Vance Wood at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I would like to see some serious Lute players > ferret out the differences instead of condemning the practice straight out. > I have found some strong advantages to playing the thumb out that are not > possible, at least in my mind, with thumb in.
You must be hanging around with the wrong people. In the more than 20 years I've been playing lute, I've never heard any lute player, serious or otherwise, condemn thumb-out. I was a regular LSA seminar attendee from 1984 until parenthood struck in 1999, so I've seen many of the better players play and teach; none of them ever told a student not to play thumb-out. Even by the mid-80's, the more experienced luters talked of the Great Thumb Wars as a thing of the past. BTW, I've always played thumb-out, but I'm a frivolous, disreputable player, and therefore not much use for your present purposes. Howard Posner
