No changes at build time whatsoever Your bourdons will be OK as they are
The C will tune up to a D The G will slacken off to D (YES!! same string usually for balance) It may be slow to start playing, put on extra cotton if you need to I have a second notch on the bridge to give a little more pressure The trompette can stay as a D The G mouche can go up to A if you want I do this all the time on my G/C Colson and just play in D on the octave chanters Its only 1 extra C#, not rocket science Try it first before you change any strings Tuning can be tricky, the following works for me 1) Tune the G chanters together at G then loose your tuning meter 2) Tune the D trompette to the chanters 3) Take OFF the chanters 4) Tune the C bourdon up to D against the trompette 5) Tune the G boudon down to low low D against the trompette this will take a few minutes to settle before it stops going sharp 6) Tune the G mouche up to A (optional) 7) Put the G chanters back on 8) You get a strange sound with the chanters open Pressing the A or D key will give you a big rich sound With octave G chanters you get absolutely identical string pitches to a D/G gurdy It will sound exactly the same as a D/G gurdy without having to change strings The only difference is you get the advantage of being able to play tunes in D that go down to the sub-dominant G (like the C tunes you play now) You can't do this on a D/G gurdy D/G gurdies almost always have octave D gut chanters, I don't know the guages Hope this helps Graham Whyte -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Nan Donald Sent: 27 February 2007 14:12 To: [email protected] Subject: [HG] Re: strings Hi, I am wanting to convert a C/G HG to D. Can anyone give me the diameters of the needed strings? If at all possible, I would love to have the chanters an octave apart, but I am not sure if this is do-able on this instrument. (Can any C/G gurdy be adapted, or is this a decision that needs to be made as it is being built?) We are lucky in the Boston area to have Boston Catlines, a good supplier of gut strings, so the non-wound strings should not be a problem to obtain. What about recommendations for wound strings? If they are available as lute/other early instrument strings, again, this should not be a problem to obtain. I am in a bit of a rush to get this done, so I am trying the local angle, where I can pick the strings up at someone's doorstep, but I'd also appreciate suggestions on sources for strings for later down the road. Thanks for any assistance, Nan
