If you are the parent of a beginner violin student, you should know as much as possible about the parts of the violin. This article will give you knowledge about violin strings and what you need to know about how strings affect the instrument, what to expect when a violin is restrung and how strings affect the tone of the instrument. You really don't need to know a lot about this, but it always helps to have some knowledge regarding your child’s violin.
It seems that we have gone through every string problem there could be. Here's a story about one of them. The first time our daughter moved up to the next size, we joyfully skipped to the rental store fully anticipating the incredibly rich sound that a larger violin would produce.
Of course, our daughter was too shy to really give the violin a good workout at the shop, but no problem, let's buzz home and see how this baby sounds!! Hmmmmm, seems it needs tuning. O.K., not a problem, we know how to do that. Tune, play for two minutes. Hmmmmm, sounds like it’s playing flat again. What's going on here, why is it playing flat so quickly after tuning? Well, the shop was kind enough to think of restringing this particular rental violin before renting it out again. (That does not always happen). New strings, we learned, have to spend about one week stretching and going flat before they settle down. So you should expect and anticipate this if you have your violin restrung or if you are getting a rented violin, ask if the violin was restrung. Knowing this in advance will save you and your child a lot of frustration.
The violin teachers I know discourage parents from restringing their children violins. Honestly, I wouldn't even attempt it. We take the violin back to the rental shop for restringing.
One way to know when it is time to change violin strings is when one breaks…then it is definitely time to change it!! Seriously though, you should restring a violin when it gets impossible to keep the instrument in tune for any length of time. The violin should be able to stay in tune with no problem through practice time. Also, unless you’re having huge changes in weather, the violin should not get too out of tune between practice times. Of course this also depends on if the violin gets bumped or some such action that would get it out of tune.
Lastly, you would be surprised at how much different brands of violin strings will affect the tone of the instrument. When we finally purchased a violin, the music shop had different types of strings on different violins, so not only were there a bunch of violins to try, but we needed to realize that the type of string would make a difference in the sound as well. You really need to be aware of this because you may even want to have the shop restring a violin with different strings to hear the difference. My daughter likes the lighter sounding strings so she can play happy songs with a deep, rich sound. Personally, I like the deep rich sound, but she felt she wouldn’t be able to get a happy sound, so we went with what she liked.
So to recap 1. Restringing a violin will require one week for the strings to stop going flat constantly 2. Become aware of when to change strings on a violin 3. Decent strings affect the tone of the instrument.