On Jul 6, 2008, at 1:27 PM, William Brohinsky wrote: > All of which is said because I really want to be able to > demonstrate that I > could play that theorboed lute as a theorbo when I audition in a > few months. > > I've been working the top six courses as an exercise with my classical > guitar restrung (A and D strings replacing b and e strings) tuned > double-reentrant, and capoed up five frets, i.e., an A theorbo without > diapasons. > > Now I'm thinking, even with the horrendously short string lengths, > to modify > this EMS lute-like-thingie, to make it single strung and provide 14 > strings. > I don't mind tuning it low (unlike my wife, I can change between > modern, > old, french, or other tunings without problems), and because it's a > stopgap, > I don't mind if the diapasons aren't optimally resonant.
> That said, can anyone advise me what would be a good string length > to shoot > for, what would be a reasonable "pitch standard" (consider it an A > theorbo, > so state A=XXXhz for the top string, don't bother relating it to > A=440!) and > what should I be expecting for string spacing at the bridge? If I understand you correctly, you mean to salvage an instrument that someone else would consider pretty hopeless, the job will include a new neck of yet undecided length, and your principal purpose is to modify it so that you can use it to practice for an audition on a specific instrument that you also plan to repair. So isn't the obvious answer "make the instrument you have as much as possible like the instrument you plan to audition on"? That takes care of the string length question, I'd think. As to pitch, I'd say move it around a lot so that you get the feel of different string tensions. This is not the best treatment you can give an instrument, but do you care? Keep in mind that if the UConn instrument is small, it may sound tubby and muddy as a theorbo in A. A 62cm theorboed lute is best left a lute. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
