h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I enjoyed your article. Here are a few things you may or may not want to take on board. Your article, so up to you!!

Gut strings are made from sheep's gut, not pigs. Apparently 6 month old lambs are best for this as they provide the right maturity along with the flexibility required.

The modern violinist does not particularly shun gut strings because of the cost. Gut strings can be bought quite reasonably. More likely is the fact that they are notoriously famous for going out of tune. If the player is a vegetarian, and does not approve of the slaughter of 6 week old lambs, this may be another reason, but considering the source of bow hair it is unlikely.

I would not include "col legno" in the methods used, just stick to Arco and Pizz (ie with bow or without). Col legno is rarely used and is really just another bowing technique, and you could list a load of others which are far more common (eg spiccato, ricochet etc).

I realise you have already had a lot of input on lists, and these will always remain very personal. However on the repertoire I think the Bach solo sonatas and partitas (maybe replacing the Bach accom sonatas) are a must to include, and that Bach wrote more than one double violin concerto, I think you must mean BWV 1043. Performers could be limited to dead ones...live ones tend to be too emotive a subject and I see you only have Nige on there who is still with us...there are a lot more violinists who many would argue have as much if not more reason to be included (when did Nige last play the Proms?). I won't mention anyone here except to say you should definitely have Jascha Heifetz in the dead ones.

Just to re-iterate I enjoyed your article.