Dear Monica,
As far as I can see, the evidence from extant instruments seems to be
that slotted bridges were often employed in the 17th century,
especially by French makers; Italian makers seemingly preferring a
bridge with individual string holes (tho' there are exceptions). Good
extant examples include the Rene Voboam of 1641 (Ashmolean) which has a
highly and individually decorated bridge in the same style as other
decoration on the instrument and thus seems to be orginal. Various
Alexandre Voboam guitars also have slotted bridges which I believe are
orginal (or at least 17th century) since by the 18th century most/all
bridges seemed to have string holes. However the picture is far from
clear and the waters are further muddied by replacement bridges.
One explanation has been that slotted bridges allow more adjustment of
string height at the bridge but, in my experience, there is no very
significant difference whether tied from the top or bottom of the slot
since static forces will always tend to pull the point where the string
passes over its own loop to the mid point between top and bottom. A
more reasonable explanation it that it increases flexibility of the
bridge and thus enhances the bass response. But much speculation all
round....
Martyn
--- On Sun, 27/11/11, Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
From: Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: [VIHUELA] Guitar bridges
To: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Date: Sunday, 27 November, 2011, 19:29
This is just a quick query to everyone who plays the baroque guitar
-
about bridges.
Mine has slots rather than holes which the strings pass through when
they are tied to the bridge.
Is this usual on baroque guitars. Is there any standard
arrangement.
Monica
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