On Sun, Dec 21, 2008, Rob Dorsey <r...@dorseymail.com> said: > 1. We have no idea what historical musical presentation sounded like. > We can only infer from the notations on the tablature and the style of > the instruments along with basically anecdotal comments in extant > writings.
All true, but, we have our own ears, and they too must be convinced; IMHO we need to explore the music and see what can be done with it on reasonable approximations of the instruments. After several decades of exploration we have numerous soloists and ensembles who have done this, some of them are making most excellent and enjoyable music; the ultimate test of any makers work. And, we do have at least one indication that a particular makers work was generally thought most excellent by his contemporarys and successors, that of Laux Maler; we can (have, and will) look to his surviving instruments as works to be studied. > 2. It is very possible that the extant instruments we so arduously > attempt to replicate were dogs and that's why they exist. including the howling-dog headed NMM 13500 cittern recently bought at auction :-) Nobody played > them. They have spent their lives in cases in closets. The favorite > playable instruments, many recycled from earlier lutes - 10 course > renaissance lutes turned into 11 and 13 course baroque instruments for > example - had hard playing lives and we can infer - that word again - > from art that they hung on the wall and were treated quite casually. Just as books were offered sans bindings, I suspect instruments were often sold in a choice of cases (including none); modern makers are disinclined to spend working time making mere cases, why should period luthiers have thought any less practically? > 3. I too cannot believe that renaissance or baroque builders would not > avail themselves of modern available woods or glues. Woods yes, but glues, well, Yes, there are alternatives with special properties that make them reasonable in certain uses (ACC/Superglue for securing fine cracks for example). Todays apprentice maker brings a cavalier attitude towards the choice of glue to his work. There are reasons for prefering certain glues over others on each of several joints in our work. The one thing we do know, it is hard to go wrong by choosing hide glue; it was the generally used glue historically. Yes, there was also fish glue, casein glue, shellac, gum arabic, pitch and other adhesives; but the ubiquitous pot of hide glue was always in the corner ready for use, it was the casual glue historically. >we have no hard evidence of how fast or with what > inflections it was played, we latch onto the only concrete thing we > can. We try to replicate instruments extant in museums and collections. > Then we take the written music we have - a wonderfully rich corpus > indeed I must admit - read the performance notes and inflection > markings, try to interpret them, and play in what we believe to be the > style of the period. If we had a time machine, we might go back and > embarrass ourselves mightily. > > > > Or, we can build lutes of stable and beautiful woods not available to > the ancients, put together with glues and adhesives who's technology > was not even envisioned and strung with state of the art strings from > the 21st century. These instruments will last much longer, maintain > their appearance much longer and, using that same written music and > tab, produce sounds that will please the contemporary ear. People like > the sound, buy the CDs, tell their friends, get you on a radio spot, > the whole viral modern publicist path. > > > > So, for myself, I reject lute building as a study in dogma. I build to > play, to last and to please. So far so good. > > > > Rob Dorsey > > [1]http://LuteCraft.com > > -- > > References > > 1. http://LuteCraft.com/ > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > -- Dana Emery
