zbd1960

I try to keep a poster and programme for all concerts I've sung/played in.

I suppose ultimately they're fairly 'niche' so numbers are not high, so that mitigates against manufacturers automating stuff etc. as there isn't the volumes to make it viable. The strings are common to various instruments, such as lute (a six course Renaissance lute in G has the same tuning as the tenor viol). Compared with say my cello, they are high maintenance. The top string will only last a 2 or 3 months at most as the gut starts to fray after a while and then snaps. Frets either stretch and won't hold their place, or they wear, in either case they need replacing. Viols, unlike the members of the violin family, sound much more consistent across the sizes (e.g. treble, tenor, bass vs violin, viola, cello). Part of it is probably that the tenor is the correct size for its pitch - the viola should be the size of the tenor viol, but because it's played 'da braccio' it can't be, so it's really too small for its pitch. This piece is for treble, tenor, and 2 bass viols. It's a choral piece, which I've sung a few times. https://youtu.be/-_E877TUqfU

Imagine the endless debate over the choice of aggregate for a concrete guitar... "Hey man, it's got to be MOT for that real hardcore sound...."

Each to their own - I know a lot of people like it, I don't personally. I'm not looking forward to all the hype and media attention that will ensue in determining where it will happen etc.

I had a number of issues with my left hand/arm/shoulder when playing cello, so equivalent of fretting. I had pain in my elbow and in my shoulder. I saw a physio and there were several issues conspiring together. My day job was designing computer systems, so I was sat at a computer all day using a mouse and I'm left-handed. A normal mouse introduces torsion into your forearm: compare your arm resting at your side when stood up vs how it is when using a mouse - there's a significant rotation. So one recommendation was get a vertical mouse. I had a work station assessment done at work and they not only got that, but a 'slope' which my keyboard sat under and I coudl pull it down to write without having to twist to the side. I also got a better headset for phone calls and a better chair. I had some tendinitis in the left elbow, so I was given some exercises for that. This was caused in part by gripping the cello neck too tightly - the thumb should really 'float' with almost no pressure and stay opposite ~2nd finger. I adopt the same approach with the bass. With cello being fretless, it is easy to apply too much pressure when fingering a note and in particular to squeeze with the thumb. We often carry a lot of tension in our neck/shoulders and modern work sat at a desk with a computer really doesn't help. If you have posture/stance issues, this can lead to all sorts of problems and an osteopath can help a lot with sorting out skeletal issues: use a physio for muscle/tendon/ligament issues. If in doubt, seek professional advice.

This has done the rounds in the classical music circles as well, "You'll never be a pro / concert soloist unless you've done a minimum of 10,000 hours..." etc. There is zero real evidential base for this. The reality is a conservatoire student will be playing for 8 or 10 hours a day for 4 years for their performance degree and they then may do a postgraduate / masters.

btw... it cost £120 to re-string the tenor viol. The bass will cost over £200...

I took the bow into the luthier I use for re-hairing my bows in Shrewsbury this afternoon. He confirmed it's carpet dust mites eating the bow hair. So, need to vacuum the case out and get some varmint repelling papers... Bow will be ready to pick up on Wednesday. EDIT. Just to add - it only seems to be an issue with the bass viol case - don't get it with tenor viol or cello. Very odd. Luthier said it's a common problem.

To whet your appetite for the bass viol... two strings have snapped and something has got at the bow - possibly some form of mite... tbh I suspect a full re-string needed...

I ordered some rosin from them a few weeks ago. Arrived OK after about 4 days.

Annoying - lost a post... I've tuned the viol to A415, which is 'baroque' pitch. Being gut, it will be several days before they've stretched and settled. Changes in humidity affect tuning as well. Some jobs left to do. The fingerboard needs a clean. And I need to tune the frets. The frets are double loops of fret gut which are tied on to the neck. Anyway, that completes the re-stringing of the tenor viol. Next job is to order some replacement strings for the bass viol and the small matter of getting one of the bows re-haired....

Eventually, I got all 6 strings changed. It's always useful to keep old strings if they're not broken as you never know when you may need one - gut strings are fickle. I label the envelopes with the string name and the date I changed them. Here you can see the tailpiece with all 6 strings - in the correct order - snugged up. The peg box could be better, but it's OK. And added to my collection of 'may be useful...'

