Making Silk Strings
By Dan Larson
Silk is yet another option for music strings. There are references to using silk in some early Arabic literature about 'ouds, but not much in the Western tradition until the days of the British Raj. Gut strings did not last very long in the environment of Southern Asia, and violin enthusiasts turned to silk strings which were available from the Northern regions, particularly France. Silk strings began to be imported into the rest of the Empire, and numerous attempts have been made to introduce silk strings into Western practice without much success; I am not sure where the reticence comes from.
“Ziryāb replied. ‘But my lute, even though it be the same size as his lute and from the same type of wood, weighs only about one-third as much, and my upper strings are made of silk that has not been washed in hot water which causes them to be deadened and weak. The lowest and third strings I have made from lion cub gut, which gives them several times more clarity, resonance, volume, and brightness than strings made from the gut of other animals, and they have the strength to endure the striking of the plectrum back and forth across them that others do not.’”
— The Biography of ʿAlī ibn Nāfiʿ, Known as Ziryāb - Dwight F. Reynolds. Medieval Arab Music and Musicians: Three Translated Texts, pp. 115-151, Brill, 2021
I made silk strings in my early days, and I found the tone nice but a little “chippy.” I found it challenging to get a finish to stick to the silk, and it wasn't easy to get a protective layer on the surface of the strings. Consequently, the silk tended to fray quickly. Counting out silk fibers proved to be very time-consuming, and I had to give them up in the end, as I found them considerably labor-intensive for serious production.
I don't have much opinion about silk. It works as a material for strings, and the tone is OK. Making a few silk strings to test and try is easy enough. Still, I question the prospects of producing enough of them in a broad enough range of gauges to be viable as a commercial enterprise as necessary to bring the stock to market.