D’Addario Bowed Strings Blog

D'Addario Today: The Story

2011-11-07T13:40:00.005-05:00

By Jim D'Addario

In the very early years of this iteration of our company – 1973 -1981, we bought machinery from two companies that made machines for the string industry. We purchased about 12 winding machines. Being mechanically inclined, I assumed the responsibility of keeping these machines running. By spending 80% of my time on the factory floor, I quickly learned how inadequately designed and manufactured these machines were. I also quickly learned that there are key variables in the manufacture of music strings that need to be controlled to maintain product quality and consistency; I was also concerned about the safety of our employees as these machines did not have features that would stop a machine quickly if a string had broken during winding.

One variable, for instance, is the tension that is applied to the wrap wire during winding; this is crucial to the tone and life of a string. The methods for applying tension were primitive and varied greatly as a spool of wire ran and slowly emptied itself. Maintaining the perfect wire feed angle pitch in relationship to the core was also impossible on the machines we purchased.

At the time, my mother, Mary D’Addario, was running the Packaging Department and one of her employees, saw that I was always trying to improve the machines. She told me that her son-in-law, Gino, had a machine shop right in our backyard; it was literally behind our factory’s parking lot. It was a small shop and he and his partner Luigi were old world craftsmen from Northern Italy. I had no engineering skills or education, but I had ideas on how I could improve things like the control of tension on the wrap wire on our machines. I would sketch things out and take them to Gino’s shop and he would make parts for me. Quickly, I began to improve and modify the machines, so much so that I would not let the makers of the machines in our shop from that point on. I did not want them seeing the competitive advantages we were developing; this way, they could not incorporate them into machines they might make for our competitors.

Around that time, my father-in-law, Robert Carbone, was out of work and he had some background in engineering and drafting. I hired him to draft my ideas for various machine improvements. I would sketch, he would detail, then Gino’s shop would make the parts. I would then assemble the parts and test them on the machines. Slowly, our knowledge and skill level increased and increased, and our machines became more and more reliable and more sophisticated than our competitors. Most of all, our strings became more consistent than any of our competitors. To this day, when we survey the consumer base for our guitar strings, the one adjective that is used most often to describe our strings over and over again is consistency!

As we needed more machines, I would order them from one of the suppliers; and then when they came in, I would rip sections apart and modify them with our trade secrets. We purchased about 8 more machines before this vendor realized we were growing fast and began to jack up the prices to ridiculous levels. The revelation came that we simply needed to design our own machines. We used ideas from both vendors, the new ideas I was developing and many other new innovations to design our own winding machine in 1976. This was a major breakthrough for us. We were paying as much as $18,000 for a winding machine back then, and I was able to build a better machine for under $4,000. Gino’s shop made all of the parts and I assembled them, wired the control panels, debugged and installed the machines. Gino is now retired and we have an extensive machine building shop of our own with over 15 full-time employees building and rebuilding production equipment. Gino’s successors still make parts for us as we do not have the capacity to build all of them in house. Gino’s mother-in-law has since passed away as has my mother, but his daughter Nadia works as an executive assistant in our office.

By 1980, my father-in-law had left our employ and I had acquired enough drafting skill to design the parts and assemblies for the machines I was building. Doing this along with marketing and other business management activities was a bit of a challenge, so I decided to hire engineering help. Jim Rickard, who was the original engineer under Charlie Kaman at Ovation, joined our company for about 10 years. Jimmy is credited with bringing the Ovation guitar into production and for developing the first commercially-successful piezo electric pick up system to the acoustic guitar. His achievements were countless at Ovation. Amplifying the Ovation acoustic made it the choice of Glen Campbell, Cat Stevens and many others over the years.

Jim worked directly under me and helped design and build equipment. We now had two engineering people and we significantly expanded our expertise. There wasn’t a subject that Ricky (as he was nicknamed in the industry) didn’t have in-depth knowledge about. He drew everything with paper and pencil as did I. My geometry and math skills were limited, so he was a big help, as was the Mechanical Engineers Handbook and a small trigonometry pamphlet I still have in my desk today.

Then the personal computer arrived. In December 1982, I saw a demonstration of AutoCAD on an IBM personal computer and I knew instantly that this was a tool that would change my work life. I was one of the first 100 in the world to buy a copy of this program and an IBM XT computer, with a 10 meg hard drive (imagine all that storage), a 360K floppy for backing up (wow!) and a green monochrome screen that required a Hercules graphics card adaptor to double the screen resolution so you could draw.

It was slow, limited, but accurate! I could draw what I wanted to scale and it would calculate the dimensions for me. All the time wasted with the trigonometry manual was history. Suddenly, I could design things I never dreamed of. Also, if I needed to move something or make major changes, it was no different than editing a word processing document.

In 1981, we acquired Kaplan Music Strings. Otto Kaplan and his father Ladislav were machine designing geniuses. In fact, I have some Ladislav’s colored pen and ink machine assembly drawings framed in my office. Their business was tiny and in the back of their Norwalk, Connecticut home, just like my granddad’s was. In 1949, the year I was born, Otto designed a machine he called the Kaplamatic. He only built one of these machines in his life. It was an elaborate machine, for the time. It was designed to make violin and viola strings with one layer of winding and then polish that string with three different polishing mediums, all without taking the string off the machine.

This machine was the mainstay of the company we purchased. Otto had passed away, and the machine was worn out and not really running reliably anymore. With the mechanics, we tried to keep the machine running for about a year or so, then I realized that I needed to bite the bullet, rip this thing apart, redesign it and make the Kaplamatic II. This coincided perfectly with my purchase of ACAD in 1982. I bought a second PC, with only two floppy drives because I couldn’t afford $5,400 for another XT with a hard drive. I had the PC on a table behind the couch in our TV room; and as the family watched TV each night, I sat there learning ACAD and designed KII. The program was on five floppy disks and since there was no hard disk, if I called for a command that was on a different disk, it would prompt me to insert Disk 2 or 3 or whatever. But to me, compared to a pencil, and vellum, and erasers, and math errors, it was a marvel of modern technology.

