Thomas,
As David said, high tension = thick string, given a pitch. But I yet
question the pitches involved. We are all aware of the rather large
differences between the a's in different systems - but somehow we have an
actual frequency for them. I'm sure there is good evidence for the actual
Dear Jon,
one can approximate the tuning of a certain time and certain region for
instance by using the surviving instruments with fixed pitch as example
(organs, flutes etc.).
I think the idea that the carry (as you put it) of sound would decrease
with a lower pitch is a legend based on
Dear Martin,
Like you I don't knot the strings at the peg, but in 55 years of stringing
guitars I've found that back looping the string around the peg puts a bit
of friction on it without having a full tension crossover that can cut a
string. By back looping I mean bringing the bitter end
Thomas,
You're correct about hearing habits. I might
only add that in some places, we know that pitch was
considerably _higher_ than A440. The idea of pitch in
olden days was very relative across the board from
region to region, so there is bond to be quite a bit
of variation to be
