On 2 May 2012 17:39, Joshua Burkholder <burkholder.jos...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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. Hi Joshua, welcome to lute café You want a 7-course? Stick with it, I think they are superior instruments (I play - among far too many other stringy things - 6, 8 and 10-course Renaissance lutes and are the living embodiment of the definition of a lute player: an instrumentalist always one instrument short). My experience is: less string makes better instruments (shorter bridge gives more freedom to the top / a limited range is easier for a lute body and/or luthier to handle ...?). I think you'll be fine with a 7th course tuned to F. If you need the occasional low D, you'll transpose up an octave or will accept the absence. If you'll have periods of playing lots of low D music, you'll change strings. If it's the occasional piece, you'll retune and will learn to live with a flabby string (give the strings some days to settle, give yourself some days to come to terms with the low tension, adapt your technique: play close to the bridge, change the angle of your thumb). You'd be surprised at the range of string tensions amongst lute players (I am, anyway, whenever I pick up an instrument form somebody else), so if there's other people that can play on ridiculously low/high tensions, you can for the occasional piece. anyway, choose a string diameter for E or E-flat, and you'll be double safe. I tune the low D on my 8-course to C without trouble. The whole 8-course used to go up and down between 415 to 440 before I had the luxury of seperate 415 and 440 lutes. My 6-course still goes up and down a whole tone (g or a, whatever is needed) occasionally with the same strings even. It takes a little time for the strings/instrument/me to adjust, but it works. David - a 7-course, hmm, on my wish list for sure -- ******************************* David van Ooijen davidvanooi...@gmail.com www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
