Dear Michael and others,
what would interest me is what difference in sound the fan bracing and
arching of the
top does make, compared to the usual baroque lutes.
Regards,
Stephan
Dear Stephan and all,
I'll let you know what I think as I'm presently in the process of
building four baroque lutes, and will use the fan bracing on all of them,
not to mention there all Jauch, and Brunner, extensions, so this will be in
line historically.
I spoke once with Grant Tomlinson about this subject. Grant felt
that fan bracing, didn't provide enough overtones, the way J bar bracing
did. David Van Edwards told me that the Fan bracing gives a smoother
transition from string to string.
From my experience they are both right! I would kind of summarize it
this way. Fan bracing focuses the note more towards the fundamental. J Bar
bracing gives the bass more sustain and overtones, as there is more of a
dampening effect by use of a bass bar, on the bass side of a lute.
Dampening, basically translates into material, or mass in this case, bass
needs mass.
Treble on the other hand needs lightness, and stiffness across the
grain, these two principles work in opposition to each other, in my mind
it's like turning the balance knob on your stereo right down the middle, at
least that is what I aim for.
However, throw in the idea of arching the top and the bridge, and you get
another factor to consider. By arching the top and bridge one does two
things. First, you build in a kind of ... built in responsiveness..this is
guitar building "101 " it's called," loading the bridge". As the soundboard
is under tension it wants to always flex back to it's original state, this
gives the instrument a more explosive attack, as you have two energies
operating at the same time, the energy from your finger, and the built in
energy of the top wanting to flex back.
Second you raise the frequency of the top, the same way Hillbillies
play a " saw blade ". Flex the blade ( top)and the note goes up, relax it
and the note goes down.
Now here is the interesting part. Apply fan bracing and one gets a more
fundamental note, but arch the bridge and you raise the frequency of the
top. Interesting concept.
This is exactly what these historical late baroque makers did with there
swan necks, and triple head designs.
This all leads me to believe that something revolutionary took place
in the late baroque scene.....the use of wound metal bass strings! with the
use of wound basses on the traditional designs, one could imagine too many
overtones, so the makers adjusted the bracing to get rid of these overtones
buy the use of fan bracing etc.
BTW, I visited Donatella's site ( nice Site ) and noticed in the painting
on the first page what appears to be silver looking basses. Anyone else see
that?
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the best,
Michael Thames
www.ThamesClassicalGuitars.com
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2005 5:24 AM
Subject: Re: belly braces
> Am 28 Mar 2005 um 19:50 hat Michael Thames geschrieben:
>
> > DAS used Lundberg as his main source of info. Lundberg stops
short
> > of the goal, concentrating only on Edlinger, and his conversion lutes,
> > dismissing Heir Hoffman as building inferior lutes, the whole time
> > ignoring, the late baroque developments like, swan necks Jauch etc. And
the
> > radically different approach from the makers who designed their lutes
around
> > the demands of contempary Baroque musicians.
>
>
> Dear Michael and others,
>
> what would interest me is what difference in sound the fan bracing and
arching of the
> top does make, compared to the usual baroque lutes.
>
> Regards,
>
> Stephan
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>
