Tony Chalkley wrote: > Just an idea that I wouldn't know how to put into practice - they couldn't > have roped but left a finer "tail" to go through the hole, could they? I'm > thinking of a make of guitar and bass strings where only the core lies on > the saddle and of course piano strings. > > You may argue that there is a slight difference in the materials and method > of manufacture involved... > > Anyway, I don't care - I haven't even got a baroque lute;-)
An article in the Lute Society of America Quarterly some years ago suggested that players would roll their own: take a double-length single-strand string, run it through the bridge hole and back to the pegbox, and then twist the two strands into a rope. This would account for holes too small to accommodate a roped string. Of course, it would take half an hour to replace a string if it broke during a gig. In our own time, roped gut strings were/are used much more on renaissance lutes than on baroque lutes. I have nothing to add to the discussion about whether they were used historically. HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
