> Dear Anthony, You seem to be intent on finding evidence to
> support a historical
> premise for 'loaded' strings. You rely heavily on a color theory
> that supposes that
> reddish strings indicate loaded strings. Since you are not privy
> to the stringmakers
> craft other than what you have gathered from Mimmo, you can't be
> blamed for
> being ignorant of the fact that this reddish brown color is the
> natural color for
> strings that have been made with minimal chemical exposure, that is
> to say, only
> mild soaps and of course soda ash.
Dear Damian
I am aware of that fact. I know that Georges Stoppani
strings are more or less that colour and not as far as I know treated.
Indeed, I suggested that the rotten red strings mentioned by Mace
could be distinct from those that might be red through loading (I was
exactly thinking they might be untreated ones, and not the perhaps
red from loading Pistoys, he mentions). Although, I agree all that
was pure speculation.
Personally, I am not particularly interested in the colour question,
but I see that many people would like to touch and see the original
loaded strings, and wont believe they existed unless they actually
see one; and thus the facination with paintings which are somehow
felt to be the next best thing.
I pointed out that it was impossible to tell, even by looking at the
photos of my lute, that the strings are brown-red because of loading,
unless you also look at the thickness of the strings. It is these two
factors that should be taken together, especially if the lute has a
short string length.
That is why I point to the Mouton lute painting. The strings painted
there are not at all thick, and yet they would surely need to have
been on such a small lute.
There are two alternative theories: low tension and toroidal
pretensioned stringing (I'll leave the second aside for the moment).
There is a combination of factors to account for: even with his low
tension stringing, Satoh's string diameters are too thick to pass
through the small historic bridge holes. He prefers extended Dutch
lutes to increase the string length with large bowls to reinforce the
bass, showing that it is difficult to obtain a good bass even with
the moderate low tension that he uses.
Furthermore, he has to play near the bridge, not just for the top
strings, but above all for the basses, as his basses are so slack.
He therefore adopts an RH swallo'w nest shape with his thumb level
with his index finger, as far back as it can go.
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~lsa/old/Cleveland2006/TSatohConcert.html
Not at all the shape suggested by Burwell, or shown in the
iconography, where the thumb is always well ahead of the index, when
near the bridge:
Burwell, Ch. 6, p. 16, last paragraph: "For the right hand, it must
be placed betweene the Rose and the Bridge but nearest [sic!] to the
bridge. your hand must lye vppon the belly of the Lute with the
little finger onely, which must be as it were glued vnto it. and
keepe the Thumbe as much as one can, leaning vpon the Base. It must
be before all the rest of the hand, marching as the Captaine of the
Fingers. that hand must be riseing in the middle in the forme of an
Arche, that you may not smother the Stringes." (Punctuation marks are
mine.)
This corresponds with the hand shape of Charles Mouton, note the
thumb well ahead of the fingers:
In front of the bridge:
http://www.aquilacorde.com/mouton5.jpg
Behind the bridge:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/Ember/brugghen-1628.gif
On the bridge:
http://tinyurl.com/ago2rd
I am not criticising his position, only showing that even with his
mild low tension hypothesis, he needs to maximise all elements that
can favour the bass: length of basses (bass extension), size of bowl
(Burkholzer), hand shape and position.
There does not seem to be much leeway left for lowering the tension
further.
It has been suggested to me that this could be done by using a stiff
HT bass: a stiff string could pass through a 1,5mm hole if it is
twisted, and perhaps oiled to help it pass. If it is stiff it should
be less slack at low tension. Perhaps the tesnion would be around
1.5KG/Newtons.
First it is still not clear that such a tension is playable,
secondly, it would not in anyway fulfill the criterion of equal
tesnion to touch (Dowland Mace, etc). I don't think you can argue
that it depends where you touch the strings. Yes, if the thumb was
nearer the bridge than the fingers, but it is the contrary shown in
the iconography, with the little finger behind the bridge, as
suggested by Mace.
Secondly, Meanes and Basses are typically shown as curly and
flexible, even when not under tension. That is not so for a stiff HT.
http://www.aquilacorde.com/i8.htm
I am not arguing against other ways of stringing. On the contrary, I
hope that Satoh will continue to develop his low tension style, and
that Ed Martin will also continue experimenting with Gimped strings.
The question, here, is not what is good or interesting, but about the
historical issue, and for the moment, I prefer the loaded hypothesis,
which better seems to account for the data.
There may be yet another hypothesis remaining to be discovered, but I
do thhink for the moment that the loaded hypothesis is the best,
although I do not suggest for one moment that other research paths
should be abadonned.
