On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:24:39 +1100, Shaun Ng wrote > Well, wouldn't this mean that every time we see a painting of an > instrument with strings, we would have to consider one more > stringing option, instead of just gut or wound?
Yes, as long as we ignore all no-iconographic sources of information about instrument strings - and ther are quite some ... (just read up the posts about strings in this mailing list). > It says something > quite important, that metal strings on instruments existed. Dohh. Big news ;-) > Now, in > the light of this, interpretation of later sources concerning wound > strings changes. Hundreds of years of different metals, and now we > hear about silver on gut from a private correspondence (Goretzky) > and an advertisement (Playford), which may have not appeared in > Playford's book had an entry not been made; it doesn't appear in > later editions of Playford reprinted into the 18th century. It > doesn't appear in Mace either, I think. Sounds to me like > indifference to new technology, but is it really completely new > considering metals have been around for such a long time? Yes, and sand, gold, silver and lead have been known since the times of the pharaos - can we therefore assume that the new testament was written on a tablet computer? Hint: sometimes it takes more than the right ingredients to make a great cake. HTH Ralf Mattes To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
