Hi All,
Dowland tells us that bigger lutes had bigger strings, which if we
accept that different sized lutes were made in strict proportions (for
which there is considerable evidence, lutes a 4th apart being 59 and 78
cm for instance), implies higher tension for bigger lutes. This tells
us nothing, of course, about the relationship between lutes of the 16th
century and 17th century, in terms of stringing tensions and preferences.
Martin
On 01/04/2011 11:54, Martyn Hodgson wrote:
Thank you for this.
Well, without wanting to be pedantic I think we need to ask: what
evidence do you have that 'The top string was made from the same number
of guts while the mensura increased'?
Moreover, even if the highest pitched string of, say, a large bass lute
with string length of, say, 95cm had the same number of gut filaments
as that of a small lute, say string length 55cm, which I very much
doubt, the width of each gut filament/strand might well not be the
same.
I'm aware of Mimo Peruffo's excellent work on historical strings but I
think even he would admit that there's still much to be done and to
determine. The relationship between violin strings and strings for the
guitar clearly depends on the size of violin strings; but there is
still no concencus on early 19th century violin stringing. Indeed, as
has been suggested, it's likely that earlier national preferences
continued, so that string sizes varied significantly accross Europe.
Earlier, the fragmentary record of Stradivari's strings tells us that a
simple equivalence with violin strings was only approximate and I see
no reason to think it became permanently fixed to the sizes you suggest
were standard in the early 19th century. In any event, as explained
above, the number of guts and resulting string diameter depends on the
sizes to which the individual guts are split - we cannot assume the
strands were all of a near uniform size; indeed I'd think this most
unlikely.
Incidentally, typical sizes for early 19th century guitars indicate
a smaller string length than you think: in the range 60 - 64cm for the
majority of extant instruments. An instrument with a string length of
69cm is most unusual - could you kindly let us have some further
details?
MH
--- On Fri, 1/4/11, alexander<[email protected]> wrote:
From: alexander<[email protected]>
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Stability of lute in playing fast.
To: "Martyn Hodgson"<[email protected]>
Cc: "JosephMayes"<[email protected]>, "Herbert Ward"
<[email protected]>, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]>
Date: Friday, 1 April, 2011, 10:58
On Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:05:16 +0100 (BST)
Martyn Hodgson<[1][email protected]> wrote:
>
> Dear Alexander,
>
> What evidence do you have that early lutes (I presume you're
referring
> to 16th century instruments) were strung at a lower tension than
> similar size later lutes?
The top string was made from the same number of guts while the mensura
increased. The instruments' pitch lowered not quite accordingly to the
increase in length. This is what i was speaking about, not comparing
the lutes of the same size. Not at all. The increased string length,
even while the pitch drops correspondingly, increases the string mass,
requiring more effort to move the string, more so closer to the bridge.
The lower basses are of larger diameters, require more effort to be
moved.
>
> And what evidence do you have that the tension of a guitar around
1800
> was 7 Newtons?
May i quote Mimmo Peruffo? His research has to be good for
something...:
"The mystery is solved with the help of a number of documents of the
time, in which we read that the first strings of the nineteenth-century
guitar were identical to the first three strings of the contemporary
violin "
"It is known that the first string of the violin was made from three
lamb guts, which produced a diameter of between 0.65 and 0.73 mm"
Going to "Arto's String Calculator" (Thank you, again, Arto), entering
e, string legth 650 mm (on the low side, some of the guitars i was
fortuned to measure were up to 69 cm), string diameter 0.65mm and pitch
a=415 ( choosing between 440 and 415, with a desired 435 Hz). Tension
= 7.061 Kg
To get on or off this list see list information at
[2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
