Sam, thanks for this wonderful instruction! I copied and printed it!
__________________________________________________________________ Von: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu im Auftrag von Sam Chapman Gesendet: Mo 18/10/2010 17:13 An: m cornwall; lute-cs.dartmouth.edu Betreff: [LUTE] Re: beginner help required for thumb under technique Dear Morgan, Here are a few tips about RH technique on the lute (most of which I picked up during my lessons with Hopkinson Smith...): Firstly, I think most players find it much harder to get a good tone from the thumb than from the fingers - it's something that even the best players have to continually work on, so don't be disheartened! If the sound is harsh it may simply be because the the skin on your thumb is rough. Just as modern guitarists are obsessive about the shape/smoothness of their nails, lutenists soon realise how much difference the state of the fingertips makes to the sound produced. You may consider avoiding doing lots of manual work (gardening, working with tools, chopping wood etc), wearing gloves in cold weather, evading doing the washing up, using hand creams, etc...during periods when you plan to play the lute a lot. If the strings are buzzing against each other or the frets, it might be worth checking that your lute is set up really well. If the string spacing is very narrow, or the tension is very low this might cause buzzing. Also, if the frets are old or not quite the right guage you might get similar problems. The best thing would be to get this checked out by an experienced player or maker, otherwise you might waste a lot of time! As for the stroke itself, you might consider the following: 1. At the start of the stroke, try to have contact with both strings of the course. You can practice this by planting the thumb on the course and feeling both strings under your thumb, without pushing them towards each other. 2. The most important thing about getting a good sound with the thumb is to allow the arm to move freely. At the beginning you might want to take your little finger off the soundboard, and make thumb strokes where you simply put the thumb on the course (as above) then allow the weight of the arm to bring the thumb through the strings from the elbow (keeping the wrist, hand, and thumb more or less as a unit). Do this with big exaggerated movements at the beginning, until the arm feels very free. You can also simply strum through all the courses like this. This can be very hard for guitarists, since the elbow is more or less locked in place most of the time on the classical guitar. 3. Once the arm is free and moveable you can put your little finger back on the soundboard and do the same kind of thing, obviously making less exaggerated movements. But generous arm movements are generally very good (you only need to make smaller movements when you start playing very fast passages). Your little finger and wrist need to be quite flexible, otherwise the arm can't move. 4. As for the thumb itself, the joint I allow to move is the third one back from the tip (at the bass of the hand). If you are playing notes with the fingers at the same time, the arm can't move, so the movement comes entirely from there. For playing scale passages I use a combination of arm and this 3rd joint (for very fast passage the arm barely moves, but never becomes stiff). I would think of the other thumb joints more as affecting tone quality. If you keep them rigid you are more likely to produce a strong bright sound; if they are more flexible your sound might be sweeter and warmer. But never use these joints for actually producing the sound (especially the last joint!). 5. Things like the direction the stroke takes and what part of the thumb to use vary from player to player (and thumb to thumb!). It's best to experiment. You will find that the kind of stroke you use depends on the music and what kind of sound you want to produce. It's good to practice both rest strokes and free strokes. As a general rule, use rest strokes wherever you can, unless it's a fast scale passage or you need to play an adjacent string with a finger. I find that I can make a strong bright sound if I use mainly the tip, but using more of the thumbs surface may give more warmth and is generally better for playing runs in combination with the index. It's a good idea to experiment with pushing the strings towards the body of the instrument when you pluck. However, when playing real music you don't always have time to do this, so you also need to find a way to get a good sound with a quick stroke. In general, the thumb (also the fingers) should never slide along the strings as you pluck, and should move in one clear direction (S-shaped movements are not advisable!). I'm not sure I would say that the thumb stroke is lighter on the lute than the guitar. It's just different. If you ever play on gut basses you will see that a very firm thumb stroke is necessary to get a good balance and quality of sound. 6. If your thumb sometimes collides with the other fingers this probably has a lot to do with your general hand position (and lute position!). However much you change what your fingers do, if you hold the lute at a similar angle to how you would hold a guitar, and your right hand approaches it at a similar angle, you will never develop a good thumb-in technique. Your right hand needs to approach the instrument at a much less acute angle, ideally so that the right arm/wrist passes more or less over the bridge. You can achieve this by either dropping the right shoulder as much as possible (popular, but not advised!) or by finding a way to raise the lute so that your arm aproaches it naturally at a less acute angle. Some players use a footstool for the right foot, others sit on a very low chair, some suspend the lute in mid air with a strap...I personally use a little cushion on my right leg to raise the lute. The smaller the instrument, the bigger the problem! The lute should also be held at a less steep angle than a modern guitar. When you get these geometrical problems sorted out, the chances are that your right hand will fall more or less naturally in the correct place and you won't have problems avoiding your thumb and fingers clashing. It shouldn't be an effort to avoid them bumping into each other - the position of the body and the instrument should simply make it more or less impossible (unless you have a very long thumb or very short fingers!). I hope this helps a bit. As you can see, this is a very large topic and even with a good teacher it can take years to develop healthy technical habits. Good luck! All the best, Sam P.S. You can judge me thumb technique for yourself here: [1][1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnpaOTGrG2M On 11 October 2010 15:50, m cornwall <[2]mc4...@yahoo.com> wrote: Howdy, I am now the proud owner of a lovely Barber and Harris 7 course student lute. I have played the guitar for years, but the lute is new to me. I have been studying lute technique as I best can from home, using books, the internet and some DVDs I have. I have yet to find an available teacher anywhere near me. I have a number of things to sort out, but the most pressing at the moment is my thumb-under technique. I can get a nice tone from my fingers, but the tone produced by my thumb is harsh. I suspect the courses are either bumping into each other or the frets, but it is also just the way the thumb engages the strings. So I am looking for advice on the proper thumb stroke. Most of the videos I have, such Ronn McFarlane's Mel Bay video, show the hands from front on. I have yet to find a video shot from above and behind the player which might be helpful. (just found this ukulele thumb under video: [1][3][2]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4) My nails are short. I believe that my hand position is reasonably close to where it should be (i.e. it's not in the classical guitar position). Obviously the lute requires a much lighter thumb stroke than used on the guitar, but even when I use a light strike the sound produced by my thumb is not at all as pleasant as the sound when using my fingers. Does the thumb stroke primarily come from the main thumb joint? When playing scales the arm seems to come into use as well. But what about the last joint on the thumb? Players preference? Does the thumb begin it's stroke only touching 1 string of a course, similar to a guitar, or does it rest on both strings, more like the fingers? Is the general direction of the tip of the thumb down, perpendicular to the strings, or somewhat angled, down and away from the neck? Is the portion of the thumb that touches the strings the side, mainly the side with a bit of the curve of the tip, mostly on the curve of the tip (where the nail ends), or something else? When playing chords, my thumb is much happier when rolling chords. When striking all the courses simultaneously, my thumb is more likely to run out of space and collide with my index finger. Thank you in advance for any advice, morgan -- References 1. [4][3]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4 To get on or off this list see list information at [5][4]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- Sam Chapman Oetlingerstrasse 65 4057 Basel (0041) 79 530 39 91 -- References 1. [5]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnpaOTGrG2M 2. [6]mailto:mc4...@yahoo.com 3. [7]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4 4. [8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4 5. [9]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnpaOTGrG2M 2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4 3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4 4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnpaOTGrG2M 6. mailto:mc4...@yahoo.com 7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4 8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Bab_tC20K4 9. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html