----- Original Message -----
From: "Stuart Walsh" <s.wa...@ntlworld.com>
To: "Lucas Harris" <lucashar...@rogers.com>
Cc: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2010 11:00 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Chitarra battente stringing
On 18/12/2010 03:18, Lucas Harris wrote:
Hello, friends!
I have a question for anybody out there that might have more
experience
with metal strings than I do.
I'm struggling to set up a new chitarra battente, which arrived (as
is
the tradition) with the same thin steel string gauge across all 5
courses. So, the first course (e) is super tense, and the third
course
(g) is slack like spaghetti, and everything else is somewhere in
between. The problem is that the spaghetti courses go super sharp
when
fretted, so it's really hard to tune any chords (i.e., even E major
has
the G# on the first fret which is already screaming high).
I put some brass strings (from my bandora case) on the G and A, and
it
really helped the tuning and got the instrument through its first
concert. However, all of the brass strings have broken, one by one.
I'm really not sure why - the tension was not so high, and although
the
coils are pretty old I wouldn't have guessed age to make much
difference in a metal string.
Anyway, I'm wondering if anybody has experience trying to string a
battente in a way that is more equal-tension-ish (like a lute or
Baroque guitar) perhaps with harpsichord strings, and if so if they
would share their stringing chart with me. Any prompt help would be
appreciated (the instrument needs to be playable by Sunday - in a
pinch
I will just put the spaghetti strings back on).
Many thanks!!!!
Best,
Lucas Harris
--
Lex Eisenhardt has experimented with Baroque guitars strung with wire.
Perhaps you could contact him for advice.
http://home.planet.nl/~eisen073/biography.html
I was under the impression (perhaps wrongly) that the chitarra battente had
a
re-entrant tuning.
It would be interesting to know whether this is so.
Monica
Stuart
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