Marusan Hashimoto strings

Marusan Hashimoto is a family-owned string making company on the east side of Lake Biwa in Japan. According to a flier that comes with their qin strings,⁴ Marusan Hashimoto was formed in 1908 to make strings for a variety of traditional Japanese musical instruments, and they are now one of the three leading Japanese companies making silk strings for Japanese instruments, koto, samisen and biwa in particular.

Marusan Hashimoto only recently began making strings for guqin, advertising them as "ice silk strings".⁵ Although "ice strings" may not be strictly accurate, the strings certainly are very smooth and easy to use.⁶ In making them they have the China market in mind; in this regard, for a while they were being distributed in China by Wang Peng under his own company name Juntian Fang (strings page). It apparently ended several years later and MH continued to look for regular distribution.⁷

Marusan Hashimoto originally made their guqin strings using rice glue, as was the custom for most Japanese stringed instruments; starting around 2018 they began also making their qin strings following the Chinese tradition of using fish glue. The MH fish glue strings are discussed further below.

In 2014, when I first looked into buying Japanese qin strings, there were two ways to get the strings sold by Marusan Hashimoto under their own name (see 2019 update):

Order the strings directly from MH for J¥20,000 (about US$200) a set, payment to be made by Paypal. They say, however, that this is a new venture for them and they may not always have stock, in which case there would be a waiting time for the strings.
In or from the USA order them through Sound of Asia in Los Angeles (which also sells MH silk strings for other Chinese instruments); the cost there is US$229.

In September 2013 Marusan Hashimoto sent me a complimentary set, which I immediately tried; I then visited their factory on 10 October. My host there was 桥本英宗 Hashimoto Hidekazu, the fifth generation of Hashimotos directing the company. It was apparently his idea to experiment with silk strings for non-Japanese instruments (they have also made some for Korean kayagum as well as for other Chinese instruments). While doing research for qin strings he was able to visit the Shoso-In and see up close the strings they have stored together with their Tang dynasty guqin (q.v.). He said that the Shoso-In itself is not sure of the age of the strings in their collection.

After a tour of the factory we discussed briefly the manufacture and the source of the silk. The silk is all local, he said, crediting the strength of their strings to the high sericin content of the original fiber from the silkworms, which are from a nearby prefecture, as well as to the purity of the local water, in which the cocoons must be boiled. For their qin strings they developed their own spinning techniques, though apparently with some advice from China. However, they do not cook the strings in any of the glues known to have been used in China; instead they use only glue made from "sweet rice" (rice with a high gluten content). Likewise, to preserve and restore these strings one should use glue made from rice cakes (further below).

Evaluation of the Marusan Hashimoto strings (August 2014)

In July 2014 Marusan Hashimoto sent me two more sets of strings for evaluation, one called "Normal", the other "More thick". The following comments are based largely on having used my original set for about ten months. In addition, I have strung several more qin with identical sets, and have now strung two more qins with the two new sets.

On 24 September 2013 I put my set of Marusan Hashimoto silk strings on a qin made by Tong Kin-Woon. At first I tuned the qin based on the first (lowest string) having a pitch of just over 100 Hz, i.e., near Western concert pitch G sharp (see pitch data) and three days later made three trial recordings. A week later I tuned the strings up so that the first string was about B flat, similar to what I normally use (the metal string conservatory standard is to tune it to C). My initial reaction is very positive, but it should be emphasized that, not only are silk strings for qin supposed to last for years, they are said not to be at their best until after considerable use, perhaps some months, perhaps longer. I do not know if this has always been the case: so far it does seem to be true here, but for the time being when recording with these strings I do not use as much left hand vibrato as I might otherwise.

On 5 October 2013 I re-did the three recordings mentioned above and added a fourth (all with the first string tuned to B flat). These four recordings can be heard via the following links:

Yu Qiao Wenda (Dialogue between a Fisherman and Woodcutter)
Oulu Wang Ji (No Ulterior Motives Regarding Seabirds)
Wuye Wu Qiufeng (Leaves Dance in an Autumn Breeze)
Chun Gui Yuan (Leaves Dance in an Autumn Breeze)

Soon after this made recordings of Huai Gu Yin comparing the sound on five different qin with five different sets of strings, including the MH strings (details).

After several months of play the Marusan Hashimoto strings became considerably smoother, similar to my well-used Taigu strings but seemingly stronger. Specifically, it seems easier to tune them higher, and the shredding problem seems to be less.

