Dear Martin, Martyn, and all,
This is a very nice posting, and I agree with the idea that perhaps
tensions were much lower than we seem to use today. Toyohiko Satoh
has been doing this very thing for years, which is playing with the
right hand close to the bridge, with low tension strings, using plain
or pure gut, no metal.
For a few years I have been playing my 11-course Frei, 67.5 cm. mensur,
at a = 415, in pure gut. I have discovered that using all gut, no
metal, can produce a wonderful sound, even down to the 11th course with
no bass rider or swan extension.
ed
On Thu, Aug 4, 2016 at 10:46 AM, Martin Shepherd
<[1]mar...@luteshop.co.uk> wrote:
Dear Martyn (and All),
I'm not ruling out the possibility of loaded strings, but I do think
the evidence from bridge holes is mixed, in the sense that we would
have to be absolutely certain that a bridge with small holes was
original.
Even with modern gut strings it's possible to string a 6c lute with
only plain gut (well, high twist or whatever) in the bass and also a
13c swan neck lute! The difficult cases are the 8 to 10 course
lutes, the 13c bass rider type, also the liuto attiorbato, for all
of which loaded basses might well be the answer.
I can't send attachments to the list but I'm sending you another
painting from 1576 which shows strings very clearly and they're
remarkably thin.
Best wishes,
Martin
On 04/08/2016 14:55, Martyn Hodgson wrote:
Hello Martin,
Nice site and blog.
I seem to recall that when loaded strings first came out (25 yrs
ago?)
that some of the evidence for their use was found in the small
diameter
holes in some lute bridges. To maintain string tensions at
around
present day levels the hypothesis was therefore that the old
bass
strings would have been dense than plain gut - hence 'loaded'.
I also recall that somebody (might have been Eph Segerman) at
the time
also pointed out an alternative for such relatively small
diameter
holes: that the tensions of the bass strings might be much lower
than
the upper courses. In short just as you're suggesting. My
experience of
doing this at the time was that one needed to play very close to
the
bridge to gain any projection and, of course, this is precisely
what
most old sources (from c.1600 onwards) tell us. So you may be
right -
that basses were often(always?) at a significantly lower tension
than
the upper courses.
Having said this, I did like Mimmo's loaded strings very much
and, of
course, they also possibly indicate loading because of their
distinctive colour. All food for thought......
regards,
Martyn
__________________________________________________________________
From: Martin Shepherd <[2]mar...@luteshop.co.uk>
To: Lute List <[3]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Thursday, 4 August 2016, 12:51
Subject: [LUTE] blog post
Hi All,
Just to let you know that I have put up a new blog post - let me
know
your thoughts.
[1][4]http://luteshop.co.uk/some-thoughts-on-string-tension/
Best wishes,
Martin
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