On Fri, 01 Apr 2011 11:54:25 +0100 (BST) Martyn Hodgson <[email protected]> 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'? The smallest number of guts, two, arranged thin end to thick end for evenness. There was no use of splitting horn, and no polishing the top string, to keep it strong. Such a string comes out to about .43 mm, according to E. Segermann. I recall P. O'Dette describing his idea of reentrant tuning creation - lute longer - top string the same. Lutanist trying to tune it up to where it is supposed to be - damn! snap! Oh well, let's tune it an octave lower. Humorous, yes, but very true. Can not argue with the calculator and material physics. Sorry. The tension is directly proportional to the string length and the pitch. > 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. TO avoid unpredictable variations in gut quality, musicians bought the strings from the same makers year after year. The splitting horn was invented only in the 18th century. This restricted the possible variations on the thinnest strings up to that point (and after...). > > 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? My apologies, my interest in 19th century guitars is long gone. The lack of time reduces the interest even farther. 685 mm is the longest guitar from circa 1810s i have measured, from collection of Leningrad Museum of musical instruments (in 1970s). 635 mm as far as i remember were more often the case, with some from 65 to 67 cm. Then, the ladies, or terz-guitars, quite a bit shorter and smaller. The younger guitar loving people should be the ones concerned with this though... > > MH > To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
