Speaking of silk ("There is no evidence of such strings in Europe")
Nevertheless, I have finally managed to put two of Alexander Rakov's
silk strings on a lute- the 1-f and 2-d on my Baroque lute. (I had to
wait for the current guts to degrade sufficiently- once the silk was
in the house, the gut strings decided to hold onto dear life with a
grim tenacity that surprised me.)
Very satisfying sound, "gutsy" of course, but also a little touch of
the raspy huskiness one hears in the attack when listening to Biwa or
Koto music. A very "rhetorical" kind of sound, seems to me quite
appropriate to Baroque lute. And immediately following the attack, a
seamless melodious bloom to the fundamental note, no extraneous noise
at all- somewhat rapid decay, but not at all abrupt- a very
"speaking" kind of sound but with pure musicality. Absolutely true
strings, in tune right up the entire octave. The octave harmonic
matches the fretted 12 fret perfectly. Very slight fuzzing on the 1st
course behind the 2nd fret after some three or so hours of play- we
will see about the longevity.
I am very interested in outfitting at least five courses of the
Baroque lute in silk, and maybe my whole vihuela, which is almost
ready to shed its gut double first course, and will get to try out
Alexander's silk as well.
Thank you, so much, Alexander.
Dan
>The "Some early records mention
>strings vibrating for up to 10 seconds after being struck: gut strings
>vibrate a second or two at most, but silk vibrations can continue for 10
> seconds." quote appears to be corrupted in some way, as i was the
>source. The discussion was of a particular design silk strings, with
>the roped silk core wound by twisted silk. There is no evidence of
>such strings in Europe. A second or two - for plain gut basses.
>alexander r.
--
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