Best wishes
Anthony
Le 27 févr. 09 à 03:08, damian dlugolecki a écrit :
> Dear Anthony, You seem to be intent on finding evidence to
> support a historical
> premise for 'loaded' strings. You rely heavily on a color theory
> that supposes that
> reddish strings indicate loaded strings. Since you are not privy
> to the stringmakers
> craft other than what you have gathered from Mimmo, you can't be
> blamed for
> being ignorant of the fact that this reddish brown color is the
> natural color for
> strings that have been made with minimal chemical exposure, that is
> to say, only
> mild soaps and of course soda ash.
>
> I would venture to add that, notwithstanding all the commentary
> about color, the
> majority of the historical strings were a reddish brown color. In a
> fourchette or
> production run you might have a variance in color from pale ochre
> to burnt umbre.
>
> I hope this information helps you in your research.
>
> Cordially,
>
> Damian
>
> From: "Anthony Hind" <anthony.h...@noos.fr>
> To: "Jaroslaw Lipski" <jaroslawlip...@wp.pl>; "alexander"
> <voka...@verizon.net>; "Monica Hall" <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>; "lute
> List" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 3:23 AM
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: Laurent de La Hyre [loaded?]
>
>
>> Dear Jaroslaw and All
>>> If they were neither loaded nor wound than they must
>>> have been dyed. This would solve the problem because the coloration
>>> differences would be of aestethic nature or maybe manufacture's
>>> trade mark.
>>
>>
>> Perhaps, it is more than aesthetic, if we consider what Alexander has
>> to say about his experiments with oil paint.
>> However, I wonder whether mild loading could not also have been used
>> on other strings than basses, just to help conservation.
>> Mace tells us about rotten strings:
>> "I have sometimes seen strings of a yellowish colour, very good; yet,
>> but seldom; for that colour is a general sign of rottenness, or of
>> the decay of the string."
>> This must have been common problem. Perhaps a mild loading could help
>> conserve strings (admittedly, Mace does also say that red strings are
>> often rotten).
>>
>> It seems possible that loading of soundboards with Borax and salts
>> (Strads. etc), which results in a denser better sounding table, could
>> have originally been used to prevent infestation, but it was then
>> realized it improved the sound (see earlier discussion on this list).
>> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn10686
>> The only mention we have of this process from the time, does not come
>> form lutemakers, but from Bernard Palissy, who spent much of his life
>> trying to pierce the secrets of guilds to which he did not belong, ''
>> salts improve the voice of all sorts of musical instruments".
>>
>> In any case, it is not because Barbieri did not find evidence of
>> loading when researching Rome string makers that no such loading took
>> place.
>> Again Mace mentions "There is another sort of strings, which they
>> call Pistoy basses, which I conceive are none other than thick
>> Venice-
>> Catlins, which are commonly dyed, with a deep dark red colour."
>> So perhaps, if loaded basses existed they would have been from
>> Pistoia, Bologne, etc, and not Rome.
>>
>> Perhaps, also if loaded strings were often red, and at the same time
>> of high repute, other makers of lesser strings, might have also dyed
>> theirs red.
>> to cash in on their prestige (i agree, I am just adding to the
>> speculation).
>>
>> There are however, some more convincing examples that do look like
>> loading.
>> On the same Art site, I saw another Caravaggio painting including a
>> lute with just one red string, and it was the 7th. Now this might
>> well be a loaded 7c-D.
>> http://www.caravaggio.rai.it/eng/opere.swf?currentImage=3
>>
>> That looks quite like how my 7c lute was when I just had one loaded
>> string on 7-D (except of course my string was red-brown).
>> A pure gut 7c bass string should be so much thicker (according to
>> Gamut D-7, 60mm, for 2.6Kg at 440Hz, gives 1.80mm)
>>
>> However, with a painting we are never quite so sure that the artist
>> is not just sketching-in the strings.
>> Nevertheless, there is such detail here, just see the frets, for
>> example; so why would the painter have just sketched the bass
>> string?
>>
>> Looking at my photo, it is difficult to tell whether the string is
>> loaded or just coloured, unless you take account of the relative
>> thinness.
>> http://tinyurl.com/cyvnyo
>>
>> Caravaggio with slightly different colours:
>> http://tinyurl.com/cbsjac
>>
>>>> I don't think Mimmo's research is a just for historical
>>>> correctness (for its own sake), but to resolve the problems
>>>> (ancient and modern) inherent in using gut for each voice
>>>> (Trebles, Meanes, Basses) by specific chemical treatment,
>>>> twisting, twining and loading techniques, so as to obtain a
>>>> homogenous passage accross the voices, to avoid the inharmonicity
>>>> of thicker Meane strings and lower octaves, and to resolve the
>>>> contradictiory need for short trebles and very long basses
>>>> (either by loading, or by using extensions for the basses, or a
>>>> combination of the two).
