Well, we have the option that Weiss et al never had. Pluses and minuses on both sides. In the classical guitar world, when Segovia changed from gut to nylon, most people went with him, but not everyone, i.e. Pujol and his school. The arguments will remain until people no longer make gut strings, or the oil runs out.
Anything that takes the lute further away from the classical guitar is, in my opinion, a good thing. So, no nylon and no nails...but I might feel differently tomorrow. Flesh on nylon isn't so bad. A lot depends on the lute, the player and the repertoire. Rob www.robmackillop.net On 20 Oct 2011, at 08:54, William Samson <[email protected]> wrote: >> I will doubtless experiment with strings over the coming year. I love > the creaky-ness of the gut strings, but I am having intonation problems > which can be really annoying. Damian Dlugolecki sent me some gut >> basses to try out, and I am interested in Dan's gimped strings too. > But it all gets very expensive! I've read good reports about the new > nylgut for the first six courses of a baroque lute...or maybe I'll go > all 1970s >retro and use plain old nylon :-) > Funny thing - Diana Poulton, who learned to play the lute in the days > when gut was the only option, was delighted when nylon strings came > along and liberated her from the fear of strings breaking during live > performances, tuning problems in variable humidity an so on. I always > thought she looked a little puzzled when players went retro and started > to use gut again. > > Bill > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
