Gut strings Rock!!

[Mark Stefaniw]

Originally Posted by Ken Smith

Really? If you played Jazz and had to push a Band or Big Band or played solos you would see soon why Ray Brown, Milt Hinton, Sam Jones and just about every player I have known CHANGED to Steels..

Audibly, the Guts are too slow and they make you play harder to hear yourself. I see no need at all to play guts at all unless you are playing period music. Even then, any good old bass with bowing steels will sound just about as good in my opinion.

I have played Vivaldi, Bach, Hayden and Mozart concerts mainly with one Bass and two Cellos (Chamber-like) and they loved my sound. Bowing Steels all the way with an old English or Italian bass. No one mentioned after first hearing me that I needed Gut, NO one!

Is that Period enough or we need to go earlier?

Maybe you Gut seekers just need an Older bass, you think?

Geez -- lighten up man! No one doubts that we can play period music successfully (i.e. get by IMO) on steel strings with a tourte bow. If you are serious about studying early music, you absolutley must consider a gut setup -- that's just a fact that comes with the territory. It is magical when the entire string ensemble is on a gut setup.

Check out this (click here) beautiful period performance on Viennese tuned gut violone -- frets and all. I've always wanted to study period music on a period/replica setup like that. Can you imagine the fun tuning the viola d'amore? Closest I've gotton so far to period setup is to fiddle with Viennese tuning (A-D-F#-A) on my modern double bass with steel strings ... inspired by Edicson Ruiz's Vanhal performance setup (click here). Edicson went to London to study Viennese tuning with Chi-chi Nwanoku (click here). Chi-chi spends most of her time on a Viennese gut setup ... I am envious of her career.