Dear Ed, Martin, Daivid, Ariel, and all
That was very much what I tried to say to Ariel, a little while ago.
Thanks for being so much clearer than I was, Ed.
May I tell you an anecdote, I don't really know how relevant this
might be for lute playing, however,
One of my friends, is an avid lute listener, but also a tennis
fiend. I have often discussed the merits of lute-gut with him, but
until recently he kept his racket in synthetics. Last week, he told
me triumphantly, that he had just had it completely restrung in gut.
He reports it has given him very great pleasure, but that, at first,
he needed a week to adapt; although he does not think it has made a
major difference to his technique, he feels it is allowing him to be
much more subtle in his game.
Initially, he was slightly disappointed, thinking his strokes were
less powerful, but gradually he realized the racket absorbs the
vibrations from the attacking ball far better. He reports there is
almost a slight delay in rebound, between the moment the ball hits
the racket and speeds forwards again, and this he mistook for less
power.
I also notice something slightly similar when plucking a gut lute
string, a sort of minute delay. A moment of initial absorption of
energy before it is released, sometimes with a slight chaffing sound,
like a consonant followed by a vowel (sorry, it is just the
phonetician in me) ; but as Martin says:
"One of the nice things about gut basses is their "vocal" quality,
not a question of sustain but
a function of how the note starts. " Martin
My friend now realizes this "delay" and absorption of energy, gives
him far greater control and sensitivity, thus the increased subtlety
and refinement in his game. He also says that it is easier on the
wrist and elbow.
I asked him whether the sound was better, he laughed, but answered,
almost instantaneously, that it was certainly much better, rounder,
and deeper.
He also confirmed that, just as for the lute, there was a cost for
this "improvement": the stringing cost him 50 Euros (far more than
synthetics), and it only lasted a couple of months; also he noted
that the weather did effect the racket's performance, more.
Nevertheless, he hopes to restring and carry on this winter.
Actually, I believed that gut was no longer used for tennis. It seems
I was wrong.
Are there any lutists who also play tennis and use gut for both? How
do you feel about this? Is there any common research between the
makers of gut for both activities?
Regards
Anthony
Le 26 août 07 à 00:34, Edward Martin a écrit :
> Dear Martin,
>
> Best wishes to you... we have not corresponded for a while.
>
> I wholeheartedly agree on your statement about different string types
> requiring a different technique or playing style. I have not
> played wound
> strings in many years, but when I do play someone else's lute with
> wound
> strings, I am struck immediately on how one has to "hold back" and
> play in
> a much more quiet, gentle fashion, on the basses. The opposite is
> true of
> gut basses, where one needs to play a bit more forcefully (but not
> forceful), and perhaps closer to the bridge, to get the right
> sound. It
> took me a long time to learn to get a beautiful, clear sound from gut
> basses..... I had to practice open bass courses for months, before
> I felt I
> had the clarity & beauty of sound, for which I was striving.
>
> Once Hoppy sat down & played my gut strung baroque lute, and I was
> amazed
> at how one of the finest players of our time had a sound that was
> very,
> very introverted - not similar to the sound he gets on wound
> basses. One
> needs to learn how to play gut, to make it effective.
>
> In terms of a gut string's beautiful sound depending on how the note
> starts, I totally agree. With gut, the note has a fast, immediate
> sound,
> without the "twang" of metal.
>
> Once again, what is important is the beauty of the sound made.
> Although I
> prefer gut, I would rather hear a lute played wonderfully on synthetic
> strings, than a lute played poorly in gut.
>
> ed
>
>
>
> At 09:55 PM 8/25/2007 +0100, Martin Shepherd wrote:
>
>> Dear Anthony and All,
>>
>> Well I was away, in the Vendee, where the weather was not much better
>> than in the UK. The local paper kept referring to it as "ce vilain
>> d'ete" (sorry I can't do accents on the laptop) and I can only
>> agree -
>> we spent a week in Provence in May and it wasn't that good there
>> either.
>>
>> I found the Purr'll strings sound fine. I haven't tried a Kuerschner
>> top string for a long time, but the thicker strings are very stiff
>> and
>> hard, so I would not be surprised if the very thin strings were the
>> same. I think all gut trebles have the advantage of longer
>> sustain than
>> other materials, so niceties of "warmth" etc. seem a bit secondary.
