On 11/07/2012 16:41, Jarosław Lipski wrote:
Add is clear but we don't know what exactly to add and what way. It could be either upper or lower octave. If lower, it would be a very strange setting having plain brass string fundamental and gut octave. If upper, it could be quite difficult to play in tune having two very different strings (wire and gut) in a course especially that an octave would have to be made from a very thin wire. This is why some people think about addition of a brass wire to a gut string. How it was done we just don't know.
One other interpretation is that it could be a set of sympathetic strings, that are tuned in higher octaves to the 5th, 4th and 3rd and lower octaves to the 2nd and 1st main courses.
Bronze strings? Very unusal�
Well, it's not really that unusual: phosphor bronze can be drawn into wire. It is used, for example, in lower registers of harpsichords, because of its slightly greater (than brass) mass. Moreover, bronze in old times was not just combination of copper and tin but many different alloys, some of which could be attributed to either brass or bronze. Alexander PS: Sorry for the previous 'empty' email, a format error. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
