Spider Silk Strings!

[Michael_Molnar]

From BBC

A Japanese researcher has used thousands of strands of spider silk to spin a set of violin strings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17232058

[Bill Yacey]

That's very interesting; my experience with spider webbing is that it's very elastic. I wonder how much those strings actually stretched before they settled into equilibrium at pitch.

[Mat Roop]

From BBC

A Japanese researcher has used thousands of strands of spider silk to spin a set of violin strings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-17232058

Great idea... but the second para reads "The strings are said to have a "soft and profound timbre" relative to traditional gut or steel strings." Not sure I agree that the soft and profound is applicable to steel srings...more research coming no doubt. ...cheers, Mat

[Darren Molnar]

The first bit of this doc. shows some goat hybrids invented to produce spider silk in their milk. Mind blowing stuff for when, or if, we need a larger supply of spidey strings.

http://topdocumentar...om/playing-god/

[propolis]

It would be astonishing to find that silk from the mulberry-eating silkmoth (Bombyx mori) has never been tried for violin strings. After all, Chinese spike fiddles such as the erhu have historically used silk strings...

[Anders Buen]

The violin sounds like an Erhu with these strings, and there seems to be some problem getting the lower string to build up a natural Helmholz motion producing a normal note. Music for the spiderman.

[robertdo]

they won't come cheap on the market when they arrive...

[ZachB]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17243105

Link to the audio.

[fiddlecollector]

Im almost sure silk strings used to be advertised for violins decades ago (early 20th century)

[robertdo]

Im almost sure silk strings used to be advertised for violins decades ago (early 20th century)

I don't know but they were probably silkworm silk strings since it was already a huge market and people had no trouble making thread with it. But spider silk seem to possess better properties to make violin strings (more resistant at a given diameter and more elastic). I have just read a small article where researchers engineered silkworms to produce silk with some of the spider web proteins. I believe this would be a better approach than transgenic sheep since the bombyx naturally produce the worm/spider thread while one has to purify the spider silk protein from the sheep milk and polymerise it etc,,... and it's quite time consuming. Let's see...

[La Folia]

The violin sounds like an Erhu with these strings

Maybe, but look at this. http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/violin-with-strings-spun-from-spider-silk-plays-beautifully Is this a fractional sized violin?

[robertdo]

Maybe, but look at this. http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/violin-with-strings-spun-from-spider-silk-plays-beautifully Is this a fractional sized violin?

It's definitely a fraction size violin (1/4 or 1/2), but whether it's the one played or not is unclear. Maybe for their trial they couldn't get strings long enough for a full size. I can't really comment on the strings but the sound seems to lack power. If it's really a fraction size, then it could be expected though.

Edit. Unless the man is the tallest man in the world...

[JSully]

The clip reminds me of very old recordings.