>>
>> The point that was raised about different techniques for playing on
>> nylon/gut/nylgut I found interesting. The tendency is for too
>> light an
>> attack on overspun strings (because if you hit them hard this
>> emphasizes
>> their "twanginess" and also gives a long sustain) and too strong an
>> attack on gut strings (because you feel if you hit them harder they
>> might sustain longer). In fact you can pluck the gut strings harder,
>> and this is good, but too hard has the effect of maximising the
>> transient at the beginning of a note and (by contrast)
>> deemphasizing the
>> subsequent sound of the note, which is not good. The main focus,
>> with
>> all kinds of strings, should be to achieve a full sound
>> (absolutely full
>> contact with both strings of a course and perfect blend of octaves
>> on an
>> octave course) rather than a loud sound. Quality is everything -
>> crude
>> attempts to achieve quantity are no substitute. One of the nice
>> things
>> about gut basses is their "vocal" quality, not a question of
>> sustain but
>> a function of how the note starts. In fact, let's face it, playing a
>> plucked instrument is all about how the note starts - a consideration
>> which affects all aspects of playing polyphony on the lute - but
>> that's
>> another story....
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>> Anthony Hind wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Glad to see you are back, Martin (perhaps you weren't away).
>>>
>>> The Purr'll strings are strong, but how do they sound?
>>>
>>> Regards
>>> Anthony
>>>
>>> Le 25 août 07 à 16:44, Martin Shepherd a écrit :
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dear All,
>>>>
>>>> My experiences with Sofracob gut are much the same as David's -
>>>> fine
>>>> for
>>>> everything except a top string. I recently tried to order some
>>>> fret
>>>> gut
>>>> from them and they wrote back to say that they no longer supply
>>>> fret
>>>> gut
>>>> - dommage! Anyone know of a good source of fret gut?
>>>>
>>>> By the way, I found the banjo strings quite strong and very
>>>> cheap when
>>>> you get two out of a length. I wonder who manufactures them?
>>>>
>>>> The issue about single gut is interesting. I always thought
>>>> that the
>>>> thinnest string had to be made out of two whole guts laid thick
>>>> end to
>>>> thin end, because of the taper. Even then, the finished string
>>>> might
>>>> taper somewhat. But the really interesting thing about this is
>>>> just
>>>> how
>>>> thin could the old guys have made their strings? If two guts are
>>>> needed, the answer is supposedly in the region of .43mm, and that
>>>> places
>>>> some interesting constraints on just how high a pitch you can
>>>> tune to
>>>> for a given string length - not because the string might break but
>>>> because of the uncomfortably high tension involved.
>>>>
>>>> Can anyone (Mimmo? Dan?) shed more light on this? And while
>>>> we're at
>>>> it, I thought the old guys had to use whole guts as the basis
>>>> for their
>>>> strings, because the splitting horn wasn't invented until the
>>>> 18th C.
>>>> True or false?
>>>>
>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>>> LGS-Europe wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> I'm also interested in the responses that Universale's strings
>>>>>> are
>>>>>> particularly strong - I wonder if they wholesale supply some
>>>>>> better known
>>>>>> companies who may not actually make their own gut from scratch
>>>>>> (eg
>>>>>> Kurschner)?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I always understood, but I do not know, mind you, that Sofracob
>>>>> supplies
>>>>> some (?) smaller string makers. Sofracob's main product is
>>>>> wholesale gut for
>>>>> the medical industrie (10.000.000 meters of catgut yearly, they
>>>>> boast on
>>>>> their website). Their musical strings are a later by-product and
>>>>> they only
>>>>> supply treble gut and double twist, no bass strings like Mimmo or
>>>>> Dan make.
>>>>> They have varnished and non-varnished and they have fret-gut. And
>>>>> as I said
>>>>> before, they are very cheap. No wonder, with such a high volume
>>>>> output.
>>>>>
>>>>> David
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ****************************
>>>>> David van Ooijen
>>>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>>>>> www.davidvanooijen.nl
>>>>> ****************************
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> To get on or off this list see list information at
>>>>> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
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>> 2:59 PM
>>
>
>
>
> Edward Martin
> 2817 East 2nd Street
> Duluth, Minnesota 55812
> e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> voice: (218) 728-1202
>
>
>
>
>
