[LUTE] Re: very low pitch
David, Not impressed. Black Sabbath was playing at 370 and below, way before anyone else back in the early 1970's. Most other hard rock/metal bands tune to at least 415 or 392 - as they have been doing for a couple of decades. Truly HIP. ;-) Chris --- David Tayler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My French ensemble performs often at 370, this includes specially made keyboards, winds and strings, plus large lutes at 370, which can be considered french pitch along with super low pitch of ~340. Good evidence for both pitches from historical keyboard instruments, but other pitches must have been used, such as 392, 408, 399, 411, 430, etc. Free listen: http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/orinda-airs/hifi_play As a starting point for French baroque lute, on a French Frey, 399 or 400 is a very good choice. I often find 415 a bit too high, and 392 a bit tubby due to the relatively small scale. An amusing pitch fact-- Most HIP classical music is performed at 430, higher than 415, even though Mozart's tuning fork was 2 cents lower than Handel's fork. dt To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: very low pitch
In France, from my experience, we tend to use A =404, aka the Peugeot pitch ;-) a lot for the early baroque repertoire. Jean-Marie === 30-06-2008 17:41:50 === David, Not impressed. Black Sabbath was playing at 370 and below, way before anyone else back in the early 1970's. Most other hard rock/metal bands tune to at least 415 or 392 - as they have been doing for a couple of decades. Truly HIP. ;-) Chris --- David Tayler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My French ensemble performs often at 370, this includes specially made keyboards, winds and strings, plus large lutes at 370, which can be considered french pitch along with super low pitch of ~340. Good evidence for both pitches from historical keyboard instruments, but other pitches must have been used, such as 392, 408, 399, 411, 430, etc. Free listen: http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/orinda-airs/hifi_play As a starting point for French baroque lute, on a French Frey, 399 or 400 is a very good choice. I often find 415 a bit too high, and 392 a bit tubby due to the relatively small scale. An amusing pitch fact-- Most HIP classical music is performed at 430, higher than 415, even though Mozart's tuning fork was 2 cents lower than Handel's fork. dt To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --- Orange vous informe que cet e-mail a ete controle par l'anti-virus mail. Aucun virus connu a ce jour par nos services n'a ete detecte. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://poirierjm.free.fr 30-06-2008
[LUTE] Re: very low pitch
Tonni Iommi from Black Sabbath reason for downtuning was the accident that damaged his fingers. From Wikipedia... Tony Iommi picked up the guitar as a teenager, after being inspired by the likes of Hank Marvin and The Shadows. He played guitar left-handed. In an industrial accident at the age of 17 on his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, he lost the tips of the middle and ring finger of his right hand. Iommi considered abandoning music, but his boss (who knew of Iommi's night job as a pub band guitar player) encouraged him to reconsider by playing a record by jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who earned wide acclaim despite limited use of his fretting hand. After attempting to learn to play right-handed, Iommi strung his guitars with extra-light strings (using banjo strings, which were a lighter gauge than even the lightest guitar-strings of the time) and wore plastic covers over the two damaged fingers. He fashioned the latter himself, by melting plastic liquid-soap bottles into a ball and then using a soldering iron to make holes into this ball, putting his fingers in while the plastic was still soft enough to be shaped. He then trimmed and sanded away the excess plastic to leave himself with two thimbles, which he then covered with leather, to provide better grip on the strings. Subsequent tips have been custom-made. The fascinating thing is that an industrial accident to a teenager in Birmingham should cause an impact on a whole music culture. That said the use of this downtuning is varied from a semitone to 2 whole tones and even beyond. Some guitarists use thicker string to compensate for the loss in tension and some do not. Also not every heavy metal band uses downtuning, for example one of the most important HM bands Iron Maiden, who have begun to use drop-d tuning for some songs in the last 8 years, still use standard guitar pitch. It just shows that music history can take strange twists, but it seems that certain themes recur again and again, the use of pitch as an important part of a musical aesthetic is one of them. All the best Mark -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Gesendet: Montag, 30. Juni 2008 17:42 An: David Tayler; lute-cs.dartmouth.edu Betreff: [LUTE] Re: very low pitch David, Not impressed. Black Sabbath was playing at 370 and below, way before anyone else back in the early 1970's. Most other hard rock/metal bands tune to at least 415 or 392 - as they have been doing for a couple of decades. Truly HIP. ;-) Chris --- David Tayler [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: My French ensemble performs often at 370, this includes specially made keyboards, winds and strings, plus large lutes at 370, which can be considered french pitch along with super low pitch of ~340. Good evidence for both pitches from historical keyboard instruments, but other pitches must have been used, such as 392, 408, 399, 411, 430, etc. Free listen: http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/orinda-airs/hifi_play As a starting point for French baroque lute, on a French Frey, 399 or 400 is a very good choice. I often find 415 a bit too high, and 392 a bit tubby due to the relatively small scale. An amusing pitch fact-- Most HIP classical music is performed at 430, higher than 415, even though Mozart's tuning fork was 2 cents lower than Handel's fork. dt To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: very low pitch
Tony Iommi picked up the guitar as a teenager, after being inspired by the likes of Hank Marvin and The Shadows. Just like Nigel North. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: PDFprinting problems.
