by Mimmo Peruffo

Introduction

When faced with the problem of what kind of strings were used on the 18th century Mandolins of six and four courses, the first thing that stands out is the great heterogeneity of these set up. What is really hard to understand is particularly on the 4 course Neapolitan Mandolin: here we find together gut strings; single and twisted metal wires; wound strings on gut/silk. To complete the already heterogeneous picture, for the 4th course there are also two choices between unison and octave.
Here is the first question: why was it used a gut 1st and not a metal wire like the other courses, when it was then in use in the 1st half of the nineteenth century?
This question is logic: the average breaking load stress (Breaking Point) of the gut is ‘only’ 34 Kg/mm2, much lower than the average of iron and bronze of the time, which easily exceeded 100 Kg/mm2.
To understand the reason, we must first start from the mechanical and acoustic behaviour of the string. In this way we will be able to try to figure out what were the guiding criteria used to determine the vibrating lengths of plucked and bowed instruments, including Mandolins.

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