The transition from Netherlands to Australia has been a bit jarring for some of the instruments, and this hasn't been made easier by my travels between dry-ish and cold Canberra and the more humid and warmer air of Sydney. The instruments themselves have coped well enough, but the main problem has been the strings on the period instruments. The instruments in the modern classical setups have fared well enough.... their strings are steel and other forms of metal... durable, and not too responsive to changes in temperature and humidity.

However, the strings of the period instrument setups are made of gut... and they have had a bit of difficulty coping with the changes in atmosphere. It means that every time that I open the case... I'm wondering if I will have a full complement of strings on the instruments or not. For instance, I took out the d'amore last week... and it was down three strings out of the seven playing ones... and I will get around to replacing them soon enough, I just didn't have the time at that moment (I was just showing a student what it looked like).

This week, I was back down in Sydney... with the baroque violin and viola... and oddly enough, both instruments decided to throw off a g string (please don't... it isn't funny, and we've all heard the joke before, it isn't original! Resist the urge...) on the same day! The viola as I was playing it, and the violin sometime shortly before (it was in the case, and fifteen minutes before it was okay...).

Thankfully, the viola string broke nearer to the peg end... it was more an unwinding of the silver threading rather than a snap through the gut core. So, that meant that IF the remaining unbroken part of the string was long enough... it could be repurposed for the violin! These strings are pretty damn expensive, and at the moment, my supply is depleting as I've not found a decent supplier in Australia. I'm seriously considering just doing a large order from Europe.

As you can see in the leading photo, the string IS long enough... with enough extra length to be able to securely loop around the peg. Well, just enough... a few centimetres shorter and it would have not had enough length to be secure with friction alone.

Finding a sharp knife, I was able to slash off the portion of the string that was unwound. That meant that most of the threading that is usually used to identify the string would be gone... ah well, it wasn't much use anyway... and I know what it is, and another breakage would render it useless anyway.

Plus, there is the benefit of not needing to pre-stretch the string as it was already being used. Sadly, a little bit duller than a fresh string, but not disastrously so... and seeing as I'm down to my last violin g string, I do need to preserve a spare until I know that I can secure a decently priced supply somewhere. Meanwhile, I AM definitely out a viola g... no spares there... so, I'm going have to do an order soon, either from Europe and just cough up for the shipping... or from Australia, and cough up for the abnormally higher prices.

Meanwhile, I have a bit of sleuthing to do with the old violin g. It was a string that was given to me when I was short on strings... and I don't remember what it was. Not one of my usual ones, but I really like it. Well, I know that it is a silver would gut string... but that doesn't really narrow it down at all... all the period instrument strings are like that.

Some of my colleagues think it might be a Universale or Toro... I think I am more confident of the Toro identification, as that came from a string seller as well. So, he should know the markings better than us musicians... Now, it is time to break out the callipers and to try and figure out what the gauge is...

I can also be found cross-posting at:
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