Presumably FB was talking of dark diapasons and not bass courses
diapasons with their octaves? Modern wire wounds are very bright and
there is little need for strong octaves. Personally when using Venice
gut loaded that were quite flexible and dark, I moved to higher tension
Venice octaves to compensate the slightly flappy quality of loaded
basses (which at first had tended to rattle slightly). This works very
well, the bass initially gives way to the thumb pressure, but the
higher tension octave gives a delayed resistance (all tendency to
rattle disappeared). I preferred this to going to a thicker higher
tension loaded bass which could sometimes sound slightly over damped. I
have kept these octaves with the new synthetic basses, and the few
lutenists who have tried my lute found it sounded well with this
configuration (how well this corresponds to evidence of historic
stringing, I am not sure. Although where indicated that octaves should
be played without basses, my octaves have a good tuneful presence,
which I doubt would be the case with lower tension ones; but along with
FB some might argue 'basses should be basses', whereas mine have a
slightly singing Meanes presence to them).
In the past, I have used first generation stiff HT loaded gut and
second generation flexible Venice loaded gut and now the flexible
synthetic ones, and after a time and some tweaking, managed with each
type. I think the playing style alters somewhat to adapt to stringing
and tensions, but I can imagine that those used to very stiff
wirewounds might take some time to adapt. On the other hand, if a
flexible bass is false, no increased tension of the octave will prevent
it from rattling.
Regards
Anthony
Le jeudi, février 2, 2017, 10:53 AM, Mimmo Peruffo
<mperu...@aquilacorde.com> a écrit :
The Well, Tony Bailes mailed me that:
Writing in 1629 Francis Bacon stresses that low strings should produce
a
bass sound: "for we see, that in one of the lower strings of a lute,
there
When soundeth not the sound of the treble, nor any mixt sound , but
onely the
sound of the base."
Mimmo
ps: I can made them less stretchly using a different elastomer. the
problem
is that they became a bit darker in the sound. Any suggestion? I am
ready to
start with the big batch. I am a bit worry about those that like that
they
are in some way still close to the wound strings
-----Messaggio originale-----
From: Martin Shepherd
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2017 10:26 AM
To: Mimmo ; Matthew Daillie
Cc: [1]baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Baroque Lute Stringing
Dear All,
If we're really interested in how lutes might have been strung
historically, I think it's important to take the historical evidence
(very little of it, I know) as a starting point, rather than the habits
of modern players using modern strings.
We have a lot of iconographic evidence (plus the evidence from
measuring
bridge holes) that bass strings were rather thin - so the conclusion
that they were more dense than a plain gut string seems pretty well
inescapable.
Having said that, the tensions which modern players expect may be too
high, for several reasons. One is that we are accustomed to wound
strings, which are very flexible and don't work at all well if they are
at too low a tension. A related problem is that modern players tend to
play much further from the bridge than their historical counterparts.
Another issue is that we have tended to assume roughly equal tension
across all the strings, so we have not experimented much with a
tapering
of tension as we go down into the bass. One interesting aspect of the
iconography is that strings get progressively thicker as they go down
into the bass, but not as much as one would expect if the tensions were
equal. To make this concrete, for a descent of an octave (maintaining
equal tension) the string should double in diameter, so the 6th course
on a 6c lute should be nearly twice the diameter of the 4th.
On the subject of string diameters, Mimmo estimates the thinnest string
which could have been made in the past as .42-.44mm. Single top strings
will need to be a higher tension than the individual strings of a
course, but even so it is more or less inevitable that the tension must
be tapered to some degree, otherwise bass strings (and tension) would
be
enormous. Mimmo has recently written that equal tension is different
from equal "feel", and I agree with his suggestion that (in order to
maintain equal feel) thinner strings should therefore be at a higher
tension than thicker ones. I have done this as a matter of instinct
for
many years - using a higher tension on the second course than on the
third, for example. As an aside, I note that most of us have tended to
use octaves at a lower tension than the fundamentals, but the string
table in the Gaultier book (discovered by Andreas Schlegel), and my
more
recent experiments, suggest perhaps a more equal tension.
