Dear Lutists, I first joined this topic to contribute what I
could to Mathias Rosel's understanding
of the design of the 12c he was considering (may 30). I
didn't think my comments would be so
controversial, but I soon became aware that there were a
number of serious historical errors being
made, and a whole raft of assumptions about the manner in
which contemporary lutes were strung
that are entirely wrong.
I offer my own historical overview of what we actually do
know, (june 4) which I propose as
a better way of commencing research. I also propose that you
discard all of your assumptions
about string loading, roped strings of various types, half
wound strings--because I believe they
are warrantless and have no evidential basis. There were
simply, strings in varying rates of torsion.
If you or someone you know is using some imaginary
reconstruct like those mentioned
above and they work, then that is fine. You don't need any
historical justification for the way
you string your lute. But the fact that they work is not an a
priori historical validation that they
existed during the distant past. That would be like seeing
all those fat men in red suits with fake
white trimming around Christmastime and deciding you do
believe in Santa Claus after all.
DD
It seems to me that several different questions are being
raised
about the loading process and dyeing processes at the same
time. One
of these can be answered fairly easily:
Q Is the material used for loading strings metal filings, as
Damian
has mentioned?
- Well, I suppose it depends what you call metal filings, but
I think
it would be better to call it a powder of some form of copper
(perhaps some sort of copper oxide). I don't think it is
obtained by
using a file on a piece of copper.
"Modern loaded Bass strings (...) can present different shades
of
dark red, brown or blackish colour, but also light yellow -
depending
on the oxides or sulfides employed. Also metal powders like
metallic-
copper (which is what we use on our loaded strings because it
is not
toxic) achieve the same goal: we still have ancient recipes
describing how to produce the finest copper powder (we tried
them
quite successfully), like the one by Don Alessio Piemontese I
secreti..., printed in Venice in 1555: the resulting colour,
too,
looks very much like what we see on iconographical sources."
MP
We may note that MP's recipe for loading is certainly not the
only
way one that could achieve loading, and, if we admit that
string
loading did indeed exist, there would have been a number of
different
competing recipes, with varying results.
Q Another question is not historic: What difference is there
between
a dyeing and a loading process, as this would be defined
today? Is
there any overlap in these two types of process that could
lead from
one to the other,
- Well, I made a search and I found it very difficult to
understand
what I came up with, but it seems that metal oxides are mainly
used
as some sort of fixing agent for dyes (mordants) in some
modern dyes
See here, for example:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5320647.html
I am no chemist, so most of the document goes completely over
my
head. I don't think the metals are the colouring agent, but
somehow
help to fix the dye, but I could be quite wrong, and I don't
know
whether they effect the density of the material they are
applied to.
However, this is the wrong question. It is irrelevant how
scientists
would consider the two processes today, or how they would
designate
them, perhaps never confusing the two.
The valid question seems to me to be whether, around 1570,
colouring
leathers, wool etc, with metal oxides would have been
considered as
dyeing, or whether they would have been given a completely
different
name, such as "loading".
I found this site which helps me to find an answer which
satisfies
me, but possibly not you.
http://www.geocities.com/anne_liese_w/Dyeing/dyemordants.htm
Here, I read,
"Metals are among the earliest of dyes for textiles. Most
commonly,
early people from all over the world discovered that certain
soils
would impart color to cloth if the cloth were buried in it for
some
duration. Extant examples of such a technique can be found in
textiles of the Swiss Lake Dwellers, approx. 3000 BC and
modern use
of the practice can be found in Africa, where the natives
treat the
cloth with a pattern of tannins and then bury it in iron-rich
soil,
producing a black and tan design."
Thus, as I understand it, for thousands of years the problem
with
which the "dye trade" (don't take that too literally) must
have been
confronted, was how to make these dyes more permanent, how to
fix
them on wool, leather, etc. This fixing process would surely
lead to
"loading" the material, but the aim was to make the "dye" or
colour
fast, not to load the material. Loading would just have been a
secondary effect.