Winding the string onto the peg is a real pain. Some strings you need to trim the length, others don't need it, and you can't always tell which do or don't until you've tried it sometimes. The bend you put in the end comes in handy as it helps with getting the string through the hole in the peg. It is easier to work from the nut end up, i.e. go string 6, 5, 4 then 1, 2, 3. I got 6,5,4 right, but forgot for the top 3, which made life unnecessarily difficult... Good practice is to put the first wind of the string 'past' the hole in the peg, then wind it so it comes back over the hole. If you're lucky (fat chance) it will trap the short tail of the string and bed it nicely under the turns... if only... Strings 5 and 6 are hard going due to being metal wound. The other string have a different issue: they do not come supplied with a loop. You have to create one. This is done by bending the end of the string then twisting the tail around the string. You don't need to put a knot in it. In theory... when you tighten the string it will all snug up tightly. At this point I need to make a confession - mea culpa... String #4 is the F string. It's not heavy enough to warrant being metal wound, but plain just isn't really up to it. You can get high twist gut strings made by twisting several thinner strands together. Another option, used here, is to have a single wire 'thread' which winds around the string in a spiral. I wanted the silver wire one, but they were out of stock, so this is copper. There's only £3 difference in cost. The 'mea culpa' is my pile of string envelopes was mis-sorted and I initially put string #3 in as #4... I realised when I got the wire wound out of the packet to start on #3... You can see in the photo that #4 has the wrong string on it... It all got sorted a few minutes later, just annoying.

There are a few things to think about when changing the strings, unlike a guitar, you cannot just remove all the strings as you risk the sound post falling over (same as with a violin). So you have to change one at a time. The new strings are coiled. You have to be careful handling them - you have to avoid putting a kink in the string as it will just snap at that point either as soon as you tune it up, or at some point later. Even if it doesn't snap, it will make the string sound 'false', i.e. it will not be in tune with itself - intonation will be off. I started the re-stringing at the bottom with string #6, the low G. This is a metal wound string with a gut core. The metal wounds strings have a loop, which simplifies matters. I used a pair of pliers to put a bend in the last few cm of the string to make it easier to get it into the tailpiece. You then carefully pull the string through then pass the end through the loop and tighten. It's not an issue with wire wound string, but with the plain gut ones, you have to be careful not to abrade the string on the hole in the tailpiece. Before going further, I use a soft 2B pencil to lubricate the bridge and nut string slots. The graphite in the pencil works quite well as a lubricant to stop the string catching. I can then pull the string through the loop and move onto the pain of winding it onto the peg...

OK - a series of posts about re-stringing a tenor viol (aka viola da gamba). The tenor viol in terms of pitch sits half-way between a modern cello and viola, with its lowest string being the G on the bottom of the bass clef. Strings are sold (generally) by their diameter and tension and inconveniently are not labelled as say "Tenor Viol string 6 - G", but at "2.50mm". This is because the same stirng might be used for stringing a lute, or another size of viol. You can end up making mistakes... which I will come to later. So, postie delivered a package of 6 new strings yesterday. As you can see you don't get much help beyond "plain gut 0.62mm" - that's the top G string. Here's today's patient: String #1, the top G, has snapped. The other strings are old and certainly number 2, 3, and 4 are very likely to snap when I tune it up. Gut strings, even heavy gauge ones will snap. There is a type used for low strings known as 'catline' which are plaited like a rope. They're much more robust, but their thick and you have to drill out the holes in the tailpiece... Here's the peg box: And the tailpiece Unlike guitars which have machine heads on the tuners, you have to wind a decent length of the string onto the peg. As you can see from the tailpiece, the bottom two strings have a loop provided on the string, the rest don't: you have to create your own - more on that later....

The viol strings should arrive today... Viol string generally do not have a loop on them, so you have to tie your own loop into the end of the string to fix the string to the tailpiece. One thing I am not looking forward to is re-tuning the frets, which will probably involve replacing a few as well. Frets on viols and lutes are not fixed like they are on guitars, they're lengths of gut that you tie onto the neck - there's a special way of tying them on known as a 'fret knot'. I'll document this further later and I'll see if I can find a useful YT link. As I wrote in the neck relief thread, the cello was not keen on the very hot weather. The instrument is kept most of the time in its Hiscox case and usually the tuning is very stable. My strings are a mix of Larson and Spirocore. Essentially they have a steel core and a 'tape' that's wound around them making for a nice smooth string. With the heat, the strings stretched and everything went very flat (about 15/20 cents). I checked the tuning in the cooler weather yesterday and as expected it had now gone sharp, but only by about 5 cents. I suspect it will move a bit more as the environment 'normalises'.

