Taco
I think Mimmo Peruffo may not reply because he may not want to
appear to be advertising his wares on this list. It is a difficult
situation for string makers and lute makers whenever they
communicate, it could be considered that indirectly they are trying
to sell their wares.
Also, there is a limit to what they can say without giving away their
trade-secrets.
One problem in researching historic strings, is that string makers
have always kept their recipes secret. Thus, only indirect evidence
can often be used to rediscover these processes.
And yet, string makers would be by far the best persons to speak
about their own strings.
However, you will notice that very few do.
I gave you an answer because, I did see and hear those strings,
however, I am far from being a competent person in this field. I can
but use my imagination to think what may be going on in the discovery
of these old strings, and metaphors about wine-making are my weak
attempts at imagining the sort of difficulties involved.
My reply may, anyway, seem a little strange, because I say that the
loaded strings seemed quite good, but may not be available. If I
heard them why aren't they available?
The problem I think is that when you research into old techniques,
you may or may not rediscover them; but it is different rediscovering
the technique, and using it efficiently to produce the strings in
sufficient numbers and in a controlled way to be able to
commercialize them.
I suppose we can remake glass for the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace
of Versailles using the original technique, but they only use old
ones from that time, as the original ones used mercury fumes, which
are quite lethal, (and also I suppose new ones would look too new,
but that is not relevant to the question, here)
I am not suggesting that it is exactly the same for a loaded string,
but working conditions at the time of historic string making would
take little notice of the time spent, or the wastage, or the danger
of chemicals. It may have been that most strings were thrown away.
Some techniques cannot even be considered today, such as loading with
Mercury salts.
I imagine that once you have found the original technique, you need
to find a modern substitute method that allows you to speed up the
production, and control it so that you don't lose most of it.
The original loaded strings, on an ordinary hightwist base, were
quite good according to Jakob Lindberg. He says about the Rauwolf, "I
had it all gut strung, with Dan Larson's gimped strings in the
basses, except the last two, (...) where I had one of Mimmo Peruffo's
early corde appesantite". He used them on his early Dowland
recording, but later the quality was not so good. Perhaps the ones he
had first, were the result of a long process of careful "hand-picked"
experimental production, the later ones may have been, perhaps, an
attempt at making them by a quicker controlled method. If so they may
not have been so good. Lindberg says so in his article for the LSA
journal.
I am not entirely inventing this explanation. Actually, I thought of
it, and then I found my thoughts were more or less confirmed by what
I found in the FAQ at Aquila's site.
I will quote from this : http://www.aquilacorde.com/faqi.htm
"46) Why did you suspend the production of loaded (C type) gut strings?
(...)
The production of loaded gut has been suspended on several important
grounds:
1) the manufacturing process was extremely elaborate and difficult to
standardize
2) the waste was very high (up to 70%)
3) the selling price could never cover the expenses
4) even after passing our quality control the risk the strings would
still develop serious problems (like early breakage or becoming
false) and cause justified customers complaints remained high.
Seeking new technical solutions for the loading of gut has never been
given up, though; we still aim at developing a different procedure
that will allow us to produce loaded strings in a less costly, less
wasteful and completely reliable way."
If the new Venice loaded strings are still the result of a slow
experimental research process. MP may not want to begin selling them,
until he has perfected the next stage, finding a way of producing
them more quickly and with a controlled method.
Thus, at the Greenwich early music festival, he could be showing the
results of his research experimentation, like any body else reading
an article on some aspect of their research into lutemaking or
interpretation.
Mimmo has possibly not yet perfected the production stage, and may
be, he does not know whether he will be able to do so. (I have no
idea about that, perhaps on the other hand he is completely ready to
produce them).
He may nevertheless consider he has gathered enough proof to show
that loaded strings did exist and he is now able to show that they
can be made, and also sound better than the previous ones that he made.
I apologize to Mimmo Peruffo, if what I have said is too wide of the
mark.
Regards
Anthony
Le 3 nov. 07 à 20:29, Anthony Hind a écrit :
Taco
It would be better, if Mimmo Peruffo would answer this, and
perhaps he will.
However, I heard them and saw them on Mimmo Peruffo's bass lute,
through Skype, and as far as I could hear and see in such a context
they did seem good.
I have an M-Audio Transit plus JBL on Tour speakers connected to my
computer, which is not hifi by any means, but with a decent MP3
Stream such as the examples on Aquila's site, or Dan Larson's
recordings of his lutes, it is quite reasonable.
The previous type of loaded strings were easily damaged, being on a
treble type string base. Now they are loaded Venice, which are a
sort of twine. In particular they can be screwed up into a little
ball and still come out looking like an unbroken string, which was
not the case with the original ones. Mimmo demonstated that to me
infront of the computer. He also did that trick of having the
string vibrate between both hands, so that you can see that the
vibration is even and regular.
I understand that as they are almost "tanned", they are more immune
from the effect of humidity than a normal string. I think MP will
be introducing them to the lute world at the Greenwich early music
festival this month, November 2007
However, that does not mean they are about to be commercialized. As
I understand it, the method for producing them is highly complex
and rather long (and there will have been many hours/days/years?
research). It may then be, that only a small number in the
production will be up to standard. Thus how do you commercialize
such a product? It is a little like those wines made with a few of
the grapes in each bunch, hand chosen at the end of November when
the grapes have almost dried out, and then laid down in casks for
10 years.
I tasted such a wine recently, at £90 a bottle. I did not actually
buy it, but was allowed to taste it as a favour by the wine
producer, because he knew I would appreciate it.
It was an extraordinarily complex taste, but if I did not buy the
wine (although I was sorely tempted) who is going to buy a string
at £90 a go, and yet, when you think about it, that bottle of wine
was only 375 ml, and would not have lasted an evening. A lute bass
lute string will last several years. I am not saying that would be
the price of such a string, but I can easily imagine that the
production might take the same pains taking work and time as that
wine.
Regards
Anthony
Le 3 nov. 07 à 18:53, Taco Walstra a écrit :
Dear all,
just a new work on the lute historical stringings:
http://www.aquilacorde.com/lutes.htm
Maybe it help to open some new excange of ideas...
Ciao
Mimmo
Interesting article and I'm very much interested in the new
production of the
loaded gut strings even after yesterdays experience with a small
concert with
a soprano in amsterdam: after a walk through drizzling rain,
tuning in a
relative warm room which was filled later with people wearing wet
clothes and
temperature rising to a hot and super humid level. I think that
not many
people understood my frustration when I answered a question from a
listener
why I had to tune after every song.
When are these loaded gut string available? Anybody already
experience with
these strings from Aquila. (especially: How do they stay?)
Taco
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