Alexander,
Well, I think this is just misunderstanding. What I was trying to do is to
show that verbal descriptions of tone colour are subjective and can lead to
misinterpretation. I purposly showed 2 extremes: mellow and sharp only to
diferentiate general tone qualities. I don't think we have to do with a myth
of sharp lute sound. On the contrary we have to do with myth of a sweet ,
full ,and mellow tone quality mentioned by some writers. We can't proove it
because we don't have old strings, but I am afraid that comparing a lute
played in proper (pinky on a bridge or behind) manner with the same lute
played using modern technique (which is neither renaissance nor baroque),
and then describing the tone characteristic would be very instructive. The
only person that I know of using this technique is Toyoshiko Satoh. When I
listen to his recordings (turning the volume up) I can hear that the quality
of his tone is very different from what we are used to. Inspite of using a
very low tension strings I can hear in the tone some kind of "stiffness"
(kind of a sound not very far from a lute stop). And no wonder because even
if your string is slack its elasticity drops down rapidly towards the bridge
(giving a little bit more wooden quality to it - actually I never mentioned
harsh tone). Nothing wrong with that! It's just different. So ,what I was
saying is that all the descriptions of lute's sound are very subjective.
Now, I don't know what Mace comment you were thinking off. If you meant
Playford's advertissement I can't see where he mentions too long sustain of
the strings. Here is the full citation:
Advertisment (John Playford "An introduction to the skill of music", 4th
edition London 1664):
"There is a late invension of strings for the basses of viols and violins,
or lutes which
sound much better and louder then the common gut string, either under the
bow or finger. It
is small wire twisted or gimped upon a gut string or upon silk. I have made
trial of
both,but those upon silk do hold best and give as good a sound. The choise
of these strings
are to be sold at Mr. Richard Hunts Instrument-seller at the Lute in St.
Pauls Alley near Pater noster Row.
Finis"
Actually he was praising newly invented wire (gimped) strings which had much
better sound quality then ordinary gut. As you see it looks like they were
looking for new string material for because gut wasn't ideal and they liked
stronger, louder tone with more sustain.
Silk strings were mentioned by Terzi (1686) as well. As for roped silk
Dowland's Gansar strings could be a candidate. Also silk strings with silver
wire - so called Grotesky strings - were well received:
"Goretsky hath an invention of lute strings covered with silver wyer, or
strings which
make a most admirable musick. Mr Boyle. [...] String of guts done
about with silver wyer makes a very sweet musick, being of Goretsky's
invention" ( 1659 ).
All in all, describtions were and are subjective, but we have our own ears
to asses if the string is good or not.
Best
Jaroslaw
----- Original Message -----
From: "alexander" <[email protected]>
To: "Jarosław Lipski" <[email protected]>; "lute-cs.dartmouth.edu"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 04, 2010 3:24 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Switching between gut strings and synthetics?
If i may, just on two erroneous assumptions regarding the imagined sound
quality from "when Historical Correctness was the History Itself". One has
to do with the idea of the lute basses having rather short sustain.
Mersenne, who otherwise is an accepted authoritative source on the strings
(+ more), claimed that bass strings on the lutes had sustain of "several
seconds". Currently possible only with the wound strings. Mace in his
comment regarding the "new wire wound basses", dismissed their usefulness on
the same basis, as, according to him, the "currently available basses", on
long lutes had too long a sustain already. This is one of the points which,
as i understand, keeps Mimmo Peruffo on searching for ever better answers
then the current loaded gut offers.
The second has to do with the universally accepted assumption that playing
near the bridge with the "thumb out" produces a "sharp tone" (" Did
they like mellow or sharp tone? The RH position of most baroque lute
players
on old paintings suggests the later."). This is just an assumption, as
strange as it may be. Toyohiko Satoh demonstrates this on
baroque lute. Then there is the case of this famous picture here:
http://library.csun.edu/igra/bios/graphics/aguado-d.gif
The picture is of Dionisio Aguado, who according to his contemporaries
hearing him play duets with Fernando Sor, at times had as deep and
dignified sound, as Sor did, while playing WITH FINGERNAILS with his
little finger firmly lodged behind the bridge. The critics, who
otherwise were not noticed to be ignorant or unprofessional, on
occasion compared his midrange sound to a cello! Of course then alternating
with
a "bright and clear trebles". While we can "only guess" how the long lutes
sounded when played by all those pictured with their hand on the
bridge, the critique of Aguado's performances is available from
European news papers and magazines, available in microfilm. If the
experiment is carried to the logical conclusion, one will notice that
with the proper strings (and synthetics will not work at all in this
case, and i am not claiming this theoretically), and allowing the right
hand to play somewhat in reverse of the logic ( fingers moving slightly
away from the bridge in plucking, and actually, not quite plucking,
too, this position can be seen on Aguado's pictures), may be with the right
side of the large fingertip, while acquiring a very relaxed
stance, one will notice that the sound will not remind a harpsichord lute
stop at all. Of course, one quality that is required from
trebles in this case, is flexibility and ability to turn under the
finger (which comes with flexibility). Modern gut strings only so
slowly develop in this direction. I have a string made by Mimmo Peruffo
(about 0.6 mm), twisted of two parts, like a rope, and then polished.
This string can be kept in a "knot", not unlike the "historical"
distribution methods suggested. Of course, for a string maker to go
into production of these, a long time will pass, with changing demand and
tastes. Meanwhile, demanding
musicians are looking for solution in the lower tension ( Toyohiko Satoh )
instead. Et
cetera... Everything flows somewhere.
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.
On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 22:36:12 +0000
Jarosław Lipski <[email protected]> wrote:
Anthony,
Thank you for a very interesting link. It looks like guqin players are a
little bit more aware of their past then oud players or at least this
awarness is making its way.
