I once tore the wooden frets off my six-course lute (got sick of bad intonation with gut midrange & bass strings) and played it that way for a few years. One soon learns to fret those notes with correct intonation after a reasonable amount of proper practice, and a whole new sound register opens up. In fact, with or without body frets I recommend that all serious lute students- when the general level of competence permits- should spend time practicing scales & improvised passagi beyond the frets. One toccata by Piccinini (Posthumous 2nd volume published in 1639 by his son Leonardo Maria Piccinini) goes to the 19th semitone- about 1/4" short of the rose on my archlute- and most of us could certainly go to the 15th semitone. An added bonus from this practice is fluency within the "standard" one octave compass. Far too many of us suddenly shut down and stop when sight reading (duets, for instance) when the action goes beyond the 7th fret. Beyond the frets, there is neither hemitonic nor anhemitonic; a liberating tonic to the ear. But you got to learn precision, which pays dividends. Dan
>The vast majority of the early lutes had no body frets, and the high >notes can be easily and with a nice but distinctively different sound >played all the way up the B flat (imaginary fret 15) on the soundboard.. >Some lutes either show body frets or curious decorative squiggles, >but these are a minority report. >We can rule out the orpharion for Neusidler, I think, since it hadn't >been invented yet. >The anhemitonic principle in fretting is well documented, for some >composers, 12 came after 10. >If we built the lutes to favor the fretless sound for the high >positions, they would produce an even better sound. >I suspect they had tastini or "gluons" as well, just for one or two notes. >dt > -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
