Hi Anthony, I think that what happens with an experienced player (or what it should happen, anyway) is that there's an ideal of how things should sound beyond the reality of the instrument, and then we try to make it work with our lutes. The closer we get, the better we turn... then that ideal keeps changing as our skills develop. If you have such a clear idea of what you want your music to sound like, strings material are anecdotic and- again- a simple matter of taste.
Hello Ariel You seem to be an example that proves me wrong. It is just that I did notice how, at first, I found it difficult to make my gut basses sing. I am still far from happy with my playing abilities, but I have noticed an improvement, here. However, on the instant I moved from overwounds to pistoys or gimped, I could hear a far more homogeneous sound coming from treble, mid and bass voices, and also I felt the basses no longer tended to cover the other voices (I imagine that might be why you yourself like your Larson basses). I just needed to draw more from those basses. Using now gut basses, I'm not going to say the opposite. But overspun strings can be used in a way that suits the musical language. For instances, I still find that intonation is a bit of a problem with all gut strings I've tried (Aquila, Larson, etc). Intonation is a fairly important objective thing, and audiences would be very distracted if they occur, even when they do not know exactly what's going on. You can be very musical, make a wonderful tone, but if you're out of tune... I think that effected how I listened to myself playing. I have no real proof of what I put forward, but my knowledge of phonetics and feedback, make me think that we are bound to adapt our playing to the sound our strings tend to produce (damping our overwounds, but trying to squeeze the last drop out of our gut diapasons). I dare say that, as you have moved between string types, you can rapidly adapt to either, as some people can readily move between Baroque and Renaissance techniques. Expert players should no doubt adapt with alacrity to any change of string, room, etc. However, when I have handed my gut strung lute to good amateurs, used to playing with overwounds, they always seem to find the gut basses very difficult to handle. I understand your point. To me, more important would be to learn (with the most practical and stable material) how to control things led by a musical idea. The rest, to be honest, it is not important to me. I know many lutists feel that gut diapasons are the weakest element in gut stringing, but personally they are almost what is the most essential for me, for the above reason. I think I could swap all my top strings for nylgut, without suffering too much (although I would miss the special gut sound), but I really would not like to go back to overwound basses. I agree with you... but sometimes it isn't possible in certain contexts to have only gut diapasons and being in tune. I heard Hopkinson Smith's performance of Dowland in Paris, and I was, as always, astounded by his musical presence, and so admirative of his use of the minutest variations, from near silence to the faintest whisper. I somehow see him as the master of silence (which seems a little contradictory when speaking of music). However, the recording, of Dowland's Dream, does show that those wirewound basses do tend to drown the mid range. Unless, of course, it is because the sound engineers have added too much reverb. There's a totally different approach on that recording than in many other lute cd's. There's too much reverb and the sound isn't what we could name natural. But we need to remember that it isn't a product for audiophiles only, but a musical recording. In any case, if you listen at the polyphonic pieces on that record, you I would say that he has a very high control of everything that's happening. Nevertheless, while speaking of some of the advantages of gut, I have never suggested it was a solution for every one and all contexts. I have always mentioned my special situation, as an amateur. The point you make about beginners, is completely fair. I agree that as few problems as possible should be put before them and their playing; and tuning, as you say, is obviously one of them. It is better for a beginner to acquire the best lute possible, and then to spend much less on strings, and much more on lessons. I also agree that the context in which most players have to perform precludes the use of gut except for those who are really dedicated to it. I agree with you here. I do, however, often notice a greater clarity coming from recordings of players using gut basses. I thought that was mainly true for Renaissance lute recordings (Lindberg's Dowland, using loaded gut, over Dowland's Dream, for example); but recently the Weiss Bis recording by Jakob Lindberg on his Rauwolf and the Weiss recording by Paul Beier (Stradivarius STR 33731, see: http://musico.it/lute/ StradSolo.htm) shows that Baroque lute recordings can also benefit. To be fair, these are also recordings on 11c lutes, and I have a feeling that even synthetic strung Weiss 11c performances might somehow sound "more agile" than equivalent 13c performances, whatever the stringing. That is just my intuition. It is a pleasure to communicate with you, Best regards Anthony I liked the sound on Lindberg's Weiss record... but I'm not always convinced about some other all gut lute cd's. I find some of them very out of tune sometimes, and I think that's a bit of a shame. Maybe some people do not feel as distracted as I do with tuning items. It is my pleasure! PS I know this is not a good comparison, but some people also argue in favour of tea bags over loose tea for similar reasons of practicality, and even finish by preferring it. However, some of us just can't give up our loose leaf tea. Ok, I am weakening my point, but I can't resist a little humour in a serious topic). I think that's a fairly reasonable comparison... Now, following that idea, we can think of professional lute players as people spending their lives camping in rather uncomfortable places. Which sort of tea would you take in that situation with you? -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
