This past week I had the chance to spend some time with a good friend who plays cittern, has two and brought out another that belonged to a friend of his. The two were pretty contemporary and from a small luthier's shop. The third was much older and from a very well-established luthier.

There aren't many five-course instruments being used in this part of Indiana, so these things are very unfamiliar to me, in their particulars. And, tho I play a 25.4" zouk, playing a five-course completely eludes me.

The citterns I got to play were all pretty lightly strung with flatter fretboards than my Crump B-II, and I must confess that, ham-fisted as I am, I couldn't play them without loads of rattle, buzz and bend.

Is it common in citterns to have the setups tensioned this lightly?

Anyway... on to gauges... One of my cittern pals says, "on my 24.75" instruments: .053, .042, .030, .016, .012." Later he referred to luthier Doug Dieter's website ( http://www.kennaquhair.com ) where there is a Universal String Tension Calculator, and says, "... to maintain close to the same
tension on a 22.75", I'd be looking at .059, .045, .032, .017, .013."

So these string sizes, for the 24.75" instruments, were the ones I found to be so very loose on the two lowest courses, in this case, the lowest was a D and the next up a G course.

What are y'all using? Discuss away... <GG>

You five-course guys haven't had much action here in a while... <GGG>

Thanks,

stv