Why String Players Should Learn to Sing

Some have said that the violin is the closest instrument to the human voice. That is a matter of debate, but I don't get involved in those arguments. One thing that I think is true is that string players should learn to sing. Singing carries many benefits that go beyond improving a string player's playing.

The up bow and down bow reflect inhaling and exhaling respectively. The difference between playing strings and singing is that the bow continues making sound in spite of a change in direction, but a singer only makes sound on the exhalation. Because of this, a singer is forced to plan out musical phrases--starts, stops, high points, low points. Singers have the further difficulty that human lungs are not that big, so one cannot blow too much air at once. Compensating with more breaths makes hyperventilation a real possibility. Too many string players don't plan their bow use, because they can still sound OK despite bad bow allocation. Just like a singer running out of air, a string player running out of bow (in either direction) gets a constricted, gritty sound that sounds suffocated.

Singers must also consider how much time they have for a breath. If you need a complete lungfull for phrase #2 and you don't have enough time right before to tank up completely, you'd better not blow all your air on phrase #1. String players are wise to consider how much bow they need to use, and where their destination is for the next stroke. If you need a long down bow (or exhalation), you should find a good way within the musical phrase to get to the frog, instead of making a fast and frantic up bow (or inhalation) that sounds like a hiccup.

Singing introduces the bonus of words and sentences to music. While singing, the musician must connect these words into understandable words and comprehensible sentences. That requires connection between all the syllables, and also proper inflection. String players too often treat their music as a shooting gallery of notes, just hitting one target after the next with no connection between them.

If you sing this way, you will definitely sound like a robot with no inflection and no feeling. String players can be remarkably bad at playing through each note and connecting it to the next in a well-shaped phrase. I am not asserting that everything should played in a gooey legato. Even detached notes can have direction that cannot be achieved by "shooting gallery" playing. Ask yourself whether each note is leading towards a high point in the phrase, or going to a low point.

Many people (myself included) get their singing start in a choir. Choirs can provide a place for string players to network with other musicians, and actually get string performance opportunities. A significant portion of the choral repertory includes parts for string instruments, and many choir directors like to recruit these players from within. People of all ages should not have much trouble finding a choir in which to sing. Adults can join a local choral society. Most high schools and colleges have good choir offerings for their students. Elementary and middle schools also usually have choirs. In addition, church choirs are always looking to recruit. Home educated students can find choral opportunities through either a school or college, a community choral society, or a local church.

Singing has many musical benefits, but perhaps the most important is that it can be a barometer for the overall health of a person. DISCLAIMER: I'm no doctor, so please don't take this as medical advice! When singing, your body is your instrument, and an instrument in disrepair doesn't work well. Having to keep your voice in top shape is good incentive to live a healthy lifestyle.

Musical and personal benefits aside, singing is the one of few ways to make music without buying or renting an expensive, high maintenance instrument, so why not sing?

Does a violin have to be made of wood?

String instrument makers have always built their contraptions out of wood. Is wood really the best material? Are there other materials good for string instruments? Will alternate materials be accepted in the string instrument community? Since starting my apprenticeship at Hershey Violins, I have come to realize the limitations and frustrations that wood brings. To name a few, it splits, the grain can go in weird directions, it can be fickle about taking varnish, it cracks, it is humidity sensitive, and if a piece is missing from a damaged instrument, finding just the right replacement piece can be a challenge. The luthier's job is to navigate these challenges, and to create stunning results despite an uncooperative material. Scott Hershey is doing a great job teaching me how to make the wood work for me!

In addition to its material problems, great violin wood is in very short supply. Around A.D. 1700, there was a mini ice age, and for several decades, the trees in European forests had difficult lives. One may think that the better the tree is treated, the better the wood. Just the opposite is true. Cold and harsh weather brings slow growth, which creates a very tight grain pattern that increases the strength of the wood. On the other hand, wood that grew quickly is weaker and less dense. Stronger wood makes instruments that are more stable, more reliable, and better sounding.

World War II wreaked havoc with the wood supply. Many of the forests that grew during the mini ice age were destroyed. Not only were the forests destroyed, families were forced to burn for fuel some of the wood that had been already harvested. More of this wood was pillaged and plundered by military troops who had to keep warm for themselves. This is why truly great tone wood is in short supply. There are forests growing these woods now, but the wood and forests lost during the war will not get to be replaced for a long time.

Carbon fiber instruments have been out for a while now, and they have been making inroads. Check out this article. At an instrument competition in Germany, a carbon fiber violin actually beat out a top-notch wooden violin for the win. These carbon fiber instruments look different, and that is probably their biggest hurdle. Very few violinists want to break out of the uniform of wooden instruments. Despite the hurdle of their looks, carbon fiber is promising as an alternative to wood.

