Hi Sean, A 'V' shaped notch formed by two straight edges set at a small angle to eachother can measure small thicknesses very accurately. The thickness of the string is measured by how far you can put the string into the notch. It wouldn't surprise me if something like this could have used.
Miles On May 18, 2015, at 4:15 PM, Sean Smith <lutesm...@mac.com> wrote: > > Thanks, Martin. The idea that in a bundle you'll have an average and outliers > makes sense. > >> ...if you're going to make a homemade roped string (3 strands) the second >> course is what you use to make a 5th course and the 3rd is what you use to >> make a 6th course, but I don't think anybody did this in the 16th century. > > What then would have been the procedure instead? The stringmaker has a better > finished product (as nowadays) perhaps using custom diameters? Or maybe the > lengths sold would not have been conducive to amateur stringbuilding? Solid > gut? If it was indeed more springy then solid may have been more acceptable. > > The nice thing about the roped strings is that while they can be expensive > they do last well. If they sound _too_ dead, it's time to change the octave. > > The reason I bring this up is that I'm pretty parsimonious when it comes to > strings and that would have been an issue for many lutenists without a > supportive patron. Would there have been some players who had a deal w/ the > local butcher for materials and made their own? > > There's an old Japanese saying that when the winds come up the cats > disappear! > > Sean > > > On May 18, 2015, at 12:42 PM, Martin Shepherd wrote: > > Hi Sean, > > Your friend was right - if you're going to make a homemade roped string (3 > strands) the second course is what you use to make a 5th course and the 3rd > is what you use to make a 6th course, but I don't think anybody did this in > the 16th century. > > My suspicion is that they bought a bundle of strings labelled "3rd course" or > whatever, then selected their 3rd course strings from amongst them. The > bundle would have included strings of various diameters, around a mean which > was determined by the way they were made (how many guts, how they were > twisted etc). This kind of system persisted until the 20th century for > violin strings. > > If I'm right, this also means that when Dowland says use a 4th course string > for the first two frets he doesn't necessarily mean two frets of exactly the > same diameter. He could have graded all the frets very precisely by choosing > slightly bigger or smaller strings from each bundle. > > M > > On 18/05/2015 21:18, Sean Smith wrote: >> In buying and using our lute strings we place an awful lot of faith in our >> micrometers. I see people changing strings for going up or down a tone or >> even a semitone. Yes, I think I can feel the tension change and hear it to >> some degree but we're often talking a difference of microns in string >> difference. >> >> For example, a change of .42 to a .43 is 10 microns which is not repeatable >> on my smaller micrometers (even digital) but is on the 6" digital >> micrometer. For rougher measurements, say, between 1st, 2nd and 3rd courses, >> the delta is easily seen/felt and I think that even I could make a >> measurement device for that for further refinement. >> >> In the 16th century, of course, there were no micrometers although I'm sure >> there were fairly accurate (and perhaps, secret?) methods of fine >> measurement. I'm wondering how they worked out the diameters. Any place I >> could read up on this? >> >> Years ago, a friend did some experiments in roped bass strings and found >> that 5th and 6th courses could be made from combinations of the 1st, 2nd or >> 3rd courses. From this we concluded that nearly all sizes of 6c instruments >> could be strung with a total of 3 diameters of strings. The 4th course is a >> little iffy in that it could be made from a thicker 4th size or possibly a >> combination of 2 chanterelles. >> >> I'm just thinking that by keeping the choices fewer they were able to be >> more efficient in string technology. On the other hand, I wonder if this >> tended to keep the lute technology at a halt: ie, you can play anything you >> want as long as it has the 6 courses of those sizes. >> >> No, nothing was published and the theories are not ready for primetime but I >> was wondering what other string scientists have come up with. I realize >> there are the notes in Capirola but I'm thinking by mid-century there had to >> have been a larger industry at work, judging from the number of books being >> published and lute inventories. >> >> >> Sean >> >> >> >> >> >> To get on or off this list see list information at >> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > --- > This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. > http://www.avast.com > > > > >
