Natural Silk Biwa Strings 1
Just under two years ago, at the end of June 2006 to be precise, I became involved in a very interesting project that involved making silk strings from wild silk worms as opposed to that produced from domesticated varieties.
I first became interested in the kind of silk that was been used to make strings when I bought an old biwa (dating perhaps from before the war) which still had strings on it some of which appeared to be very old. I played the instrument with these strings for a number of days and was struck at the different “feel” to the string. Even though it spoke loudly the tone was very beautiful. Moreover, the string was light and very comfortable to play. Since this experience, I have always found the strings that are sold today to be very hard and irresponsive.
In June 2006, I had just started teaching Masaki Sakurai who is an independent film director and producer. He is very interested in the silk industry in Gunma and had made films explaining it for the purpose of promoting awareness of its past status and present situation in Japan. The previous year I had planted a mulberry tree in my garden (Satsuma biwa are made from mulberry) and a lot of silk worm like insects had settled on it. At one of the lessons, I proceeded to tell Sakurai of this and also of what the strings are made from. He asked me if natural silk worms had ever been used to make biwa strings and I answered that it is logical to think that at some point in history they must have been used. I then heard from him about Sanden Forest which is run by Sanden. Here, Sanden Company has set up a facility with aim of encouraging a healthy relationship between society and nature. They had been raising wild silkworms for a number of years and Sakurai had worked with them in the past. He suggested the possibility of trying to make strings using these wild silk worms. I though that it would be very interesting to see how the strings would turn out and what manner they would compare with the strings I had found on the old biwa.
