What nobody has mentioned yet is that body frets, while not unknown, were comparatively rare back in the day. There's a brief mention of them in 'Varietie' and only a few paintings show evidence of their use. Accurate stopping of the string on the soundboard might well have been the norm - and of course a 'singing' tone would be out. I suspect the reason people want them is that Dowland used fret positions right up to the 12th, and of course all the Bream recordings that lurk at the back of many players' minds have a wonderful sustained tone on these notes. Would Dowland himself have used them or would they be regarded as a crutch for amateur performers who couldn't stop the string accurately - a bit like some learning violinists use tied-on frets?
After the longer-necked lutes of the early 17th century came along (neck/body join at around the 10th fret usually) you have to look hard to find pieces that use notes above the 10th fret, for the rest of that century. Bill From: Dan Winheld <dwinh...@lmi.net> To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wednesday, 26 September 2012, 0:37 Subject: [LUTE] Best Body Frets? A question tossed onto the waves of this Ocean of Lute Wisdom- Any consensus regarding the best material for body frets? My woodies often sound a little too "woody"- they are some light colored wood, no idea what species; and lately I've been knocking them off the soundboard. So instead of just regluing them, I wonder if other materials might sound better (but still be easily glued, preferably with white glue?) I can think of ebony, maybe other legal/available tropical or other hardwoods, other materials? Ivory-like materials, celluloid, etc? And a format that's easy for the workshop-challenged non-luthier to deal with. (non-tapered toothpicks, half-round or something of that nature.) Thanks, all. Dan To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
