Dear Martyn Oups, sorry for the name slip, I was not thinking you were Martin Regards, and thanks for your remarks Anthony
----- Mail original ----- De : Anthony Hind <agno3ph...@yahoo.com> À : Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk> Cc : "lute@cs.dartmouth.edu" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Envoyé le : Samedi 20 octobre 2012 15h52 Objet : Re: [LUTE] Re: Are Pistoys prone to rot according to Mace? Dear Martin You are probably right on that issue, particularly in relation to frets, we do have to beware of reading Mace as modern English. "I think we need to be careful not to make assumptions of what Mace meant by 'rotten'. It seems to me he means weak/liable to break easily/friable/tearable rather than rotten in the sense of decaying, soft or decomposing meat. That he can make frets of them surely indicates they were not decomposing but merely prone to breaking." % This would not really change the fact that "rotting" of red strings (perhaps "prone to breaking") does not apply to Pistoys (as Jaroslaw seemed to imply in his message). I don't think they are included in the set referred to later as red coloured strings (for the reasons I point out). % "The other matter raised is that if some of these strings were so bad, how is it that they continued to be supplied commercially? I think the problem, as concerns Lyons, is that there was too great a demand, and they were therefore outsourced from Rome. The quantities of strings out sourced seem to imply a very large consumption of strings for French lute music. Thanks for your remarks Anthony ________________________________ De : Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk> À : Anthony Hind <agno3ph...@yahoo.com> Cc : "lute@cs.dartmouth.edu" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Envoyé le : Samedi 20 octobre 2012 15h14 Objet : [LUTE] Re: Are Pistoys prone to rot according to Mace? Dear Anthony, You write of Mace - 'Mace had a very strong preoccupation with rotten gut, clearly from personal experience (although I have never encountered this problem), and he therefore gives detailed advice on how to store strings to make sure they don't "take any wet, or moist air." Further, whenever he mentions a string liable to rot, he immediately states this within the next few sentences, as in all these cases :"There is a small sort of lyons, which many use for the Octaves. But I care not for them, they being constantly rotten, and good for little, but to make frets of." I think we need to be careful not to make assumptions of what Mace meant by 'rotten'. It seems to me he means weak/liable to break easily/friable/tearable rather than rotten in the sense of decaying, soft or decomposing meat. That he can make frets of them surely indicates they were not decomposing but merely prone to breaking. Keeping gut strings dry is just common prudence (applicable today) to avoid distortion and the like. The other matter raised is that if some of these strings were so bad, how is it that they continued to be supplied commercially? Presumably the answer is cost - even nowadays we make compromises if the expense is great and, for example, I often use Nylgut in place of natural gut because I can't afford to string all my instruments with the best available materials. regards Martyn --- On Sat, 20/10/12, Anthony Hind <agno3ph...@yahoo.com> wrote: From: Anthony Hind <agno3ph...@yahoo.com> Subject: [LUTE] Are Pistoys prone to rot according to Mace? To: "JarosAA'aw Lipski" <jaroslawlip...@wp.pl> Cc: "lute@cs.dartmouth.edu" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Saturday, 20 October, 2012, 13:19 Dear Jaroslaw As promised, back now in Paris, I will try to respond, with a few new thoughts on Mace's string remarks, along with the old, as when we talked last at [1]http://tinyurl.com/cugfph2 Mace's remarks can be found at [2]http://www.luteshop.co.uk/stringsmace.htm But the CNRS facsimile is such a bargain, every lutenist should surely have one; unless, like a lute maker I know, you are lucky enough to be given an original edition for your birthday ... % First, I must say that my previous message, about loaded strings being fairly immune to humidity, only concerned modern loaded strings, which are coated with copper in a sort of glue. If historic "deep dark red" Pistoys had been loaded through saturation, with say a solution of red mercury oxide (akin to a dyeing process), I don't know if they would have been quite so immune to water absorption. But probably oxide loading (rather like salting hams) might have prevented them rotting, or at least slowed the process down (are there any chemists among you who could say if this is likely?). % I will reply to your messages, but breaking up my responses to lighten the load: I) Why Mace's Pistoy Basses dyed Deep dark red are quite different from his omnipurpose plain red coloured strings, and are