I've never looked into the scholarship behind this, so can't vouch, but this appears on the surface to be amusing and informative: <http://web.telia.com/~u86505074/capomuseum/>
Eugene At 10:18 AM 3/24/2008, Stewart McCoy wrote: >Dear David, > >I would also be interested to know more about how capos were used in the >past. I have an old English guitar from about 1760, which has four holes >in the neck through which one can screw a capo. Capos would have to be >curved to match any curve on the fingerboard, and frets would need to be >adjusted, if unequal temperaments were in use. > >Judging by surviving books of music for the guitar in the 17th century, >guitarists were expected to be able to strum in all keys. Their >instruments were probably fretted pretty close to equal temperament. > >The big problem is having a capo which provides enough pressure to hold >all the strings down without buzzing. Modern ones use elastic or a kind >of spring mechanism, but I don't know how feasible that was in the past. >I would guess that my screw-type capo is likely to be the earliest sort. > >Best wishes, > >Stewart McCoy. > >-----Original Message----- >From: David Rastall [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >Sent: 23 March 2008 23:50 >To: igor . >Cc: Lute Net >Subject: [LUTE] Re: Karamazov as a circus musician > >On Mar 23, 2008, at 6:47 PM, igor . wrote: > > > no David : check my earlier messsage ! why do i have to remind you > > all the time to read and see well ? > >Okay, okay, I promise to watch everything all the way to the end in >future. My bad. But I'm still curious. Perhaps someone else can >enlighten me...? > >Was there never a time when vihuela and archlute existed together? > >Personally I would have used a Shubb capo: those elastic ones are >harmful to the instrument. But more seriously, did they never use >capo's in the old days? Assuming they did (and how can anyone prove >they didn't?), what difference does it make to the music what kind of >capo he used? > >Renaissance bow? Not entirely unthinkable for a viol player back in >the day to use an old-fashioned bow once in a while. Inadvisable, if >it really does make a difference to the music perhaps, but not >necessarily unHIP. Now if he had been using a modern bow, I would >agree that's definitely unHIP. > >David R >[EMAIL PROTECTED] >://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
