At 05:13 PM 1/26/2006, Arthur Ness wrote: >Hoboe = German for oboe.
Of course, (as far as I know) derived from the French hautbois. "Hobo" is still rather comical in English. Sorry, I can't comment on Sor's intended nail length in describing an oboe/hoboe/hautbois/hobo effect. I would never speculate this has anything to do with historic technique, but I can describe my practical and sadly semi-unHIP approach. If I am ever paid to play, it is almost always on modern guitar, so maintaining nails is a practical necessity. If I cut my nails very short, still a little will protrude, but engaging such nail in a string pluck requires a very odd and uncomfortable angle of attack. However, I prefer a more "fleshy" sound on early strings. I keep my p through m nails tapered strongly shorter on the attack side to allow the use of little or no nail on early plucked strings (the strong curl of my a and c nails doesn't allow such a taper, but those fingers don't often come into play in most efforts on early strings). Best, Eugene -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
