Strings for Musical Instruments of the Baroque and Romantic Periods

Abstract

Strings of musical instruments can be excited by plucking, bowing or striking and can vibrate in several modes. The main parameters which characterize the strings are the diameter, the length, the mass per unit length, the stiffness, the normal playing tension and the inharmonicity of the overtones. Inharmonocity is favoured by short, thick and high stiffness strings. Strings are made in organic materials (gut and silk) or in metal. Strings in gut and silk are used for lutes and guitars, for the instruments from the violin family and harps. Gut strings are made from animal intestines. Silk strings are produced from mulberry silkworm protein fibres. Strings produced with natural materials are very flexible and have remarkable mechanical properties, but are very sensitive to the variations of temperature and relative humidity of the air which affect their pitch. For increasing stability of lower pitch strings it is common to introduce an extra mass, which is a metallic layer used to overwind the strings having a gut, silk or metallic core. Different alloys – brass, copper, iron, steel, silver and gold have been used for metallic strings of keyboard instruments. Harps have gut and metallic strings. Piano strings are exclusively in steel, the lower strings are overlapped with copper or brass to add mass and to reduce the high stiffness of steel.