-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: howard posner [mailto:howardpos...@ca.rr.com] Gesendet: Donnerstag, 19. Februar 2009 22:52 An: Lute Net Betreff: [LUTE] Re: Toyota Theorbo for rent, low mileage
On Feb 19, 2009, at 11:05 AM, Stewart McCoy wrote: > "Does some historical source say both "highest pitch possible" and > "thinnest useable string" in discussing theorbos? And if so, is > there > any reason to believe that every theorbist subscribed to it?" > > > That sounds like quite a bit of the sort to me. You were asking > Martyn > Hodgson to produce a source with specific wording, for > circumstances > which must apply to every theorbo player. Unfortunately the > implication > is, that if he fails to do so, his arguments are specious, which > is a > bit unfair. Sorry, no. I was responding to Mark Wheeler's remark that "one of the fundamentals of historical lute stringing, the highest string is tuned to the highest pitch that is possible with the thinnest useable string." (I quoted it with his name at the top.) A fair reading of that remark is that it's posited as universal: this is what most players did for centuries. I don't believe it for a moment, and I doubt anybody ever actually said it. Hence my question: did anyone ever say, "use the thinnest string you can and crank that sucker?" Even if Mace said such a thing, which he didn't, that does not establish such a dubious proposition as "one of the fundamentals of historical lute stringing." Your lengthy paragraphs oddly suggesting that I fault Mace for not mentioning Pittoni or Handel or Stockhausen are thus beside the point, except insofar as they acknowledge the limited application of Mace's remarks. > Your next question was, "What is the "thinnest useable string"?" It was kind of a rhetorical question... > To find your "thinnest useable string", simply measure the > thickness of all the strings you possess, and pick out the > thinnest one. If you find you can use it on the instrument of your > choice, you will have found the "thinnest useable string". If it > breaks, it won't be much use any more, except possibly for smaller > instruments or for frets. Have you ever done this? If you have, no offense intended, but it strikes me as a strange use of time. It's certainly not a recipe for optimum sound. I think historical players began with an idea of what was workable, received from teachers, other players and then their own experience. Why on earth would they be pushing the limits of practicality and constantly flirting with strings breaking in the middle of performances? I know Dowland emphatically prescribed the opposite, saying "first set on your Trebles, which must be strayned neither too stiffe nor too slacke, but of such a reasonable height that they may deliver a pleasant sound, and also (as Musitions call it) play too and fro after the strokes thereon," and warning of strings that were too thin: "but let it not be too small, for those give no sound, besides they will be either rotten for lacke of substance, or extreame false." > So far I have dwelt on the less contentious side of the question: > large instruments require a re-entrant tuning, because otherwise > there is a risk that their strings will break. I hope we are agreed > on that. We're not. There are plenty of big bass lutes out there that aren't in re-entrant tuning (and it appears that the first chitarrones started out as bass lutes). Re-entrant tuning is not a result of having a big instrument, but rather of having a big instrument with a basic A or G lute tuning instead of D or E tuning. Re-entrant tuning was thus always an aesthetic choice, and remains an aesthetic choice. In the 18th century, gallichons/mandoras too big to be tuned to lute pitch in G were tuned in non-rentrant tuning at lower pitches. These instruments were extremely common in Central Europe, probably more so than theorbos. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