Another material that has gotten a lot of scientific attention is spider silk. It is one of nature's super-materials. This stuff is pound for pound five times the strength of steel, and a strand that circles the earth weighs about as much as an iPad. The problem is getting enough silk to be able to make something. The composition of the spider silk material and carbon fiber is very similar--many thousands of fibers woven together and encased in resin. The sonic differences between the materials are not huge. Here is an example of spider silk violins being played.

Violin builders will continue to experiment with different materials, and we are likely to see new and innovative instruments. Will they be widely accepted any time soon? I think not. Here's why.

String players have been playing wooden instruments for as long as string instruments have existed. With centuries of tradition comes a certain set of expectations. Instruments are supposed to look a certain way, and that's that. Someone in an orchestra who breaks the "uniform" of instruments risks attracting attention and being viewed as a show-off or rebel. Believe me; the less attention you get as a section violinist, especially from the conductor or section leadership, the better. This is not to say that a section string player should have no interaction with those up front, but going into that dynamic is for another post.

I cannot say that carbon fiber and spider silk instruments will drop off the radar. They will have a place in certain performance situations, especially outdoor performances where resistance to temperature and humidity is an asset. I could see a quartet playing on carbon fiber instruments at an outdoor wedding.

If only we could build working instruments out of chocolate.......

Some thoughts on violin strings

The strings you put on your instrument are almost as important as the instrument itself. The job of the wooden box across which you stretch your strings is only to amplify what goes into it. What produces the vibrations going into the box? You guessed it: the strings! That being said, we can't forget about the role of the player in this equation, but that's not the purpose of this post.

The best instrument in the world can't sound like much with bad strings, because it only amplifies what goes into it. If the strings sound dead, the instrument sounds dead. If the strings have weird overtones, the instrument has weird overtones. If the strings are just loud and monotonal, the instrument will be....well, you get the picture.

There are many factors that go into the interaction between the player, the bow, the string, and the instrument, but the relationship between the strings and the instrument is critical to the sound. The tension, elasticity, diameter, and material of the strings determine this relationship. There isn't space here to go into details about all of this, but there are a few practical considerations that serious players should take into account.

The first of these considerations is the core material of the string. These materials are usually steel, nylon, or gut. The biggest difference is in the elasticity, or how much the string can stretch. When the string is not in motion, it is straight and a certain length. When it vibrates, the middle of the string moves from side to side, which requires 1) the string to stretch intermittently or 2) the instrument to allow a shortening of the distance between the bridge and the nut.

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Steel strings have little elasticity, which means that when they vibrate widely, they transfer a lot of energy into the instrument. The don't give much length when they curve, so the instrument has to give more. Many low end instruments need this drive to get the box vibrating. On the other end of the spectrum are gut strings. They have a lot of stretch, and when they vibrate, they stretch a lot, and don't make the instrument give as much. For many well aged and highly sensitive instruments, this is a good thing.

In the middle are nylon (or synthetic) core strings. As far as elasticity, they fall between steel and gut. During the vibration, they allow some stretch, while the instrument also gives some length. Most players use synthetics.

Then there are the different winding options for strings. The metals used include aluminum, silver, chromium, nickel, titanium, and even gold. Going into all the details about all the metals would take this from a blog post to a lengthy article. The most common are aluminum and silver. As many musicians know, if a string is lighter, it will vibrate at a higher pitch. Aluminum is lighter than silver, so it takes more aluminum to bring the string to the appropriate weight for the pitch. An aluminum wound string will vibrate at a higher pitch than a silver string of the same diameter. This discussion of aluminum and silver brings up the most important point about synthetic (and gut) strings. Never mix a silver D and an aluminum A.

Here's why: It's in the diameter and flexibility of the strings. Read this article for a good explanation of what follows here.

Silver D's are in many cases smaller in diameter than aluminum A's. A thicker string is less flexible and will cause its overtone spectrum to stretch out more than a thinner string. When the A string's overtones stretch out more than the D string's spectrum, it becomes impossible to get the fundamental frequencies tuned together along with all the overtones. When the fundamentals are properly tuned, the overtones clash, and the sound is unblended and out of tune. These strings will never sound right when played together.

The solutions for this are as follows:

1. Use aluminum for both the A and D:
   This brings the diameter of the D string into better proportion with the A, so that the overtones line up better. There are many options for aluminum wound D strings in sets from Thomastik and Pirastro.
2. Use a Steel core A with a silver D:
   This brings the A string into better proportion with the silver D with the added perk that the "break" between the A and E will not be as drastic. If you think a steel core A is metallic and harsh, try the Warchal Russian Style A. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Finding just the right string combination takes time and experimentation, but armed with more information, you can more easily find the best for you and your instrument.

Questions? Please leave comments below!