Intonation and tone

[Cubitt]

Tne best analogy I can make when talking metal vs. wood is cars. A luxury car, compact, sports car and SUV all will get you there. It just depends on how you want to go.

I played Boehm for many years before I got my vintage eight-key. I use the Boehm for one type of music, the wooden for another. I doubt there are any who have done what I've done who would not continue to do so. As Shakespeare had King Lear say, "Reason not the need."

Cheers.

[Denny]

dude....ya got two flutes an' three cars

I'm gonna need a little help with the analogy thing

[jemtheflute]

Are they made of real guts?

Well, I dunno exactly what Ben uses, but conventional pre all-steel and or nylon core strings were and are real gut - termed "catgut" but actually sheep intestines, cleaned, scraped and twisted. Sometime in the C19th (I believe - Ben will doubtless correct me) they started winding gut strings with metal ribbon or wire, at least for the thicker ones.....

[benhall.1]

Are they made of real guts?

Well, I dunno exactly what Ben uses, but conventional pre all-steel and or nylon core strings were and are real gut - termed "catgut" but actually sheep intestines, cleaned, scraped and twisted. Sometime in the C19th (I believe - Ben will doubtless correct me) they started winding gut strings with metal ribbon or wire, at least for the thicker ones.....

Yes, sheep gut. The word "catgut" is an abbreviation of "cattle gut". The word "cattle", according to the OED, has gone through a few changes in meaning over time. Originally meaning something like "personal property", it then became applied more specifically to livestock, and only recently has tended to become restricted , as the OED rather quaintly puts it, to "animals of the bovine genus". anyway, the gist is that "catgut" is from the actual guts of sheep.

Modern, tapewound strings started to appear in 19c, I think. But ... and it really is a great big 'BUT' ... wire wound, gut core strings, and even wire wound, wire core strings, were already around in the 18c. According to the hardanger fiddle player Nils Okland (I can't do that initial Norwegian 'O' thingy) when I went to see him in Cardiff some years ago, one form of 'Baroque' D string, which he and other hardanger chaps use on their fiddles, is wire core and wire wound. (Nasty, uncomfortable, ridgy thing.) I understood him to mean that these were around in the Baroque era, but specialist baroque players from the classical mainstream tend to use gut except sometimes for the G, which is either wire wound or wire core and wire wound. According to one article I've found just 10 minutes ago, steel strings didn't come in until the 1930s to 1940s, but that's later than I'd thought ...

[david_h]

...Yes, sheep gut...

No, cuddly little lambs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1aYaHEl9Rg

[jemtheflute]

Haven't watched the YT clip linked above.... but pretty obviously the bulk of sheep slaughtered in the normal farming/meat trade cycle (modern or older) are male "lambs", so their guts will be the ones primarily available as by-products for such uses as fiddle strings - ditto skins for leather, etc.

I know this is now wandering waaaaayyy off topic, but given the very recent appearance of all-steel strings, where does that leave the "traditional-ness" of the seeming preference for them amongst modern ITM fiddlers?

[Rob Sharer]

Most of the so-called "gut" strings on the market are synthetic gut. Real gut strings are a bit of an anachronism outside the Early Music crowd.

I use synthetic gut strings, and they are indeed louder on a nice instrument. Steel strings can make more of a shrill bleat out of a stiff old box, sometimes.

Rob

[benhall.1]

Most of the so-called "gut" strings on the market are synthetic gut. Real gut strings are a bit of an anachronism outside the Early Music crowd.

I use synthetic gut strings, and they are indeed louder on a nice instrument. Steel strings can make more of a shrill bleat out of a stiff old box, sometimes.

Rob

Must be an American thing. All of the "so-called gut strings" here in the UK are made from gut. Strings made from synthetic gut are, here, known as "synthetic core" strings. And an awful lot of players over here use gut. Real gut. The "Early Music crowd" over here tend to use uncovered gut strings, which is a different animal entirely (so to speak). Mind you, all of this is as applied to fiddle and related instruments. I have no knowledge of what guitarists etc might use.

[Rob Sharer]

Must be an American thing. All of the "so-called gut strings" here in the UK are made from gut. Strings made from synthetic gut are, here, known as "synthetic core" strings. And an awful lot of players over here use gut. Real gut. The "Early Music crowd" over here tend to use uncovered gut strings, which is a different animal entirely (so to speak). Mind you, all of this is as applied to fiddle and related instruments. I have no knowledge of what guitarists etc might use.

Could indeed be a Yank thing. I don't mean to imply that no one uses them, but they are not what one tends to see. I can't remember the last time I encountered gut strings on a modern instrument in the normal course of things, including when I worked at a violin shop in Germany. I, however, am not a statistically significant scientific sample.

My mate who plays slap-time bass swears by gut for the top two strings on the bass. Giddyup!


Rob

[I.D.10-t]

I wonder if this would very by region due to consistency of climate.

[benhall.1]

Could well vary by climate. Around here, I've been involved in amateur orchestral music-making at a decent level for decades. Us fiddlers tend to talk about strings a lot, for some reason, and I reckon that, in the amateur orchestral world hereabouts, around half of the people use synthetic core strings such as Evah Pirazzi or Corelli Crystal, and around half use gut core strings such as Pirastro Eudoxa or Pirastro Passione (my own favourite). Talking to the professional string players I know, that balance seems to swing more towards gut core strings. And, as I said in my earlier post, Early Music people would tend to use plain gut, rather than gut core.

Well nigh nobody in amateur orchestral playing uses steel core strings, not least because they're just not loud enough. No tone. Most of the trad players I know use Dominants (synthetic core), but, for me, they're just a bit clunky - not responsive enough. Nice tone though.

Um ... weren't we talking about flutes a while back?

[Cork]

ya left out the part about Boehms being too loud

A Boehm flute can be loud, but even better a Boehm flute can project to a faraway distance. One of my favorite recollections is when a neighbor of mine once told me that she enjoyed listening to my playing while she was in her back yard, at a time when I was playing while in my house with all of the doors and windows closed and at a distance of about half a mile away from her house.

Yet, a Boehm flute can also speak as gently and as softly as a whisper from heaven.

[Doug_Tipple]

I will demonstrate: Boehmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Denny]

NO!! STOP!!

you'll only encourage 'im

[Terry McGee]

(To the Editor, "Musical World", 14 Dec 1843)

THE BOEHM FLUTE

I PRAY you Sir, to put a mute,
On all the noise 'bout Boehm's flute,
Your pow'r arouse
To muffle Prowse
Nor let old Card
Contend with Ward,
But, quash at once, the dull dispute.

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