----- Original Message ----- From: "Miles Dempster" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "lute list" <> Sent: Saturday, August 26, 2006 4:30 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: strings: direction of vibration?
> My understanding is that double, rather than single, stringing is > likely to have an effect on how a course will vibrate. I say this > having read, somewhere, I can't remember where, a description of the > physics of the sound of the piano. > > Here is the piano logic applied to the lute: Well, I'm not quite sure if you can, strictly speaking, apply piano logic to the lute. Too many differences here, starting from how strings are set into vibration mode to comparably much higher tension, differences in uniformity of the strings, exceedingly much more rigid construction of the piano v lute etc etc. > When you pluck the two strings simultaneously, they start vibrating > together in phase. > However, they quickly adjust to vibrating together, more comfortably, > with a phase separation of 180 degrees i.e. they vibrate in counter- > motion. > ... And, I suppose, that they would settle down vibrating > parallel to the soundboard, even if they had been initially plucked > to vibrate perpendicular to the soundboard. It would be best to know the exact picture how or rather which plan they'd settle to vibrate in, then we know ... Perhaps there is such information already (shouldn't be that difficult to obtain with laser beam technology). > This phenomenon of a quick shifting from 0 to 180 degrees phase shift > is used to explain (in the case of the piano, anyway ) the difference > between the tone of the attack and the more fluty aftersound. I can quite agree with this. Harmonics do settle down and / or rather die out (in a stiff, high-tension piano string in particularly) and hence the more fluty, harmonically poorer sound. Alexander To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
