Dear Jaroslaw
Le 28 févr. 09 à 01:35, Jarosław Lipski a écrit :
Dear Anthony,
I really didn't want to rehash and old discussion (just wanted to
share an interesting picture), but in a way I am beeing forced to
reply, by your claims that finaly we found the satisfactory and
historicaly correct answer for lute stringing. Not that I am doing
it reluctantly - I always like chatting with you, which is very
stimulating - however it really seams that at this particular
moment declaring victory would be premature.`
That is quite the same, here. I must add that I am a linguist, and so
perhaps my way of thinking might be a little different from that of a
lutenist or a string maker. We are used to reconstructing forms that
we know we can never observe, except indirectly through the way these
forms fit into the overall patterns and properties of the language.
We never throw away an analysis, until we can find a better one, but
we are always looking for alternatives. That is what I would like
other string makers to do. That is surely how you get progresss in
ideas. You have two conflicting hypotheses, the low tension and the
loaded (for example), and you confront these with the data. With
luck, this makes you look for new data, as each theory puts forward
its arguments. Only recently did I notice that the RH position close
to the bridge, is not really what you would expect if very low
tension strings were the best hypothesis.
You must understand that, as a linguist, I take great glee in this
sort of argumentation. I would partake in it even if it was quite
impossible to use the string type that was hypothesized. Imagine if
the strings were loaded with gold leaf, or a deadly poison, and there
was no other way of doing it.
I would still be interested.
I do think Mimmo's present loaded strings happen to work superbly
well for French Baroque lute music. Their slenderness solves the
"intonation" problems, about which Rob complained (even when he had
fairly low tension strings), Their thin Venice core presnet very low
impedance at the bridge and less inharmonicity, and allied with
Venice Meanes an excellent singing quality and freedom of sound on
all voices: the extraordinary quality of clarity and sustain. Even if
they were not historic, I believe this seems to be the sort of sound
that French Baroque lutensist were searching for, if we listen to T.
Bailes, and J. Lindberg. It seems that this is also the typical
characteristic of a good old lute (Rauwolf, etc), and probably what
the French were after when searching for the old Biologna lutes.
Now I am not saying this is the only way to go. I would not at all
like every lutenist to buy old lutes, loaded strings and Burwell or
Mace's RH position at the bridge. As we said a little while ago,
every lutenist must make his own judgement about what aspects of
historic performance, or what tonal string colour, or lute shape thay
decide to use. Finally the most important element is having a could
"musical ear" (Jerzy Zak's monitoring feedback theory) which allows
the musician to get the best out of any instrument and stringing. The
rest is to a certain extent personal choice.
I say to a certain extent, because some choices do seem to get closed
down when musicians believe they are anachronic (sometimes quite
mistakenly, of course).
Like yourself, I do not want some sort of dogma closing down choice.
I very much enjoyed Ed Martyn's recent recording of Conradi and
Kellenr using Dan Larson's gimped strings. I would not at all advise
him to change over to loaded because they might be more historically
correct.
He lives in the same town as Dan Larson and can have his lute tuned
perfectly to both of their likings. It would be rediculous to abandon
such team work. The same is true for, Satoh, he has made extremely
interesting research into low tension stringing, and shown that it
can allow a very open sound, providing one adopts a large bodied
lute, and thumb as far back as possible on the bass strings,
preferably with an extension.
Why would he want to close down that research? I am not at all
suggesting that.
Clearly, most lutenists will discuss stringing with their lutemaker
and in mutual agreement will go with that choice, while perhaps
mildly tweaking the result as time goes by. In the case of Stephen
Gottlieb, had the loaded strings not been ready just in time, I would
have gone along with his string choice of Geaorges Stopanni pure gut
basses, and I am sure I would have managed, albeit with some problems
concerning the thick basses.
I certainly do not want to suggest that only one string type made by
only one string maker is the way to go. I understand that Damian
makes excellent strings, and he is also a lutenist and plays Baroque
lute. This is a huge advantage, for someone who wants to restring
their lute. You do need advice from someone who knows about Baroque
lutes: gut stringing on these is not a simple affair. If you do not
get it right you are probably better off with nylgut and wirewounds.
I do think for the sake of homogenous sound, that at least each voice
should be strung with strings of the same type from the same maker.
If people want to test different strings, they are probably better
off going to someone like Tom Nietzer at Bridgewood and Nietzert who
used to be a lute maker and has a large stock of different string types.
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.
If we ignore paintings and scorn "excentric" Mace, than what
evidence are we left with?
I did not say we should completely ignore paintings, I said that we
need to be cautious, probably only considering the lute size and
thinness of strings. and I certainly did not say we should ignore
Mace. In my next tweak I am going to follow his advice, and use the
same string type for my lower octaves, as for my Meanes. I feel sure
his advice is good!
The problem is that Mace does not know how the strings were made. He
just can feel and look at them. He does not realize that he is going
to be read by people who can not do the same as he can. When he says,
Venice Catlines, he is sure we can get these and we will see what
they are. He does not need to decribe them in detail, and wouldn't
have the recipe anyway.