As I completed sections of this machine, I detailed the parts drawings, printed them on an HP laser printer that cost about $4,000 at the time, and Ed Vincent, our only machinist back then, made the parts. From start to finish, we designed and built the KII in only three months!

It’s now 2011 and Matt, one of our engineers, is nearly finished with the Kaplamatic VII. We have one of the KVIIs in the shop nearing completion; and after it is tested, 5 more will be built to respond to the increased demand for our bowed strings. More significantly, this new KVII is full of the most modern technology ever built into a string machine and will allow us to make more complicated string designs with less labor and higher quality.

In 1983, I realized that ACAD was the way to go, but it took me over a year to get Ricky to use it. He just wouldn’t put his pencil down. Finally, after using it for several years, he actually left the company and returned to Connecticut to became and AutoCAD dealer and trainer (imagine!). He unfortunately passed away prematurely at the age of 54.

Over the years, as our company grew and we added products, brands and capacity, our need for engineering and machine building continued to increase each year. I began hiring engineers. At this point, our Engineering Department in New York is run by Steve Murray (who was hired, I believe, 25 years ago). Steve supervises 6 other engineers and the entire machine building staff. We also have one full-time product designing engineer, Bob Miller, who started as a machinist with us, learned ACAD, ProE and MasterCam and is now a senior design engineer.

At Rico in Sun Valley, California, we have a team of 5 engineers who design and build reed making machinery. Since the 2004 acquisition of Rico, we have essentially duplicated the innovation and engineering model we created at D’Addario, but in a very, very short time (7 years). Our work is not finished, but the science of growing and harvesting cane, cutting poles, sorting tubes, splitting, blanking and machining reeds has seen more innovation in 7 years than in the last 100 at Rico and all of our competitors combined. By 2014, we will have reinvented every aspect of reed making and we will then cycle back through each process with continuous improvement in mind.

After the AutoCAD awakening in 1982, I was still actively designing and assembling machinery. Slowly, as we grew and my staff grew along with me, I did not have the time to be as hands on; I have now evolved into creating the vision for the projects with our engineering teams and then helping them realize that vision. Many times, it will start with me sketching ideas in ACAD and kindling the idea with our team. On other occasions, our engineers will conceive and complete the entire project on their own. It is a far cry from the days when I would be assembling machines all day, in between taking calls, designing marketing campaigns and doing artist relations work. In those days, I had a shop in my basement where I wired all the control panels after dinner at night. I would take all of the components home and assemble and wire them so I could do the work without interruption.

There were times when we assembled 20 winding machines at one time. We usually built Kaplamatics in lots of 4 or 6. The last lot of Kaplamatics was built in 1995 to 1997 when we moved into our present headquarters. Guitar winding machines have had many, many more iterations, so many that I have lost count. Our team also does elaborate rebuilds of existing machinery. We just finished a huge rebuild of guitar winding machines that I assembled 30 years ago. After rebuilding, they are essentially as good as a machine we would design today.

The budgets for 2011 and 2012 have the largest capital expenditure budgets in our history. In New York, we are building 13 double winders, 6 Kaplamatic VIIs, many molds for Evans, 4 ball coiling machines, to mention just a couple of the main projects. Rico is designing a completely digital reed vamp cutting technology that will replace the original Rico vamping machinery and the French/Franke type machinery that is used at Rico and Vandoren today. We will essentially be able to digitally change the model and cut of a reed on the fly. The quality, precision and consistency of this new technology will be unparalleled. The first prototype is being assembled right now.

Rico is also in the process of fully automating the cane pole processing from field to finished product. We have already installed 4 automatic pole cutting machines at our French plantation location, Hyeres, and now automated splitting sawing and sorting machinery is being developed.

At Pro-Mark, in just 9 months, we have installed 6 new centerless grinding machines and water filtration equipment. This was over a $1 million investment in Pro-Mark's infrastructure. The first, new 5A PM sticks off this process are already in production. The improvement in quality from this move will be ground breaking for Pro-Mark.

While it is essential to design 90+%of our machinery in-house because of its specialized nature, we do integrate stock, available machinery where possible. A perfect example is the new Planet Waves – American Stage cable line we are ramping up in production right now. A combination of stock wire feeding, stripping and coiling machinery, along with custom designed robotic soldering equipment, have created a production work cell that will enable us to market an American-made cable competitively against imported products.

Our philosophy of continuously investing in our companies will never change. It is a formula that has been our success and we will continue to nurture the culture of innovation and continuous improvement in all our factories.

Support Your Local Violin Shop!

2011-09-20T10:14:00.000-04:00

I was at The Long Island Violin Shop, my local shop, toattend one of their many informative seminars and noticed that the violinsplayed by the children during the seminar sounded very good. This was noaccident. The shop owner is violin maker Charles Rufino, who learned his tradeat several great violin shops.

Most people find the lowest price and buy things over theinternet. This may be fine for things like electronic gadgets or certain violinaccessories. But it is definitely NOT recommended for violins. There are huge variations in the quality of violins. Eventhe same model violin from the same source can be different because everypiece of wood is different. That is why your local violin shop is so important.A good shop will select the best instruments for the money, and mostimportantly, they will set them up so they sound their best and are easy toplay.

The importance of setup cannot be overemphasized. Poor setupcan turn any violin into a bad violin. Small, children’s violins are actuallymore difficult to set up (due to their small size) than adult, full-sizedviolins. Inexpensive violins are also more difficult to set up. Good setuprequires the skills of a well trained violin maker.

Some of the more obvious examples of poor setup are:

Tuning pegs that will not stay in tune
Bridge and soundpost not adjusted properly. Since the string vibrations travel through the bridge to the violin body, the bridge can make a big difference in sound. It takes a lot of skill and time to cut a good bridge
The fingerboard and neck is not shaped properly, making it difficult to play
Cheap strings that sound terrible and are hard to play

When you buy or rent a violin over the internet from anunknown supplier, you don’t know what you’re getting. Even if you do businesswith a reputable shop over the internet, the violin can easily be knocked outof adjustment during shipping, requiring a re-adjustment.

