> John Mardinly <john.mardi...@asu.edu> wrote: > The big question that I have never had answered is why do plucked string > instruments have the string tension carried by the soundboard itself, instead > of having the string tension carried by the body of the instrument via a > tailpiece the way violins, violas, cellos and string basses do?
Because lots of players and listeners like the sound produced by instruments built that way. It’s really as simple as that. You change the construction, you have a different instrument. Luthiers knew how violins were built: many of them built violins, which is why violin makers are known to this day as luthiers. They could have made lutes with tailpieces. They didn’t want to. > And also: > The point is that bracing, whether ladder or fan, that gives > strength to the top so that it does not come apart due to string > tension, suppresses vibration and thus volume and sustain. So the > bracing could be minimized if the bridge/top did not need to cary the > tension of the strings. Or if you used a cello-type tailpiece to to anchor the strings, you might be able to use far more massive strings, as the cello does. Your question about why this isn’t done makes sense only if you assume that maximizing volume is what’s important. More sound isn’t always better, and the lute became a dominant art instrument in an era that prized soft sounds, classed instruments into “high” (loud) and “low” (soft) and tended not to mix them. (At an LSA seminar ears ago we had an ad hoc band in which Bob Clair played shawm and Gus Denhard played tuba with a group of lutes, but nobody suggested we take that act on the road.) A lute as loud and penetrating as a banjo would change the nature of lute songs, with singers needing to sing louder, losing subtlety, range of expression, and a low note or two. You might ask why clarinet makers build the instrument with a cylindrical bore, when a conical bore would be a more efficient way to produce sound. The answer would be that if it’s built with a conical bore, it’s a saxophone. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
