>Dear Herbert:
> "Proper diameters" and "more limp" are two sides of the same coin. Guitars
>are strung at about 5 kilos of string tension, lutes closer to 3 kilos.
>Also, tenor lutes are tuned in G, guitars in E, although their string
>lengths are similar.
G'day Jim,
When local luthier Mel Wong retopped and renecked my old german "lutar" we
kept the same string length: ~69-70cm and it tunes very nicely to E. By
working w/ a lighter top but keeping the same string length, for some
reason the Wadsworth string calculator suggests the same pitch. My guess is
that the strings --whether heavy and high tension or light and lower
tension-- have an optimal pitch.
just my 1.6 cents (sorry, we've got a deficit out here to cover ;^)
Sean Smith
