Thread: Violone Grosso
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Old 01-11-2010, 06:49 PM
Calvin Marks Calvin Marks is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Smith View Post
Maggini made some of the later D'Salo instruments. One that is pictured in Elgar (D'Salo, attributed?) is a 5-string, page 71.

We do not know if any of the Amati's made basses and we know for sure that Strad did NOT. However, there are thousand's and thousand's of basses claiming to be copies of both.

At least we know that both Maggini and D'salo made Double Bass instruments.

We can only speculate from the few original Scrolls survived by these two pioneers what they might have made as far as the number of strings.

Maggini 'influenced' is just that. It can have 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 strings if you like. All numbers of strings that were made by the early Italian bass instrument makers.

If one copies an English or Italian or even a Prescott Bass of which almost all were 3-strings originally, do you come and say Prescott didn't make a 4-string?
Firstly, what kind of instrument is this and what is it intended for? If it's a true period instrument then the tuning is not legitimate. You can turn it into a Viennese bass tuned FADF#A but the Italian design would look somewhat odd. Also, the neck angle is too steep for a period bass. The entire purpose of period instruments revolves around lower tension on the table. These basses were not intended on being canons (certainly not in Maggini's time!!). We over string them today and use tall bridges, but these instruments had an entirely different sound and function in the ensemble.
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