Now for my little gut story, it is also about yesterday, so the basic vibes of the Earth apply to both of us.
I played not a lute but a guitar. That's different, but we're talking about the gut. I had a 62 on top. And a 92 on third (I was looking for a fairly light tension; my 2nd was nylgut). It was in a low ceiling theatre. Which means close lighting. My 92 was on just for two days. It was a 'used' string. I have many gauges 'in store' and I use them to experiment, to find the 'perfect' sound on different instruments, so I might have one on for a day and change it, to see how the instrument reacts to a particular tension, to achieve a particular change in sound, or in general, to see how a tension change affects all parameters (playing technique, possible expression, instrument). This string was still OK, but already stretched a bit. But I could expect some dropping. When I tuned for my piece, for a moment I was unpleasantly surprised when I found more 'drop' than expected, possibly because of the temperature from the lights (this was a theatre show, not a regular concert) . The instrument had been on stage for 2 1/2 hrs. Once I was tuned, and underway, I noticed slight dropping, giving me a little shock: what's to come?, but not enough to influence my concentration. Halfway my 12 1/2 min single movement piece I found a spot to give the tuner a quick little turn. I suspect this was not effective, as little adjustments might get stuck in the nut. I reached the end without worrying about tuning. Maybe this shows that a prestretched string is a handy thing to have at hand. An unused instrument (any) could serve as a string 'rack'. Strings need not to be tuned to pitch, just to 'tension'. This may be even more useful when you use Nylgut, as this seems to need a longer stretching-in period than gut. My other string gave me a typical gut experience. Just before the show (of course) I heard a schnarrrr. A hair had developed on the playing point. Just as old Segovia did, and I guess everyone before him, I carefully cut the hair off. No schnarrr anymore, but just a feeling of 'excitement', that the string was hot, ready to...??? To play perhaps. Apart from the hair, I had no trouble with it. It brings a measure of humanness into the act. I am not against it. I am often reminded of motor-racing (yes). On the Saturday, the car is all set up and feeling good on the track, come raceday and the car is all over the place. Some drivers have not the nerve to change setup much, others have (six-time world champion Schumacher among them). Dionisio Aguado (1830's) wrote: "a guitarist should be master of the strings". What he precisely meant is unclear, but I interpret it as: 'mix and match your strings on the spot, know how to arrive at the right sound'. BTW, I remember that when I finally used nylon again on a certain instrument, after years of carbon use, I was kinda shocked how temperature-senstive nylon really was. Gut may have its problems, but nylon will not guarantee you absence of nightmares. PP ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed Durbrow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, November 07, 2005 3:57 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: Gut strings in practice > Yesterday I played a concert in a coffee house. My Nylgut strings on > the 7 course are getting pretty old. A week ago I changed the top > string to Nylgut .38 I had, which, though a bit thin, at least was > true. I found a Kurchner 1mm gut that I cut in half, tied some other > string to, and managed to put on for a 5th course about 5 days > before. It sounded great at home, and was getting to hold more and > more at a steady pitch, but at the concert, it sucked big time. I > spent so much time tuning that one course! I could hear it going flat > within one tune. I could only think, wow! some people have ALL gut! > It was raining and the place was full of people with bright lights, > pretty warm in fact. Perhaps it would have been better with different > weather. The fact that I was thinking about the out of tune string > much of the time distracted me from my job of really getting into the > music. That is a serious trade off. > > My hat is off to David van Ooijen and Ed Martin for making it work. I > don't think I will be willing to try such a thing in public for a while. > > YMMV > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