Finally, it does not make sense to buy children’sinstruments. For the same price, you can rent a much higher quality instrumentfrom your local shop and they are responsible for the proper setup. If you canbuy an instrument cheaper than you can rent it, it will undoubtedly be what ispolitely called a “violin shaped object.” Your child will soon outgrow theirinstrument anyway, or worse, quit because they are so frustrated by a badinstrument.

So please, please support your local violin shop. And useD’Addario strings (we make fractional sized versions of our most popular strings such as Prelude, Pro-Arte, Helicore and Zyex)for the best sound and easiest response!

Happy Birthday Norman Pickering!

2011-08-05T17:27:00.001-04:00

My mentor Norman Pickering turned 95 last month! To do his life justice would require several long books but here are some highlights. An early hand injury playing baseball ended his aspirations as a professional violinist, and he switched to the French Horn. After receiving his engineering degree, he graduated from Juilliard (he was a classmate of the late cellist Bernard Greenhouse), then played horn in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra in the late 1930s before joining the E.G. Conn company in 1940. There he did research into musical instruments and helped design many instruments, including a role in the design of the famous Conn 8D French Horn, used by most of the major United States Orchestras. He also taught at the famous Interlochen music camp. With the start of World War II, the E.G Conn factory was converted to making precision gyroscopes used in airplane navigation, sparking his interest in flying and aviation. He returned to the New York City area and was a regular substitute during the 1940s in the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera and other orchestras. His dissatisfaction with the quality of audio reproduction led him to design the first lightweight, high fidelity phonograph pickup cartridge. Versions of the Pickering cartridge are still sold today. He was one of the founders of the Audio Engineering Society in 1948. He was conductor George Szell’s personal recording consultant for several years. He did research into violin acoustics and somehow found the time to make over 50 violins and violas. He was active in the Violin Society of America since its early days and served as President. One of his significant accomplishments was to popularize violin acoustics to violin makers. He also was a pioneer in using ultrasound to image the human eye.

D’Addario entered the violin string business with the purchase of the Kaplan String Company in 1981. They became aware of Norman’s research into strings and hired him in 1983. He designed all of D’Addario’s bowed strings until I started at D’Addario in 1999. The Helicore string line is one of his most well known accomplishments in string design. I owe my success at D’Addario and the violin acoustics world to Norman.

Although his arthritis limits his physical activities, Norman is still mentally as sharp as ever! Happy Birthday!

Violin Open E String Whistling Problem (Part 3)

2011-06-24T17:14:00.006-04:00

Let us explore some common beliefs about whistling E-strings.

"The open E whistles easier if you play a D natural right before it." False. The D natural has no effect on the whistling; it just happens to be the most common note played before the open E.

"The open E whistles easier on a down bow." False. The E will whistle on an up bow just as well. It has so happens that crossing from the D to E string is most commonly done on a down bow.

"The bow hair needs more rosin, or needs to be rehaired." There is some truth to this. If the bow hair is in poor condition or lacks rosin, this will make it harder to start a normal note and make it easier to whistle. However, if your bow hair has enough rosin, adding more will not prevent whistling.

"Gold plated E strings are easier to whistle." There is some anectodal evidence to support this, but no proof. If true, it might be due to the smoothness of the gold plating, which reduces torsional damping due to the string rubbing against the bridge string notch and nut.

Certain types of plastic sleeves or string notch covering may make whistling easier. I recently encountered violins with bad whistling problems that had a very smooth and shiny bridge string notch covering material instead of the traditional parchment.

Any adjustments to violin setup that changes the response of the E-string can affect whistling. However, there is no single violin adjustment that will prevent whistling in all cases. Therefore, luthiers might go through a lengthy list of adjustments, including soundpost, bridge setup, changing the shape of string notches, the tailpiece assembly, etc. in hopes of finding a cure. The only remedy that will work all the time is to use a string like our Kaplan Solutions non-whistling E (KS311W 4/4M).

Violin Open E String Whistling Problem (Part 2)

2011-06-01T17:40:00.003-04:00

When I designed the Kaplan Solutions non-whistling E-string (KS311W 4/4M), I spent hours trying to make an E string whistle so I could take some measurements. This after years of trying to achieve just the opposite!

Last summer at the VSA-Oberlin Acoustics Workshop, Aaron Boyd, concertmaster of the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, taught me a very reliable way to whistle an open E. Start the bow moving above the string first, then contact the E string. This works equally well down or up bow! I then remembered a talk by acoustics researcher Knut Guettler where he showed that quick and clean starts of (normal) bowed notes required just the right amount of bow acceleration. I finally realized why preventing an E string from whistling is so difficult.

The normal bowed string vibrates in a transverse (side-to-side) motion, producing a saw-tooth shaped waveform. This motion is called the Helmholtz motion after the great 18^th century German physicist Hermann Helmholtz who discovered it. Only certain combinations of bow speed, acceleration and pressure produces a stable Helmholtz motion.

When the bow contacts the string while it is already moving (such as crossing to the open E string from the A string), conditions are favorable for the start of torsional vibrations, and unfavorable for the start of normal transverse vibrations. One rarely whistles an open E-string when starting a note with the bow already on the string, or after changing bow directions, or when playing repeated notes because in these situations the bow starts each note with zero velocity, which favors the start of normal transverse vibrations over the torsional.

Therefore, the way to prevent the whistling E using bowing technique is to stop or slow the bow before it contacts the E-string. In addition, an increase in bow pressure on the E will favor the transverse motion over the torsional, and that is typically what players try to do. However, this usually fails because the increase bow pressure is often accompanied by an increase in bow speed, which is the exact opposite of what is needed! Unfortunately, the bowing conditions required to prevent the whistling may be undesirable musically.

In part 1, I discussed how wound E-strings can solve the whistling problem. In the next part, I will explore some common beliefs about whistling E-strings, and what might be done to minimize the problem through instrument setup.

Violin Open E String Whistling Problem (Part 1)

2011-05-25T13:46:00.001-04:00

One of the most frustrating problems for violinists is the whistling E string. You play on the D string and when you cross over to the open E, it whistles with an annoying high frequency squeal. Or you play a chord in Bach and the open E string whistles.

