Thanks to everyone for their responses! I've taken your advice and emailed "Catline" Henricksen to arrange for a few sets of strings. The La Bella strings are now safely loose on my lute and I'll wait until getting new ones from Chris to resume playing it.
I would also like to remark that it was very gratifying to quickly receive so many thoughtful and helpful responses to my note. I belong to other email lists where responses are often uncivil especially when beginners are asking for help. I'm sure you must have dissonant moments but it was a very nice 1st experience with the Lute email list. So I'd like to thank all of you not only for the advice but also for the warm welcome! Steve... To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