>>>
>>> And this is what I am after. I want to learn from Old Ones as much
>>> as possible, but than I'd like to choose my own way.
>>
>> I think historical research should be used to open up new-old
>> possibilities of approaching the music, not to shut down any other
>> personal investigation. It should just help us to refine our choices.
>>
>> Indeed, at first, it was just a modern problem I was trying to solve
>> when I adopted Venices on 5c and 4c to eliminate a break in the flow
>> across the "Meanes" on my 7c lute (caused by having a Lyons on 5c and
>> a simple HT on 4c). I had no idea at that point, that Dowland and
>> Mace had "defined" such a category as "Meanes" for which the same
>> string type should be used. Later I realized that I had just
>> redisocovered it for myself.
>>
>> Then on ordering an 11c lute, I was made aware of the modern severe
>> 'intonation" problems that I was told would not fail to occur if I
>> adopted pure gut basses, on a Baroque lute. I was warned by many to
>> adopt some sort of wirewound or a very very long string length (not
>> really suitable for French Baroque). Gimped strings seemed the only
>> way out, if I wanted to use gut, until Mimmo's loaded strings were
>> announced. This is a Baroque lute problem, but it is the same today
>> as it must have been then.
>>
>> How can you have bass strings in pure gut on such a small lute as
>> Charles Mouton's (or the Vienna Frey) and not have severe intonation
>> problems?
>> Gamut calculates C-11, at 66.5mm, 392Hz at 2K6 gives 2.04mm
>> Notice how thin they appear on the de Troy painting, and this small
>> diameter is confirmed by the small historic bass string lute holes
>> found on similar lutes now in museums.
>> http://www.aquilacorde.com/Mouton.jpg
>>
>> My 11c lute with red loaded Venice strings
>> http://tinyurl.com/b3olq7
>>
>> Lindberg's brown first generation loaded strings.
>> http://www.aquilacorde.com/Lindberg.jpg
>>
>> By then I was very aware of the historic issues, but also the
>> practical ones (which really are the same in essence).
>> The ancients had so much more experience with gut than we do, so any
>> snippits of information we can find can help us even now.
>>
>> My next tweak will be trying out Venice twines for the lower octaves
>> (7c down). Previously, I was just looking to solve a modern problem,
>> and found out that perhaps this corresponded to a historical
>> solution. This time I am going to take Mace's advice, with no idea of
>> what it will give me.
>> Mace states one should use the same string type for the lower octaves
>> of a Baroque lute as you use for the Meanes : 4c and 5c.
>> Well actually he names the strings, Venice Catlines, but I am just
>> taking this advice to mean, use the same type that work well on your
>> Meanes.
>>
>> However, I do think there are far more problems to solve with the gut
>> stringing of a Baroque lute than with a Renaissance one.
>>
>> Nevertheless, I agree entirely with you. It would be such a pity if
>> every lutensist adopted exactly the same solutions to all these
>> problems.
>> How much more interesting from the point of view of tone and texture,
>> if players personal research come up with varied solutions.
>> That Ed Martin with Dan Larson refine the Gimped solution to basses,
>> while Satoh and others develop their low tension hypothesis, will, I
>> hope, result in less standardization, not more.
>> Even if Gimped strings were not around at that time (French Baroque),
>> and low tension strings do not actually allow such a small diameter
>> as shown by historic lute holes.
>> I still do hope to hear more lutenists adopting the loaded
>> solution, and perhaps demifile for later Baroque.
>>
>> This has to be a personal choice for each lutenist, and some
>> clearly feel that strings contribute such a small part to their
>> overall performance, that synthetics will do, or are even better. Not
>> that they are without their own problems: at least for French
>> Baroque: lack of homogeneity, tonal problems, lack of warmth, and
>> loss of clarity; for which the lutensist may well be able to
>> compensate with the right technique and touch.
>>
>>>
>>>> Mimmo's loaded strings, for example, can allow us to use a fairly
>>>> short 11c Baroque lute, such as that shown in the Charles Mouton
>>>> portrait without resorting to wirewounds or Gimped strings, and
>>>> without poisoning ourselves. This probably gives tonal shades
>>>> closer to those on Ch.M's lute, but not exactly those of his
>>>> particular loaded strings, and of course his lute may well have
>>>> been an ancient Bologna one, giving its own tonal characteristics
>>>> to the whole.
>>>> And this is but one factor in a performance of Charles Mouton's
>>>> music. Some may consider it small in comparison with a deep
>>>> understanding of his rhetoric, or the fact that we can not hope
>>>> to have his touch and musical ear, but it can be one element in
>>>> coming closer to understanding the music of the period;
>>>
>>> Well, we will never be able to copy performances from the past,
>>> and I don't think this is what we should look for. The musician
>>> each time has to create something anew because the Music is the
>>> living art.
