Hi all, It is not the difficulty of playing a lute with 24 strings. I certainly looks challenging to anyone who is more used to six strings!
The main difficulty is keeping all those courses in tune. If you look back to when you first learned to play the guitar, (chords or melody) you started on the first three strings, then include the fourth, the fifth and finally the sixth. A complete beginner taking up the Baroque lute would soon become disheartened, wondering how long it would be before he/she could reach down to that 13th course! Can simple tunes be played as easily as one can on the guitar? This, the cost and the comparative quietness compared to the guitar hastened its demise. In my opinion anyway. Ron (UK) -----Original Message----- From: sterling price [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 01 October 2004 05:00 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Vihuela vs guitar I think a big factor in the 18th century decline of the lute is its -implied- difficulty. Admit it-lute players like to promote the idea that the lute is difficult and only playable by the elite. This attitude is still strong today especially with the baroque lute. The fact is it is no more difficult than any other instrument. Having 13 courses of strings does not make it difficult-if that were true the piano, harp, organ and many other instruments would be humanly impossible to play(how many strings does a piano have?) I tend to agree with EG Baron's statement that the lute in the 1720s had reached a high state of refinement and that a child could play it well. I cringe when I hear people today talk about the impossibility of playing the baroque lute because it has 24 strings. I say it is a logical result of centuries of refinement. If the baroque lute is ever to prosper and shed its image of rediculous impossibility people have got to stop thinking in that way. Now, I have a certain profficiency on the baroque lute and find the music flowing easily from me at times, but I have trouble playing the earlier 6-7 course music which never seems to flow from my fingers. I think of it like carrying a heavy load: with a baroque lute I have a wheel barrow, with the ren lute I am carrying the load on my shoulders. Sterling Price --- Roman Turovsky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I have an opinion on that as well, but that would > hurt a lot of feelings out > there. So I'll abstain. > RT > ______________ > Roman M. Turovsky > http://polyhymnion.org/swv > > > Dear Roman, > > There may be some truth in what you say, but it > doesn't explain why > > the guitar flourished, and the lute didn't. Both > instruments are a > > bit on the quiet side for large concert halls. > > Best wishes, > > Stewart McCoy. > > > > > >>> And my question included the possibilty > >>> that the preservation of the "lute third" > location might have > > doomed the > >>> lute for the more modern play (like 19th C.). > >> No, the sociology of music (i.e. concert hall) > was responsible for > > lute's > >> demise. > > > >> RT > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
