Hi Donatella, that is very interesting. As for gut strings surviving nails, we should bear in mind that prior to the 1940s all kinds of instruments were played with gut strings, including Milanese mandolins, the oud etc.; I don't know what gut strings you use, but the ones provided by Nick Baldock survive years of strong plucking with a stiff eagle feather on a daily basis. the third course on my Timurid lute has been on ever since I got the instrument 3 years ago and hasn't even frailed yet. I think gut is actually a very strong material. Is the story about Francesco not more like a legend?
Best wishes, danyel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Donatella Galletti" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2005 11:26 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: Gut strings and nails- Dalla Casa > Dear All, > > I'm just going through the book by Dalla Casa ( BTW, some pieces are in > tablature on my web site, perhaps anybody out there is willing to add a > piece? ), and there is a portrait of him playing his "arciliuto francese" > ( which is in fact an archlute). > Cristoforetti in his introduction of the SPES edition says the strings were > made of gut , nevertheless Dalla Casa played with long nails, as it can be > seen in the picture. Doesn't a gut string get worn out in two days, when > played like that? Were gut strings different from ours? Any suggestions? > > Francesco da Milano used to play with long silver "nails", and this is also > something which exceeds my understanding of gut resistance.. > > Thanks > > Donatella > > > http://web.tiscali.it/awebd > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
