This post is a follow-up to my previous posting about cello strings. I did not expect myself to go down such a deep rabbit hole here, though perhaps this displays a lack of self-knowledge. Anyone who has spent enough time around me knows how much I like tools, equipment and optimizing things. So in a sense the obsessive experience I had with string selection this past week should not have been as much of a surprise to me as it was.

I played a concert with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra at the end of the month and then promptly changed all of my strings over to the Pirastro Obligato set that I mentioned in my last posting. I wrote down my initial thoughts on the strings so as to keep track of their development. I wrote the following:

-A String rings nicely

-D String feels a bit stiff and closed initially

-G has response issues

-C Sounds and plays well but is unremarkable.

This wasn't a particularly sunny first run, however given that Obligatos are a synthetic string, I was expecting a break-in period of some kind and decided to stick with them for a week or two before decided yes or no. The cello did seem to breathe much more easily and I began to hear very alluring overtones that weren’t really there with the higher tension strings, so it wasn’t a complete bust right off the bat. There was hope.

The strings needed a lot of tuning for the first week because the synthetic core stretches so much more than a conventional steel core, meaning in order to achieve the same increase in frequency, it seems peg is turned three times as much. Additionally this means the fine tuners aren’t really useful since they bottom out so quickly. So I did a lot of peg tuning and it made me think about installing some geared pegs in the future.

A week later I felt as though the D string had not opened up and that it was difficult to know where to put my fingers, The A-string still sounded amazing, as always, and the G and C were starting to mellow out and become more predictable. I decided to change my D-string to what I thought was a lower tension Larsen String. The upper two strings were now steel core and the lower two synthetic and this sounded good, though in some ways sounded like two different instruments. I was satisfied with the change for the time being and decided I would use this at my MSO rehearsal this past Monday. I was immediately dissatisfied with the sound on the stage. I felt like I couldn’t hear my lower strings at all and blamed this on the low tension. The next day I began a serious and unfruitful deep-dive into various string combinations, some of which I had already tried, but having not taken any notes on them, I only remembered small impressions. I tried the Magnacores on the bottom first and they were fine for a short while. I then proceeded to cycle through every string in my Arsenal until I ended up with Spirocore and Versum Solos. I used these the following evening for a rehearsal with Madison Opera and they didn’t feel right to me on the stage with a smaller ensemble. It was like I could hear myself too well this time and couldn’t relax in to the blend.

The next day I went back to my obsessive string combination and tried to reset my orientation to the strings I’d been using vs what was on there before and decide what sound I was looking for exactly. Then I read an article which essentially derailed the whole experiment I had set for myself which was to try to figure out is a lower tension string would create a better sound. This particular article found on the Strad online here, made it clear that the tensions indicated by different manufacturers may be based on different string lengths, which essentially means that mixing and matching strings from different brands may make your tension calculations inaccurate.

This seems to be a thing about instruments. As with any thing you may be in relationship or process with, there is no formula that will help you arrive at the right conclusion, partly because of the unique character of the item or person, but also partly because there is no conclusion. There are so many differing thoughts about how to string an instrument and there is engineering behind the manufacture of strings, however it comes down to the listener to make an aesthetic choice. There will only ever be anecdotal and specific evidence as it relates to one instrument. Every little fitting may affect the sound in some way, and there are some rules to follow, but no one seems to know what the outcome will be for any specific cello. In other words, there is no predictability. The only solution is experimentation, application and process. This is frustrating for the scientist in me, but it is liberating for the artist because it means the playground is always open…..

Which is all to say that I decided to give all of my strings to Megan for safe keeping so that I don’t decide to change them again. I put the Obligatos back on and I think they sound great at home. They weren’t fully broken in yet anyhow and now they will be. No one can really hear the cello section in Overture hall anyway, so my projecting or not isn’t really something that needs to be accounted for. I will produce plenty of sound for the Opera and I think this setup will be ideally suited for chamber music in the future. An added bonus to this low-tension setup is that it will be kinder to the instrument. (Not changing strings everyday will also be kind) Lastly, I am excited by the possibility that the A String on this cello is so good, that I may be able to use a gut A string going forward, but that’s an experiment for another month.