not therefore particularly prone to rotting according to Mace. II) How reliable, and not just excentric, is Mace, a few arguments in his favour? A) Meanes used for octaves? B) Why were the Lyons Burwell thought so good, now so bad, according to Mace? (some data on out sourcing from Barbieri) % I) Are Pistoys prone to rot according to Mace? In relation to the rotting tendency of red strings, you ask me, "how will you explain a quote from Mace p.66: > "I have sometimes seen strings of a yellowish color very good; yet but > seldom; for that color is a general sign of rottenness, or of the decay > of the string. There are several sorts of colored strings, very good; > but the best was always the clear blue; the red commonly rotten." > As far as I understand red color is a most popular color of loaded > string. If this is so, how then they could be commonly rotten?" Jaroslaw Perhaps the "underlying" question, here (please tell me if I am wrong), is whether, when Mace describes Red coloured strings as "commonly rotten" (your quote above), he is including in this description, all red strings without exception (dyed or coloured), even those from Pistoy, which are dyed "deep dark red". In other words, is he saying Pistoys are commonly rotten? and if so, would this rule them out as being loaded strings? % Here, is my reasoning: Mace had a very strong preoccupation with rotten gut, clearly from personal experience (although I have never encountered this problem), and he therefore gives detailed advice on how to store strings to make sure they don't "take any wet, or moist air." Further, whenever he mentions a string liable to rot, he immediately states this within the next few sentences, as in all these cases : "There is a small sort of lyons, which many use for the Octaves. But I care not for them, they being constantly rotten, and good for little, but to make frets of." (...) "I have sometimes seen strings of a yellowish colour, very good; yet, but seldom; for that colour is a general sign of rottenness, or of the decay of the string." (...) "There are several sorts of coloured strings, very good; But the best (to my observation) was always the clear Blue; the Red, commonly rotten, sometimes green, very good." % It would therefore be very surprising if he had not done the same for Pistoy Basses, if he had really thought they were often rotten, especially as they were rare. Why allow a student to waste time searching them out, if they are both rare, and often rotten ? But he only speaks of their excellent quality (next to the heading, "And what sort of strings are best?"), and clearly contrasts them with the inferior Lyons, "They are indeed the very best, for the basses, being smooth and well twisted strings, but are hard to come by; however out of a good parcel of Lyons strings, you may (with care) pick those which serve very well." Wouldn't he have immediately (within the next few sentences) warned the reader about this danger, if there had been any; but follows a number of paragraphs, in which he explains "How to chuse your strings", giving rules for choosing Minikins, Venice Catlins, and Lyons, but not for Pistoys, presumably either because they are too rare, or because they are always good, in which case just the "deep dark red", is sign enough to vouch for this string's quality. During these explanations, he again insists that Lyons basses are inferior to others, "but they are much more inferior strings than the other", but he does not extend this criticism to Pistoys, which seem therefore to be unparalleled in quality (indeed "the other" may actually be referring back to "Pistoys", the other type of bass string). % Finally, under the completely new heading "Coloured strings", he talks of yellowish, clear blue, red, and green strings, without giving any indication of their use (while for all strings with a name which at least originally implied a provenance, Minikin, Venices, Lyons, and Pistoys, he took great care to discuss their uses. In this he does exactly the same as Dowland, who mentions the same colours., but gives no indication of their use (while he does for other string types) : "Some strings there are which are coloured, out of which choose the lightest colours, viz. among the Greene choose the Sea- water, of Red the Carnation, and of Blew the Watchet." Dowland (VLL, 1610, sig.Dv.) [3]http://www.luteshop.co.uk/stringsdowland.htm % I suppose there are three possible interpretations for this, : 1) the colours discussed could be a natural coloration that can effect ANY string type, except possibly Pistoys which are dyed dark red already (indeed there are naturally coloured yellow, and brown strings, I have yellow and brown Venices, there are also red and black, but perhaps not green and blue ?); 2) they could be omnipurpose strings coloured simply for decorative use, for making an interesting pattern; 3) they