It may take few month to achieve good level of stretching. But one should work very carefuly and slowly. Every day or (better) few times a day regulary. Good warming-up before and massage with some hand-cream (I used baby oil) after stretching.
Dowland and many others are possible even with double courses (I used double courses on my video). But now I'm working on Bach's allegro ( [1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQdL5IQGcaw )and it's almost impossible to play it on double courses so I have to use singles. Moreover I have in plans to play on lute some pieces from guitar repertoire where single courses are strictly necessary. I guess (watching videos and photos) that POD uses shorter string lenght when plays renaissance lute. 2011/8/10 Edward Mast <[2]nedma...@aol.com> Thank you Bruno and both Eugenes, Paul O'Dette's comments are very interesting - I'll read the whole interview, Eugene. ( I wonder what string length P O uses on his Renaissance lutes). Yes, scale passages are not a problem with longer string lengths, I'm sure. I would expect the problems to be with fingered chords, especially barred chords. Your stretching exercises are impressive, E.K. I can't achieve that kind of stretch myself - with practice?? Certainly no problems for you in performing the Dowland, at least using single stringing. -- References 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQdL5IQGcaw 2. mailto:nedma...@aol.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