Nevertheless, the MH strings can still experience shredding. With my first set there was some shredding to the wrapping in the plucking area on the lower four strings after several months of play, but there was no problem with the rest of the string. With the Taigu strings the wrapping on the strings is prone to break anywhere; as a result Taigu recommends that one should regularly apply glue to the whole string. With the MH strings this seemed necessary only in the part of the wrapped strings where they are plucked. Following a logic that says it is best to preserve and restore strings using the same glues as were originally infused into the strings, for MH strings rice glue is recommended (e.g, not substances such as baiji, used on Chinese strings). For this MH has recommended a glue made from mochi.⁸

Other specific comments I can make now include the following: Original packaging (expand; see text)

In contrast to the Tobaya strings, the lower strings on the Marusan Hashimoto sets are in fact mesh-wrapped like Chinese strings. In the image at right, showing the original packaging (the image at top more accurately reflects their color), they are the four strings marked "small opening" (細口 xikou, normally referring to a small hole in a jar or pot － or the bore/hole on a wind instrument; I do not know the significance here). This mesh indicates that the MH strings are more specifically designed for the guqin than are the Tobaya strings.
The strings (as with the Tobaya strings) seem quite smooth, though not (yet?) quite like "ice strings". The sound when sliding the fingers on the wrapped strings, though at first more than I would like, has become much smoother with use. (Someone who has played only with nylon-metal strings would still need to make adjustments when playing with these.)
The strings feel durable: no cracking of the glue in the strings when the string is bent. In this regard, with all new strings from China one is advised to periodically re-apply glue; as suggested above, with MH strings this may be necessary only in the area where the lower fourth strings (those with the mesh) are plucked.
The tone is bright and clear, even for the thick lowest string. In fact, the strings still sound good (more mellow) when tuned down so that the first string is 440 Hz. As with other silk strings the sound does seem to be mellowing with age.
Once installed on my qin the wrapping on the lower four strings of the original set sent me extended about 20 cm beyond the end of the qin top; this is about the same as or perhaps a little more than with available qin strings made in China. With the second set sent to me they extended 24-28 cm beyond the end (according to my recollection this was also the case with earlier strings). This is a significant improvement. If a string always breaks by the bridge, as they normally do, with 20 extra cm it can be retied and continue in use for perhaps two or three such breaks. If the shredding in the plucking area has become so bad that the string should be cut and retied, with 20 cm you will be lucky if this can be done twice. With 28 cm it can certainly be done twice or perhaps even three times.
The gauges of all the MH strings produced through 2018 have had a bigger spread than those of the Chinese sets with which I am familiar: the thickest first string, at 1.84 mm, is almost as thick as the thickest Chinese strings I have seen, while the seventh string, at .80 mm, is only a little thicker than on the thinnest Chinese sets. The chart here shows, in mm, the gauges of the three types of Marusan Hashimoto rice glue strings I have tried so far, plus one type I have not tried (guages sent by the manufacturer), and also the fish glue strings sent more recently. In all cases the given dates are the dates they were sent to me.
As with qin strings made in China string length is about 230mm and there is one extra seventh string.
Update 2019: Marusan Hashimoto strings cooked with fish glue (packaging as in lower image at right)
In 2018 and 2019 I acquired several more sets of MH strings, this time using the more traditional Chinese fish-glue. These have since been followed by a "special thin edition" of rice glue strings with thinner gauges, which I have not yet seen. The gauges of the regular fish glue strings have now been added to the chart. As can be seen, the initial strings with the traditional glue have gauges similar to those of the rice-glue strings.
MH strings with rice glue have the lower tips (at the end wrapped around the two legs) colored with red dye. For fish-glue strings the thick strings were wrapped with purple tape, the medium with orange tape, but all had their tips colored with silver dye.

