Dear Bill Nobody answered, while this is a subject close to the heart of all lute-listers eager to ride their hobby horses!
I wrote a little something on the subject of string tension: http://home.kpn.nl/ooije006/david/writings/stringtension_p.html Which can be summarised by quoting one of its paragraphs: >> String tension for lutes The choice of string tension on a lute is dependent on a number of factors, not least of which is personal preference. And also, different materials require different string tensions, and so do different playing techniques. However, a few general remarks that can serve as a guide can be made. Here follows a list of recommended string tensions for the first string of a lute, in relation to its string length: String length Tension of first string 85cm 42N 81cm 41N 77cm 40N 74cm 39N 70cm 38N 66cm 37N 62cm 36N 59cm 35N 56cm 34N 52cm 33N Conventional wisdom has it that the second string should have a tension about 90% of that of the first string. The rest of the strings have a tension again about 90% lower than that of the second string, and octave strings are about 90% lower than that of their fundamentals. But, again, personal preferences might make you decide to change some of these tensions. << The historical advice for the first string is of course the much quoted maxim that it should be tuned to just below breaking point. So much for the string tensions of first strings in the above list. The ambiguous phrase 'conventional wisdom' for the tension of other strings is derived from current practise and such universal sources of wisdom as Kuerschner's string calculator. Whatever the historical truth, I think the advice given above is a good starting point to explore the possibilities and preferences you might have. David -- ******************************* David van Ooijen [email protected] www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
