> I feel hesitant to bring this up, because on the one hand I thought it was > more or less evident and on the other hand I couldn't care less about how > you make your own beautiful tone as long as you're happy with it. But it > came up in a conversation, and it turned out opinions were not as united as > I would except. So here goes: > What direction should the strings get their maximum vibration for an optimum > tone?
I made an instrument from an oatmeal box, a rubber band, and tape. The sound was indeed much louder when the string travels perpedicular to the "soundboard" (especially the lower harmonics). I repeated the experiment with a clothepin bridge (about 18 mm high) between the string and the soundboard. With the clothespin, the volumen difference between perpendicular and parallel was much smaller. Indeed, I suspect it might be negligible if the clothespin were firmly glued to the soundboard. This result (small/negilible volumen difference) supports the importance of the "rocking" mechanism mentioned by an earlier contributor to this thread. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
