Help for Violin E string troubles

The E string of the Violin can be very problematic for many players, it can be loud and harsh, or underpowered, it can squeak, whistle and grate on the players nerves, and generally cause misery for both beginners and reasonably advanced players alike.

One of the most striking things about the E string if you stop to look at it, is how much thinner it is than the other 3, this means it has by far the least contact area with the bow of all 4 strings on the instrument. The action of bowing causes friction heat, the heat gets the rosin hot, the rosin becomes sticky and a sticking sliding action then takes place between the rosin, bow, and string, the less surface area in contact with the bow, the less chance you have of creating the heat in the rosin to make this happen.

The smaller contact patch also means that there is less resistance to side slip in the bow (moving towards the bridge, or fingerboard slightly,) this means bowing smoothly becomes of far greater importance on the E.
Getting the best sound from your violin is at least 70% bow arm, that's what I tell all my students, and is a major focal part of my teaching, think of it as having a fantastic sports car with a bad engine, it stops being a fantastic sports car!

Your bow and bow arm are your violin's engine.So here are some tips to help you get the best out of your bow arm, before moving on to a bit about different types of violin E string, and how they can help or hinder you.

Keep it on rails!

Your bow should literally move like it is on rails, practice using the whole length of the bow, right from frog to tip and back, you should make a straight line, and more than that you should have no side slip, the way the string wants to move is side to side, not from bridge to fingerboard, any movement of the bow up or down the length of the string will create a grating sound as the string resists the bow and a break in the all important friction(which creates the heat you are trying to make to get the rosin super sticky) happens. You can again think of it in terms of a car, when you hear the sound of tires squealing as someone goes around a corner, the noise is created by the fact that the tires cannot grip enough to keep in contact with the road and slip sideways off of it, this is what happens with the bow.

Keep it at right angels to the string!

A lot of people think they have their bow at the right angle, when in fact it can be 5 degrees off, and please note that I said to the string here! not to the violin, the strings change slightly in angle to the bow as you go from G to E, your bow should match that change, check by looking in a mirror to see what your bow looks like as you play, there is a large amount of parallax error when viewing the bow, as it is so close but below you, (in other words what you are seeing isn't what you get,) this is particularly true for those who wear glasses as the lenses distort more the further you get from looking straight ahead.

Keep the power on.

When the string makes a bad noise, there is a temptation to try and play more quietly, this actually only aggravates the problem, as I said earlier, you need friction to create heat, less pressure, and bow speed mean less friction, less friction equals less heat, the lack of heat is where the whistle came from, so by trying to be less noisy you actually make a worse noise!

Now a bit more on the technology of your strings and the different types of string, which can also play a large part in the proceedings

When you look at the strings on the violin, there is a noticeable difference between the E and the rest for another reason, most (nearly but not quite all) E strings are plain, this means that they do not have a winding on them. Be it steel or gut or synthetic gut, wound strings have various layers of differing materials in the windings, a plain string doesn't, while this sounds obvious different materials conduct heat in different ways. String manufacturers try to couple the sound and playability characteristics of differing materials to give a sound you want to hear, but the fact is that any E string will conduct heat away far more quickly than a wound string, couple this with the fact that certain materials conduct heat a lot more efficiently than others and you can see where trouble arises.

Chrome strings (Chrome plated) will play more easily than Gold ones will, whilst the gold gives a nicer tone in many peoples opinion (including mine) it conducts heat much more efficiently and therefore is much more likely to squeak, whistle and otherwise give a player grief when ever they go near it.

Thomastik have recently produced a string which is Platinum coated, and whilst it is very expensive, this string couples the nice sound that comes with a gold E and the greater playability you get with chrome strings.

On a last note, if you find your E string consistently over harsh, and find it impossible to play firmly on it as you do with the other strings, go to your local Luthier, and get them to check the setup of your instrument, it could be that all you need is a slight alteration of the bridge or sound post and it will be perfectly in balance, allowing you to play that tricky string with the same confidence you do the others!