David Kilpatrick wrote: > Stuart Walsh wrote: > > >> I'm trying something out :- stringing a seven-string Russian guitar (an >> old Soviet wreck) with metal strings for at least the top three >> 'courses'. I have metal strings from NRI to use. >> >> The idea is to get something like a seven-course eighteenth century >> cittern. Just as a little experiment. >> >> For the top string I've got 9thou steel (meant to be e' in modern pitch >> with a string length of 50cms). But I can't seem to get it to tune up >> on the guitar.. I've done little loops with wire strings for my English >> guitar (guittar) and they work well enough. On the Russian guitar I've >> drilled some holes in the tail piece and put some picture pins to hold >> the loop. But the string just won't tighten - it just slips and slips. >> Any ideas, bodges? >> >> Years ago I actually made a clumsy copy of an eighteenth century French >> cittern. It's still in one piece, but the frets are wrong. I dig it out >> every so often and tear my hair out trying to get it in tune. It's >> hopeless. >> >> It's fun playing cistre music on the Russian guitar (although it's not >> doing my sight reading in G-tuning much good). I can play in the tuning >> -the basic tuning is E,A, d, e, a, c#, e') - but I'd like to capture >> more of a cittern-like wire-strung, sound. >> >> I can't afford to buy a new cittern! >> >> >> >> >> > > The easy answer is to buy one of my unfinished Troubadour Blondel > 'kits'. These are the travel cittern-git with everything finished and > laquered as normal, except - no nut; no bridge, at all, either fixed or > floating; no tuner heads, just an undrilled headstock capable of fitting > up to ten tuners (mandolin individual size) with additional central > banjo peg mechanisms if a couple more were needed. I have some > tailpieces, bought from Germany, which are good for up to 12 strings. > > The neck is a 24 inch (612mm) scale and is fretted, 45mm width at the > nut.
Thanks David. An intriguing solution - but a 45mm width nut is far too narrow. I already have my Soviet seven-course guitar and I can get modern metal strings if I can't get my more 'authentic' NRI strings to tune up. The instrument I am trying to emulate has seven fretted courses. I don't think you could possibly get that on 45mm. Russian guitars, old and new, have narrow nuts - narrower than six-string guitars; but they're wider than 45mm. (And the original 'cistres' have doubled courses for the higher strings.) To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
