Dear David,
I'm kind of slow in the math department but in my experience low
tensions strings _are_ more difficult to tune. When you get close to
the breaking point - ok, and just a bit shy of almost there - they
find that sweet spot rather nicely and you get a fine action around
the tuning peg, too. eg, a quarter turn will yield fewer cents of
change than at lower tension. That's just my experience. The higher
tension around the peg also helps your control of turning so having
pegs nicely fitted (and doped tho I almost never use it) will also
help. That sweet spot/tension gives a better tone and I think more
consistent. At lower than ideal tension the ring starts off higher and
tapers lower according to my tricorder.
Making sure your nut is well lubricated helps, too. Graphite is
popular but I like beeswax for less mark up.
The toughest time I ever had was a roped gut bass on a 4-course guitar
that was short to begin with (~40cm) and then tuning it down a tone
for one piece.
Sean
On Dec 17, 2013, at 5:59 PM, David Smith wrote:
I have an 11 course lute where the 11^th course seems to be very
sensitive and difficult to get in tune. It is gut. No, I do not
want to
use copper or silver wrapped strings.
So, my question is if there is a relationship between the sensitivity
of the frequency (pitch) to the tension of the string which would
indicate that the tension on my string is a bit low.
I did a chart of this in Mathematica taking the partial derivative of
the frequency as a function of tension equation (assuming all else
being equal) and it seems that frequency changes as 1 over the square
root of the tension. This implies that increasing the tension would
make the string be less sensitive to changes if frequency due to
change
in tension - i.e. easier to tune.
Does this make sense to anyone or is it just noise? I am looking to
see
if changing the string will have an effect on tunability and
whether it
indicates a low or high tension change would be good.
Thanks for listening to the ramblings and any guidance you can
provide.
These are expensive strings (Gut) so just experimenting is a bit
spendy.
Regards
David
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