At 10:06 AM 11/28/2004, Roman Turovsky wrote: >All this DOES NOT PRECLUDE GUT-WIRE COMBINATION rather early, as weaving >textile grade wire into gut is absolutely conceivable, and this is probably >what Gerardus Cambrensis saw in Ireland in the 12th century.
..Or (and not really knowing much of harp) even all-wire and all-gut strings in combination on the same instrument. Such combinations were not unknown to necked chordophones, even relatively late in the life of "early" music. The early tutors for Neapolitan mandolin of the 1760s prescribed a silver-wound silk and brass wire g-g' (in octave), twisted brass d'-d', plain brass a'-a', and gut e"-e". The wire available at that time of pre-steel drawn wire just could not consistently be brought to e" without breaking at mandolin scale. Best, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
