I had always assumed it was to play better in groups whether instrumentalists, singers or others just standing around. Less, jabbingly, so to speak. By 1500 tradition cemented the idea in the common mind that that was 'how a lute's shaped' perhaps in keeping with its history of the oud.
It also keeps the pegs at a common distance from the player and does not increase the depth of the instrument --unlike the thinner bodied vihuela/viola/fiddle family. So it does keep the shape compact. So maybe it was easier to construct a box before custom cases. When you set it down on its back it keeps the strings parallel (pre-7c instruments of course) which may have added to an aesthetic argument. This also means that when you hang it on a wall, the strings don't collect dust, well, the playing surfaces, anyway. Ok, I'm wandering. If the reason isn't physics (and we've seen that straight-out peg boxes could have worked but were not chosen in the 15th and most of the 16th centuries), trying to unravel the social and aesthetic reasons could be complex --a bit of one and two bits of another, as it were. my cent and a half, Sean On Sep 2, 2012, at 7:00 AM, Stephen Stubbs wrote: I was embarrassed when I realized I didn't know the historical reason to this question put forward on another email list: "Never did find out why the lute's neck takes that funny turn. Gotta Google it." Why does the peg box take that downward turn? "The Other" Stephen Stubbs Champaign, Illinois USA -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
