For me, the only reason is economic; to get two strings for the price of one (esp. high priced gut), If the nut is properly round and smooth, the grooves as well, no reason to create even more trouble on an already troublesome aspect of lute maintenance. There may be more detailed discussion of this in the archives.
Dan On Apr 30, 2012, at 12:02 PM, Alain wrote: > Hi everyone, > When stringing a lute, some people like to cut the strings a little above the > nut and tie them with a knot to some non-elastic material like rope or > synthetic fiber of some kind that is wound to the peg. What are the > advantages of proceeding this way as opposed to just keeping the string whole? > Alain > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html