On Nov 26, 2007, at 7:20 AM, Jerzy Zak wrote: > ...for me more important is the way most people were accompanning > on the lute during XVII/XVIIIth centuries, during the time the d-m > tuning was an obvious choice for solos -- I'm thinking of continuo > songs and chamber music. > > ...Just imagine if you'd start playing lute from the 11th or the > 13th course instrument...
If lute students first began on the lute in Dm tuning, as presumably many of them did in the 17th and 18th centuries, would it not have been natural for them to play continuo in that same tuning? Baron speaks of the inconvenience of having to change to another tuning for BC playing, which implies that changing to old tuning for BC was an option in his day, but an undesirable one from his point of view as a 13-c Baroque lutenist. The fact is you can play continuo on anything, from a small guitar to a theorbo so large that the guitar would almost fit inside it, and still be historically valid one way or another. I think if we're to take Baron's advice, we should concentrate our continuo efforts on the instrument and the tuning we know best, whatever that may be. David R [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