As for the MH string gauge chart below, in addition to the difficulty of producing precise results in the manufacturing process itself (measurements here are in hundreds of a millimeter), when measuring qin strings with a micrometer (mine is a Mitutoyo 7331) there is also variation due to such factors as humidity, strings stretching and where on the string the measurement is taken. MH says their manufacturing standard is the same for strings with rice glue or fish glue

Official gauges from MH Personally measured gauges

"thick" "regular" "thin" original thick regular

01.84 01.80 01.64 01.80 01.84 01.80

01.59 01.56 01.42 01.50 01.58 01.54

01.39 01.38 01.24 01.25 01.40 01.36

01.14 01.28 01.24 01.17 01.24 01.23

01.15 01.07 01.07 01.05 01.10 01.03

00.97 00.95 00.95 00.90 00.96 00.90

00.84 00.83 00.83 00.80 00.84 00.80

Marusan Hashimoto says that since 2014 the strings have had a strengthened wrapping gauze (the mesh on the lower four strings). As for their "special thin" gauge strings, I heard of them only in 2022 and have not yet seen them. They are described here on the website of Georges Goormaghtigh.

Note that this "special thin" version has a narrower range than the other sets; the range is thus more similar to that of most other sets, as outlined here. A possible reason for the relatively wide range of gauges for the MH strings may have been to allow them to be tuned in such a way that the tension was about the same for each string when using standard tuning - the pitch was then determined solely by the gauge (though the wrapped strings should also be more dense, otherwise they would be even thicker).⁹ To my knowledge no Chinese string sets of recent manufacture have had this sort of range; perhaps this results from a belief that some instruments sound better with thin strings, others with thick. MH say they plan in future to have strings in three sets of thicknesses but, as it is now, the wider differences in gauge do seem to help increase the variety of sound available from my qin. It makes me think the ideal would be for strings to be readily available individually instead of only in sets.

While visiting the Marusan Hashimoto factory I also tried their strings on two qins they have there, one a cheap instrument, bought in Japan for about US$400 (the kind that uses some chemical lacquer like polyurethane instead of real lacquer), the other a Wang Peng qin. What surprised me most was that the cheap qin actually sounded good enough that I might even recommend such an instrument for a beginner. The few times I have tried similarly cheap qins with the cheap silk strings it has been my impression that the most important factor in making that combination acceptable for a beginner is that the qin be light in weight. Although the sound is not rich, it is loud enough to hear easily and still richer in sound than that of much more expensive metal string qins.

The earlier Marusan Hashimoto strings also came with a brief note (in English) saying "silk string's durability is not good compared to steel strings. Be careful when handling. Please do not touch with wet hands." This has been changed for later versions such as in the second image above. In fact, the durability of the MH strings seems to be at least as strong as that of Chinese silk strings, so in future they should really revise this statement to say something like, "Care for silk strings is different from that for metal strings: silk strings should not be tuned as high, and the player's hands should always be both clean and dry."

For both Tobaya and Marusan Hashimoto making silk strings for guqin seems to be a spinoff from the silk strings they make for traditional Japanese instruments.

Regarding the sound, initially I have not heard much of a difference between the fish-glue and rice-glue strings: for me the sound differs more according to which instrument they are played on, and I have not played the two different types of strings on the same instrument back to back. Another difference is likely to be how they wear over time.

Footnotes (Shorthand references are explained on a separate page)

1. Marusan Hashimoto
Their website includes both an English section and a Chinese section. Their full address is:

Kinamoto, Nagahama-shi, Shiga-ken,
〒529-0425 滋賀県伊香郡木之本町木之本1049番地

The director, Hidekazu Hashimoto, can also be contacted via Facebook.

Mr. Hashimoto says they are also making composite strings, but they do not seem to be discussed on the MH website: it does mention "纏絲冰絃 Silk ice strings", but there it seems to be trying to use this term legitimately not as a misleading euphemism for composite strings.
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2. 丸三橋本 Wansanqiaoben
"Wansanqiaoben" is the mandarin Chinese pronunciation of the Chinese characters (kanji) for "Marusan Hashimoto". Sometimes the kanji for the company Marusan Hashimoto seems to be shortened to 丸三橋; I do not know the reason for this.
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3. Image: Marusan Hashimoto silk strings
Taken with my digital camera, which was not designed for such close ups.
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4. Two fliers with the strings Compare Chinese & English
The earlier and later fliers are shown at right (expand). The upper half of the left side shows a laminated image saying 蠶絲絃 (Silk Strings) while the lower half shows the back, an introduction to the company in Chinese. This came with a single sheet in English: on the upper right is the English flier from 2018; lower right is the earlier flyer with its questionable comment on durability (see above). The Chinese introduction to the company says is was founded in 1908, adding that they are now the most famous such company, making over 400 types (including similar types of different gauages?) of strings for such instruments as samisen, koto and kokin (huqin). All are made by hand.