I checked the cello yesterday and as expected, it had gone sharp as the temperature had dropped - but not as far as I thought it might.

The classic 1970s colour of 'dysentery beige'

Yes, it's an unintelligent "AI" algorithms making these stupid assessments and not a real insurance broker / risk assessor. I agree, it's down to what is your primary income. If your primary income is being a secondary school teacher, then that's what's on your insurance. You might be a weekend bass warrior, but that's not your primary occupation. I agree that you will probably get more sense out of speaking with a proper insurance broker.

My cello is usually very stable. I had a lesson yesterday so got it out a few hours before hand as I suspected it would be troublesome and I was right. Strings were flat (in BC terms I suppose you would say they are flat wound, possibly tape wound? Steel core with a flat wire wrapped around). Usually it's just a slight adjustment with the fine-tuners, but it was way too flat for that, which means tuning from the pegs. So you drop the tuning and bring it up. It's hard going as there's a lot of tension on cello strings. Tuning wasn't stable though and it needed tweaking a few more times. Now that it's cooled significantly, strings will tighten, so I will need to watch that otherwise I'll be faced with strings snapping and I'd rather not fork out £120 for a new C string, although the A is the one likeliest to snap and they're about £40. I've kept my basses in their cases in the shade.

The straps on my Hiscox cello case can be worn as a rucksack, and you can get a purpose built harness to fit as well, but.... you have to watch going through doors as the head is well above the top of my head. You might be abe to install the same harness onto a hard case?

The back section of the shop is Curly Woodwind where I've spent some dosh on saxes in recent years...

The strings on my cello cost £300 a set and they're not even the most expensive you can get but 'average' 😭. Fortunately, only the A string is likely to need regular replacement and they're about £35... it's the lower strings which are painfully expensive

Amongst the eclectic (read 'weird') selection of instruments I play is the viola da gamba aka the viol. The three main instruments are the treble, tenor, and bass. There is the violone which is the double bass member of the family (and it is in fact the instrument DB are derived from). Viols are descended from the vihuela, which is also the ancestor of the guitar. Viols have 6 strings and are tuned in 4ths, apart from one pair which are a 3rd.... Sound familiar? Confusingly, the 3rd is not the same pair of strings as on a guitar... The tenor's tuning (well, standard tuning - there are others) two octaves starting the G on the bottom line of the bass clef: GCFADG. The instrument is fretted, but the frets are tied on by hand using lengths of fret gut (off-cuts of strings basically). You have to push them up and down the neck to tune them. The tenor viol uses the alto clef (C3) for notation, the same as the viola. Obviously, it goes into treble clef for higher pitched stuff. Anyway, the reason for this post is I've not played it for ages and I've decided it needs new strings. It takes gut strings (you cannot use metal string, the neck would snap). In the past I've used fancy mineral loaded gut strings for the lower strings etc. but I've gone for standard strings this time. The bottom two (5 and 6) are metal wound. For 4 I'm using gut with a single wire that spirals around the string. For 1, 2, and 3 plain gut. That's £120. Unlike modern cello strings, gut do not last. If playing regularly, the top string will go false, or snap, within a few months. That one is about £10. String 2 is also prone to snapping. The other strings are less likely to snap but tend to go 'false' i.e. the intonation goes out and it's not in tune with itself. Strings should be here next week, so I'll post photos of me tying the strings to the tail piece and close-ups of the strings. There will then follow immense pain whilst the tuning attempts to stabilise, which will not be helped by variable humidity. Gut unlike metal 'breathes' and it absorbs or releases water vapour as the humidity varies. This affects the mass per unit length of the string which alters the tuning. It can take several hours for the strings to reach equilibrium during which time you will be re-tuning every 5 or 10 minutes.

Crosby comes under Sefton, which used to be Lancashire until they played around with the counties back in 1973