Getting to the core of the matter in this global rumination; a trip down memory lane (to show how far we've come...)
In the early 1970's I got my first lightly built, historically informed lute- an 8 course tenor, Laux Maler body style, by the late keyboard maker Hugh Gough, in New York City. It wasn't long before I became deeply dissatisfied with the gnarly snarly "sitar" strings from Pyramid. "Well, they used all gut back in the old days, right?" I reasoned, so with Hugh's help I got gut trebles from Pirastro, and thick gut basses from Lyon & Healy, the harp company. Of course I knew nothing of original bridge holes- didn't even occur to me. The thick, low-twist heavily varnished gut basses were as flexible as rebar, but nevertheless I got small hand drill equipment and became quite skilled in gouging great, huge holes in delicate lute bridges without quite destroying them (the still strong & functioning bridge on my original Robert Lundberg lute is a frightening sight, when viewed eye level on the plane of the soundboard from the end cap.) And I gave performances with these thick, muddy sounding awful gut basses- the worst was a hot, humid evening that made tuning a joke. The audience received an object lesson on the manifold advantages of new, improved lute strings perfected by the most modern technology- and Mattheson's ghost was roaring with laughter. Of course Damian is correct about how thick a string can get before the bending for securing at the bridge becomes impossible- and yet I was attempting to force the impossible with stiff, 2.00 mm. "gut" rods-sometimes with the help of needle-nose pliers! -It would have been just as easy (and sounded just as good) to use raw spaghetti- I lived close enough to the Little Italy section of lower Manhattan to have gotten it fresh, too. Is it not interesting that the same people who have given us pasta (thank god that tradition wasn't lost! Who wants mercury loaded linguini for dinner?) also once provided us with thin, flexible, fine sounding gut bass strings? In spite of it all, I still find gut strings- proper gut of course- to be the only completely satisfactory string for sound and feel on my lutes & vihuela, and I have a first generation loaded gut from Mimmo on one 7th course, but it's old and frayed- due for replacement one of these years. Sadly only the vihuela wears an all gut outfit for now. Loading may still have to be considered an unproven hypothesis, however plausible- but the Ed Martin-Dan Larson symbiotic relationship is no doubt a small example of the R&D procedures of the old days- so may the work on all lines continue to bear fruit. Dan >"The string must still be secured in the bridge in the conventional way. >I find that even with very high torsion strings that 1.75mm is the maximum >that one can bend and manipulate. And that happens to be what I end >up with as my 11th course. So here is a piece of practical information >based on the properties of the material." "Measure the holes... When I used to look at these instruments 30-35 years ago, I wasn't specifically looking at the bridges." >>>" you can put a thin string through a >>>bigger hole, but not vice-versa. So if we have some well >>>authenticated original bridges with small holes (a few would do - it >>>doesn't have to be a majority) then we have to explain this." >>>> "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the >>>> impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? >>>> >>>>Any instance where the bridge was conceived as we see it and the >>>>diapason holes are significantly smaller than the holes for >>>>stoped basses is evidence that smaller diameter strings were >>>>conciously used, if that then obliges the use of strings denser >>>>than natural, loading of some sort is indicated, if not overspin, >>>>then chemical. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
