It is my understanding that we are pretty much guessing on both sound quality and stringing of Medieval Lutes. As far as I know there are no authentic Medieval Lutes in existence and very few Renaissance one for that matter. There are probably some pretty good guesses to be made by some well researched scholars but other than that it's still a guess as is almost everything about the Lute. As to nylgut, it is not historical, it is a modern attempt to make a synthetic--ish string that responds like the more traditional Gut.
I understand the stuff makes a pretty good sound, a lot like gut, but it's not gut. I prefer, at this point in my life, plain old cheap nylon. Maybe it does not sound as good as gut but the way I play it probably would not make much of a difference anyway so why spend the big bucks for strings? If however you are an active performer you might want to consider better options than plain old nylon. Vance Wood. ----- Original Message ----- From: "LGS-Europe" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lute List" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2005 1:54 AM Subject: [LUTE] Re: Octave string question > >> > playing late 16th c. vs. Medieval music) perspective. I'm curious about the > difference in sound quality as well as the historicity of > << > > Since when is nylgut historical? > > David > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