This whistling is not due to poor bowing technique: I have heard the best violinists in the world whistle their open E-strings.

The whistling open E string is caused by the string vibrating in a torsional (twisting) motion rather than the normal Helmholtz (transverse or sideways) motion. The torsional vibration frequency for an unwound plain steel E-string is approximately 4,800 Hz (an open E is 660 Hz), and independent of the diameter of the string or the tuning. The torsional damping (damping is how quickly the vibrations die away) is extremely low, so once the string starts to vibrate torsionally, it does not want to stop very quickly. Your finger tip provides very high damping, and that is why the whistling does not occur with stopped notes. (Stopped notes can still squeak due to low string damping and poor bow technique, but that phenomena is generally not due to torsional behavior.)

The lower strings don’t have whistling problems because the windings provide extremely high torsional damping. That is why a wound E-string (for example our Helicore H311W) is more whistle resistant than plain E-strings. We also add a damping compound to our wound E-strings which increases torsional damping. For the ultimate whistle-proof E-string, try our Kaplan Solutions Non-Whistling E string (KS311W 4/4M). In addition to the winding and added damping compound, it uses a stranded steel core, which lowers the torsional frequency and further increases torsional damping.

The Kaplan Solutions Non-whistling E-string is also very sweet sounding compared to solid steel E-strings, yet has plenty of power due to its high playing tension, comparable to heavy tension solid steel E-strings. The string has a solid ball-end, which cannot be removed, so we include an adapter which allows it to be used with common hook type fine tuners.

In part 2, I will discuss why it is so difficult to prevent an E string from whistling.

Playing Harmonics

2011-05-04T11:25:00.005-04:00

One of the most overlooked aspects of playing harmonics on bowed string instruments is the bowing point. A common cause of harmonics not sounding is that the bowing point is too far away from the bridge.

When playing higher notes, the bowing point usually has to move closer to the bridge, since the vibrating string length is shorter. (The same proportional bowing point to the bridge is closer to the bridge in absolute distance for a shorter vibrating string length.) We usually make this bowing adjustment automatically as our left hand moves up the fingerboard when playing really high notes.

When bowing harmonics, one must remember the bowing point needs to be based on the effective vibrating length of the harmonic and the actual sounded pitch, and not where the left hand actually stops the note. For example, the typical artificial harmonic is played in the low positions, but actually sounds two octaves higher, so it must be bowed as if you were playing the normally stopped note two octaves higher. (In this particular case, the string is actually vibrating in four short segments, like four links in a sausage.) This means the bowing point must be closer to the bridge.

Addendum: I should add that the bowing speed and force (pressure) should also be based on the effective vibrating length of the harmonic and the actual sounded pitch, and not where the left hand actually stops the note.

False Strings

2011-04-26T10:30:00.002-04:00

I discuss false strings in the latest June 2011 issue of Strings Magazine. Here’s the beginning of the article:

"One of the most common questions about stringed-instrument strings is about the nature of false strings. What is a false string? Musicians often use the term to describe any string that does not sound right, such as a string that sounds dead or won’t bow properly. However, a false string technically occurs when a string doesn’t produce the correct pitch due to a lack of uniformity or defects. In rare cases, the instrument itself may be the source of intonation issues.

To understand false strings, it helps to understand a few basic concepts. When we talk about uniformity, what we mean is that the string is not what physicists call an “ideal string.” An ideal string is uniform in density and mass along its length and is completely flexible. This ideal guides the choices that string designers make with materials and varieties of string design.

False strings were more common when gut was the primary string material. Gut strings are a natural product made from highly processed sheep intestines…”

Fortunately, false brand new strings are extremely rare today. However, strings can become false with use. For more details, see the rest of my article "How to Know if False Strings are Hurting your Sound." A subscription to Strings Magazine is required to access the article.

Chamber Music Lovers

2011-04-15T18:22:00.003-04:00

My favorite activity is playing chamber music! Chamber music lovers will go to great lengths to play with friends. Last month I flew all the way (from New York) to Los Angeles just to attend a chamber music party. Not just any chamber music party, but Eve Cohen’s famous annual Composers Chamber Music Party, with over 60-80 people, lasting past midnight. Haydn, father of the string quartet, and my favorite chamber music composer, was the featured composer this year, so I could not miss it! I was part of the last group, playing until 3:30am!

Eve knows most of the amateur chamber music players in the LA area. I first played with her over 30 years ago when I was in college at Caltech. The next time was 10 years later, my first summer at the Chamber Music Conference and Composers’ Forum of the East, known as “Bennington” since it has been held at Bennington College (Vermont) for decades. Bennington is one of the oldest and largest adult amateur chamber music programs, in its 66th year. We spend all of our waking hours playing chamber music. I have been going for 20 years, but I am still a babe compared to those who have made their annual trips to Vermont for 30 or 40 years!

If you are a serious chamber music lover, check out Bennington and perhaps I will see you there!

Violinist Alexander Markov at Carnegie Hall

2011-04-08T12:13:00.001-04:00

Last October, almost 30 years after his Carnegie Hall debut recital, violinist Alexander Markov returned to a sold out Carnegie Hall to perform his own “Rock Concerto”. He repeated a version of this concert in the Norwalk Concert Hall (Connecticut) last week to a much smaller, but no less enthusiastic audience. The Norwalk Concert Hall brought back fond memories since I grew up in neighboring Wilton and spent many Saturday mornings rehearsing with the Norwalk Youth Symphony in this hall.

Alex became interested in rock music during high school and it became a passion along with Paganini. He commissioned a custom 6-string violin (it is actually viola sized) to use in his rock band, but he was very frustrated with the guitar strings he was using which could not be bowed easily. I designed a special low F string for his instrument, which uses a magnetic pickup, and he was thrilled with the results!

