0 comments
Period gut strings versus modern gut strings. Which is the difference?
What do I mean exactly when I speak about modern gut?
Period wind instruments have very different tones for each note, due to construction limits, resulting in the very different sound of every key.
Today Cmajor can sound exactly like B major, or Ebemoll major, in the past they sounded very different.
This difference was the colour palette of composers.
During the ages, music moved to find more evenness from note to note, and also in the bowed family, we can notice that early bows gave a very different articulation from the modern one.
Period strings, being so different in gauges in the same set, from extremely thin to “as big as can still move” in the same instrument, resulting in a more colourful palette, more dynamics, and a different sound of each string, due to the different reaction of a certain gauge under the bow.
Modern strings are more even, they tend to be of the same gauge in one set, their goal is homogeneity.
So with modern instruments, the responsibility for a colourful performance is entirely on the musician.
Good or bad I cannot tell, I love both, your choice it's up to you!
Tags
baroque music, double-bass strings, early music, gut strings, gut strings history, gut strings maintenance, gut strings manufacture, viol strings, viola da gamba strings, viola strings, violin strings, violoncello strings
Historically informed ukulele players wanted. Ukulele: born on 23rd of August 1879 (one of the few instruments to have a precise date of birth). They had nothing else than gut strings, so this is what they used: a first and second string of a guitar.If you have a uke at home, try it with gut
Read MoreMari strings, by Daniel Mari (formerly La Bella) Daniel Mari, born in 1927, now Mari strings, previously La Bella.When he was a boy, in Salle and in Sulmona, in the 40s, he helped in the gut strings factory and also in making bells, a particular production in which a branch of his family was specialized,
Read MoreThe “fresh gut” part Let’s get started, and of course we start from Salle, in Abruzzi (Italy). We’ll go and see how a factory was organized in the 18th century. Yes, I said factory, not workshop. When you take out the intestine from a sheep, the first thing you need to do is to empty it someway.
Read More