my humble opinion: your vihuela, Oskar, was designed and build by
Batov with a tension with which it sounds at its best. I would ask
Batov about everything related with stringing, fretting, etc.
Each instrument is a world in itself, and also sounds different when
played by different musicians. The other way around is also true, and
this is marvelous: a good player has his/her own sound, whatever the
instrument played!
Manolo
El 27/06/2009, a las 4:50, Oskar De Mari escribió:
Hello collective wisdom,
I'm sure this has all been discussed in full before, but the other
day
I started to wonder about lute-stringing and I'm hoping some of you
won't mind helping me oput a bit with ideas.
I recently ordered a full set of gut strings for my vihuela
(calculated
string-thickness with Paul Baier's string calculator). My vihuela
is in
G at 440 and its string length is 56cm (its by Alexander Batov by
the
way)...
anyway my thoughts and queries are as follows: (please excuse
amatuerish questions!)
isn't the Baeir string-density calculator just his interpretation?
by
this I mean, If our lute's bridge can take the increased tension,
isn't
it possible to string at a given pitch, but with thicker strings
than
the string calculator suggests for that pitch? or thinner strings
at a
lesser tension.
can anyone tell me about the various top players' choices on
strings -
for example, Hoppy Smith has a unique lute-sound, obviously from
playing right over the rose, but on some records of his he also
seems
to have a very high tension on his strings- I gather this because he
still sounds as if he's playing over the rose, but there is a
punch, or
'pop' to the sound, quite different from the rather sloppy sound one
gets playing over the rose at a low string-tension... another
example-
some of Jakob Lindberg's recordings (particularly the La Serenissima
set) Have a beautiful 'woody' gut sound, kind of dry but with depth,
but also with a quite short sustain, which adds charm of its own.
Chris
Wilson has a very sparkling gut sound, bright but not dry, his best
sound I think is on the 'la compagna disk'. The list goes on and on,
and then you have 'way out' players like Eduardo Eguez who have a
very
different sound, obviously with huge string-tension. There seem to
be
different 'schools' - those who like a kind of dry, woody, gut sound
and those who like a floating, airier sound. I guess this isn't so
much
a question as just an attempt to get the ball rolling on some
thoughts
about strings, sound, etc... I don't hae a lot of experience in this
department so if anyone wants to share their experiences with this
kind
of thing it would be most helpful!
thanks,
O
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