Dear collective lute wisdom.
When using overspun bass strings, lutenists often damp them after striking
to avoid dissonances. Do any of the historical treatises describe such a
technique?
Harald J. Hamre
--
even though I am
pretty sure what the answer is going to be.
Vance Wood.
- Original Message -
From: Harald J. Hamre [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 1:30 PM
Subject: Damping of bass strings described in historical treatises?
Dear collective lute
Harald J. Hamre asks:
When using overspun bass strings, lutenists often damp them after striking
to avoid dissonances. Do any of the historical treatises describe such a
technique?
The short answer is no. There's a French source occasionally mentioned, but
the last time it came up around
Yes, Howard is correct.
In his book entitled the Baroque Lute Companion, Stephan Lundgren
translated the instructions treatises of the Gaultiers, Gallot, Mouton,
le Sage de Richee, and Reusner.
In the Gallot portion, he did mention what we refer to as damping of the
basses, but Lundgren's
In matter of old 18 th C. basses I can say that they were very different
than ours, of course
While the mean density of the modern bass strings with nylon cores is
arround 3.5-4.0 grm/cm3 the density of an half-wound gut string (which is
like the original pieces found on the Raphael Mest's lute in
