How do I take care of buzzing in historical wound-on-gut strings?
Historical wound strings, lacking a damper betweeen core and wound wire, in particularly dry climate may present this problem. Tutors of the past (e.g. Friedrich Dotzauer’s ‘Méthode de violoncelle’, Paris c. 1830) suggest lightly wetting the whole string with a few drops of olive or almond oil in order to have the gut core swell lightly and make full contact with the winding again. Never use water!
