>Jason: > >This report seems to come from a letter written about Milano. I read a >reference to this some time ago, the source now escapes me. I recall they >were something like silver thimbles. I know of no one who has experimented >with this concept, I really cannot understand why anyone would want to.
I hope Arthur Ness, or someone else who knows well about this source, will chime in. I think there were two sources for this, in fact. I also have in my mind, I don't know how, that there were possibly little plectrums coming out of the silver thimbles. (???) Last summer, I had the good fortune to study a bit with Crawford Young and learned that a guitar string can make a good plectrum. (He simply used a guitar string so that he wouldn't wear out his ostrich feathers) The point of that statement is that plectrums don't have to be flat. Feathers, when turned the opposite way that you would normally think of them being used -the thin end on the string, stripped of the feather part, are surprisingly like a nylon guitar string in thickness and stiffness. This roundness has a unique advantage in that you can attack a string from nearly any angle. I could envision a thimble with a bit of feather stem coming out of the middle of the tip. Think about doing didillo strokes with that! The fact that there is a possibility that Milano used thimbles would be reason enough to try them IMHO. Who knows what we could learn? cheers, -- Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ --
