Dear Martin, Not strictly relevant to your discussion, but the eighteenth century six course mandora/gallichon could have octaves up to and including the fourth course ie c with a c' if a nominal d' (top course) instrument. How widespread this arrangement was I have been unable, as yet, to establish. In practice I find a high octave on the fourth course is highly intrusive in much of the solo repertoire and so I use octaves only on the fifth and sixth courses of both my d' and e' gallichons. But this is, of course, a subjective judgement...... Similarly, I've also been unable to ascertain what arrangement the eighteenth century Italia liuto used - though from the fingerboard diagram and 'Scale' of Dalla Casa's 10 course Arcileuto Francese he seems to have had unison throughout - with, interestingly, a double first course (as, of course, many archlutes seemed to have employed) Martyn __________________________________________________________________
From: Martin Shepherd <mar...@luteshop.co.uk> To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Saturday, 17 January 2015, 10:26 Subject: [LUTE] Re: 16th century tuning and stringing Good question! ;) On 17/01/2015 10:08, Robert Barto wrote: Dear Martin, OK. Great. When were they converted? Thanks, Robert -- Sent from my Android phone with GMX Mail. Please excuse my brevity. Martin Shepherd [1]<[1]mar...@luteshop.co.uk> wrote: I think it's likely that Dowland was referring only to the 6th course, courses 4 and 5 having been already "converted" to unisons by that time. He says specifically, "In that place which we call the sixth string" - when he could easily have said something like "all the basses". I suspect even when he had his 6th course in unison, he had the 7th-9th courses still in octaves (hard to imagine a unison 9th course in gut). Martin On 17/01/2015 01:13, Robert Barto wrote: > Thank you all for this so far. > I just checked out Barley (1596) which is apparently a revision of the > previous English translation of le Roys instructions. It clearly calls > for octaves on 4, 5 and 6. So this tuning seems to have been propagated > in the tutors in late 16th century England. (Matthew Spring in his > "Lute in Britain" suggests that this might not have reflected practice > at this time (1596) as in 1603 Thomas Robinson already calls for > unisons.) > I reread the Dowland comments in the Varietie as well. It sounds to me > as if he is at least saying that he prefers unisons, and that octaves > were being used more in England at than elsewhere. I cannot imagine > that he is only talking about the 6th course. Perhaps the style had > already been changing on the continent. > __________________________________________________________________ > > [1][avast-mail-stamp.png] > > Diese E-Mail wurde von Avast Antivirus-Software auf Viren geprueft. > [2][2]www.avast.com > > -- > > References > > 1.[3] [2]http://www.avast.com/ > 2.[4] [3]http://www.avast.com/ > > > To get on or off this list see list information at >[5] [4]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. [6][5]http://www.avast.com __________________________________________________________________ [7][avast-mail-stamp.png] This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. [8]www.avast.com -- References 1. mailto:[6]mar...@luteshop.co.uk 2. [7]http://www.avast.com/ 3. [8]http://www.avast.com/ 4. [9]http://www.avast.com/ 5. [10]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html 6. [11]http://www.avast.com/ 7. [12]http://www.avast.com/ 8. [13]http://www.avast.com/ -- References 1. mailto:mar...@luteshop.co.uk 2. http://www.avast.com/ 3. http://www.avast.com/ 4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 5. http://www.avast.com/ 6. mailto:mar...@luteshop.co.uk 7. http://www.avast.com/ 8. http://www.avast.com/ 9. http://www.avast.com/ 10. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 11. http://www.avast.com/ 12. http://www.avast.com/ 13. http://www.avast.com/