There are further details on the English and Chinese pages of their website.
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5. Ice Strings (蠶絲冰絃 chan si bian xian)
It is my understanding that the company director, Hashimoto Hidekazu, began his serious investigation of Chinese silk strings in the first decade of the 21st century. He used the term "ice strings" because it was a goal of his to make strings as good as those.

Apparently some time around 2018 he became interested in " 复合絃 composite/nylon strings for guqin such as those developed in Fujian, China and rather misleadingly called ice strings. As a result there are now "丸三 Marimoto hybrid strings", but their expense has prevented them from taking off. Presumably they will have similar properties as the Xiamen composite strings but I have no details on this.
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6. Smoothness of MH strings
The Marusan Hashimoto strings, though smoother than standard Chinese silk strings available at present, still require a breaking in period - they improve significantly after a month of regular use (see also Breaking in new silk strings).
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7. Distribution for MH strings
As of 2022 the distributor in China is apparently 樂聖樂器 Le Sheng Yue Qi. This Shangai Lesheng Musical Instrument Co.,Ltd., is also a manufacturer of metal strings.

鈞天絲絃 Juntian Sixian
At one time MH strings were sold in what looks like a wooden box. At Rushi Shanfang in Beijing (which did not stock them) I was told the price was 1,800 yuan/set. Meanwhile MH was looking for a distributor for selling the strings separately, including possibilities outside of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
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8. Making glue from 餅 mochi and applying this to Japanese qin strings
In modern Chinese 餅 bǐng refers to various flat breads, often made of wheat instead of rice; in Japanese "mochi" often refers to a type of Japanese sweet, but the word by itself refers to glutinous rice that has been cooked then pounded into a mass; this is then used to make the rice skin in which the sweet paste is wrapped.

Hashimoto Hidekazu, manager of Marusan Hashimoto, gave the following information about making glue from mochi then applying it to qin strings (based on translation by Yuni Han; compare strings made in China):

After cooking our special rice in the purest water we have available we pound it in the traditional way, with mortar and pestle, until it becomes a glutinous mass ("mochi"). However, if one is making a small amount of glue, to be applied thinly to only a short length of string, one can make this pure mochi by putting any good quality glutinous rice into a modern "mochi machine" or even, after some preliminary pounding of the cooked rice, in a bread machine. To preserve this mochi it should be dried into strips of "かき餅 kaki-mochi); one can also use commercially available raw nama mochi (translator's comment: these 生餅, also called "mochi squares", may include other substances that make them less preferable). These kinds of mochi can then later be melted in order to make the glue. However, you should only make as much as you are going to use, as the moist glue will easily become moldy.

As for the melting, take a small piece of mochi and put in water for perhaps a day, until it softens. When soft enough, cook it at a high temperature with just enough water - not enough water and it will be too thick and so will not feel smooth to the hand; too much water and it will be too diluted. When cooking you must stir constantly so that the pot does not get burned at the bottom. When you scoop it with a ladle it should have solid consistency and not be soupy.

At the correct temperature (slightly warmer than body temperature, or ~30-40°C) the glue should penetrate easily, but at too high a temperature (over 80°) the existing wrapping may change its shape.

Mochi being a natural product, you can apply it directly by finger; after it is applied you may then wipe off excess from the string using a wet towel. Now leave it to dry fully, otherwise it will be sticky.

(Charles Tsua earlier advised using a rice paste glue made by mixing rice powder in water: bring to boil, then simmer for 10 minutes, continuously stirring until gloopy; let cool then apply. Based on the comment from "MH", "let cool" means apply it when it has cooled to just above body temperature. However, as yet I have not yet been able to make a rice glue that seems appropriate, so I do not yet know how the new MH strings with reinforced mesh fare in this regard.)
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9. Tension of the MH strings
There seems to be some comment on this on the Chinese language page of the MH website (see under 丸三桥本古琴丝弦的特点…").
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Return to the top, to silk strings or to the Guqin ToC.

"thick"	"regular"	"thin"	original	thick	regular
01.84	01.80	01.64	01.80	01.84	01.80
01.59	01.56	01.42	01.50	01.58	01.54
01.39	01.38	01.24	01.25	01.40	01.36
01.14	01.28	01.24	01.17	01.24	01.23
01.15	01.07	01.07	01.05	01.10	01.03
00.97	00.95	00.95	00.90	00.96	00.90
00.84	00.83	00.83	00.80	00.84	00.80