There is nothing wrong about being little crazy or nostalgic. We must be
crazy to spend money on such impractical things. However I don't think
that
puting a set of gut strings on a lute will transfer a player (or listner)
to
the past. It's rather a journey (as you wrote) to the new exotic sounds.
Changing strings makes music different but it doesn't need to have
pejorative connotations. I don't think that there is anything wrong with
enthusiasm, say, for loaded basses, or any other new type of string
providing we realize what is the reason to use them. Do we want to be
archeologists or musicians? If archeologists, one has to buy what people
say
is HIP. If musicians, one buys what suits his musical taste best.
Obviously
we can be both, but then we will be torn and tormented when new data
arrives. I wouldn't fancy throwing away loaded basses if someone announced
one day that he has a data that contradicts existence of those strings in
past. I would only buy them if I liked their tone. At least this is my
attitude. I am the musician in the first place.
So What is the reason for using gut?
1/Economical
Definitely not economical. However in past it could've been so. It's
difficult to compare prices from 18th century to the prices of modern gut,
but definitely it must have been cheaper a lot. Normaly it was bought in
bundles (as Mace and others write). If the production was really massive
it
could be the cheapest way to go then.
2/Historical
This is a good argument for those of us that love history. The only
problem
is that probably the guts we can produce at the moment aren't the same
that
were produced then.
Thiner strings were very supple - characteristique quite different from
modern HT guts.This is the citation from Martin Sheperd's site (I hope you
don't mind Martin? http://www.luteshop.co.uk/stringshistory.htm ):
"Packaging: strings were made in lengths ("knots") at least twice as long
as
was needed on the instrument. "Double knots" are presumably twice as long.
They are then "made up" into "bundles", more knots to a bundle for thin
strings than for thicker ones. The whole issue of packaging has been
largely
ignored by modern writers but it can give vital clues as to the nature of
the strings: all the descriptions of "knots", "bundles" and how to extract
a
string from them suggest characteristics very different from those of
modern
gut strings, which must be carefully coiled because bending round sharp
corners ruins them. The picture of testing for trueness in Gerle's book of
1546 is one of several depictions which shows what a "knot" was like"
Do have a look at the picture of such a bundle on Martin's site .
The fact very well known but notoriously overlooked or ignored
(intentionaly?) by HIP players. Then the argument that original guts were
better because they were stiff and this is why it was easy to play
ornaments
is not valid any more from historical point of view.
Then comes the issue of basses. We already discussed it many times so I
won't be repeating my standpoint, however I'd like to draw your attention
to
another aspect of the bass issue. One of the main arguments of gut bass
advocates is that the string doesn't ring long therefore the balance of
the
instrument is much better. Now we enter another teritory so I'll make
another point here.
3/Tonal
Tonal characteristic is something that each one of us would describe
differently. Our descriptions of how instrument in general or the string
itself sounds is in a way a projection of our likings. For example a
person
that likes low frequences would describe an instrument set with wirewounds
as sonorous. The tone of the very same instrument would be described as
boomy by another person who prefers higher frequencies. This is just to
say
it isn't objective.
We can hear it very clearly in some HIP interpretations. Some players are
so
afraid of boomy and unclear bass line that they develope quite complicated
technique of dumping bass strings. Whether it is historical or not to play
small phrases this way, can be polemicized, however playing the whole bass
line non legato seems to be dictated rather by personal taste. Although
Mace
suggests that it actually was in use (Music's Monument p.109) however he
describes it as a grace called "tut". Grace, not the whole technique of
playing bass line.
Then we have to ask what were the likings of people in 17 or 18 century.
Did
they like mellow or sharp tone? The RH position of most baroque lute
players
on old paintings suggests the later. What were the tonal qualities of
other
plucked instruments they invented? Harpsichords, lute-harpsichords
etc....I
wouldn't say they have gentle, very subtle and sweet sound. I would
describe
them rather as sonorous with comparatively strong bass register.
I am not advocating here use of grand piano strings for lute, but I am
trying to say that describing tone quality can be very subjective.
We know that probably silk strings were used on lutes. Acording to the
author of the article on guqin silk strings: "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." So the argument that gut was highly valued for its short time of
vibration seems to be fallacious. Morover, metal strings were used in
Italy
on theorbos with even longer vibrating time.
It can't be excluded that gut was most commonly used because it was
cheapest, less problematic than silk and easiest to obtain but not
necessarily for its tonal unsurpassable values.
4/Subtle sound qualities
This probably should be discussed together with tonal qualities,however
some
people refer to it as a special, unique characteristic of gut. Again it's
very subjective, however I have an impression that succesful performance
depends more on imagination and sensitivity of a musician not the string
material used. There is nothing subtle in gut. We make it subtle by
playing
it in imaginative and subtle way.
5/ sensory sensations
Yes, this is probably the most valuable virtue of gut. Gut feels good, gut
plays good under our fingers. It's not as slippery as nylon.
6/ecological
Good way to go for those who like everything natural. It is a nice feeling
that the whole instrument is 100% natural.
To sum up I believe there are some important considerations in favor of
gut
use, however I wouldn't say that this is the only material suitable for
lute
strings. Unless we find with certaintenty how gut was made in past we
can't
pretend that the main reason for using it is to recreate an old,
traditional
way of playing. But even then, there is a place for new string materials
which have some qualities that gut doesn't. Plastic sounds more plastic,
that's obvious, but there are other adventages of using plastic.
I like history, nature and subtle things, but on the other hand we can't
deny we are modern. So instead of concentrating on beeing 100% HIP I
prefer
to concentrate on music. I use gut but for different reasons.
Anyway,thank you for interesting thoughts. It was nice to talk to you
again
Anthony.
Best wishes
Jaroslaw
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
