Hells bells David, I'm beginning to agree with you. My first month of trying to get my harp and guitar fingers to play lute songs on the retuned guitar where rather disasterous, but this evening I went through about four different tunes from the Jane Pickering Lute Book (circa 1616) with reasonable facility - and a good sense of the songs. The book I'm using (mentioned before, Ronn McFarlane's The Scottish Lute) says that the timings should be heard and sounded with a sense of the song rather than a strict interpretation. He offers two books in one with the same songs. The one I'm using is a transliteration into modern notation with a modified French tabulature below - for use with the retuned guitar. But the companion tucked into it is a pure French notation, which I'll use if I make a "lute". I quote that as I think I'll end up making the "lute" kit offered by MusicMakers, which the purists on this list consider not to be a real one.
I thank you all for your patience with a newbie, and beg your indulgence when I pontificate on music and strings. I think we have a different view of music, the one a pure view of duplication (and I have a college friend, a flautist, who has in his retirement a renaissance group on original instruments, but his is more the orchestral than the more individual context of the lute). I welcome any corrections to my impressions of this instrument. Best, Jon
