Your post explains why the 8 course lute was developed, or as I like to call it, the "Double 7" . I have never found a string material of any sort that would stand up to a scordatura range exceeding a whole tone. Even going for a compromise tension (say an ideal E/E-flat) would still be unsatisfactory for me, but you could try tweaking that one. Some strange remedies to this conundrum have been attempted- including a mechanical kind of hook through the neck to pull down the low D at the 3rd fret. Only on some old, heavily built compromise lutes.
As a beginner, I would suggest having a 7th course dedicated to F. Unless you come to the lute with say, an advanced guitar left hand it will take a considerable amount of time & practice before you are able to fluently finger a 7th course- much 6 course music is already as difficult as it gets in lute land anyway. Many beginners find 8 courses confusing, and besides, the historic 8 course lute was a somewhat short lived version on the end-of-the-Renaissance lute's march to the 10 course version & beyond. When you achieve left hand mastery, switching out the low F to a low D will make for a 7th course that is more accessible anyway, (and a very widespread historic set-up) and not having to jump over a low F. Some players will reverse the 2 courses on an 8 course lute for this purpose. But, again, for many of us, the 8 course lute just solves more problems than it creates. If I had my druthers and more money, space, and time than I deserve I would own both 7 course and 9 course lutes (miss that low C in some favorite Holborne & R. Johnson pieces) for covering just the late Renaissance, Elizabethan/post Elizabethan repertoire. Good luck with this one. We have dealt with this one before on the list. Dan On May 2, 2012, at 8:39 AM, Joshua Burkholder wrote: > Dear lute-listers, > > A question from a beginner: > > First to introduce myself, my name is Joshua and I've been playing the lute > for several months now; I have been on the list for a couple weeks and am > really enjoying following your discussions. I have a rental 7-course and I am > now in the process of taking the plunge and buying a lute of my own. After > much reading, pondering and agonizing over the best number of courses to > start with, I've come to the conclusion that a 7-course best suits my needs. > So onto to my question: > > I know that some people re-tune the 7th course from D to F as needed, but on > my rental lute this seems quite impossible. The diapason is stung to F and if > I drop it down to D it becomes far too wobbly and flabby. From this I assume > that if I were to restring it to D, which I'd prefer on the whole, it would > likewise be impossible to raise it to F. Currently the lute is strung with > Pyramid strings so the basses are metal wound. Is it only possible to change > from D to F on the same string if one uses gut strings (Poulton remarks to > this effect in her tutor that if it's strung to be tuned at D "it will only > be possible to raise it to F if gut strings are used")? Otherwise I have to > re-string? Or does someone use some other stringing solution, besides just > keeping it D and fingering the third fret for F (or buying an 8-course > lute...)? I've read enough about stringing lutes to understand that it will > be a while before I understand anything about stringing lutes... > > Thank you for taking the time to help out a newcomer. > > Best wishes, > > Joshua > > > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
