Dear Martin, Best wishes to you... we have not corresponded for a while.
I wholeheartedly agree on your statement about different string types requiring a different technique or playing style. I have not played wound strings in many years, but when I do play someone else's lute with wound strings, I am struck immediately on how one has to "hold back" and play in a much more quiet, gentle fashion, on the basses. The opposite is true of gut basses, where one needs to play a bit more forcefully (but not forceful), and perhaps closer to the bridge, to get the right sound. It took me a long time to learn to get a beautiful, clear sound from gut basses..... I had to practice open bass courses for months, before I felt I had the clarity & beauty of sound, for which I was striving. Once Hoppy sat down & played my gut strung baroque lute, and I was amazed at how one of the finest players of our time had a sound that was very, very introverted - not similar to the sound he gets on wound basses. One needs to learn how to play gut, to make it effective. In terms of a gut string's beautiful sound depending on how the note starts, I totally agree. With gut, the note has a fast, immediate sound, without the "twang" of metal. Once again, what is important is the beauty of the sound made. Although I prefer gut, I would rather hear a lute played wonderfully on synthetic strings, than a lute played poorly in gut. ed At 09:55 PM 8/25/2007 +0100, Martin Shepherd wrote: >Dear Anthony and All, > >Well I was away, in the Vendee, where the weather was not much better >than in the UK. The local paper kept referring to it as "ce vilain >d'ete" (sorry I can't do accents on the laptop) and I can only agree - >we spent a week in Provence in May and it wasn't that good there either. > >I found the Purr'll strings sound fine. I haven't tried a Kuerschner >top string for a long time, but the thicker strings are very stiff and >hard, so I would not be surprised if the very thin strings were the >same. I think all gut trebles have the advantage of longer sustain than >other materials, so niceties of "warmth" etc. seem a bit secondary. > >The point that was raised about different techniques for playing on >nylon/gut/nylgut I found interesting. The tendency is for too light an >attack on overspun strings (because if you hit them hard this emphasizes >their "twanginess" and also gives a long sustain) and too strong an >attack on gut strings (because you feel if you hit them harder they >might sustain longer). In fact you can pluck the gut strings harder, >and this is good, but too hard has the effect of maximising the >transient at the beginning of a note and (by contrast) deemphasizing the >subsequent sound of the note, which is not good. The main focus, with >all kinds of strings, should be to achieve a full sound (absolutely full >contact with both strings of a course and perfect blend of octaves on an >octave course) rather than a loud sound. Quality is everything - crude >attempts to achieve quantity are no substitute. One of the nice things >about gut basses is their "vocal" quality, not a question of sustain but >a function of how the note starts. In fact, let's face it, playing a >plucked instrument is all about how the note starts - a consideration >which affects all aspects of playing polyphony on the lute - but that's >another story.... > >Best wishes, > >Martin > > >Anthony Hind wrote: > > > Glad to see you are back, Martin (perhaps you weren't away). > > > > The Purr'll strings are strong, but how do they sound? > > > > Regards > > Anthony > > > > Le 25 août 07 à 16:44, Martin Shepherd a écrit : > > > >> Dear All, > >> > >> My experiences with Sofracob gut are much the same as David's - fine > >> for > >> everything except a top string. I recently tried to order some fret > >> gut > >> from them and they wrote back to say that they no longer supply fret > >> gut > >> - dommage! Anyone know of a good source of fret gut? > >> > >> By the way, I found the banjo strings quite strong and very cheap when > >> you get two out of a length. I wonder who manufactures them? > >> > >> The issue about single gut is interesting. I always thought that the > >> thinnest string had to be made out of two whole guts laid thick end to > >> thin end, because of the taper. Even then, the finished string might > >> taper somewhat. But the really interesting thing about this is just > >> how > >> thin could the old guys have made their strings? If two guts are > >> needed, the answer is supposedly in the region of .43mm, and that > >> places > >> some interesting constraints on just how high a pitch you can tune to > >> for a given string length - not because the string might break but > >> because of the uncomfortably high tension involved. > >> > >> Can anyone (Mimmo? Dan?) shed more light on this? And while we're at > >> it, I thought the old guys had to use whole guts as the basis for their > >> strings, because the splitting horn wasn't invented until the 18th C. > >> True or false? > >> > >> Best wishes, > >> > >> Martin > >> > >> LGS-Europe wrote: > >> > >>>> I'm also interested in the responses that Universale's strings are > >>>> particularly strong - I wonder if they wholesale supply some > >>>> better known > >>>> companies who may not actually make their own gut from scratch (eg > >>>> Kurschner)? > >>>> > >>>> > >>> > >>> I always understood, but I do not know, mind you, that Sofracob > >>> supplies > >>> some (?) smaller string makers. Sofracob's main product is > >>> wholesale gut for > >>> the medical industrie (10.000.000 meters of catgut yearly, they > >>> boast on > >>> their website). Their musical strings are a later by-product and > >>> they only > >>> supply treble gut and double twist, no bass strings like Mimmo or > >>> Dan make. > >>> They have varnished and non-varnished and they have fret-gut. And > >>> as I said > >>> before, they are very cheap. No wonder, with such a high volume > >>> output. > >>> > >>> David > >>> > >>> > >>> **************************** > >>> David van Ooijen > >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >>> www.davidvanooijen.nl > >>> **************************** > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> To get on or off this list see list information at > >>> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >>> > >>> > >>> > >> > >> > > > > > > > > >-- >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG Free Edition. >Version: 7.5.484 / Virus Database: 269.12.6/971 - Release Date: 8/24/2007 >2:59 PM Edward Martin 2817 East 2nd Street Duluth, Minnesota 55812 e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] voice: (218) 728-1202
