Spider Silk Strings for Violin

A Japanese professor, Shigeyoshi Osaki, made a new type of violin strings using thousands of strands of spider silk. If you wonder how it sounds and looks like, see below.



In general, violinists use an aluminium-cored or nylon string for their violin (I'm using an aluminium-cored string because they are cheaper than a nylon). A few violinists who can afford to buy use a gut string, but this is more expensive and likely to exhaust than an aluminium-cored and nylon. According to Pro. Osaki, a spider silk string is the best in those strings in terms of tension and sound. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any difference of sound in the video... Just it sounded like an ordinary violin to me.

At any rate, if this string is cheap and popular, I'd like to try it. However, it wounld take some time to be so.

Which Is Which?

Last weekend, I went to a friend's house to be invited dinner. Her father was there at that time. Although I've met him a few times, I didn't know he likes wines and he was kind of enthusiast on them as much as collects them from all over the world. And, I drunk a bottle of wine which he recommended. It was fantastic, and tasted and smelled like what I've never had. However, I unfortunately do not have good abilities to remember that taste and smell for a long time. Actually, next day I already forgot what it tasted and smelled like, though I'm sorry for him.

For so long time, researchers have wondered whether we can distinguish ordinary wines from great ones. There are a lot of research conducted by many ways: http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/07/24/keep-the-cheap-wine-flowing/

The same thing happens in the music. Probably most people have heard of the name, Stradivari who is known as a great violin maker. His violin has been acknowledged the greatest and the most expensive one all over the world.

An article by NPR introduced an interesting experiment a few days ago. It was about a blind violin test, but the point of this experiment is a "double-blind" test. That is, all participants including players and listeners didn't know which one was a Stradivari violin. If you want to try your ability, go the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2012/01/02/144482863/double-blind-violin-test-can-you-pick-the-strad. You can also find the result!

Fortunately, I would have musician's ears, which means I was able to pick correct one! It seems like hearing something is good fit for me rather than tasting and smelling.

This Is The Music Using Our Ability

Bobby McFerrin, who is one of the best-known vocal performer, conducts a wonderful impromptu performance below.



Some people who are singing in the video sound like little off-key at first, but they gradually adjust their key. Eventually, they create a beautiful harmony between them and Bobby.

Wonderful!!

Virtuoso means...

According to my favorite dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a virtuoso is defined as "someone who is a very skilful performer, especially in music". The reason I saw the word in the dictionary was that I checked a word, vis-a-vis, though.

I'm no complaint about the definition of a virtuoso, but I'm very curious about why the editor (s/he is her fan?) chose the illustration:

"violin virtuoso Vanessa Mae"

I think she is a great talented violinist. However, I do not have an image for her as a virtuoso. One of her performances is below.

What I believe as a virtuoso is Itzhak Perlman. Actually, when checking out the word on the Wikipedia, Perlman is one of the examples. The point I want to make is that my connotation from the term, virtuoso, is a  performer like Perlman. But, if the word reminds other people of like Mae, what's going on is, I think, that a virtuoso may imply like her performance. Although this is a mere example of using a word differently among generations, I feel a big difference between Perlman and Mae. Just in my opinion, Perlman is more an appropriate instance! Please check out a virtuoso in your dictionary!