On Saturday 28 April 2007 03:25, John Scott wrote: > What can I use to tighten the tuning pegs? One has a tendency to slip > every time I try to adjust the tuning. The lute came with a little > piece of black wax labelled 'Peg Paste', but it looks like it might > lubricate the peg rather than add traction. What is the best material > for a) giving pegs more friction and b) giving them *less* friction?
Check with the violin/fiddle players in your area. I got the suggestion to use Lava hand soap (in bar form). Lava contains 'pumice', a form of volcanic ash. The pumice adds a soft grit to the pegs and helps keep them from slipping. I keep a bar of Lava in a zip-lock bag in the lute case. But be warned, the wood of the lute has absorbed the smell of the Lava soap. I like the smell. So now my lute has it's own distinctive sound *and* smell. > Secondly, my lute has the bass strings all tuned in octaves. I mostly > play Dowland, and seem to recall that he said octave tuning was > 'contrary to the laws of music'. This makes me inclined to restring my > lute with all unison tuning, and I'm wondering if this will drastically > affect the tension and do something awful to the lute! I thought unison on courses 4, 5, and 6 would make them sound stronger in the bass. It probably did, but it wasn't that strong of a sound and I went back to octave stringing on those courses. I like the blending much better with octave stringing. I also use unison stringing on course 1. I've got all 12 pegs, so I use them all. Hey, I paid for them; might as well use them. Regards, "The Other" Stephen Stubbs To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
