5. Conclusions:
Be Practical!!
So far, you can probably guess my conclusion:
If you aim to follow the treatises you shall not give a letteral interpretation but a practical one, and admit that equal feeling, equal tension, and scaled tension, had the same meaning: the aim is always playing on an even instrument.
But if we cannot trust pure math, what we can do?
Finding our perfect gauges, perfect for our instrument, our fingers and our preferred brand or kind of strings, it is a matter of just a few empirical tests.
..and, just in case you missed it, here is my post about how to do it:
A simple method to find the string gauges perfectly fitting your instrument Did you ever had the sensation that something was not balanced in your set of strings, but you couldn’t decide wether going thinner o thicker? It happened so many times to me, until I learned this simple trick! You will need no maths or treatises,
Read MoreHere are some more resources. I highly recommend the articles by Daniel Larson because he keeps it very simple
Tags
baroque music, double-bass strings, early music, equal tension, gut strings, gut strings history, gut strings maintenance, gut strings manufacture, viol strings, viola da gamba strings, viola strings, violin strings, violoncello strings
The breaking index rule. The most important rule you cannot escape from (as far as you are voted to gut strings): at a given string length, a string of a given material, will always break at the same pitch, no matter how big it is.Mindblowing or intuitive? Probably both of them.Looking forward to your comments
Read MoreWhen I suggest roughly polished strings instead of smooth heavily polished ones, I often receive a squint like I am interfering with personal choices on musical taste, or with technical issues of an instrument which I have never seen, let alone played. It’s always been difficult for me to explain why I am firm on this
Read More“I couldn’t play without varnished strings. Yes, I know they are not historically correct, but there is no other way for me, as my hands are so sweaty and I am so busy, that I move from hard air-conditioned to hot and humid environments even trice per day.”Is this familiar to you? I hear this
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