Dear Craig and Katherine, An alternative to using a strap, which was used in the 17th Century, is to tie a gut string between two pegs on the body of the instrument. One peg is where you'd expect to see a peg, i.e. in the middle of the end clasp; the other peg is fixed through the middle rib just before the body joins the neck. The string is tied so that it lies flush with the middle rib, and you hook it over a button on your coat to stabilise the lute. It is thought that Mouton may be holding his lute this way in that famous picture of him. If you think the artist hasn't quite got it right, and the lute looks as if it is suspended in front of the player as if by magic, it is possible that it is being held in this way. There is an article by Robert Spencer in _Early Music_, with a picture of the back of a lute, showing the gut string tied between two pegs. I could look up the reference if you want.
If you play the lute standing up, and without a strap or a piece of string between two pegs, you have to use your left hand to support the instrument. This can be satisfactory for short periods, but can cause irritation to the part of the hand holding the neck, unaccustomed to the friction involved. Barré chords are problematic, so you may have to tinker with the music a bit, e.g. change |\ | |\ | |\ | _______________a_____ _____f__e____|_a__||_ ___________d_|_c__||_ _____e_______|_c__||_ __c__________|_c__||_ _____________|_a__||_ to |\ | |\ | |\ | _____a_________a_____ _____a__e____|_a__||_ _____a_____d_|_c__||_ _____________|____||_ __c__________|____||_ _____________|_a__||_ Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Craig Allen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 4:18 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: lute straps > Katherine Davies wrote: > > > >There are lots of renaissance pictures of people > >playing lutes while standing up without any sign of a > >strap. Does anyone do this? Any ideas on how - or if - > >it could be done? > > > >I'm not having a go at strap-users; I'm just a bit > >puzzled - I have enough trouble keeping the thing in > >place when I'm sitting down. > > A good friend of mine has been doing studies into the Medieval harp and all the iconography she's seen shows what she calls the magically levitating harp. No sign of a strap or other gadget to rest it on the knees (one harper I know has a crossbar on a wooden knob that fits into the sound hole in the back of the harp and the crossbar rests on his knees). She's been trying to figure out whether there is some sort of mechanism in place that the painted didn't see or if the painters simply didn't understand how the instrument is played took artiztic license. I"ve tried playing the lute standing up without a strap and it's very difficult for me. So I prefer to sit with a piece of suede across my knee to keep the lute from slipping. > > Regards, > Craig > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > $0 Web Hosting with up to 200MB web space, 1000 MB Transfer > 10 Personalized POP and Web E-mail Accounts, and much more. > Signup at www.doteasy.com > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