>>>
>>
>> It is the sort of contradictory status of a performer of early music.
>> We are no longer steeped in a tradition that both constrains and
>> frees us within its limits (or even to push at its limits and
>> innovate). How much each modern lutenist wants to stay within those
>> limits (if he can be sure what they are) is a matter of his own
>> personal choice as an artist and a result of his own research and
>> taste, but is he in a position to truly innovate, to create new
>> rules, within that tradition? Perhaps, that might differentiate the
>> modern interpreter from the performer-composer of the time.
>> Regards
>> Anthony
>>
>> PS I know you are aware of most of these arguments, but I see new
>> names in this thread, who perhaps are not.
>>
>> PPS I remember you saying that the most important thing was not
>> whether loaded strings were historic, but whether they worked.
>>
>> About the quality of Mimmo's loaded strings, I will just quote DvO:
>> "Loaded gut basses do not fray or break as gut trebles
>> tend to do, and do not wear out as wound strings do. (I suppose that
>> even makes them cheaper than wound strings, in the long run.) They
>> give no significant tuning troubles. And guess what, they're designed
>> to sound like loaded guts!
>>
>> By the way, they are a pleasure to play and sound really, really
>> good! "
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Le 23 févr. 09 à 19:55, JarosÅ,aw Lipski a écrit :
>>
>>> Dear Anthony,
>>>
>>>> but DvE must have used it, and what about all those athletes who
>>>> use dangerous substances to improve their performances?
>>>
>>> David probably used it just to hear how it would sound like, but as
>>> I found on his site, he stated he never really dare to use it.
>>> As for sport, well, than we have to consider if we want to develop
>>> in that direction.
>>>
>>>> Is this similar? It is the above lead oxide ones. To me, they
>>>> look very similar to the ones in the painting:
>>>
>>> No, in MM the strings are just of copper color neither red as
>>> David's nor brown as yours.
>>>
>>>> However, Mimmo thinks the long basses may be too thick to have
>>>> been loaded. He rather suspects that the 6th might be loaded, as
>>>> it is equal in size to the 5th. However, this is a painting. Can
>>>> we be sure the thickness of those basses is accurate. To me the
>>>> colour is very much that of lead oxide.
>>>
>>> If they were neither loaded nor wound than they must have been
>>> dyed. This would solve the problem because the coloration
>>> differences would be of aestethic nature or maybe manufacture's
>>> trade mark.
>>>
>>>> I think there are perhaps reasons why full wirewounds might be
>>>> problematic to make at that time, but in any case no source
>>>> mentions them.
>>>
>>> This is correct, at least we don't know of such a source, although
>>> we can't exclued possibility of finding some new evidence.
>>>
>>>
>>>> I don't think Mimmo's research is a just for historical
>>>> correctness (for its own sake), but to resolve the problems
>>>> (ancient and modern) inherent in using gut for each voice
>>>> (Trebles, Meanes, Basses) by specific chemical treatment,
>>>> twisting, twining and loading techniques, so as to obtain a
>>>> homogenous passage accross the voices, to avoid the inharmonicity
>>>> of thicker Meane strings and lower octaves, and to resolve the
>>>> contradictiory need for short trebles and very long basses
>>>> (either by loading, or by using extensions for the basses, or a
>>>> combination of the two).
>>>
>>> And this is what I am after. I want to learn from Old Ones as much
>>> as possible, but than I'd like to choose my own way.
>>>
>>>> Mimmo's loaded strings, for example, can allow us to use a fairly
>>>> short 11c Baroque lute, such as that shown in the Charles Mouton
>>>> portrait without resorting to wirewounds or Gimped strings, and
>>>> without poisoning ourselves. This probably gives tonal shades
>>>> closer to those on Ch.M's lute, but not exactly those of his
>>>> particular loaded strings, and of course his lute may well have
>>>> been an ancient Bologna one, giving its own tonal characteristics
>>>> to the whole.
>>>> And this is but one factor in a performance of Charles Mouton's
>>>> music. Some may consider it small in comparison with a deep
>>>> understanding of his rhetoric, or the fact that we can not hope
>>>> to have his touch and musical ear, but it can be one element in
>>>> coming closer to understanding the music of the period;
>>>
>>> Well, we will never be able to copy performances from the past,
>>> and I don't think this is what we should look for. The musician
>>> each time has to create something anew because the Music is the
>>> living art.
>>>
>>> All the best
>>> Jaroslaw
>>>
>>>
>>> To get on or off this list see list information at
>>> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>>
>>
>> --
>
--
