Le 7 juin 08 à 21:02, Martin Shepherd a écrit :
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
Dear Martin
As you all know by now, I would be quite incapable of putting it so
succinctly. I also want to know how the old ones did things, and in
any case have always loved archeology and recontruction.
Of course I am less moderately convinced than you are by loading, but
I do agree with the last point. The same problem occurs for restoring
the hall of mirrors in Versaille. Luckily there were some spares, so
no one had to inhale the mercury fumes. Perhaps some medical report
on Saturnism in 17th century lute players could be added as evidence
to string loading; although the lutists in question might just as
well have been prone to licking the lead paint off the walls
(apparently lead, is sweet, and that is why such paint is a danger to
children).
Fortinately, for me, Mimmo has not taken authenticity to that
extreme, as I have just added a new Venice loaded string to my 7c
Gerle with good results. Strangely, the sound of all the other
strings has opened up, and have gained sustain. I suppose there is
less impedance at the bridge, because of the very supple Venice core,
and the Loaded string is also much more true than the previous
string. Thus sympathetic resonances may be playing more of a role.
Point (b), we all hope might be solved by research into point (a),
loaded strings (and other historical solutions, low tension
hightwist), I hope will allow us to forget wire wounds and the
problem of thick Pistoys; Although Charles Besnainou, just as
unsatisfied as yourself about wire-wounds and very thick Pistoys,
went along the modern route of acoustic models and analysis, in his
laboratory at the LAM, Laboratoire Acoustique Musicale, and has come
up with some interesting solutions, that can be tried by synthetics
users.
Regards
Anthony
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
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