During a concert tour of the United States Andrés Segovia had difficulty finding his favourite catgut Pirastro strings. A sensitivity to changes in humidity meant that the strings were regarded as unstable, particularly for travelling musiciansġ935, in the early 1940's guitarists beganĭuring World War II there was a high demand for surgical sutures made form catgut, and as a consequence there was a shortage of guitar strings made from this material.There were many negative aspects of catgut strings for the guitar player : They make a pure sound, strong and mellow, and approach that of a harp, especially if one uses thicker strings. The single strings are very easy to tune and pluck cleanly. It is very easy now to find a great number of true strings. I am taking advantage of this foreword to say a word about the way to string the guitar with single strings. In the 18th century guitarists began using single strings as Giacomo Merchi mentions in his Traité des Agrèmens de la musique executés sur la Guitarre published in 1777 : For centuries the guitar had featured strings set in pairs, or courses. Undoubtably these new wound strings played an important part in guitar evolution. Strings with a metal winding first appeared in 1659 and by the end of that century they were often used on the lower strings on bass instruments, as well as french violins. Besides musical strings, other uses of catgut include tennis racquet strings, and also sutures for surgical work. Finally various numbers of strands are twisted together to form cords, the number of strands being dependant on the use of the catgut. The fumes from burning sulphur are then used to sanitize the gut, after which they are dyed and sorted into sizes. After being steeped in alkaline lye they are then smoothed and equalized by drawing out. The external membrane is then scraped off with a blunt knife. The intestines are cleaned and steeped in water. The thinnest part of the sheep's intestine is used for catgut, it is also known as "saitling" in German from the word "saiten" meaning strings.
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