Dear Tom, I am working backwards through my In Box, so I'm afraid my reply is somewhat delayed.
Tendonitis and other physical problems are terrible things. They can thwart one's aspirations, and ruin one's musical life. The main thing is to keep making music, if you possibly can. The actual style of music is, I believe, of little importance - early, contemporary, jazz, ethno, whatever. Playing the lute instead of the guitar is almost certainly a good move for you, because the stringing is much lighter, and so the fingers have less work to do to hold strings down on the fingerboard. It is possible to try too hard, to press unnnecessarily hard on the strings, for example, causing tension and possible long-term problems. Where your thumb is in relation to the fingers is another factor, which of course one cannot judge without seeing how you play. If you have already mastered a technique - guitar technique - a technique which you know works fine - it will be hard to see the advantages of an unfamiliar technique like thumb-under, which probably makes you feel clumsy. However, I believe the renaissance lute technique of thumb-under is far less stressful than modern classical guitar technique. Unfortunately it is unlikely that you will see all the advantages on your own. Having a lesson or two, or simply watching others play, might help to show you how thumb-under technique works. Certainly the right hand position involved with thumb-inside is one where minimal effort is required. There are many factors which may determine which technique is best for you, for example the size of your hand and fingers, and whether or not your thumb is on the short side. However, you said your problem was with the left hand, so experimenting with the right hand is of secondary importance. It is impossible for anyone to give advice without actually seeing you play, but there are some aspects of lute playing which are less stressful than guitar playing: 1) Fewer barres. Of course there are barres in the music for both instruments, but generally speaking there are fewer with the lute, because 16th-century polyphony tends not to require the full chords you might expect in more recent music. The texture is often thinner. 2) Chromatic fingering. Guitarists are taught to have one finger per fret - to use the 1st finger for the 1st fret, the 2nd finger for the 2nd fret, etc., like this: ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ ____________________ _a__1b__2c__3d__4e__ You don't usually get chromatic scales like that in lute music, so the need for that kind of hand position is less. I'm generalising, of course, but my experience is that lute players tend to use their little finger more than guitarists do, and lute music may often involve just two frets. That means that the 1st and 2nd fingers may operate at the 2nd fret, while the 3rd and 4th fingers operate at the 3rd fret: __a_______________________ _2c____4d______|_2c____||_ ____3d_____2c__|_3d____||_ _______________|_1c____||_ __a____1c______|__a____||_ _______________|_______||_ See how the 3rd and 4th fingers operate side by side at the same fret, just as the 1st and 2nd fingers operate together at the 2nd fret. Now, you may be thinking, "That's obvious. I'd do that anyway on the guitar." Fine. Maybe you would. What I am trying to say is that, given an option, lutenists would go for that kind of fingering with the fingers close together, where maybe a guitarist would stretch along the strings with a tense, stretched-out hand. 3) The G chord. Guitarists tend to bring their 2nd finger to work in tandem with the 3rd, where lutenists would do what I have described above, i.e. use 1st and 2nd together, and 3rd and 4th together. What I mean is summed up in the G chord on a guitar. Many guitarists would play: _3d__ __a__ __a__ __a__ _1c__ _2d__ whereas a lutenist playing a guitar would tend to prefer: _4d__ __a__ __a__ __a__ _2c__ _3d__ . OK, you might do that on a guitar sometimes too, but, given the choice, lutenists would normally avoid the first option. (I keep the tuning the same to make my point easier.) 4) Avoid the 4th finger on low courses. This is part of the idea of maintaining chromatic fingering on the guitar. A guitarist might conceivably play __1b_______a___a__ ______3d___a__1b__ __________________ ___a______________ _______________a__ __________4e______ whereas a lutenist will play __1b_______a___a__ ______4d___a__1b__ __________________ ___a______________ _______________a__ __________3e______ . The 3rd finger is longer than the 4th, so it makes sense to use the 3rd finger to reach across the fingerboard, even if it means that it ends up playing at a higher fret than the 3rd finger. I am no physician, and even if I understood the workings of the human body, I wouldn't be able to diagnose from afar exactly why you get tendonitis. However, I would advise looking for ways of playing which reduce tension, like considering different ways of fingering, and to practise for very short spells at a time. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. Greetings one and all, from the UK (just outside Bath)! I am new here, and also new to the lute. I come from the guitar, and began playing the lute about two months ago. I had to retire early from the world of academic music (most serial, I fear) due to tendonitis in my left hand, didn't play for some fifteen years, and then discovered I could have my beloved guitar adjusted so that I could at least play it again, though not the real virtuoso pieces I once inflicted on others. Art Robb, the lute builder, who adjusted my guitar for me, suggested playing the lute as less strenuous on the hand than the guitar. I knew a fair amount of lute music from guitar transcriptions, and in spite of having an ear more attuned to Boulez and Messiaen than Dowland, nevertheless loved the music. So he built me a lute, and a couple of months ago it was ready. I've got down to learning it, using books by Diana Poulton and Andrea Damiani, and am already playing pieces by Hans Judenkunig (how on earth did he get that name?), Hans Newsidler, and the like. As I have no teacher to ask, nor do I know anyone who plays the lute (not quite the done thing in the serial circles I used to move in), I wonder if I could, as Art Robb suggested, bother you with a few questions? When I started, I tried, as recommended, placing the little finger of the right hand on the soundboard, playing with the thumb inside the hand. But frankly, I fail to see the advantage of doing any of this. Keeping the little finger on the soundboard simply limits the scope of the right hand, while the thumb inside the other fingers seems to make life unnecessarily difficult, especially when playing anything even vaguely polyphonic. I understand the point of using the thumb to stress the strong beats, but it seems to work just as well using a guitar right-hand technique. I have also examined a vast number of paintings of people playing the lute, and there seems to be no unanimity as to whether the thumb should be held inside the hand, or as with the guitar. Indeed, while the Damiani book has a photo of him playing with the thumb inside the hand, the Poulton book has a painting on the cover which looks suspiciously like the guitar position. So I have stuck with the guitar position for the right hand, and this seems to work very well, at least I can't imagine the music would sound that different with the thumb inside the hand. As I have no ambitions to become a professional lutenist, just play for the pleasure of learning something new, does it matter which way one holds the right hand? Are there any real advantages to be gained from the 'thumb-inside' position? I will leave it at that today, as I have no desire to get on your collective nerves with my naďve queries, but there are a number further questions which I would be glad to ask, if anyone should have the time, and the kindness, to answer them. Kindest regards to all Tom Beck
