Dear Martin, Very good point. I suffer from a/ & b/ too , and am waiting impatiently for some kind of remedy. Fortunately the Medicine is making a giant progress these days......At least we are not alone!
All the best Jaroslaw -----Original Message----- From: Martin Shepherd [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 9:02 PM To: Jarosław Lipski Cc: 'Lute' Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: dyeing/loading Dear Jaroslaw, I agree with everything you say - but my problem has always been that (a) I wanted to know how the old guys really did it and (b) I didn't like any of the options that were available. I admit that (a) is not necessarily relevant to modern audiences but (b) is a practical matter which impinges directly on the whole business of making music. Both (a) and (b) are unresolved, though I find myself moderately convinced by the loading hypothesis, and simultaneously sceptical about the practicalities, unless we all want to die from cinnabar poisoning.... Best to All, Martin Jarosław Lipski wrote: >Anthony, > >I am afraid you over interpreted my statement. Actually I wasn't really 100% >serious writing it - maybe half serious.....or so. But obviously there is >some truth in every joke. How can we say things for 100% if we lack >convincing evidence? As I said we have variety of strings at our disposal, >we have technologies that were unconceivable for the old ones and whether we >use them or not is a matter of taste I suppose. I may like plain gut, >somebody else may prefer loaded strings.....fine! Let's make music! The >public will asses what sounds good. But we should make a living music of our >days (don't get me wrong again - I am not saying that the history doesn't >matter, no, no). This is however not a museum of the dead music - musical >fossils. We use the new historical findings to make us aware of how this >music could really sound some hundreds years ago, but I think this is not a >musical attitude to see somebody's performance only in a historical context. >We have only hypothesis now. So presumably someone believes that the loaded >strings really existed. But what will happen if somebody else proves they >never ever existed? Shall we classify somebody's performance as not HIP and >in consequence not worthy listening? As an example do listen to Magdalena >Kozena singing Haendel aria "Oh! Had I Jubal's Lyre" and then interpretation >of the same piece by Victoria de los Angeles (both on Youtube). One is more >or less historically correct the other not so. But what would you like to >listen to? Probably each one of us would answer differently. And this shows >that historical correctness is not the most important factor in music making >(I stress it - not the MOST important). This is why I said - let's make >music!!! >Now, back to the strings. I really have a big esteem for people that make a >painstaking efforts in order to recreate the facts from the past. >Nevertheless many questions still wait for answering. Meanwhile I wouldn't >hesitate to get the best sounding strings for my lute. And this "BEST >SOUNDING" probably will mean something different for each of us. > >Best wishes > >Jaroslaw > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Anthony Hind [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: Saturday, June 07, 2008 3:53 PM >To: damian dlugolecki; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Net >Subject: [LUTE] Re: dyeing/loading > > >I can understand some lutists considering the historic question >unimportant. I am thinking of what Jaroslaw said in an earlier message. > >Indeed, Charles Besnainou told me he set out simply to improve on >present strings with no care whatsoever about historical correctness. >He found that wirewounds drowned the midrange and impeded the >resonances at the bridge. He found that twisted gut and Pistoys at >equal tension have poor high frequency performance (inharmonicity) >and set out to solve that problem. I saw and heard spectrograms, of >the same diameter string, hightwist plain-gut, Pistoy, and his own >toroidal string, and you can observe and hear the difference in the >high frequency behaviour of these strings. The worst spectrogram is >given by the high twist and the best by his own strings the Pistoy in >between. >It seems that inharmonicity is related to loss of flexibility at the >nut and at the bridge. Briefly the ripples of the sound waves >encounter impedance and some return, out of phase. These out of phase >returning waves, rapidly cancel the high frequency content and damp >the wave (sorry, you will all be able to find fault in my explanation >which is really a metaphor). > >I imagine that dropping the tension of the hightwist string is going >to lower that impedance and improve its behaviour (low tension >theory). I do not know whether, Charles made comparisons of the same >string types at varying tensions. This could be very interesting. > >Anyway, Charles actually thought he had discovered something >completely new, but then discovered that such ropes had existed, and >had been used on musical instruments. When trying to solve a >particular problem, we are highly likely to find that the ancients >were confronted with the same problems, and came up with similar if >slightly different solutions. > >Nevertheless, for Charles the historic question remains quite >secondary, and most of the ropes he now makes are in pure carbon. I >still would prefer the gut ones, but his approach, open to history, >but also applying science to find new solutions, may make it possible >for synthetics users to stop using wirewounds. I for one am not >against that. > >I don't see any terrible problem in these different approaches >coexisting, and musicians making the best of the string types that >result from this. Let us not even want to close off some axis of >discussion, because it is different from our own. Now whether, it is >better to pick up one's lute and to play instead of discussing, is >quite another question, and I think that is what I am juts about to do. > regards >Anthony > > > > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG. >Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 270.0.0/1488 - Release Date: 06/06/2008 17:48 > >