"Several ancient recipes could have been easily employed for
loading gut (see, for instance, Giovanventura Rossettis
recipes
for dyeing fabrics, silk and leather in his 'Plichto de larte
de
tentori che insegna tenger pani, telle, banbasi et sede si per
larthe
magiore come per la comune', Venezia, 1568). Some of these
describe
how to incorporate cinnabar (red mercury sulphide) or
lithargyrum
(yellow lead oxide) into wax, leather, silk, wood, hair, inks
&c.:
indeed, only a short step away from gut." MP
Thus this process most probably would have been strongly
associated
with the dyeing trade. If the string trade was centred in an
area of
Italy where sheep were at one time abundant, perhaps there
were very
close links between these various trades (wool,
leather-tanning,
dyeing, and also the gut string trade). I think this centre of
the
string trade was also at a point from which trade routes
spread-out.
It would not be surprising if other trades were assoicated
with these
routes, but I admit that I don't know how close the relations
might
have been between these different guilds.
I am not suggesting that all dyeing of gut was loading, just
that
playing around with dyeing processes could have lead to the
discovery
of loading.
Damian is right, I think in considering this socio-economic
history
of the gut string trade and their relations with the other
guilds, as
being of great importance to our understanding of gut
technology.
In the light of what I have said so far, when Mace mentions
the
quality of the dark red Pistoys, this is not proof that such
strings
were loaded; however, if they were loaded, should we expect
Mace to
use this term rather than the term "dyed"? I don't think we
should
expect that when modern texts continue to refer to loading of
cloth
with oxides, as "dyeing" (see above).
In relation to this general question of how string makers
might have
come across the use of metal oxides in relation to leather, a
search
with google also brought up the fact that at least some metal
oxides
have been used in the tanning process of leather, in
particular
chromium salts, but no doubt others have been used, in the
tanning
process.
"Chrome Tanning: A tanning process using salts of chromium to
make
leathers that are especially supple and suitable for bags,
garments,
etc. "
It is possible that similar tanning processes were attempted
with
gut. There is no direct relation to loading with a metal
oxide, but
any experimentation, dyeing, and tanning, using metal salts,
could
have made such a discovery more likely.
Don't let us forget that "dyeing" with metal salts is not the
only
way to load gut, and around 1650, a new way of loading gut,
the demi-
filé was discovered. This is clearly mentioned in several
texts
(Playford, Perrault), and we do have the Mest sample to prove
it.
Thus we do know that some string makers must have been looking
for
ways of loading strings.
Incidentally, the way loaded strings behave, make me think of
the
pendulum, rather than a spring. Some have suggested that
Galileo's
study (around 1600) of the behaviour of the pendulum came from
experiments he made with his father weighting lute strings. No
I am
not suggesting that Galileo discovered the loaded string, but
perhaps
this sort of question was not all that new, just well
formulated by
Galileo.
Claude Perrault's description of the demi-filé loaded strings,
seems
to be referring to its being similar to the pendulum-like
swinging
motion of a bell.
http://www.aquilacorde.com/im16.htm
Again, no proof is implied in what I have just said, only that
string-
makers clearly did not ignore such experimentation.
Please do not consider that I think I have successfully
answered
these questions. I have written down the questions raised, as
I have
understood them, and I have given a number of remarks as
replies,
which in no way are attempts to close the issue.
There are other questions that have been raised, such as
Jaroslaw's
general questions about whether we should not just get on with
playing music on the strings we have, rather than hunt for
new-old
materials, I will try to respond with a few remarks, later.
Anthony
Le 6 juin 08 à 01:37, howard posner a écrit :
On Jun 5, 2008, at 2:44 PM, Eugene C. Braig IV wrote:
I don't think you are mistaken; however, that still would
not
involve a chemical change of the gut material itself.
Does dyeing? The question, if I am again unmistaken, was
whether a
process used for dyeing might incidentally increase the
density/
weight of a string. As far as I can see, adding anything to
the
string's innards is going to increase its density, though
the
increase may be negligible. Anyone who uses gut strings
knows they
get denser from absorbing water when the humidity rises.
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