Alex performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto for the first half of his Carnegie Hall concert. It was an extremely satisfying “old-fashioned” performance, more concerned with emotional communication as expressed through Alex’s own unique tone and phrasing rather than the more “clean and correct” playing of most modern performances. For his Norwalk concert, he played a variety of show pieces. My favorite was his remarkable performance of the Paganini “Moses” Fantasy Variations played all on the G-string. It was also delightful to hear the Sarasate “Navarra” duet with his father Albert Markov, who is still in remarkable playing shape. And of course he played his signature Paganini 24th Caprice (watch on YouTube) with its famous left-hand pizzicato variation.

Alex has revised his Rock Concerto since the Carnegie concert. The Carnegie version was more dramatic and operatic, with a huge chorus, and long sections. The pacing of the Norwalk version was much improved, with shorter sections, and featured Alex more prominently. The most heartfelt moments were Alex’s lyrical solos, tinged with bitter sweetness. It must have been difficult for his family to emigrate from the Soviet Union in the 1970s. Did I hear echoes of this? The music is completely different, but it calls to mind the emotional landscape of the musical Fiddler on the Roof.

American String Teachers Association Convention

2011-04-01T08:57:00.004-04:00

I attended the American String Teachers Association annual convention in Kansas City two weeks ago with Lyris Hung, our Bowed Brand Manager. Scott Laird, music educator at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, was there as well representing D’Addario. With almost a thousand teachers in attendance, our D’Addario booth was mobbed and we quickly ran out of posters and other items!

There were hundreds of presentations, as many as ten simultaneously, and I wish I could have gone to all of them! Lyris and I presented our own session “Demystifying your strings” and we could have stayed for hours answering questions. Several of our artists presented clinics, including Christian Howes, Julie Lyonn Lieberman, Jeremy Cohen (Quartet San Francisco), Eric Gorfain (The Section Quartet), Pedro de Alcantara, Scott Laird and electric violinist Mark Wood. Mark Wood and his band, joined by the Olathe Area Youth Symphony closed the Convention with an exciting concert. Lyris remarked that students are often weak in rhythm, but this orchestra, inspired by Mark, was rockin and groovin! Middle aged classical string teachers were doing the same in the audience!

Lyris and I also visited the Kansas City Symphony to answer questions about strings. We were hosted by Christine Grossman, their principal violist, and a D’Addario string player. We attended their concert and I thought Kansas City was fortunate to have this wonderful orchestra. The strings played with a warm cohesive tone, the principal wind players were excellent, and the balance between the sections outstanding. They seem to have strong support from the community and everyone is looking forward to their new home in the $400million Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. We walked by the complex which is nearing completion and it looked spectacular!

The Violin Society of America 2010 Convention

2010-11-22T16:11:00.021-05:00

The 2010 VSA Convention was our biggest and most successful convention ever, with over 500 instruments and bows entered in the competition. The list of winners are here. Congratulations to Jeff Phillips who won Gold Medals for his violin and viola, and Peter Goodfellow who won a Gold Medal for his cello! Congratulations to all the other medal and certificate winners as well, and all those who competed. The standards rise every year and there were some excellent instruments that did not even win awards!

There was simply not enough time, even over a whole week, to attend all of the interesting activities and presentations and catch up with friends and colleagues. There was a wonderful study exhibit of Old Italian and French Masters organized by Jim Warren which showed the fascinating connections between the various makers: I was drawn to an exquisite Rogeri next to one of his Maggini copies which had previously been attributed to Maggini himself.

My favorite instruments were in the Hors Concours and Innovation Exhibit room, which I help organize. We had a gorgeous exhibit of VSA Hors Concours winners (VSA Competition winners who are no longer eligible to compete because they won too many Gold medals!) plus other past competition winners and the competition judges. I saw for the first time a bow by bow judge Stephane Thomachot, one of the most influential living bow makers. I spent many hours with Hors Concours bow maker Gregor Walbrodt: his viola bow was so fantastically balanced and handled so well that it could have been mistaken for a violin bow! Hors Concours bow maker and newly elected VSA President Rodney Mohr had a large selection of bows on display, the most interesting and fun being his 4G bass bow. It is so beautifully made that one only noticed on closer inspection that it was made out of recycled materials and pieces of pernambuco laminated together. Embedded in the frog was a 4Gigabyte memory chip that can be hooked up to a computer USB port!

One of my favorite violins in the exhibit was by Joseph Grubaugh and Sigrun Seifert, but the star of the show was a bass guitar they made inspired by an old guitarron. Look at that gorgeous back (picture of Joe and bass guitar at right)! Joe had a cardboard model of a viola they plan to make using a similar technique of bending the plates.

Here are some interesting presentations I heard: Christina Linsenmeyer, curator at the new Musical Instruments Museum in Phoenix, Arizona…Innovative bass maker Jim Ham who has turned his attention cellos, violas and violins…Alex Sobolev and John Bell on rapid manufacturing techniques for the 21st century, and their digital violin project…The latest research results from our “Vieuxtemps” del Gesu project, with Joseph Curtin showing the apparent importance of the acoustic response due to the excitation of the bridge in the previously neglected vertical direction, and Terry Borman showing modal animations integrated with CT scan data…Hors Concours bow makers David Samuels and Yannick Le Canu discussing Dominique Peccatte… Bernd Musing of Arcus discussing carbon fiber materials for violins and bows, and how the frequency of the first bending mode for a bow stick affects sound…Violin maker and historical researcher Carlo Chiesa on little known facts about Cremonese makers delivered in his unique entertaining style…David Gage on bass setup…Tom Croen on fingerboards…Ned Steinberger showing his latest lightweight NS Electric violin…Jeff Van Fossen and Roger Zabinski of Coda Bow discussing how they design their carbon fiber bows.

Other memorable activities: playing Doug Martin’s latest ultralight balsa violins – their aesthetics remind me of the instruments portrayed in Picasso and Braque’s Cubist paintings…Discussions and debates on violin acoustics, competitions and other topics with many people, often at midnight…Watching competition judge Bill Scott giving critique to competition competitors with the utmost patience, tirelessly …Watching David Samuels plane a bow blank at the Bow Forum…Playing most of the 200 violins in the competition!

