But if you slowly draw a bow and arrow and then release it, the arrow will 
travel just as fast as if you drew it quickly. The initial addressing of the 
string can be slow, but the stroke itself must be quick, "like a mousetrap, or 
touching a hot stove," as one teacher once put it. Beginning practice of 
producing single notes to refine one's tone as an early student should be 
intentionally slowed down, at least the initial part of the action.
 Also, has anyone mentioned the fact that we're talking about TWO strings 
here? I think if you displace the strings sideways rather than toward the 
soundboard you are actually displacing one string more than the other. Also, if 
they 
are vibrating sideways, there's much more chance of them striking each other, 
a real possibility, for example, with the bass strings of a large lute.
 When contemporary luters recommended playing "deeply into the mouth of the 
lute" I think they may have been telling students to depress the strings into 
the soundboard.
 In any event, practice certainly confirms the fact that on a lute one 
achieves a much rounder, fuller tone by depressing the string toward the 
soundboard 
rather than dissplacing it sideways.
Cheers,
Jim


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