Dear Anthony and All,
I assume the "Martin" you refer to is me. I don't remember ever saying
that I thought Dowland changed from 7c to 9c without ever using an 8c,
or that any of these changes coincided with his change from TI to TO.
We simply don't know the answer to any of these questions.
I do think it likely that the change from TI to TO is related to the
increase in number of courses, and also to the change in musical style
from equal-voiced polyphony to a more treble-and-bass style.
Best wishes,
Martin
P.S. A 10c can always be retuned to look like a 9c lute, but with a
10/11c lute you have to change the nut and all the strings - not
something you want to do every week. Well, actually you could
compromise on absolute pitch and leave the 5th to 10th courses as they
are, putting thicker strings on the first four courses to allow them to
be tuned down. Just to make this clear, imagine your 10c lute is in
nominal A, so the 6th course is the same as in the Dm tuning 11c version:
10c ----> 11c
1. a' f' (down a major third)
2. e' d' (down a tone)
3. b a (down a tone)
4. g f (down a tone)
5. d d
6. A A
7. G G
8. F F
9. E E
10.D D
11. C
If you did this with a 67cm lute you would probably be tuning the top
string to f' in the old tuning so in the new tuning it would be d' flat,
a very low pitch for this string length.
Anthony Hind wrote:
However, I was mainly thinking about your decision not to change to
TI, and I wonder whether Dowland
did not change to TO at the same time as he took up the 9c, as Martin
claims he did (I mean take up the 9c, never adopting the 8c),
--
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