On Jan 5, 2009, at 12:20 PM, Guy Smith wrote: > I'm > afraid that I might have finally taken complete leave of my > senses, as > I am now in possession of one of those overly large lutes with > too many > strings (on loan, but...).
How long is it? If that's not too personal a question... > I plan to seek professional assistance soon, but in the interim, a > tuning question. The instrument is currently in A. I could > retune it to > G, so I could more easily transfer my experience with the G > lute, or I > could leave it in A and relearn a bunch of chords. Any advice on > which > option is likely to be preferable? FWIW, I don't have to perform > on it > for around 6 months, so relearning the chords should be manageable, > although the next rehearsal or two might be a bit rough. See the first question. Is the instrument theorbo-sized? i.e. too big to tune the top strings at lute pitch? There's nothing wrong with theorbo in G, though the sound may be a bit tubby; depends on the instrument. Consider one reentrant course instead of two, if you're considering them at all. If you had aspirations of being a professional, the answer would be "might as well tune it in A because you need to learn the tuning." For amateurs, especially those who might be slow to acquire the skill of reading in a new tuning, I'd say keep it simple and go with what you know. This also depends on what kind of music you're playing. If you're doing Vivaldi in E major, A tuning makes life easier. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