Some old Italian recepies for treating a leather with some metal
salts and the mesurements made on some old lutes in museums.
Recepies are fine, but do you have any manuscript saying that the
strings were commonly treated by "loading", not "dyeing"? No. How
many lutes were mesured for bridge hole's diameter? 10, 20 or 30?
What percentage of all lutes that were build beetwen 16 - 18
century does it constitute? Something like 0,0000001% ? Is this
really irrefutable evidence?
I believe it is a much larger figure and does not just include lutes.
I agree, there is a problem with string gauges for short lutes and
some small bridge holes, but sometimes the solution can occure very
easy and unexpected. For example, recently it happend that I ran
out of some long, thick gut strings for my theorbo and didn't have
enough time to order the new ones. So I just mooved all the courses
by one towards bass and added a thiner 8c and 1c. The effect was
surprising. My instrument sounded better with very fine projection,
easy to play, no buzzing, clear tone (not so dull as with thick
ones). And I didn't need to change my RH technique - just as usual
TO. Frankly speeking I haven't changed them since then just because
I like it very much! I am also sure that all my strings would fit
any bridge holes of the same dimention old theorbos. This doesn't
proove anything yet, but as I say, we can't outrule any possibilities.
Certainly we should not, and I haven't done so.
Meanwhile I'd like to study as much evidence as possible. Including
paintings and potty Mace! I think Stuart is absolutely right saying:
>Mace was a player of the lute, viol
and theorbo, a composer, an enthusiast, and he certainly knew what he
was writing about. He could see that the music he had loved all
his life
- English music - was going out of fashion, and wanted to preserve as
much useful, practical information as he could, for future
generations,
i.e. for us. We should read the book, and be grateful.
Mace was trying to instruct a lute amateur in choosing the best
strings. We don't know meanings of some terms he uses, but his
description is very clear. If we don't understand something we
can't claim he was insane.
Quite so.
As for loaded strings, I'll say again, it can be a good solution,
but mainly for musical reasons at the moment. If we have all the
research done and the results will confirm the string loading
hypothesis than we can enjoy them for two reasons.
But, even without any further findings Mimmo does the great job for
us. Musicians need the choice, diversity.
I agree with your conclusion but for the moment think the loaded
hypothesis, the best, in otherwords, in the OED it would be a starred
form, but it would be there all the same. If you take my meaning.
The whole discussion reminds me of the yachting world. In the
beginning of XX century most of the yachts were of traditional
construction - wooden hulls and masts, cotton sails and elegant
narrow silhouettes guaranting good seaworthiness. Later, fiberglass
boatbuilding became a standard with wider and wider decks, bigger
cockpits and shallower shapes that don't guaranty the same level of
safety as the old ones, but are much faster. Obviously the masts
and sails are synthetic as well. Is this the end of yachting? No.
Yachting is better than ever, and it is so, because of enormous
diversity of constructions and equipment at our disposal.
Yes and no. The equivalent of the yachting world would be a carbon
fibre lute, and synthetic strings. The sound would be very fast and
quite light, with excellent qualities, and perhaps I would choose
that if I was to compose a contemporary piece of lute music; and
certainly like Yo Yo Ma if I was going to play in the rain.
Perhaps it would not be so good for a piece of Mouton (Charles I
mean); for this I would really like one of Mimmo's loaded sound-board
lutes that has the speed of carbon but a certain weight, sweetness,
and sustain (like an old lute in fact).
Relating it to our lute world, I'd say, the bigger diversity of
strings we have the better. Just look how many people use Mimmo's
nylgut strings (knowing they aren't historical - so what?). I hope
Mimmo will find some other interesting materials even better for
making perfect lute strings.
Quite so, Mimmo is a chemist and string maker, which has allowed him
both to make the loaded strings and to come up with nylgut.
I hope he continues, and I hope his synthetic strings will become
closer to the quality of his gut, while remaining more stable.
And it's great we already have the loaded strings. However to claim
they are historical we still have to wait, as David Tayler rightly
posted:
But to know what
strings they used, we need to do some basic
research. We have to measure every hole in every
lute bridge, allowing for all the changes that
might have been made. That gives us one data
set--and will of course tell us a HUGE piece of
information on reentrant stringing. Second, we
need to do a chemical analysis of any pieces of
original strings, with some layer X-rays.
Until we do that, we are just guessing. Guessing
is good, but it would be nice to get some basic
data like we have on paper watermarks, paint composition and so on.
Also, if we do the basic research twenty years
from now, it is pretty much guaranteed that it
will invalidate most of what we are doing now.
But meanwhile we can spend wonderfull time with our chosen "dream
lute" and the strings we like most!
Have a fantastic playing session on your loaded strings Anthony!
Thank you, Jaroslaw, both for our "conversation" and for your good will.
Bets wishes
Anthony
Best wishes
Jaroslaw
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