What's different in first and second or third courses? > Actually nothing until you realize that you are not sticking both >strings in the course. This is particularly apparent with a doubled >first course when you actually do manage to strike both strings, at >least on my Lute, the sound is significantly different. It is not >so much bending backwards but coming at the string from the top down >rather than clawing the string from the bottom up if you get the >difference from my feeble description.
Precisely the point- activating both strings of the course, but doing so cleanly and fully; for which the fingertips MUST be relaxed, even loose. Merely "bending back" is by no means the whole story; it is more the result- the follow through- of a relaxed stroke from a player whose fingers have the flexibility to bend back. I know one player who has a problem with stiff fingertips that do not, in fact, bend back; but because his stroke is completely relaxed and exquisitely well placed his tone quality is as fine as any of the top players in the business today. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
