Hey Folks!
Due to the very short live of a Ni no Ito made out of Silk (at least with my playing style…^^’), I switched to the Tetoron-Variant.
Some other players said to me it could do damage to the Sao because of its hardness, like producing cracks and scratches on it.
Can somebody confirm this could be an issue? I really don’t wanna go back to silk, replacing my Ni no Ito every week…
Best Wishes
Andreas
Hey Andreas
I’m playing with Tetoron-itos quite since the beginning (3yrs.).
I can’t spot any deterioration on the sao so far.
What I notices, though, is the breaking of the san-no-ito more often, when removing only the koma after playing and leave the itos in tension. Therefore I recently began to losen the tension on all three strings. So when resuming practice the next day, I usually fiddle on a very low tuning first…that tone is so cool, that I firstly have to play through all the songs I know so far, before tuning up to normal.
Yeah, hitting hard on the strings/kawa just libarates from the stress of a working day =)
Greets
Ale
Andreas-san, I think no harm will come from the synthetic string. Who were these other players who told you this? Ask yourself - are they Trump supporters? If yes, then question everything they say.
Tomo - right on!!! 
Tomo-San! Haha, I have yet to see a full blooded Trump Supporter playing Shamisen xD
They’re some people in my surrounding playing Tsugaru Shamisen, although mostly Minyo.
They are playing since 8 or 10 years, so I thought they could have a point. Maybe they had a bad experience with a material other than Tetoron, could also be possible…
Thanks for sharing your experience, Ale!
Regards
Andreas
No Trump shamisenistas?? Another excellent reason to learn shamisen and encourage others to.
Back to the original point: interesting that an experienced group of players sees damage to sao by Tetoron. I’m not sure I can see a mechanism for why, but if they say it happens, then it happens. Really interesting - thank you for sharing! I use 10-pound test nylon fishing line for my high G on my SanXian and the first length has yet to break, even when my seven year old grandson used my SanXian as a bow to launch a foam arrow he made. Who knew the instrument could double as a weapon?