could be general purpose strings that were coloured to work as position markers, just as with the synthetic harp strings shown here: Position marking coloured synthetic harp strings: [4]http://tinyurl.com/cdgsm5l as indeed, Dan Larson can do for Lyons; here is an example of coloured theorbo strings. Position marking coloured gut theorbo strings: [5]http://tinyurl.com/9gcf9z6 In all these cases above the red strings are not restricted to basses, as they are in this one below: Loaded basses, a modern lute strung in loaded Venices: [6]http://www.luthiste.com/images/rosace.jpg A mixed case: before I had all loaded basses, I did tend to use my Gimped 7c as a position marker, while the colour from 8c down to 11c were just loaded basses : [7]http://tinyurl.com/czf8oy7 % Does the iconography show similar patterns for historic lutes? See [8]http://www.aquilacorde.com/images/pdf/9e.pdf There is a possible example of case 2, decorative use on P. 62/102 (of text above) Bilcius (?), 2nd half of the 17th C. detail of the bridge of a 12 course (but I have no modern example of this decorative use). An example of case 3 position marker, could be Rubens' Lute player: [9]http://tinyurl.com/9sjtjuf Ambiguous situation (case 2 or 3?), see P64/102 "Dyed strings for aesthetical purposes" MP [10]http://www.aquilacorde.com/images/pdf/9e.pdf It would be difficult to differentiate use (2) and (3) with iconography, and nothing could prevent a luthenist just using any colour he happened to have for any position, with no aesthetic or other intention what ever. Contrast these with the red basses, presumably Pistoys, shown here: [11]http://tinyurl.com/9ry3r7b % Now all I can conclude from Mace, is that Pistoys dyed deep dark red were the very best basses of his time. We can not directly conclude from this that they were loaded, but it is highly likely they underwent some sort of special dyeing process, which, if loading with mercury salts was involved, would be an integral part of their bass string quality; but conceivably it could also be the result of a curing preservation process involving these same oxides, or the same chemicals used just to distinguish them from any other bass string types (as a sort of seal of quality), but possibly all three purposes came together. They were probably rare compared to Lyons (see IInd part) and therefore appear only on some of the best or most wealthy player's lutes (Charles Mouton for example). We can not expect to be able to recognize loading (over other purposes) in a painting (indeed it is hard to distinguish in the photos above); even if, in the hand, they might look and feel very different from the simple red coloured strings. We only have indirect evidence for loading: the small bridge holes, descriptions of bass strings having been quite loud, and yet the French lutes being quite small (Charles Mouton), all this, including the colour, makes loading a plausible hypothesis, but that has not been entirely proved, there are just strong indications. To go further than this, we would need to discover a list of chemicals including mercury salts, etc, in the atelier of a string maker, or similar chemical deposits. To my knowledge this has not been found, as yet (Barbieri did not find such data in Roman ateliers). % This is just my non-specialist musings around the data, Jaroslaw, but I have very much enjoyed thinking about all this again. % Regards Anthony De : JarosAA'aw Lipski <[12]jaroslawlip...@wp.pl> AEUR : Anthony Hind <[13]agno3ph...@yahoo.com> EnvoyA(c) le : Samedi 6 octobre 2012 23h49 Objet : Re: [LUTE] Re: the point of synthetics - Rather the movement of the whole lute Dear Anthony, I understood from MP's website that one of the strong arguments for loaded basses is iconography which quite consistently shows red or brown-red bass strings, which are supposed to had been loaded using oxides of lead, copper, iron etc. We know from pictures that mainly basses were red or reddish and if they were only dyed (as Mace described), how can one discern them from loaded strings, and how one can take iconography as an evidence of loading if there is no difference between 2 types of strings on paintings? From Mace's description I get an impression that he talks about ordinary red dyed guts: "There is another sort of strings, which they call Pistoy basses, which I conceive are none other then thick Venice-catlines, which are commonly dyed, with a deep dark red color" The same person writes on the same page that red colored strings are commonly rotten. For me it signifies that they were rather normally dyed, but not loaded. Obviously there is an argument about bridge holes etc, but I wouldn't like to return to our old discussion which in my opinion is quite difficult to solve at the moment without any new data. Meanwhile (returning to our topic), I don't think one needs to prove superiority of one string material over another. Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. Nice to hear from you too. Best wishes Jaroslaw P.S. I am not against loaded bass theory, I'm just trying to asses all information objectively. WiadomoAA>Ae/= napisana przez Anthony Hind w dniu 6 paAA-o 2012, o godz. 22:13: > Oh I was only speaking about modern loaded strings, that at present are > covered in the copper loading. > I don't know what would happen with loading by saturation of an oxide, > although presumably that > should also prevent rotting. Oxide loading, however, could result in > various colours. > But according to Charles Besnainou thick untreated gut can also be > reddish or yellowish in hue. > I don't think colour is necessarilly always a sign of loading. Aren't > Georges Stoppani's strings rather red. > I am not of course suggesting tht they are prone to rot, but nor are > they loaded (although he may have made a few in experiments). > Nice to hear from you again > Best wishes > Anthony > __________________________________________________________________ > > De : JarosAA'aw Lipski <[14]jaroslawlip...@wp.pl> > AEUR : [15]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu > EnvoyA(c) le : Samedi 6 octobre 2012 21h45 > Objet : [LUTE] Re: the point of synthetics - Rather the movement of the > whole lute > Maybe, but then how will you explain a quote from Mace p.66: > "I have sometimes seen strings of a yellowish color very good; yet but > seldom; for that color is a general sign of rottenness, or of the decay > of the string. There are several sorts of colored strings, very good; > but the best was always the clear blue; the red commonly rotten." > As far as I understand red color is a most popular color of loaded > string. If this is so, how then they could be commonly rotten? > All best > Jaroslaw > WiadomoAA>Ae/= napisana przez Anthony Hind w dniu 6 paAA-o 2012, o > godz. 21:12: >> Loading, to a certain extent does protect against humidity changes. >> Perhaps there may have been other treatments that we don't know > about. >> Anthony >> __________________________________________________________________ >> >> De : Sam Chapman <[1][16]manchap...@gmail.com> >> A : alexander <[2][17]voka...@verizon.net> >> Cc : Mark Probert <[3][18]probe...@gmail.com>; lute-cs. edu >> <[4][19]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> >> Envoye le : Samedi 6 octobre 2012 18h03 >> Objet : [LUTE] Re: the point of synthetics - Rather the movement of > the >> whole lute >> Interesting. Weren't strings sometimes also treated with certain > oils >> - >> almond oil I think? I hadn't realised that this could potentially >> protect against humidity changes. >> Sam >> On 6 October 2012 15:05, alexander <[1][1][5][20]voka...@verizon.net> > wrote: >> It needs to be understood, i think, that there are clearly two >> elements in the pitch (in)stability. The string material and > design >> is, of course one. But for the light and breathing, as it is, > lute, >> the movement of the whole structure, most likely influences the >> tuning much, much more. So, in this case, chasing the string > mole >> while disregarding the body movement monster, is not going to > solve >> anything. Especially with the synthetics, - the differences >> observed >> here are the result of a different stretch - flexibility of the >> materials, rather then some radical reaction from the material > to >> the temperature - humidity change. (Of course the wound strings, >> consisting of two conflicting materials are a problem of its' > own). >> Just one brief look at the size of a single string and comparing > it >> with the size of the whole instrument should make one to realize >> something here, right? >> I do not have an information on the early lutes in this regard, > but >> early - baroque - bowed instruments as well as some later > violins, >> especially those built and used in bad climes, had the inner > wood >> surfaces treated with the mixture of hide glue and linseed oil. >> (There were actually some arguing this might have improved the >> instrument sound - to some tastes, that is, just off the top of > my >> head - look up Frederick Castle's "Violin tone peculiarities"). >> Some >> other varnishes on the inner wood surface were observed as well. > I >> have seen them on museum instruments. And some varnishes > penetrated >> the wood deeply enough to create more wood stability. Think > Cremona >> here. >> Protecting the inner wood surface of the lute would do much more > to >> stabilize its' tuning in the case of rapid weather changes. But >> this >> will never happen, i would hazard to guess. Chasing a perfect >> string >> - there is the solution, of course. >> alexander r. >> On Sat, 06 Oct 2012 12:17:41 +1000 >> Mark Probert <[2][2][6][21]probe...