Sawari on lute! :-) Ah, the sound of shami! I'll take mine out to play again, it's been a while. Thanks for the incentive.
BTW, many modern shami-strings are made of nylon, with the same yellow colour as the silk ones, so be sure to have a silk one if that's what you're after. I have both, but the silk ones have more depth and personality in tone. A bit like comparing nylon and gut on a lute. These strings will sound at very low to very high tensions, as a shamisen will be tuned up and and down a lot; even within a piece the tuning can change. The twang is part of the sound of shami, as it is of biwa. For those not familiar with these instruments: both plucked instruments are designed to give buzzing sounds of strings rattling against the neck. It's called sawari and highly prized. The nut on a shamisen has room for two strings only, the third and lowest one is left to rattle against the neck. This third string will even buzz when not played. Modern shamisen have a device to adjust the level of rattling. Compare blues or flamenco guitar playing, where the playing sounds are part of the expression and no effort should be made to play absolutely cleanly. I wrote a little introduction to Japanese strings: http://home.planet.nl/~d.v.ooijen/sashimisen/things_japanese/strings_f.html (Or got to www.davidvanooijen.nl and choose the sashimisen pages. There's a section called Things Japanese with a few more of my hobby horses. See for example a bachi used on a violin ... ) David **************************** David van Ooijen [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.davidvanooijen.nl **************************** ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ed Durbrow" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "LuteNet list" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 9:30 AM Subject: [LUTE] Re: shamisen string > In case anyone is interested, I took a picture of the shamisen string > I put on my Ren lute. I put up an MP3 audio comparison with a gut > string too. > > http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/shamisenstring.html > > > On Feb 8, 2007, at 2:13 AM, Ed Durbrow wrote: > >> I tried a shamisen string on my Ren lute's 5th course. I was >> pleasantly surprised. It is slightly twangy-er than the gut but >> that could be due to lighter tension. It sounds close to a plain >> gut to my ear so far. I left one gut on there at the same pitch. >> >> The 5th course is always the troublesome course for me. Metal wound >> are just so intrusive, but gut is so thick and flabby that the >> pitch drops noticeably after the initial attack. The shamisen >> string seemed not to. We'll see about the tuning. Just having that >> one course gut is a major pain. I spend all my time tuning that one >> course. I have Nylgut and two overspuns for the rest. I'm hoping to >> eliminate the overspuns. I must investigate more. Maybe I can find >> a nice thick shamisen string. I don't know how I can find the >> tension. These strings are made of silk, by the way, and are bright >> yellow. >> >> I've been meaning to build a string tester/stretcher like I saw a >> long time ago in Lyn Elder's workshop. It would be just one peg two >> nut/bridges that the string would go over. One could move the >> bridges to the appropriate mensuration, tie whatever weight you >> want to the end of the string for the prescribed tension and see >> what pitch it settles into. >> cheers, >> >> Ed Durbrow >> Saitama, Japan >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ >> >> > > Ed Durbrow > Saitama, Japan > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
