On Apr 27, 2007, at 3:54 PM, Josh Winters wrote: > To the best of my knowledge, the music I enjoy the most is from > England, > approximately mid 1500s, maybe even most of that century. If I > wanted to > start by learning the music of that period, which lute would you > recommend?
It makes things easier if you think of the basic "default" 16th- century lute configuration as 6-course, tuned 4th-4th-Major 3rd-4th-4th, and the 7-course, 8-course and 10-course lutes as the basic configuration with extra bass courses added. Even with a 14- course archlute, you've still got the basic 6-course renaissance lute configuration, and all the other strings are bass courses added on alphabetically. > I know that different eras would require different setups, so > I want to make sure I don't buy the wrong thing and get stuck playing > other music (although, I'd probably still enjoy it). All 16th-century lute music is written for that default 6-course configuration. It's just that the music occasionally calls for the default+ a bass notes or two in an octave lower than the 6-course can handle, so it's good to have a lute with an extra bass or two for the pieces that use them, even though you don't have to use those courses all the time. An 8-course lute is a good all-purpose lute for playing just about anything in the 1500's. Regards, David Rastall [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.rastallmusic.com -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
