Whilst agreeing that much of the 18thC Dm repertoire requires equal
temperament (or near), there's a case for some form of meantone for the
earlier French repertoire which asks for fewer modulations and
generally uses less extreme keys. The ubiquitous use of unisons (eg
open first 3rd fret second, open second 4th fret third, etc) in this
repertoire, especially at closing cadences, also suggests good tuning
at these frets - possibly better than that resulting from equal
temperament.
MH
--- On Fri, 11/12/09, wikla <wi...@cs.helsinki.fi> wrote:
From: wikla <wi...@cs.helsinki.fi>
Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] D-minor tuning and ET? Remedy?
To: baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 11 December, 2009, 21:44
Dear baroque lutenists,
getting into the d-minor tuned lute's secrets seems to be an
interesting
task! Among the many first impressions - partly good, partly not so
good -
was one of the latter: it looked like you really should get used to the
equal temperament - to me quite heavy a sacrifice. Anyhow, after asking
my
former lute teacher and taking a look to his 11-courser, I got the idea
that at least you can make your F-major and some other keys better by
tuning the a's a little bit lower and taking the 4th fret a little
lower;
then there you have the a(low), f# and c#. All of them good to be low
in
many important keys.
Anyhow g-minor seems to be problematic: eb's and f#'s seem always want
to
be on the same fret in the neigboring strings. And I guess there will
be no
good D-major unless you tune the 1st and 4th to f#. They also used that
scordatura in the 17th anf 18th centuries.
Any comments, experiences or hints in getting better intonation than
the ET
in d-minor tuned lutes?
Best,
Arto
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