Anthony, Talking about the proper choice of strings for the lute can be very difficult. It is a very personal thing. We try to find historical evidence, but we struggle to make our instruments to sound best as well. As far as the historical data is concerned we can come to some conclusions. However if we talk about the tone quality , projection, balance, etc. we enter a very personal territory. But it is even difficult to be a good archeologist. To be 100% historically correct one would have to change strings for different repertoires. Now, this is what MP writes on his page about early 18th century bas strings: "In the 18th century, wound strings can be grouped into three categories, all built around a gut core (at least up to the second half of the century - the earliest mention of wound on silk known to date is after 1760):
1. double wound (i.e. a first winding is covered by a second one) 2. close wound 3. open wound (called demifilé by the French). Type 1. was probably used for bowed instruments with particularly short string length and low pitch (violoncello da spalla &c.). Type 2. would seem to be the right one for the 13 course lute: but we would rather opt for type 3. upon an important consideration: from what we know about the metallurgic technology of the time it seems that it was not possible, at least in the common practice, to produce wires thinner than about .12 mm (see for example James Grassineau 'A Musical Dictionary' London, 1740 under the world 'wires'; see also the Cryselius's wire gauges and the 18th Nuremberg's wire gauge tables). As a consequence we think that it was not possible to produce wound strings for the 6th, 7th and 8th courses for the d-minor lute, even if we reduced the gut core to the point of completely unbalancing the Index of Metallicity and the mechanical stability of the string (faq 45). An open wound string was simple and efficient: by spacing the winding it was possible to come around the wire diameter problem, with one limitaton: here, too, it was the thinnest available wire that had to be employed in the production of the 6th string. What we are saying here is that open wound strings were not a transitional phenomenon, in the sense of bridging over the gap between all-gut and close wound strings, they were a clever stratagem that made it possible to come around the technological limitations of the wire manufacture of the time." So, MP suggests that close wound strings were in use at that time, but because of the manufacturing problems the open wound strings were preferred for lutes. Apparently we can see that the lute players were looking for heavier bas, but they probably couldn't use close wound strings as other instrumentalists for technological reasons. Now, one question pervades me: If there had been a technology allowing for the thin close wound strings to be manufactured, wouldn't it have been used by luthists in 18th century? I am not talking about the synthetic strings. Copper wound on any natural core (silk or gut) is 100% natural too. The only problem could be the unwanted resonance, but this I believe can be overcome with the proper playing technique. Regards Jaroslaw -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Hind [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 06, 2007 1:04 PM To: baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Rép : [LUTE] Re: Swanneck + loaded strings I just remembered that this should have been addressed to Baroque lute, sorry about that AH Le 2 dec. 07 =E0 18:29, Daniel Winheld a ecrit : Looking forward to these strings. Thanks for the report. Dan Dan Following my message to you about loaded strings in the context of the problem of controlling the resonance of the basses on 13c swan- necks, it suddenly dawned on me that I had given a false impression, by mentioning this string type in the context of an 18th century lute model. After rereading Mimmo Peruffo's text closely, I noticed that according to his findings this technology had been completely abandoned and could not have appeared on an 18th century 13c swan neck lute, nor even probably on a 13c rider lute, see the explanations at http://www.aquilacorde.com/lutes.htm http://tinyurl.com/2hj2sh Textual and iconographic evidence is given in this text/article above to confirm the hypothesis that Loaded strings could have appeared around 1570 and been used on 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th, course of lutes, and even on 12th courses of certain 12c lutes. See the red bass strings on this Dutch 12c lute by an anonymous Dutch painter, 2nd half of the 17th Century : http://www.aquilacorde.com/File0102.jpg http://tinyurl.com/yweurd (Indeed Mace refers to the use of Lyons and deep red gut Pistoys on the 12 course lute) However, from about the beginning of the 18th century, the German 13 course lutes could have been strung with the new open wound strings, such as those found on the 12c double headed Mest lute. http://www.aquilacorde.com/Liuti_file/image019.jpg http://tinyurl.com/yq7aho Probably, loaded strings were soon abandoned, and completely replaced by open-wound strings. So loaded strings would certainly not have been available for 18th century swan neck lutes, and indeed the rather large oval or rather small round bridge holes would tend to prove this point (see below). In fact, I was trying to report, as objectively as possible, what my lutist neighbour had told me about Mimmo Peruffo's lute at Greenwich, which did have loaded basses from 7c down to the 11c, and open-wound strings on those of 12c and 13c. I was concentrating on this; although, in the back of my mind, I think I already felt that that MP was probably using his 13c lute, for his demonstration, as two lutes: an 11c lute with loaded basses, and a 13c lute with open-wound strings; but this remained in "the mists" of my mind. It was only when I reread his text that I realized that must indeed have been the case; so I sent Mimmo a message, and he confirmed that he had intended to bring two lutes, an 11c, and a 13c, but finally found that it would be too complicated, as he was going both to Oxford as well as Greenwich, and