Andrew, Edward, Stephen and All
I agree whole-heartedly with Edward's message, I am but an amateur,
and in a way amateurs have an advantage over professionals. The
difficulty with gut (as suggested by Ed.) is mainly when a large
concert room fills up with people and the humidity suddenly jumps up
(as we saw with Jakob Lindberg in London). Indeed, I can almost
predict the weather, and have no need for a barometer, as the change
in tension of my gut strings often allows me to predict whether I am
going to need an umbrella!
I think a number of professional lutists use nylgut or similar when
playing in public, for that reason; but then when they record use gut.
Jacob Heringman does that, according to his Ed Durbrow interview.
Certainly, Jakob Lindberg has used loaded gut diapasons (explicitly
stated in his Dowland record) and his Rauwolf was strung in gut. Paul
O'Dette used to use gut on his Renaissance lute records when he
recorded for Astrée CNRS, and so did Hopkinson Smith.
As an amateur, I can usually avoid these extreme changes, and if like
myself, you are not a very good lutist, you need all the help you can
get. A very well sounding lute strung in gut will sound so pleasant
even when playing a few notes. There is also the touch of the
strings. Gut strings react in a very different way even to nylgut.
The top strings are a problem and I must admit I recently compromised
by using a top string in nylgut. The cost (over a few years) on one
lute is not as bad as it first appears. The lower strings do last a
very long time. Of course, if you have a whole collection of lutes,
the problem is obviously greater.
However, I personally feel that, on a Renaissance lute, gut is almost
mandatory for the diapasons (gimped work too), if you don't want the
bass "voice" to drown-out the higher "voices" (this always tends to
happen with metal wounds, or the player must constantly damp these
strings). If you can use gut throughout, the "voices" become so well
balanced, and the sound of the strings more "homogenous", I agree
with Martin that the 5th string sounds beautiful. It is of course
more difficult to make the heavier 6 and 7 diapasons sing, but I
think technique develops to help this, and at least you don't have to
keep damping them. Martin Shepherd (I think) suggested using a
slightly thinner diapason than usual and a slightly thicker octave,
so as to achieve the same overall course tension.
I often hear lutes strung in fluour-carbon and I always feel they
begin to sound like mandolins. I do feel nylgut is a much better
compromise,.
Perhaps, on a Baroque lute the situation might be a little different.
The much higher cost of the strings could become problematic.
Nevertheless, when I visited Stephen Gottlieb's atelier a couple of
years ago, he had a 14 course swan-neck lute entirely strung in gut,
and I must admit that the sound was superb. If Ed says gut is
possible on a Baroque lute, when I finally oder my 11 course, for the
French Baroque music that I love, I will just have to use gut.
However, as yet, I have never lived with a gut strung Baroque lute,
so I don't know how great the problems may be. I am told that the
greater string lengths and tensions do become a problem and do cause
very expensive string breakage. However, the solution may be to use
lower tensions. There was a thread recently (I believe begun my
Martin Shepherd) about the advantages of lutes strung at low
tensions. It seemed that with gut strings, a lower tension was not
necessarily a problem.
I apologize if these issues have been discussed exhaustively over the
last years and I am returning to a totally worn-out topic. I fear
this is quite likely to be the case.
Regards
Anthony
Le 8 févr. 07 à 00:33, Edward Martin a écrit :
> Andrew,
>
> Actually, many professionals use nylgut - Paul O'Dette, Nigel North,
> Hopkinson Smith. I think (but, I am uncertain) that Rolf Lislevand
> uses
> them as well. I know Jakob Lindberg used to use them.
>
> I have my renaissance 8 course in partial nylgut, because I have to
> use
> that instrument under difficult situations. Otherwise, I mostly
> use gut,
> for vihuela, 10 course, baroque guitar, 11 course, and my 13
> course. Yes,
> the tuning is sometimes an issue, along with treble string
> breakage, but
> the wonderful rich sound of gut makes it all worth while. If one
> equilibrates the instrument to the room, tuning works well. When I
> perform
> in gut, I must get to the hall 3 hours in advance to insure good
> tuning.
>
> Sometimes I regret not using synthetics, but gut is the most
> satisfying
> sound of all, so I stick with it.
>
> Someone said earlier today that the 5th course is a problem, but
> the Pistoy
> 5th is, in my opinion, the most beautiful string imaginable, for
> either a
> renaissance or baroque lute.
>
> ed
>
>
>
>
> At 01:22 PM 2/7/2007 +0000, Andrew Gibbs wrote:
>
>> Do any serious players use nylgut synthetic strings? perhaps more for
>> renaissance than baroque lutes...
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> On 7 Feb 2007, at 12:02, Stephan Olbertz wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> the bridge of my baroque lute came off recently (ouch), but it has
>>> been
>>> fixed and I would like to take the "opportunity" to put new strings
>>> on and
>>> maybe switch to gut. Dan Larsons strings would sum up to about 360
>>> $ (ouch
>>> again), Aquila is about the same. Does anyone know what Sofracob
>>> charges
>>> for a (13c) set? I couldn't find any information on the web...
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Stephan
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> To get on or off this list see list information at
>>> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>>>
>
>
>
> Edward Martin
> 2817 East 2nd Street
> Duluth, Minnesota 55812
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> voice: (218) 728-1202
>
>
>
>
>
