps the sound post or moves the bridge a hair to the right, it affects the responsiveness of the string. So there’s a feedback loop in there that I don’t understand.
I want to film these things in slow motion to see what they look like. And not just wolf notes. I want to see how a healthy sound looks differently in slow motion from a pressed tone. or a ponticello (bowing over the surface of the string near the bridge without catching and pulling). Does the problem start where the bow meets the string? Does the string vibrate in a strange and unexpected way? I think there could be a lot to learn by seeing how the bow and the string interact when the sound breaks down.
I would need access to a high-speed camera like what they use on the YouTube channel Smarter Every Day. Here’s a clip of what I’m talking about. Fast-forward to the 1:30 mark:
But here I have no clue what I’m looking for in terms of equipment. If I were to buy a camera, what would I buy? And how much would it cost? If I could rent one, where can I go for that? Do I know anybody that could lend one to me? Or meet up and film me for a day?
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So that’s what I have in mind right now. Both of these experiments would take time, energy, and money to run. I’m still in the ideas stage, too, so I don’t have everything planned out. But hey, that’s where all of you come in. What are your thoughts on all of this? Let me know! I think this could be really cool. But I can’t pull this off on my own.
Eric
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