Dear Stewart and all, >Adding a four-foot stop on an organ, or having a double bass >doubling with a cello, will not offend the ear, because the >resultant sound is consistent. You hear one well-overtoned note at a >time, not two notes an octave apart. It is pleasing to the ear.
I don't think so. In the cello / double bass situation you clearly hear two notes on octave apart. I my opinion it sounds nice because the two voices are always present and because no other voice goes below the cello and thus between cello and double bass. Both conditions are not given in an octave strung lute. The octave is suddenly switch on when going from the 3. to the 4. course and the octaves of courses 4 to 6 go higher than other notes of the chords. I find this a strong argument against octave stringing. >A lute with octave stringing will sound unpleasant, if the tone >produced by the two strings of a course is inconsistent, with the >upper octave sounding now louder, now softer. But that is exactly what happens also with thumb-in players. I noticed in recordings and also concerts of important lutenist that on thumb-index runs on the low courses the melody seems to jump between bass and octave. A very unpleasant effect to my ears. I admit that playing on octave strung lutes is _theoretical_ easier with thumb-in technique because the index finger reach over the octave and play the bass string mainly, thus creating your ideal of a non obstrusive octave, but as I said before, to my ears modern thumb-in players don't create that ideal sound. best wishes, Stefan Ecke
