In a pedantic history book on Viennese guitar makers, there was a theory on the phrase "cat gut strings": The musical instrument business was run by the regional guild/union and was extremely competitive. Cats were viewed as somewhat mystical animals and so one famous builder falsely claimed to have used cat gut in the hopes that no one would attempt to copy his instrument designs.
Thank you very much for this interesting video, I always loved the more warm and charming sound of authentic instruments from the medieval/renaissance period. The gut string is a key component to them. For example Jordi Savall the well known musician and researcher of ancient music who owns a fantastic collection of authentic instruments back to the 14th century plays all of his instruments with gut strings. But gut strings didn't only played a important part in the field of music. As a watch and clockmaker and antiquarian horologist, I can tell that gut strings also have been widely used in watches and clocks. Clocks and watches driven by steel mainsprings do have the problem, that a mainspring doesn't provide a constant torque motion power. When the spring is fully wound, the torque is higher, when it is nearly unwound, the torque is less weaker. This gives the problem to a clock or watch movement, that it runs faster when the torque is high, but it runs slower when the torque is weaker and this would give a very bad and uneven timekeeping. To solve this problem, horologists invented a component named fusee, a spiral cone with a cone shape. The barrel with the mainspring in it was now connected through a gutstring to the fusee and the form of the fusee acted like lever and with the physical rule of the lever, the uneven torque of a mainspring was equalized. This was used, both in clocks and watches. Later in the 18th century the gutstrings have been mostly replaced in clocks and watches by steel chains for higher reliability. Gutstrings were also used as driving belts on old horological tools like mandrel lathes and topping tools. Best regards from Switzerland, bluearcturus
@@VictoriaBernath Hello Victoria, glad you're interested in the field of horology. There has always been a very strong connection between music and horology. There have been musical clocks, clocks containing a additional musical mechanism to enjoy people. Back in those days, these objects were the "high-tech" products of their time. These clocks and musical automatons are very interesting for todays musicians, interested in historical musical praxis. Unfortunately there are no real existing "audio examples" of renaissance music. Only since the advent of the Edison phonograph in 1877, audio recordings have become possible. But most musicians are not aware that there are a few remaining automatons, the earliest ones from the renaissance period, which can play their musical tunes exactly the same way, as they have sounded when they were produced some 400 years ago, without any kind of modern interpretation! Here are 3 examples, you can listen to, if you're interested: the triumph wagon of Minerva: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-sm6Cr23Ija4.html / the musical clock from 1625 with organ and spinettino: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-nlPHd1ezgL4.html / the ship's automaton: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-14y_7yNEnG8.html. These are very rare and interesting musical marvels. But back to gut strings. Here's a short video of a pocket watch from about 1650 and from video minute 0:55 the barrel and the fusee with the very thin gut string is visible. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Yj5SJO_PGZk.html Does such tiny and thin gut strings were also used in musical intruments? Musical clocks have been produced from the 16th century to the 19th century and are a source of very beautiful tunes, mostly unknown in the musical world. In the 18th century composeres like Mozart or Gluck and some others did compositions especially for musical clocks. Musical clocks could have bells, then they are called carillon clock, they could have strings, then they were called spinettino or dulcimer clocks, and they could have organ pipes and then they were called organ clocks or flute clocks. The organ playing clocks are musically the most interesting ones, as they are able to prodcue note of different lenghts. Best regards, bluearcturus
i didnt expect that much of a difference in tone, but wow! the synthetic ones, (and i'm sure those werent cheap ones), sounded so wispy and breathy in comparison to that mellow, warm juiciness. really a little eye opener!
I have known the basics of gut strings for a long time but I'm a flautist and keyboard player so I've never needed to know the details. I still don't need to know the details but I'm very interested to learn them. Thank you for an interesting and informative video.
Your intonation is perfect.... A thought just occurred to me. As a guitarist, I wonder if a viola could work with paired strings similar to a 12 stringed guitar. Perhaps someone has already attempted such an instrument, but I wonder what it would sound like.
I don't know the technical term for it, but it seems to me that a bow might "bite" or "engage" or "grab" or interact with a gut string differently from how it engages a synthetic string and that it might cause a difference in the "feel" of playing gut vs. synthetic as well. I believe that most (all?) professional bows use horse hair, but there are also synthetic bows as well although I don't think that they have replaced horse hair (at least on professional bows) to the extent that synthetic strings have replaced gut. I think that might be an interesting topic for discussion too? Was bow hair always horse hair? What are other options. Do different horses produce different tone qualities? Seriously. It seems to me that the differences in friction of bow hair might be produced by differences in the microscopic shapes of the hairs and the microscopic scales that cover them. I'm not a bowed instrument player, but I worked at a music store and I know that the professional orchestral string players that would get stuff from us could be very picky about their rosin as well. Of course different instruments require different hardnesses of rosin, but apparently rosins sourced from different geographical regions ( For example Chinese vs. American vs. European. ) could have different tackiness characteristics, maybe even different interactions with types of bow hair and strings. Maybe a discussion of different rosins and what was historically used would be interesting too. It's amazing that every little part makes a difference - the wood out of which the instrument is made, the materials used in the sounding string, the type of wood used for the bow, the type of wood used for the saddle, the lacquer or varnish used on the instrument, the type of hair used on the bow, the type of resin, the wood used on the fingerboard. Some violinists will swear that they can hear, or maybe feel (?), the difference between a plastic frog and an ebony frog. Amazing and fascinating.
We have Aquila F-Reds which are Synthetic Strings designed to emulate a Gut String sound. I use D'addario Helicore Strings which are Steel Core Strings made to Sound like Gut as it's multiple strands of steel twisted together & wound in another metal.
2:24 OK so here on the Viola the High A & D Strings are Plain Gut which are the 1st Gut Strings ever used. The Wound Strings (the C & G on the Viola) have a Gut Core that's then wound in Metal to Protect it.
A bit bowed-instrument centric I fear. Many of the definitions and descriptions proffered also extended to plucked and hammered stringed instruments which are hardly mentioned.
Wound strings have a higher mass than pure gut strings. This enables low notes to be tuned without reducing much tension on the string. This allowed the lower strings to maintain a better dynamic balance with the higher ones.
Of course w/ Modern Synthetic & Steel Strings today none of them are False Strings anymore due to the fact that they're compound wound to make them flexible & they take a fraction of the time to make.
Congratulations on the book research, for the good video, and good music player! According to reports: Handmade strings "cat gut" have good sound in the "violas de cocho" (an old short-arm luth, missing link), but they should be strongly avoided [or maybe used in secret] because [the feline spirit emanating in spiritual trance dancing] always caused fights between musicians. 😅
Look here:grimmusik.com/2021/02/11/cello-strings-gut-vs-steel/ Steel Strings aren't actually brighter than Gut/Synthetic Strings, it's actually the other way around.
@@Qermaq In 1860 came Plain Steel E Strings and around 1874 came the 1st Flatwound Strings which were originally designed for bowed instruments to replace the Gut strings due to the fact that they last many times as long and they take a fraction of the time to break in.
4:39 This kinda reminds me of The Star Spangled Banner in Spanish (called El Pendon Estrellado) that's been recovered:ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HtX0lQMIg-E.html
