The Outsider

Mostly what I've learnt from teaching guitar, with an emphasis on the application of 19th century methods to the teaching of beginners and intermediate students.

[domwanguitar]

A magical sound and very distinct. I could make these my default strings if it weren't for the extreme cost-effectiveness of fishing line. Aquila's Ambra 800 sound so good it drives all questions of authenticity from my mind.

[domwanguitar]

These were okay. I might return to experimenting with copper-wound bass and rectified nylon trebles but I have to say it didn't make much of an impression on me.

[domwanguitar]

D'Addario J270s in the bass and Kürschner gut for the trebles. I played with no nails for as long as two sets lasted but couldn't get the sparkling highs I needed to balance the interesting mids from the gut. In addition, continuous fortissimo on gut strings is painful for my right hand fingertips.

[domwanguitar]

The set suggested by my guitar's maker. Chunky sound but the 1st string kept peeling as it settled into (A=430 Hz) pitch and eventually snapped. Could be the Kureha Ace couldn't handle the continuous high tension.

[domwanguitar]

Almost too light a tension but a lovely feel and surprising projection. I played Matiegka op 21 on this with old cheap D'Addario basses and the guitar was still in balance with the viola and flute.

[domwanguitar]

 It’s taken me over 2 years of testing various string configurations to settle on this and I wouldn’t even have tried fishing line if not for this blog.

As documented in the 5 posts leading to this, I tried, in order:

1.   The trustworthy Aquila Ambra 800 - not only do they differentiate between strings of the 1800s and 1900s, the Ambra 800 sounds magical, with a delicious penetrating sparkle, a sustain that seems to be prolonged by animated interplay between the harmonics from the different strings in a chord and a vibrato that not only responds to, but also encourages your creative shaping of it. Only Galli’s Titanio (which I use on a Kohno 30) comes close.

2.   Savarez became the 2nd experiment as I was still avoiding gut strings in early 2015. Not much of an impression, plus it’s a nightmare to browse their product and make a decision if you are doing this without expert advice.

3.   Having exhausted all non-gut options I ordered Kürschner gut strings from Schneider. Authentic, but expensive and they keep fraying even when I played without nails. The string can still sound good but the tone is terrible if you pluck at the frayed portions.

4.   Which brings us to fishing line trebles. I went through 3 different configurations in quick succession, first following my luthier’s recommendation (chunky almost modern sound), then to Makoto Tsuruta’s (Crane) B set (very floppy thin but enjoyable, almost lute-sounding, before settling on the gauges shown in the picture above.

Caveat: the fraying/shredding of Seaguar Ace 12 gauge as 1st string and the extremely stretchy Seaguar GrandMax FX 8 gauge (also as 1st string) may be a result not of the incorrect gauge but of the deliberately differentiated properties of the fluorocarbon lines themselves. Perhaps a GrandMax FX 12 gauge would have stretched and not frayed, or an Ace 8 gauge would have been just rigid enough? I don’t know. I might experiment further if finances allow.

N.B. These experiments were on my Tulacek Ries-copy, string length 628mm, tuned to A=430 Hz.

[domwanguitar]

It's a pity this beautiful arrangement isn't for sale because it works and is perfectly in the spirit of the age, i.e., taking a 2-voice + accompaniment piece and reworking it for flute, violin and guitar. This performance is on modern instruments but is so sympathetically balanced and stylishly played it should serve as a model for early instrumentalists.

[domwanguitar]

Early Romantic Guitar is a non-profit web site dedicated to providing links and information about classical-romantic guitar from the late 1700's to mid-late 1800's.

It seemed redundant to share this link since it’s the first that will show up on any Google search remotely connected to early guitar but it’s still worth blogging about since its utility hasn’t diminished and it’s where my obsession began.

[domwanguitar]

For various practical reasons the Consortium is not open for new members at the moment. ORDINARY MEMBERS Jelma van Amersfoort (Holland). Jelma van Amersfoort is a musicologist and a per…

This is where the cutting-edge elite of the Early Romantic guitar world hang out - the roster is a who’s-who of researchers, editors and performers. Posted as any serious research and performance should begin with reference to their work.

[jeannepompadour]

Interior with Sofie and Henriëtte Lotzen and the painter Kruseman, playing the guitar by Cornelis Kruseman, 1814

[domwanguitar]

More guitar iconography. It’s hard to comment on this as the guitar isn’t presented very clearly.

[domwanguitar]

Not quite a Romantic guitar, indeed it isn’t even single-strung but an interesting painting nonetheless.

[domwanguitar]

Franz Schubert with what seems like a Stauffer guitar.

[domwanguitar]

An important survey of Schubert’s times and its musical practices with regard to the guitar. Any serious attempt at performing Schubert (or his contemporaries) should include a read-through of Mr Mattingly’s treatise, especially for his references.

[domwanguitar]

50 posts!

Well, well.

[domwanguitar]

It is not known if Beethoven ever played the guitar but he’s depicted here with the fashionable lyre-guitar, for which Carulli wrote the method (see the picture above Beethoven’s). We can speculate but there are no records of them ever having met.

[domwanguitar]

O.Schlosser ELITE Darm 3er Diskantsatz kaufen im SAITEN Konzertgitarre 6-saitig Sätze Online-Shop von SchneiderMusik.de - Schnelle Lieferung - nur 99 ct Versandkosten!

Following a recommendation from luthier Jan Tulacek, I’ve installed Schlosser gut strings for the top 3. The 4th to 8th strings are D’Addario EJ27s - budget student strings. They’re straightforward and don’t compete for attention.

I can see the attraction of gut strings. They get to pitch quite quickly and when they’ve stretched a little they have an amazing soft flex to them, which seems to contribute to the sound. In fact, the strings seem to particularly enjoy echoing sympathetic resonances, giving a shine to chords.

One change before that was Aquila Ambra 800, equal-tensioned Nylgut strings following Carulli’s instructions and designed for the contemporary early guitarist for use on music from 1790 to 1880. These were oddly pleasing, revealing a nice ‘chunk’ to the lower midrange of the guitar once they’d settled in (after a day). The Nylgut-silverwound basses smoothened out a bit quickly, exhibiting a gamely zing to its growing tubbiness after 4 weeks.

The trebles that came with the guitar were apparently fluorocarbon fishing lines and they sounded great; very open and clear. Gauge recommendations from earlyromanticguitar.com’s string page.

Next on review: Aquila Silk and Gut 800 and Savarez’s flurocarbon-and-copperwound-bass set

[domwanguitar]

I've been whistling Beethoven for days on end and it's due to this album. It led, inevitably, to a search for the sheet music which, these days, seems to always turn up imslp and delcamp (which itself serves to lead to the Danish Royal Library and the Rischel and Birket-Smith collection). This post, with as many links to the scores as I can find, is in response to a friend's asking for the music.

1. Adelaide, Op. 46. (N. Coste)

2. String Qt no. 9 in C major, Op. 59 no. 3 "Razumovsky": 2nd movement, Andante con moto quasi allegretto (Vincenz Schuster)

3. Potpourri on favourite themes of Beethoven (A. Diabelli)

4. Piano Sonata #12 in A flat major, Op. 26, 'Marche Funebre' (Sigismund Volker)

5. Andate varie and Rondeau op. 26 (F. Carulli op. 155)

6. Tema con variazioni: Andante cantabile (V. Schuster op. 4)

6. Serenade for Violin, Viola and Guitar in D major, Op. 8 (Wenzel Matiegka)

7. Andante for Piano in F major, WoO 57 "Andante Favori": Excerpt(s) (F. Carulli op. 235)