As far as the characteristics of the strings is concerned, there are
some apparent contradictions in the historical evidence. Many
paintings
give the impression that the strings were very floppy (compared to
modern gut strings), with lengths of spare string dangling from the
pegbox. On the other hand, one of the tests for a good string
recommended by Dowland is "stiffness to the finger" (assessed before
putting the string on the lute by pressing the end of the string to see
how bendy it is). In terms of elasticity, Mace talks about a string
stretching "an inch or two" in the winding up - suggesting a string
much
more elastic than almost any modern string.
Then we come to another apparent contradiction on the area of modern
experiments. I have found the Savarez KF strings (made from PVDF, much
more dense then gut, so perhaps more like a "loaded" gut string as far
as density is concerned) work very well, in spite of being very stiff
and not very elastic. They also work well at lower tensions than other
types of string. They are usually pretty true, and that helps. The
implication seems to be that a string which is sufficiently dense (and
can therefore be thin) doesn't need to be very elastic in order to
work. I don't know how to reconcile this with the historical evidence,
but it occurs to me that there is a difference between elasticity
(stretchiness) and "sideways flexibility" or "floppy flexibility"
(which
it seems the old strings may have had). Think of the difference
between
an rubber band and a piece of household string - the cotton string is
very floppy but has very little elasticity. All things considered I
would definitely be interested to see Mimmo make a string with lower
elasticity. Trueness is paramount - if a string is even slightly false
the irregular pattern of vibration will make it rattle against the
frets
and it will never sound well even as an open string.
Just a few thoughts for you to chew on....
Martin
On 02/02/2017 07:20, Mimmo wrote:
> Well, I can add a few informations
> There are no production problems it shelf. I had an extruder broken
so I
> was obliged to wait the time to fix it. After that I finished the raw
> material. I received it a week ago.
> They has more amplitude in the vibration whose problem is mostly
because
> one should compensate the lack of tension when the strings are under
> tension. In practice they became thinner that any wound strings. In
short,
> if the equivalent gut by calculation is 145 I raccomand to install a
150
> instead. So under tension the final gauge will be the suitable one.
> Yes, there is no problem to switch to a more stiffer plastic blend.
The
> problem is that we lost a bit of brightness. Is it a good idea ? I do
not
> know, people has the wound strings sound in comparation.
> Take care
> Mimmo Peruffo
>
>> Il giorno 01 feb 2017, alle ore 23:34, Matthew Daillie
>> <[2]dail...@club-internet.fr> ha scritto:
>>
>> Of the main copper-wound strings available, the fullest sounding and
>> brightest are the Kürschner followed by the Savarez, then the
Aquila Ds
>> and lastly the Aquila DEs, which are pretty dull (and are no longer
being
>> made although several retailers still have quite large stocks
available).
>>
>> As far as I am concerned the jury is still out on the Aquila loaded
>> nylgut. Many of us have high hopes but there are production problems
>> (there has only been one batch so far and many diameters are
unavailable)
>> and some strings can have considerably sideways amplitude when
plucked
>> (even causing them to catch neighbouring strings!) as well as
intonation
>> issues (but that is also true of a lot of wound strings).
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Matthew
>>
>>> On 01/02/2017 22:25, David Rastall wrote:
>>> It seems I am back playing Baroque lute once again, after rather a
long
>>> hiatus. It's been long enough that I have forgotten some of the
points
>>> of conventional wisdom concerning stringing. I'm playing an 11c
lute
>>> currently strung with silver-wound basses and Pyramid nylon mids
and
>>> trebles. I'm not so much bothered by the sustain of the nylon
strings,
>>> but if you folks can refresh my memory: what is the best choice of
>>> basses to get a sustain which is not downright thunky or chunky,
but has
>>> shorter sustain than the silver-wounds?
>>>
>>> David R
>>>
>>
>>
>> To get on or off this list see list information at
>> [3]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>
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