I have followed this thread with great interest. As most of you know, I have been a user of gut for many years, and I love the sound. Admittedly, I also use synthetics on some instruments.
Danny is quite correct, in that we purists should not in any way dissuade people to play in synthetics. This issue almost reminds me of other controversial issues, and I will not get into that. But I will say that for my own personal reasons, I really love gut with exception of performing in the summer, under terrible humid conditions. I record in gut, as I want my instrument to sound its best when recording; to my taste, lutes do sound best in gut. On this topic of gut strung baroque lutes, I want to announce that there is a newly released CD by Toyohiko Satoh, on his original lute, in gut. His lute is an 11-course baroque lute made by Laurentius Greiff. His 3 previous cd's are "Style Brise", Weichenberger, leSage de Richee. This new one is music of Lauffensteiner, entitled "W.L. Lauffensteiner a Cantabile Master". It is on the Nostalgia label, 0901. It is available from the LGS (David, is it for sale yet?). In my opinion, it is a great recording. His interpretations are beautiful, not to mention the wonderful original lute. The notes are very informative, by David van Ooijen and Art Ness. Highly recommended. ed At 12:55 PM 1/29/2010, Daniel Shoskes wrote: > It's a shame that this point has to be re-made whenever the moral and > aural superiority of gut strings and those who use them are trumpeted > (sackbutted?) on this list. Let the research and experimentation > continue. But, and I emphasize this for lurkers and shy beginners > alike, there is nothing wrong with playing your lute using the string > material you can afford, can look after and make sound pleasing to your > ear. There are many performers whose concerts and recordings I can only > dream to one day emulate who use mostly synthetics. Same for gut. But > using gut is not an excuse for poorly sounding and out of tune play, > and I've heard both live concerts and recordings on "modern gut" that I > would not want to hear again. > > Danny > > (2 instruments all synthetic strings, archlute 1/2 gut, 11 course lute > all gut) > On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 1:21 PM, <[1][email protected]> wrote: > > Dan, > > --- On Fri, 1/29/10, Daniel Winheld <[2][email protected]> wrote: > > > we finally agreed that the serious > > lute > > player just has to have two of every lute- one in > > synthetics for gigs > > and one in gut to keep himself honest. > > > > Ah, the HIP police! There's nothing "honest" about using modern > strings made by modern makers that happen to be made of the same > material as the old ones. And, by implication, nothing "dishonest" > or "unserious" about a player using synthetics! There is a gigantic > litany of observable differences between modern strings and period > depictions and descriptions. We can call them both "gut strings", > but ours simply are NOT THE SAME STRINGS that were used in olden > days. > In sum: > Are synthetic strings close to the sound of old guts? Dunno. Are > modern guts any closer? Dunno. > Let's call the whole thing off. > Chris > > To get on or off this list see list information at > [3]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > -- > >References > > 1. mailto:[email protected] > 2. mailto:[email protected] > 3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Edward Martin 2817 East 2nd Street Duluth, Minnesota 55812 e-mail: [email protected] voice: (218) 728-1202 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1660298871&ref=name http://www.myspace.com/edslute
