----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[email protected]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 11:09 AM Subject: [LUTE] Re: strings: direction of vibration?
> But if you slowly draw a bow and arrow and then release it, the arrow will > travel just as fast as if you drew it quickly. The initial addressing of > the > string can be slow, but the stroke itself must be quick, "like a > mousetrap, or > touching a hot stove," as one teacher once put it. Beginning practice of > producing single notes to refine one's tone as an early student should be > intentionally slowed down, at least the initial part of the action. > Also, has anyone mentioned the fact that we're talking about TWO strings > here? I think if you displace the strings sideways rather than toward the > soundboard you are actually displacing one string more than the other. > Also, if they > are vibrating sideways, there's much more chance of them striking each > other, > a real possibility, for example, with the bass strings of a large lute. > When contemporary luters recommended playing "deeply into the mouth of the > lute" I think they may have been telling students to depress the strings > into > the soundboard. > In any event, practice certainly confirms the fact that on a lute one > achieves a much rounder, fuller tone by depressing the string toward the > soundboard > rather than dissplacing it sideways. > Cheers, > Jim I agree with what you say. "The stroke itself must be quick" is the key point here, otherwise we'd just be listening to silence ): The thing is that the original question then was not correct, so instead of "What direction should the strings get their maximum vibration for an optimum tone?" it should perhaps be: "What direction should the strings be plucked in for an optimum tone?" Then we'd have no quibbles ... But to answer the original question: it doesn't matter (at least from the point of view of how the energy from vibrating string is transmitted to the bridge) which way / plan strings 'choose' to vibrate in after they've been plucked (either with the intention at production of an 'optimum tone' in mind or whatever ...). Alexander To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
