Hello Again,
Let me begin by giving a big thank you to everyone for the replies. Many were sent to me and not the list, and all have been helpful and informative. I live in rural Nova Scotia, Canada, and I am not aware of any lutenists nearby, although I'm sure there may be some. I was told that there is 1 LSA member in this province. I did once, many years ago, take a course at Dalhousie University called "Guitar and Lute" which was taught by Carol van Feggelen. It was there that I learned a little bit about reading lute tablature. If I recall correctly, we mastered a virtuoso piece entitled 'Packington's Pound'. I also remember learning a tune by Holborne that was quite beautiful, with many suspended chords. Carol was kind enough to lend me a student lute for a couple of weeks. I found it hard to tune, hard to hold, and quickly decided that I'd stick to the guitar. That was many years ago and now I can hardly remember what it was like. I have always wanted to own and play the lute as I love it's sound. While I've listen to lute music from many eras I didn't realize all the subtle (and perhaps not so subtle) differences. So now that I am on the verge of purchasing a student lute I want to try and make the best decision possible. I play guitar without fingernails, and I hope to learn the thumb under technique. I plan to play solo, primarily for my own enjoyment, and I love both older renaissance music (I guess I'm thinking Milan/Milano) and the later music such as Dowland, as well as lots of other composers as well. I realize Milan is normally played on the vihuela, but I'm trying to figure out the repertoire and what is possible on a renaissance lute so that I fully understand what to expect. I am certainly quite ignorant about lute history, and renaissance/baroque music and composers. I may or may not be able to find a lute locally to play, but I definitely want to know as much as possible about the different models and styles, and what can be played on them before I commit to a certain model. As much as the thought of purchasing a lute scares me financially, the thought of owning two is out of the question. So all the advice has been most useful to me in sorting this out. I have a question regarding Howard Posner's comment that a 7 course lute with the 7th course tuned to D is a different instrument than the 7 course lute tuned to F. Is it actually a different instrument, or was that a matter of speech and one can use the same instrument by either restringing or retuning? If it's a case of restringing/retuning, can you simply retune, or does that depend on whether it's a gut or synthetic string? Again, I appreciate all the advice and information I have received. regards, morgan Lastly, while I'm sure everyone on this list is tired of the world's most/least popular lute joke, and nobody likes a beginner making bad jokes, I chuckled to myself when I expanded the tired, "Lutenists spend half their time tuning their lute and half their time playing out of tune". As I mentioned, it's just a personal bit of long-winded humour, please don't be offended. And with no further ado: Lutenists spend 1/5th of their time tuning their lute, 1/5th of their time playing out of tune, 1/5th of their time trying to figure out how to hold onto their lute, 1/5th of their time wishing they had more or less courses, and 1/5th of their time wondering how they will pay for it. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
