Hart!
I'm sure that the maker drawed his inspiration from Maggini, as the body outline look so similar at a first glance.
But, also, he made an instrument of his own,for the musicians of his century.
He did not intended to make a copy.
Somehow, he took his pleasure from the past he like, and made something new.
At a second glance, the bottom bouts of the Hart are more rounded, the C bouts more long and open, the body stop moved downward ( in Maggini the stop is near the center ).
The rib height of Maggini is huge ( mm230, a bit more than 9 inches ), almost parallel till the bent.
The ff holes are sloped to follow the C bouts outline, with little wings and far enough from the center.
The bigger instruments of Maggini are shorter than the Hart.
Probably a real Maggini would be not so comfortable as the Hart is, for the narrower C bouts.
In fact, the Maggini instruments were probably made to be played like viols, mostly at the neck and with 5 or 6 strings.
The Hart is, for sure, a double bass.
I can't know why you feel easy to play with him, probably there is a good ratio SL/body stop/bridge height/neck overheight/Eb neck/shoulders outline etc
Also, maybe the balance you found matches your own body.
I'm sure that anything was done to put the bass at his best with the sound.
So my hope, if you will play the Hart for some time, is that you will achieve the "it" for that one instrument, to let him play the way you like.
Sometimes is just habit, inconscious movements, little changes...
As a viol player asked me for a little size violone, I probably will make a Maggini model soon. He said "I need deep sound and fundamentals".
Coincidences?
|