Explosion at the concert hall!💥 The case of the broken string 🕵️
How often do strings break?
Mid-way through a particularly lyrical passage of Mozart’s Oboe Concerto this week, the serene soundscape was interrupted by a violent popping noise that rang through the hall with an unearthly, dissonant hum like a piano taking a bullet. Everyone perked up like hounds and craned their necks to find the source. On a stage full of fragile wooden instruments worth a lot of money, noises like that are particularly triggering.
…a violent popping noise that rang through the hall with an unearthly, dissonant hum like a piano taking a bullet.
It didn’t take long to see a tangled, metallic strand connected to the harp, still quivering slightly from the recent explosion.
In some ways a string breaking is quite jarring, in other ways it’s just another day at the office. On this day, the orchestra didn’t even stop playing to investigate. A minute later when a natural break occurred in rehearsal, a couple people conferred and someone texted the harpist who was off stage at the time, and then we continued playing. In a matter of minutes the string had been replaced.
👉 What are strings made of ? Virtually all strings are made with a synthetic material (like nylon) or a steel core and wound in metal (steel, aluminum or chrome). They need to be strong to endure sustained tension and use—or abuse, depending on what music you’re playing :)
👉How often do you change them? It’s common to change to a new set of strings annually, or even more regularly. You wouldn’t want your string breaking mid-concert.
👉So what do you do when a string breaks mid-concert? I’ve seen pit-crew worthy performances from violinists who replace a string in about a minute mid-concert and then keep on playing. Bass strings are much larger and replacing one can take 5-10 minutes. Not practical to do on stage, but they also break far less frequently.
👉Will a snapped string will whip you in the eye 👀. I hear this question a lot, yet I’ve never heard of it actually happening. At the same time I think that literally every musician is terrified of this scenario.
✨ In this video, violinist Ray Chen breaks his E string during the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto and doesn’t waste a second before trading instruments with the concertmaster. There’s a bit of musical chairs to get the violin to a non-leader who can afford to stop playing for a bit to change the string. If you watch closely, Ray pulls a spare from his suit pocket and hands to the 4th chair violinist. He was prepared! Amazing! 🤩
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Thank you for a very interesting read. Loved the broken string clip and was wowed by Rey’s theme, actually moved to tears to see the collaboration from space to musicians around the world.