Tony, I use thumb-under at the conclusion of Britten's "Nocturnal". The theme at the end, upon which the entire preceding work has been based is Dowland's "Come, Heavy Sleep". Even with guitar nails, I have no problem doing a nail-less thumb under. This makes the renaissance piece contrast timbrically (is that a word?) from the rest of the piece. The end sounds dreamy, distant and resigned in a way that is very different from the unsettled portions before... just drifting off... Quite artistically effective, I believe.
Chris Dr. Christopher Wilke D.M.A. Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer www.christopherwilke.com -------------------------------------------- On Tue, 8/5/14, Tony <ascbrigh...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: Subject: [LUTE] Re: those Pignoses! To: "Doug Asherman" <dashe...@sonic.net>, "lutelist Net" <Lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Tuesday, August 5, 2014, 5:34 PM Doug and Tobiah Just out of curiosity I attempted thumb-under lute technique on my CG. I needed to raise the pinky with a lightly stuck-on pencil eraser (due to the raised soundboard the strings are high). Apart from that, no problem, it was easy and sounded reasonably good though subdued. __________________________________________________________________ From: Doug Asherman <dashe...@sonic.net> To: lutelist Net <Lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Tuesday, 5 August 2014, 17:35 Subject: [LUTE] Re: those Pignoses! On 8/4/14 6:12 PM, howard posner wrote: > On Aug 4, 2014, at 1:54 PM, Tobiah <[1]t...@tobiah.org> wrote: > > Our ears are in tune with a different set of practices > now (at least the general public). Perhaps if we looked up from anthropology > It's not anthropology. It's the instruction manual. If you pay thousands of dollars for an instrument (and millions of dollars for strings), you should at least read it. > There's an instruction manual? Why am I spending all this money on lessons? As a long-time guitar player (~40 years) and a raw beginner on the lute (slightly more than a year), I'm in favor of the pinky on the soundboard position. For me, at least, it makes rest strokes with the thumb easier; and a decent rest stroke with the thumb makes it easier to play a consistently strong melody line. I can't really discuss right and wrong technique here, since I am a beginner; I can only talk about what works for me. If I tried to play the lute the same way I play guitar, I wouldn't be making much progress. Doug To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:t...@tobiah.org 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html