Greetings, Martin! Your note here is well written, and very clear, and not difficult to understand, at all. I agree in most of the aspects of your note, with exception of the .43 being the smallest possible string... I am not disagreeing with you, as I have no information on that topic. Dan Larson, my neighbor & friend, is out of town (he is in London), so I cannot ask him at this time - he, if anyone, could shed light.
I would really love to try a 65-67 cm 9 course lute, somewhat lightly strung. To me, it sounds as though it would be a great experience. I agree, that in deep bass strings, one sometimes needs to diminish the tension, as there is a point where bigger is not better, and it becomes too "muddy" in the sound. That is where the function of a strong octave comes into play. I think the tension of the octave needs to be at least as high in tension as the fundamental, and perhaps even higher. This is where the depth & beautiful sound comes forth; at least, in my experience. Best wishes, ed At 10:18 PM 11/28/2006 +0000, Martin Shepherd wrote: >Dear All, > >Sorry if you get this twice - this is the second attempt to get it to >appear... > > >Here are some thoughts which relate to this topic: > >A couple of years ago I took my 6c lute with me when I went to Corsica >for two weeks. While I was there I just played it, without checking the >pitch. Strung all in gut, it sounded really good and I was really >surprised how well the sound carried when Claire was playing it near the >house and I was in the garden, some distance away. When I got home I >discovered that it had sunk in pitch nearly a tone, from G (at a'=440) >to nearly F (60cm string length) - so the top course was a comfortable >33N, the second 24N and the rest about 23N. I had always been an >advocate of keeping the pitch as high as possible, but this experience >made me think again. I went back to the famous "Ambassadors" painting >by Holbein, which shows the strings very clearly. The progression in >size of the strings looks roughly correct (an increase in diameter of >roughly 33% to go down a fourth) but the 6th course looks to be perhaps >1.25mm rather than 1.40mm. I know it's hard to make these judgements, >but for what it's worth that's my impression. I have not yet tried >stringing this lute in G at a'=440 with thinner strings (see below). > >About a year ago I made a 9c lute and the customer wanted it strung in >gut. I used pistoys for courses 6 and 7 and gimped strings for 8 and >9. With a 67cm string length I calculated string diameters based on a >slightly higher tension than for a 60cm lute (as I usually do). When I >strung it up the lowest basses were too stiff - I ended up moving >strings down a course, and it worked much better. The tension was >graded from about 24N on the 6th course down to about 21N on the 9th. >With modern gut basses (and I suspect with old ones as well) there is a >tradeoff between the optimal tension and the optimal stiffness: a thick >string will get us closer to the optimum tension but a thinner string, >while taking us further away from optimal tension, will be more flexible >and have more sustain. The low tension string gives us a little less >volume, perhaps, but more sustain. > >One factor which might push us towards a lower pitch (not necessarily a >lower tension) is the issue of how thin a gut string made from whole >guts can be made. (I'm ignoring the breaking pitch because even modern >gut strings can reach our pitch of g' for a 60cm lute). As I understand >it, the thinnest string which can be made is made from two whole guts >laid thick end to thin end - if I'm wrong about this, please correct >me! Modern estimates suggest a diameter of about .43mm, implying that >this was the thinnest string the old guys could have used, unless their >lambs were younger/smaller and had thinner guts or whatever. If we take >this string and put it on our 60cm lute and tune it to g', we get a >tension of about 43N, quite high but bearable. But it's obvious we >can't go much higher than that, not so much because the string might >break but because the tension would be unbearably high. Once we start >to consider double top strings, which seem to have been quite common >from c.1580, things get more difficult and the pitch starts to go >down. Dowland, writing about 9c lutes in 1610, says that the French >had lenghened the necks of lutes by two frets, so that the most desired >lutes are those which have ten (tied) frets. This in itself implies a >drop in pitch of about a tone, but he also says that the trebles - note >he used a double top string - should be tuned not too stiff (high), but >so that they "play to and fro after the strokes thereon" (or something >very like that - sorry my copy of VLL is on loan at the moment, so I >can't give the exact quotation) - in other words, he is no longer tuning >the top string(s) as high as possible, but a little lower, to get a more >pleasant, sustained sound. Taken together with the ten-fret neck, this >implies that Dowland's "9c Lute in G, c.1610" probably had a string >length of at least 65cm and was tuned at least a tone below modern pitch. > >Historical considerations apart, one reason for being concerned about >pitch is the relationship between the basic pitch of an instrument and >its body size - if we are consistently getting this wrong we may not be >making the most of our lutes. But the low tensions I have discussed >only seem to work for gut strings - not for nylon or even nylgut, and >certainly not for wound basses. > >I think things have just got more difficult! > >Best wishes, > >Martin > > > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Edward Martin 2817 East 2nd Street Duluth, Minnesota 55812 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (218) 728-1202
