The world’s best violins come with strings made from catgut—which isn’t typically from cats, but does definitely come from the inside of an animal. If you want a more vegetarian alternative, though, ...

A good violin depends on the expertise of the violin maker, but also on the quality of the wood that is used. Professor Francis W. M. R. Schwarze of th Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science ...

Watch how the violin and string instruments make varieties of sound and music. Professor Richard Church, conductor of the University of Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, introduces the violin and other ...

Spiders might soon give you goosebumps in a good way. Strands of spider silk have been used to make violin strings that have a unique and thrilling sound, thanks perhaps to the way the strands deform ...

Forty-five years ago, as a freshman in college, Cal Meineke was poking around a music department storage room and came across a rare Tyrolean violin made in the 17th century by the German Matthias ...

Spider silk is turning out to be a remarkably versatile material. Aside from having a higher heat conductivity than any other organic matter and proteins for inserting genes into cells, strings from a ...