VSA-Oberlin Acoustics Workshop 2010

2010-06-02T15:19:00.000-04:00

I will be at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music (Ohio) next week for our ninth annual VSA-Oberlin Acoustics Workshop. Violin maker Joseph Curtin and I started this workshop in 2002 and this year, 50 people will gather for a week of violin acoustics presentations, demonstrations, and projects. I feel lucky to spend each summer with many of the world’s leading violin makers and acoustics researchers and would like to introduce some of them.

Joseph Curtin is a winner of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship (popularly known as the “Genius” awards) and was the first musical instrument maker to be so honored. Faculty member Sam Zygmuntowicz’s instruments are played by many of the world’s leading soloists, including the Emerson Quartet. He recently completed the Strad3D DVD, which documents the Strad3D project that we did in 2006, measuring three of the world’s greatest violins, the 1715 “Titian” Stradivari, the 1735 “Plowden” Guarneri del Gesu, and the 1734 “Willemotte” Stradivari. This DVD contains high resolution photographs, videos, recordings, acoustic measurements, CT scans, instrument data, and essays by prominent researchers, and will provide many fascinating hours of browsing.

George Stoppani is a modern Renaissance man: in addition to making modern and baroque violins, violas, cellos and basses, he makes gut strings, and has written sophisticated software which we use at the workshop to analyze the vibrations of violins. Evan Davis is the head of Boeing Aircraft's Acoustics Laboratory and is applying his expertise in Statistical Energy Analysis, a technique used to predict the vibrational behavior of complex systems (for example, airplanes), to analyze the violin. Professor George Bissinger is the principal researcher in the Strad3D project, which was the first time a 3D laser vibration scanner was used to measure the vibrations of a violin. Professor Colin Gough has turned his attention to violin acoustics after his recent retirement from the University of Birmingham and a career researching high temperature superconductors. Claudia Fritz is a researcher at the Musical Instruments, Acoustics and Music Laboratory (LAM) in Paris. Her interest is in the psychoacoustics and the qualitative evaluation of violins and the work she did at the University of Cambridge can be found here.

Bill Scott is a VSA Hors Concours winner, which means means he can no longer compete in VSA competitions by virtue of winning three Gold Medals! Raymond Schryer has won several Gold and Silver Medals at the VSA and Triennale (Stradivari Cremona) Competitions. Feng Jiang has won a Gold and Silver medal at VSA Competitions. I love to play the violins and violas from all these makers. This summer, I look forward to meeting for the first time Marko Pennanen, a young Finnish maker who won First Prize at last year’s Triennale Competition in Cremona.

In addition to these prize winning makers, we have makers from other backgrounds who were bitten by the violin making bug. They bring different perspectives to violin making and acoustics. Doug Martin is a designer of rowing shells, and introduced the use of balsa as an ultralight violin construction material, along with his method of rapid prototyping to the workshop. Ted White is an ex-biology professor who spends most of his time now to making violins, and collaborated with Jim Ham to make an ultralight cello. Tom King is a retired economist who devotes most of his free time to violin making, when he is not busy as the treasurer of the Violin Society of America.

A new participant this year is Thomas Pinstrup, acoustic engineer and string designer at Larsen Strings. I am sure we will have some interesting conversations about strings! Another new participant I look forward to meeting is Zachary Moen, a lawyer who is studying to be a violin maker, and who plans to blog daily from the acoustics workshop.

There are five other VSA sponsored programs at Oberlin this summer: violin making, bow making, violin restoration, and bow restoration. A new program is the Bass Workshop, led by acoustic workshop alumni Jim Ham, David Gage, and Jay VandeKopple. Jim is one of the most innovative instrument makers in the world, and he has begun to apply his innovative approach from basses to violins, violas, and cellos. David Gage’s bass shop in New York City is a "must visit" shop for all bass players. The bass workshop will be held concurrently with the acoustics workshop, and there promises to be lots of cross-fertilization between the two programs and participants.

These are only a few of the fascinating people that will be at Oberlin next week. They all share a passion for instruments and music, and learning how bowed instruments work. It promises to be another exciting week!

Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu Project

2010-04-29T17:00:00.001-04:00

I was privileged to be part of an international team of experts invited by Geoffrey Fushi of Bein& Fushi Rare Violins to study one of the world’s greatest violins, the 1741 “Vieuxtemps”Guarneri del Gesu. The project was organized by violin maker Joseph Curtin and the team also included violin maker Terry Borman. The three of us travelled to Chicago last month to do acoustical testing, modal analysis, CT scans and recordings of the "Vieuxtemps" and other great violins generously provided by Geoffrey Fushi.

One of the highlights was a recording session with violinist Ilya Kayler, with three del Gesu’s, two Strad’s and a Guadagnini arrayed on a table - a feast for the eyes and ears. Terry Borman has some pictures of our project at his website:http://www.bormanviolins.com/vieuxtemps_project.asp

Geoff Fushi has written in a recent Bein & Fushi newsletter that the “Viuextemps” del Gesu “..stands at the pinnacle…it is the most exciting violin I have ever heard. Even more exciting than the magnificent “Canon” del Gesu that was once played by Paganini…the "Vieuxtemps" [is] the greatest violin masterwork of all time with unmatched tonal qualities.”

My friends ask me, is the “Vieuxtemps” really the greatest sounding violin in the world? Is it really worth $18million? It is probably the best violin sounding I have had the pleasure of playing, out of the three dozen or so Strads and del Gesus I have held in my hands. Determining the “greatest”, though, is like comparing Bach to Beethoven, or Beethoven’s 5th to his 9thSymphony. As in any great work of art, each violin has its own unique character, the depth and complexity of which is revealed only with time, though greatness is apparent even from the first brief encounter. More specifically, what I heard and felt in my short time with the “Vieuxtemps” was that it had a higher limit than any other violin I have played. The more I dug in, the more it gave, seemingly without limit.

After my all too brief encounter with these masterpieces, I returned home, dreaming not of owning these magnificent instruments (I don’t have $18million…), but with the words of violin maker Joe Grubaugh in mind: “Fan, can you design strings that will make any violin sound like a Guarneri del Gesu?”

