Dear Martin and All
Le 22 déc. 08 à 10:33, Martin Shepherd a écrit :
Dear Anthony and All,
Just to answer a few things from your message:
If the evidence from surviving lutes is anything to go by, a double
first was common on 7 and 8c lutes. There is no reason to
associate this practice with any specific number of courses.
but how about the lute type? Could it be more appropriate with mutli-
ribbed models?
I am in no doubt that the author of the Burwell lute tutor was
referring to the upper octave of the 11th course when he said
"small 11th" (because of the other remarks about how thick this
string has to be, etc.).
The 10/11c conversion I was describing is nothing to do with the
octave-only 11th. If you have a 10c lute with a single first and
all the rest double, that means you have 19 pegs. You only need
one more for the 11c conversion not because the 11th is single but
because the second is single: the 11c lute is 2x1 + 9x2 = 20
strings. But of course if you had a single 11th as well you
wouldn't even need an extra peg....
Yes that is indeed what I was meaning, counting the single on the 1c
and 2c, plus the single on the 11c. I wonder whether anyone has tried
playing like that just to see whether it is acceptable, or even
better than playing with a bass string. The proof is in the pudding,
as it is suitable to say right now!
TO seems to have become common at about the same time as the
increase in courses from 7 to 10, so I would tend to stick to TI
for 6c and have experimented with TO for lutes with more courses.
I'm still in the early stages of learning TO, but I'm convinced
it's the right thing to do.
Yes, it is tough making the change, I had only just mastered TI , but
very necessary on an 11c, I feel.
Just how much TO remains the question: When the little finger is
quite far back (Charles Mouton) the fingers seem to pojnt downwards
more, and the thumb goes well beyond them.
http://www.aquilacorde.com/mouton5.jpg
However, in that case, the thumb is not so near the bridge as the
fingesr are; and yet you would think, with low tension basses, you
would want the thumb nearer the bridge.
With the little finger further forward (Jacques Gautier?), then the
thumb and fingers are more aligned, but neither are near the bridge,
http://www.aquilacorde.com/lut.jpg
I have been playing around with this, but not coming to any clear
conclusion. It does not seem to be just the little finger position
which is so important, but where the thumb strikes the basses.
Gut basses (of whatever type) are less stretchy than wound ones and
therefore involve much smaller movements of the peg for big changes
in pitch. I have been pleasantly surprised that retuning them is
less of a problem than I feared.
Oh I thought that might be the contrary, but it is a long time since
I tuned a wirewound.
Talking about pitch standards is confusing unless you specify
nominal pitch. I still think of the "Dowland lute" as being "in G"
even though it might be at a'=392 or a'=330. Whatever kind of lute
we're talking about, if it is around 67cm string length, the pitch
of that top string should probably be no higher than f' at modern
pitch, probably more like e'. A double first tends to push the
pitch down because there's a limit to how thin a gut string can be
made and there's another limit to how much tension you can stand to
play on, especially if you play near the bridge.
Yes that was the interesting point that I thought you were making. I
suppose we should give the Hz value for the "G", if we want to be non-
ambiguous.
Best wishes,
Martin
Best wishes to all
Anthony
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