Suggestive of a "social" reason to change? I think that would be well after the fact of wider necks for easier polyphonic & chordal playing as well as extra courses. Perhaps similar to RH thumb style changes in that the thumb-out playing was already well established for technical and sound quality reasons and only then "... And finally your old-fashioned playing style is just plain ugly, degoutant, and your mother wears combat boots" type of thing.
I have felt that there is not enough attention paid to the variety of of 6 course lutes one specialist could need- but of course these days so many of us are trying to telescope all 300 years of multiple lute traditions & functions in one career and one lifetime, unthinkable historically. >Many lutists are also ex-classical guitarists, and the thumb-over is >almost considered as vulgar and popular in the worse sense, rather >than somehow being seen as folk musicians having carried on older >techniques, that were not in the least scorned in the past. Denys >rather thinks that thumb-over is a "natural " way of playing if >barring does not become essential. >Barring might become essential in chordal music, but not at all >natural in a polyphonous music. I have seen guitarists who slide their left hands around very fast and adroitly going from "thumb over" to bar chord positions mid piece. Obviously not classical guitarists. When I worked at a guitar repair shop, many customers let me know that neck width was a very important consideration for that style of playing. -Dan >The Hungarian psycholinguist, Ivan Fonagy, developed a theory of the >Semiotics of secondary speech features, in which he claimed that any >vocal gesture that is not an essential functional part of a language >tends take on a symbolic interpretation. Thus lip-rounding, in a >language that does not use lip-rounding significantly, is often >interpreted as mouthing the shape of a kiss (a problem for English >speakers, particularly men, when learning the French front rounded >vowels), while the very wide-open back vowels of Standard British >English (as in "car") are often shunned by French women students, >who have always learnt to speak with the most closed vowels possible >(widely opening the mouth even to laugh, can be considered >unacceptable in some cultures, where women may even cover their >mouth "politely" while laughing). >Fonagy suggested that rolling the Rs in a language that no longer >has the rolled R, could be associated with rudely poking out the >tongue, or as an expression of rustic virility, while replacing the >R with W, or dropping it completely, a sign of extreme effectedness >(Les "Incoyables" (Fr. Incroyables) of the French Directoire, >c.1800). > >Thus wiggling your thumb at the audience over the top of your lute >neck for a musician for whom this is not part of his lute culture, >could also take on some similar gestural role, that somehow is just >rather difficult to come to terms with. > >Finally, for this sort of left hand technique to be resurrected we >would need players to specialize in 5c and 6c music to the exception >of anything else. >Regards >Anthony -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
