I've thought about this too. Here's another way of stating the same thing (below). I would try and ensure that the octave string is in the same tension range.
The slacker the string, the greater will be proportionate change in tension when you press the string against a fret. Hence the greater the change in frequency. My 2 cents worth Miles Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 17, 2013, at 8:59 PM, "David Smith" <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have an 11 course lute where the 11^th course seems to be very > sensitive and difficult to get in tune. It is gut. No, I do not want to > use copper or silver wrapped strings. > > > So, my question is if there is a relationship between the sensitivity > of the frequency (pitch) to the tension of the string which would > indicate that the tension on my string is a bit low. > > > I did a chart of this in Mathematica taking the partial derivative of > the frequency as a function of tension equation (assuming all else > being equal) and it seems that frequency changes as 1 over the square > root of the tension. This implies that increasing the tension would > make the string be less sensitive to changes if frequency due to change > in tension - i.e. easier to tune. > > > Does this make sense to anyone or is it just noise? I am looking to see > if changing the string will have an effect on tunability and whether it > indicates a low or high tension change would be good. > > > Thanks for listening to the ramblings and any guidance you can provide. > These are expensive strings (Gut) so just experimenting is a bit > spendy. > > Regards > > David > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