decided he could only bring the one. Nevertheless this raises an interesting question, because my lutist neighbour found the combination excellent; so if both string types do eventually become available, would anything prevent players from mixing their strings in a non historical manner. It is certain that both Jakob Lindberg and Paul Beier did that sort of thing on their respective 11c Weiss records, as they combined the original loaded strings with Dan Larson Gimped Pistoys (Gimped Pistoys are a sort of mixture between loaded strings and open wound. They differ from open wound in having the wire twisted-in with the Pistoy tress). The fact that we see the two headed 12 string lutes (above), using the two different technologies, would presumably mean that the Mest was later restrung according to the new fashion; but I just wonder whether, even for a short time, the two technologies (open-wound and loaded) coexisted, and perhaps players might have mixed and matched, which would give some historic authenticity to such a technique. In any case, many modern lutists may just perhaps choose for the best sound, without too much concern for resulting authenticity. Indeed, there are many differing views in relation to this issue, which have often been aired on this list. However, this is not the point I want to develop, here. I am just looking at MP's findings, as one would the research of an archeologist, trying to reconstruct the technology of a certain period. This could simply be viewed as "pure" research aimed at broadening our knowledge of the conditions in which musicians played at a particular period and leave it at that (as for example when archeologists managed to revive the technology of flint knapping, which has no obvious immediate modern use). However, MP is also clearly hoping that adopting instruments and strings, closest to those used at a particular time, will give us a better understanding of the musical aesthetics of the period, claiming that the limits induced by the available technology would at least have been a contributing factor in this. Players, for example with loaded strings, would have been forced to play closer to the bridge, and with the sort of thumb down technique described by Ed. in a recent message. Personally, I have always had a passion for archeology, and I love the texture and sound of gut strings, so I take pleasure in both aspects of this research. MP's articles show that his reconstructions are the result of hypotheses developed on evidence drawn from textual and iconographic data, confronted with the clues from the size of lute holes, and the winding technology and chemical knowledge available at each period. As I would do in my phonetic research, Mimmo formulates his hypotheses so as to be able to validate, or invalidate them when encountering future data, new iconographic evidence, more lute holes, etc. I find much enjoyment in this approach, and I do apologize to those who feel I get a little carried away. I do also assure you that any other research of this kind would receive my interest. Indeed, I am briefly involved in an experiment with Titanium-Nylon, about which I may talk, later, if anything conclusive comes out of it (I am not completely "hermetic to synthetics"). I would also be glad to talk about any experimentation by any other string maker, but I have found no web page so open as those of Mimmo's. There are those old articles by Ephraim Segerman, but most of these I do not have access to at the moment. (http://www.nrinstruments.demon.co.uk/LuSt.html). There would also be the research by Charles Besnaiou of the CNRS. http://tinyurl.com/2xvko8 In conclusion, 13c rider lutes from about 1710 would probably just have had open-wound basses. (This may not prevent lutists from experimenting with mixing string types, as perhaps there might have been an overlap, between string technologies). Swan necked lutes could be a special case. It is certain that they did not employ high twist ropes as these would have been too dull. They could not have used loaded strings, as these had been abandoned, and the size of the bridge holes are far too large. Another argument against the use of plain gut is the relatively short length of the extension (about 1m), when 1m 20 would give a superior thinner basses in pure gut. It is far more likely that they employed open wound strings and the size and shape of the bridge holes militate in favour of this possibility. On a number of 13c lutes there is "A strong vertical ovalization of bass bridge holes and signs of abrasion on the upper plate edges" that could be due to the effect of demi-file strings. A very good example of this could be the Leopold Widhalm 1755 (GNM MI 51)13c swan neck lute that was used by Hoppy in his early Weiss LP, Reflexe 1978 EMI 065-30 944, of which I have a copy (the record, not the lute, unfortunately). The largest hole on the 13th diapason is 2,05. http://s105.photobucket.com/albums/m215/ag-no3phile/lute%20playing/ Lute%20type/?action=view¤t=DSCF0490.jpg http://tinyurl.com/2z6jtb An interesting question remains, the holes on some swan neck lutes are rather big and oval shaped (because of the shape, this could be due to the tendency of demi-file to "file" the hole. For example, the Leopold Widhalm, shown above, has a 13th diapason of 2.05 mm); while on other lutes, such as the "J.Tielke swan neck (Hamburg 1713)", the 13c holes are very small but regular, down to 1,40mm. Such a small size would be far too small for any pure gut bass; but would be big enough for a demi-file. Thus the use of open-wound strings seems the most plausible explanation, with the variation in size (quite wide and oval on some lutes), possibly being due, at least in part, to the filing action of these strings. Open-wound strings, as my neighbour did testify, do not in fact, have the sustain of full-wound strings, even if they might be slightly brighter than loaded strings, and they could work well in this situation. They certainly did on a 13c rider lute, the one Mimmo Peruffo brought for his demonstration. Regards Anthony To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html