Joe - I’m working on it! (Meanwhile, you can try the Zyex Violin Strings I designed - it should give any violin a deeper, richer sound.)

String Tension Terminology

2010-03-23T14:27:00.002-04:00

Players, violin makers, and scientists all use the same term tension to describe slightly different things. This can sometimes lead to confusion.

When scientists and engineers discuss tension, they mean the pulling force exerted along the length of a string. This is what we specify in our catalog and website. This force is determined by the amount of mass (material) on the string, the tuning (frequency at which the string vibrates) and the vibrating length of the string. For standard instruments and tunings, the string vibrating length and tuning are fixed. So the only variable that the string designer can change to affect the tension is the amount of material on the string. The more mass, the higher the tension.

When instrument makers discuss tension, they usually mean the force exerted by the strings on the top of the instrument. This force is determined by string tension as well as the geometry of the bridge and the instrument. For example, the flatter the string angle over the bridge, the less static vertical force the strings exerts on the top of the instrument. Most makers believe this force can significantly alter the sound and playing characteristics of the instrument. I’ll discuss this topic in a future post.

When players discuss string tension, they mean the subject feeling of the string from both their left fingering and right bowing hands. While this subjective feeling of tension is largely determined by the string tension, it is also affected by other factors including string response, string sound, core elasticity, the diameter of the string, etc.

Another confusing term is string gauge. Gauge refers to the diameter of the string, not the tension. In the gauge system most commonly used for gut strings, the diameter in millimeters is equal to the gauge times 0.05. For example, a 14 gauge string is equal to 0.70mm, or 0.0276" in diameter. For guitar strings, the gauge most often refers to the diameter in inches or thousands of an inch. So a 36 or .036 gauge string is 0.036" in diameter.

For an unwound string (or simple guitar strings with one type of winding), larger diameters lead to more mass and therefore higher tension. However, modern bowed strings are wound with multiple windings of different materials with different densities . Therefore, a larger diameter string may not be heavier tension. That is why bowed string manufacturers specify the tension rather than the diameter or gauge.

String Tension

2010-03-06T22:58:00.001-05:00

One question I am often asked is about string tension. What is it? Why is it important? Why do string manufacturers offer strings in different tension grades, such as light medium and heavy?

The string playing tension is the force along the length of the string and is determined by the amount of mass (material) wound on the string. It is also determined by the string length and vibration frequency, but these are typically fixed for standard instruments and tunings.

String tension affects the response and playability of the string, as well as the sound. Higher tension strings will sound louder and can be played louder, but they are less responsive. They are more difficult to control, especially when played softly because they have more mass. While lower tension strings cannot play as loud as higher tension strings, they often have a larger tonal palette than higher tension strings.

Contrary to popular belief, higher tension strings are not necessarily brighter sounding. The opposite is often true. Since higher tension strings are inherently louder, players often bow further away from the bridge and use less bow pressure, which produces a less bright sound.

We offer most strings in light, medium and heavy tension grades. Other manufacturers may use terms such as soft and strong, or dolce and forte, or weich and stark. The medium tension is what works best for most players and instruments. However, your particular instrument and playing style may work better with light or heavy. In addition, your instrument may work best with a mixed set of different tensions. Don't be afraid to experiment!

There are no standards for tension, so one brand's "medium" tension can be different than another brand's medium. All of our string tension specifications are listed on our website: http://www.daddariobowed.com/.

I will discuss some additional issues and myths about string tension in a future blog.

VSA Oberlin Acoustics Workshop

2009-07-06T07:07:00.001-04:00

The start of the VSA-Oberlin Acoustics Workshop this week is a great way to launch my Violin Acoustics blog. Eight years ago, I was asked by the Violin Society of America (VSA) and the Catgut Acoustical Society to organize an acoustics workshop. The goal was to bring together acoustics researchers and violin makers to advance the understanding of how the violin works. I knew I needed to team up with a respected violin maker, so I asked Joseph Curtin to be my co-director. I remember his initial skepticism at whether anyone would show up since there was traditionally so much indifference and even hostility to the idea that violin makers should be interested in violin acoustics. Nevertheless, a dozen or so makers did show up at that first workshop and this week, over 40 researchers and makers have arrived at Oberlin College for our eighth annual workshop and a week of presentations, projects and spirited discussions.

Jim D’Addario Anecdotes

2009-04-27T07:38:00.003-04:00

Collaborate to Succeed Part 1 – John D’Angelico

“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind too), those who learn to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.”

In reading that statement, one could assume it came from a musician or athlete playing team sports. But in actuality, it was the naturalist Charles Darwin that penned the line.

For musicians, collaborating and improvising is a way of life. Many times when people look at the success of a musical group or an enterprise, they inaccurately assume that success is the result of the efforts of one or two individuals. The fact is even the most astute entrepreneur gets nowhere if he/she does not learn to collaborate and improvise. Finding the right partners to collaborate with is the key.

I learned a lot about collaboration and running a business when I joined my first band at age 13. The first thing that was abundantly clear to me was that we sounded much better as a group than we did individually - provided we all practiced our parts. Later on in my career as business challenges presented themselves, I would always look for collaboration partners, reaching out to someone with more experience to help with the specific challenges that we faced.

In 1905, my grandfather Charles D’Addario emigrated from Italy to New York. He brought with him the family trade of making strings, which dates back hundreds of years to 1680. By coincidence, the very same year a Czechoslovakian luthier named Ladislav Kaplan also moved his family from Europe to America. At the time, there was a shortage of quality musical instruments and strings. Both gentlemen bought the American dream and lived it.

Soon after arriving in America, Ladislav discovered that he was having trouble getting good strings for his violins, violas and cellos. A trained craftsman, he discovered he was also a very, very talented mechanical engineer. Soon after, he began making his own strings and before long the Kaplan brand of gut bowed strings was well established.

