Hi Chris- This is getting interesting. (Thought we had put this one to bed already, but never mind). Some explaining- Last things first; My arch lute IS a little strange. The pictures from photobucket that I have linked below of course do not give the history or the specs, but at least we can see it. That lute and I have had a strange life together that goes back to 1973 or so. The word strange is completely apropos if you knew the full history, which is far too long for this e-rant. It has been to the Maine woods, Lower East Side ghettos of New York City, a coal mining town for a wedding gig in Eastern Kentucky, active service on the stage of the Carnegie Recital Hall, (June, 1979), any number of LSA events- and more. My first "real" or "HIP" instrument, originally built as an 8 course by the late clavichord & lute builder Hugh Gough in New York. In the course of time I had it expanded to a 10 course. Finally in California three years ago the old top finally died- and the final ravalement Is in the form of a small archlute. Or a Liuto Attiorbato without octave strings on the basses- a perfect set-up for overspun diapasons. Which brings us to the hardware part of my use of the word "strange". Of course I don't know the specs of every archthing still in existence, typical or not, let alone every one that has ever been built, but I've seen enough to form the opinion- rightly or wrongly as the case may be, that for a true archlute to have satisfactory plain gut diapasons the SL should be about 120 cm. (main playing courses typically 67 cm. or thereabouts) at least- and a typical liuto attorbiato the basses will be under 100 cm. with octaves and typical playing SL of about 56 - 58 cm. or thereabouts.
Well, here is mine. The main strings are 64.5 cm., but the diapasons are only 97 cm. with no provision for octaves. Pitched at 415, all synthetics. Aquila type "D" (DE on the way) copper overspun basses. I am 80% happy with the bass string sound, and otherwise I think the instrument sounds fabulous- thanks to the work of our local luthier Mel Wong. I have done some rough pricing of Mimmo's latest loaded basses- over $500 (at least) for 7 diapasons and the 7th & 6th course fundamentals. Ouch! I'm sure they would actually work very well, but turns into a very murky, expensive, and dubious path to go down merely for the sake of so-called "historically accurate gut basses" - foolishly misused. I would rather save the money for loaded gut on my Baroque lute, which does fall far more nicely into known historical specifications. Toyohiko Satoh's archlute that he refer to in a recent LSA newsletter has 100 cm. basses- also w/o octaves- but the rest are only 59.5- permitting him at least a half-tone higher pitch, but he asserts that those proportions still make plain gut diapasons unworkable, so he needs to use non-historical "gimped" strings by Dan Larson. http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa44/danwinheld/archlute/?action=view¤t=archlute1.jpg http://s202.photobucket.com/albums/aa44/danwinheld/archlute/?action=view¤t=archlute2.jpg I do get a faint whiff of long distance psychologizing, the implication being that I only put my archlute into synthetic evening wear because: 1. I feel guilty about it not fitting into any category of Historically Kosher archlute and therefore eschew "real" gut stringing out of shame. 2. I really AM a secret Gut Nazi and did this to sow disinformation, causing confusion amongst the ranks about my evil motives as well as try to convince myself that I am not REALLY a Gut Nazi because I am also confused about my own feelings about being a secret Gut Nazi. Other than that, I actually do find ornaments easier to play on gut strings. I really do. The slimy feel of carbon is a relative term, and I put up with it quite happily on my strange/not strange archlute because nevertheless I STILL can finger it and do all I want on it, and even in synthetics this instrument still sounds fabulous (all that anyone would ever want from an instrument, no?) and I don't really mind having at least one instrument that maintains pitch, and tuning stability, and is cheaper to string with more durable strings. Have I missed anything? Dan >--- On Sat, 1/30/10, Anthony Hind <[email protected]> wrote: > >I have not read such "blanket > performance proclamations" in this > > thread. Sure you have. Many of them are almost at the subliminal >level. I wish to bring them to the surface. One example: In the >very email in which Dan Winheld wanted to show that he was not >dogmatic in his stringing choice, he mentions his "strange archlute, >which is too short for workable gut diapasons." What he really >means to say is that that he believes his archlute is too short to >produce a tone with enough sustain and pitch definition that he >(and, presumably others) will find acceptable in a musical context >using modern gut strings at the pitch he desires. There are a number >of subjective factors in that last sentence that have a direct >bearing on performance. The real wildcards are not the lute nor the >pitch, but rather the properties of the stringing material, of >which, I must point out again, there are many things our best >researchers do not know. Then there is Dan's additional use of the >word "strange." I assume the instrument is not hot pink, in the >shape of a Flying V, or emblazoned with a portrait of Che Guevara in >rhinestones, so I'm guessing he means that the size does not fit >into the "standard" size range (another modern invention) to allow >for the pitch and timbre he desires using string material X. It may >be an uncommon size, but research shows that many sizes existed. We >don't know the pitch for which such a small instrument was intended, >but we also don't know enough about the string material in use in >olden times to determine this. The use of the loaded (no pun >intended) word, "strange," with its negative connotations, says a >lot about how we lutenists view ourselves. Why should a player feel >the need to apologize for an instrument that doesn't instantly fit >into an area in which research is incomplete? One could go on with >the statements in this thread about how ornaments behave this way on >gut, one needs to have such and such a touch on gut, string tensions >should be this or that with gut, pitch will be between X and Y on >this size lute... These are the blanket performance proclamations >I'm talking about. Unfortunately, making any claims about what gut >strings do on a lute really tells us nothing about historical >performance practice - it only tells us about modern historical >performance practice predicated on the behavior of modern strings. >I'm not looking to take away anyone's choices. If you love gut and >feel it enhances your interpretation of the music, go for it. Chris -- Rachel Winheld 820 Colusa Avenue Berkeley, CA 94707 [email protected] Tel 510.526.0242 Cell 510.915.4276 To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