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> My $0.02, living in Sydney Australia, is that nylgut mitigates >> some >>> of he effect of fairly extreme weather changes. We can have a >> thunder >>> storm roll in and have the temperature drop by 10+C in the space >> of as >>> many minutes. Gut just gives up in those circumstances. >>> >>> Part B of this is the effect of the weather on the wood of the >>> instrument. One of my lutes is more stable than the other in the >>> pegbox department. When we are in a changing time, I am forced >> not to >>> play this instrument for days at a time (I really don't enjoy the >> tune, >>> tune, tune aspect). >>> >>> Then, isn't there the old adage of lute players spending half >> their >>> time tuning and the other half playing out of tune? This is not >> a >> new >>> problem, though I do believe that synthetics help. >>> >>> Kind regards >>> >>> -- >>> mark. >>> >>> >>> >>> To get on or off this list see list information at >>> [3][3][7][22]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> -- >> Sam Chapman >> Oetlingerstrasse 65 >> 4057 Basel >> (0041) 79 530 39 91 >> -- >> References >> 1. mailto:[4][8][23]voka...@verizon.net >> 2. mailto:[5][9][24]probe...@gmail.com >> 3. [6][10][25]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> >> -- >> >> References >> >> 1. mailto:[11][26]voka...@verizon.net >> 2. mailto:[12][27]probe...@gmail.com >> 3. [13][28]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> 4. mailto:[14][29]voka...@verizon.net >> 5. mailto:[15][30]probe...@gmail.com >> 6. [16][31]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> >> > > -- > > References > > 1. mailto:[32]manchap...@gmail.com > 2. mailto:[33]voka...@verizon.net > 3. mailto:[34]probe...@gmail.com > 4. mailto:[35]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu > 5. mailto:[36]voka...@verizon.net > 6. mailto:[37]probe...@gmail.com > 7. [38]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 8. mailto:[39]voka...@verizon.net > 9. mailto:[40]probe...@gmail.com > 10. [41]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 11. mailto:[42]voka...@verizon.net > 12. mailto:[43]probe...@gmail.com > 13. [44]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > 14. mailto:[45]voka...@verizon.net > 15. mailto:[46]probe...@gmail.com > 16. [47]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > -- References 1. http://tinyurl.com/cugfph2 2. http://www.luteshop.co.uk/stringsmace.htm 3. http://www.luteshop.co.uk/stringsdowland.htm 4. http://tinyurl.com/cdgsm5l 5. http://tinyurl.com/9gcf9z6 6. http://www.luthiste.com/images/rosace.jpg 7. http://tinyurl.com/czf8oy7 8. http://www.aquilacorde.com/images/pdf/9e.pdf 9. http://tinyurl.com/9sjtjuf 10. http://www.aquilacorde.com/images/pdf/9e.pdf 11. http://tinyurl.com/9ry3r7b 12. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=jaroslawlip...@wp.pl 13. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=agno3ph...@yahoo.com 14. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=jaroslawlip...@wp.pl 15. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 16. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=manchap...@gmail.com 17. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 18. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 19. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 20. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 21. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 22. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 23. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 24. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 25. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 26. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 27. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 28. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 29. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 30. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 31. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 32. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=manchap...@gmail.com 33. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 34. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 35. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lute@cs.dartmouth.edu 36. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 37. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 38. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 39. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 40. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 41. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 42. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 43. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 44. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 45. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=voka...@verizon.net 46. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=probe...@gmail.com 47. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