Charles and Ladislav were friendly competitors and exchanged raw materials and know-how on occasion. Accounting ledger books from 1922 show Charles and Ladislav frequently exchanging material for payment. In the true European family business model, the Kaplan family ran their little string business out of a garage in their backyard in Norwalk, CT from 1905 to 1981. The D’Addarios ran theirs in the basement of their Jackson Heights, NY home, a short walk from what would become LaGuardia airport.

In the 1930’s, John D’Addario, Sr. joined his dad, Charles, and his young inquisitive mind was immediately energized by the world of the guitar. The guitar was yet to be amplified and was for the most part used as an element of the rhythm section of the big bands that were popular during that era. Guitar makers like Maccaferri and D’Angelico worked hard to make their instruments project acoustically over entire bands or orchestras.

John, Sr. (my dad), befriended John D’Angelico towards the end of the 1930’s. Their collaboration would be a key to the success of D’Addario guitar strings some 35 years later. D’Angelico was looking for someone to improve on the quality of the acoustic guitar strings that were available at the time. Dad was lucky enough to enter the picture at the right time. The art of string making at that time was exactly that - an ‘art’. Most developments were by accident or by trial and error. The major string brands at the time, National Black Diamond and Gibson for instance, did not make a string with the low end output, sustain and the projection in the upper register to satisfy D’Angelico.

I had the good fortune to meet John D’Angelico on several occasions as child when my dad was delivering strings to his shop on Kenmare Street in Little Italy. I can tell you personally - D’Angelico had golden ears. My dad’s collaboration with him yielded the acoustic guitar specifications that we, by and large, still use today. In fact most successful competitive brands have emulated the very specifications that the collaboration between D’Addario and D’Angelico yielded. All the D’Angelico packaged strings made prior to John D’Angelico’s passing (1964) were made by our family. Similarity in the names and his respect for John D’Angelico were key reasons why Dad never used the D’Addario family name on his strings until we did so in 1974.

My dad often spoke fondly of how well they worked together. Dad would make a variety of samples, with different core sizes and whatever different alloys of brass, bronze and silver plated copper that he could get his hands on at the time. John would test them and together, using their ears and their minds, through trial and error, they advanced the art of guitar string-making. Their first epiphany was determining the optimum size ratios between the core wire and the wrap wire for each wound string on the guitar. Later, they realized that the 80-20 brass (referred to as bronze most of the time) needed to be softened prior to winding. Eventually, after many trials, they landed on some great-sounding string specifications.

D’Angelico made instruments for all kinds of different guitar players. Many times the guitarist would not be satisfied with the instrument he ordered when he came to pick it up. While D’Angelico could make adjustments in the set-up of the guitar to sometimes satisfy the particular want of each player, he quickly realized, with all these string samples lying around, that many times just changing the string tension would do the trick.

Prior to their collaboration, strings were sold in one gauge. They pioneered the idea of Light, Medium and Heavy string gauges. Later, as the electric guitar took hold, players would demand even lighter and lighter string gauges. Back then, most guitars were outfitted with pretty heavy gauge strings.

As the guitar string business grew and my grandfather’s retirement age was approaching, my dad began to lose interest in bowed string manufacturing and focused more and more of his attention on fretted instrument strings. In 1959, Charles retired and for a few years, my dad and his team continued to make bowed strings for various private labels and under their own names Puccini and La Rita. Around 1964, after the British invasion and the advent of the real guitar boom, D’Addario totally abandoned bowed string manufacturing and focused all their energy on fretted instrument strings.

Dad and his partners (two other gentlemen from the same town in Italy) sold their company to C. F. Martin & Company in 1969. In 1974, after a five-year employment engagement, a newly-formed company (our present entity) introduced fretted instrument strings for the first time, bearing the D’Addario family name. Joined by his two sons John D’Addario, Jr. (my brother) and me (Jim D’Addario), the D’Addario family began on the journey of establishing the D’Addario brand name utilizing many of the string innovations discovered through the collaboration of John D’Angelico.

More on collaboration to come. . . .
My next article will discuss the acquisition of Kaplan Music Strings in 1981 and the re-entry into the bowed string business through our collaboration with Dr. Norman Pickering.

Jim D’Addario

A Chance to See the World

2009-03-30T15:06:00.001-04:00

As I boarded my flight from JFK to Frankfurt last night to attend my 10th Frankfurt Music Messe, I couldn't help but reflect on the international travel I've done over the past 10 years. Compared to many, 10-years of international, or Frankfurt Music Messe attendance is not so much, but for me it is a bit of a milestone.

Over the past 10 years, I've had the chance to visit the following countries (listed somewhat geographically as to not tax my memory too much):

New Zealand, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan, China, South Korean, Japan, Russia, India, U.A.E., U.K., Ireland, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay.

I've been slipped a "mickey" in Bangkok, Thailand; abandoned at the airport in Jakarta, Indonesia, and most recently I was in Siberia, Russia in November! I've also seen so many beautiful cities, met fantastic artists, outstanding businessmen, and great people! While the cultures of the world are fascinatingly different, the love and joy of music is universal.

As a young drummer (aspiring to be a percussionist) growing up in the corn field of Central Illinois (Sullivan, Illinois to be specific), I had aspirations of playing professionally and teaching at the university level. And, while that didn't work out as planned after graduating from Millikin University with a music business degree, and Northwestern with a masters in percussion, I couldn't have had a more wonderful and enriching professional life! After working for the Percussive Arts Society and Yamaha Corporation of America, my opportunity to do business internationally started in 1999 when I was at SABIAN. Since then with SABIAN, SKB, and now with D'Addario I continue to travel internationally.

As the wheels touched down last this morning, I couldn't help but reflect. There are more countries I'd love to travel too. What ones have I missed that you'd recommend?

Welcome to the New Insiders Blog!

2009-02-17T14:06:00.000-05:00

Keep checking back here for information about D'Addario products, what's new in string technology, events, and advice on all things having to do with violin family instruments.

Here is a link to an especially timely video by violin-maker Guy Rabut with pointers on how to protect your valuable instrument from damage caused by extreme humidity:

This is part of a series of available videos by the Manhattan-based, professional luthier.

See more artist videos and lessons at The Stage, D'Addario's Musicians Hub.

More to come soon....

David