It depends why you want to learn to read staff notation. One issue to consider is: who will you play with and what will you play.
If you're going to play Chitarone and your friends play instruments that like sharp keys, as violins and flutes often do, you probably should learn to read notation on an A lute. If you're going to play with instruments that like flat keys, then learn on a G lute. Regards, Gordon -----Original Message----- From: angevin...@att.net [mailto:angevin...@att.net] Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 8:55 PM To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] reading mensural notation Perhaps like many lute players, I started out playing lute strictly from tablature. While I'm fluent reading mensural notation for singing or other instruments, I've never mastered it with the lute. I feel this is a lack, and would like to fix it - except for how much work it is! Now I currently play both a tenor in G and an alto in A. I can think of reasons why it would be "nice" to be able to read mensural notation on each of them. But since the task at hand is already difficult (and hard to motivate practicing), I really need to pick either the G or the A and just learn that for now. Like most lute players, I played some (classical) guitar first, so really it would probably be slightly easier to learn the association from A lute to mensural notation. But perhaps the G is more generally useful in the long run. Any advice from the collected wisdom? Suzanne -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