Dear All,
I downloaded some PDF files of The Weiss London Ms which I wanted to get
printed professionally. I checked each file (68) using both Acrobat and
pdf995Edit and gsview. They were fine. I then amalgamated then into four
PDFs checked again and sent them by email to the printers. The output was
wrong with a number of pages and I can only assume that fonts were being
substituted as the tablature lines were correct but the tablature glyphs had
been replaced by punctuation marks. The printer's computer screen showed the
files correctly. The manager said that this had never happened before and
they print off thousands of PDFs. I cannot explain it . Document info shows
that the Django fonts are embedded. I have printed these files before and
were it not for the 'fiddle' of binding them I would do it again. Can
anybody ell me what the problem is?
Thanks
Charles
it's a long winding road without a map and compass. {MRY6STVMNzY9Gl7wis}
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[LUTE] Re: LSA journal
No it has not been sent yet - It's coming from the printer later today and will be in the mail in a few days. The editor Jim Stimson had a few problems which slowed him down and then we both spent the last week in Cleveland hearing great music and some wonderful lectures on Dowland from Ray Nurse. This issue will be in an envelope with the 2003 Journal. With the mail it might take 2-4 weeks for some people to get this. Nancy does anyone know if the LSA quarterly has already been sent? I'm from Italy and i have not yet received the May issue. Thanks Davide To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Nancy Carlin Associates P.O. Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582 web site - www.nancycarlinassociates.com Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA web site - http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org --
[LUTE] Archlute strings
Hello all, I have a small archlute (or a liuto attiorbato that's six eggs short of a dozen) - 64cm. lower, 97cm upper, 6 or 7 single diapasons. I have taken care of courses 1 - 5 to my provisional satisfaction and now want to improve on the La Bella diapasons, if that can be done without spending well over $300 on Dan Larson's gut diapasons. This is not one of my gut-kosher instruments; anything that sounds better than the most harsh overspuns, whether a better brand/style of overspun, or some other relatively inexpensive synthetic. I'd like to know what others are doing, and what you might recommend- all suggestions welcomed, and thanks for same. Bass string #8-E/Eb has the dual option of being outboard or inboard. As good a transition as reasonably possible from 5th to (probably) overspun 6th, and from lower to upper pegboxes is of concern. Right now it's nylon 1 2, KF 3, 4, 5, and La Bella overspun for all the rest. G nom. pitch, A-415, tension 2.5 kg/string. Quick oversimplified extended peg box lute definitions (works great for 'splainin' it all to non-lute folk): Theorbo- bass lute on a stick Archlute- Tenor lute on a stick Liuto Attiorbato- Alto lute on a short stick. I'm surprised no one knows the true historical reasons for the long neck on arch lutes- To keep that 2nd pegbox completely out of reach of the operator. Lord knows he's doing enough damage already. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Decisions, decisions
Alan Hoyle wrote: As retirement, and subsequent reduction of money to spend on luxuries, approaches, my wife (or 'wifu', David, but never again 'her indoors') has informed me that it should be possible for me to buy one last instrument. Realistically, though, I couldn't really go much beyond £2000( plus whatever I can get for my 1979 nine-course orpharion, which my slightly arthritic wrists, elbows shoulders cannot manage to play now) At present, I have (in addition to the orpharion) a six-course G lute, a six-course G viola da mano, and a seven-course G lute that I built some 30 years ago from the Harwood Isaacs lute kit - no prizes for guessing the repertoire that I have been playing. But now I find myself totally unsure what to choose. For many years I have dreamed of one day owning a baroque lute. Would that be a sensible choice for a man whose fingers are slowing down (to say nothing of his brain!). And if it were a sensible choice, then how many courses? The only baroque repertoire that I am at all familiar with is Weiss (thanks to Robert Barto) and Bach (thanks to Walter Gerwig) - almost certainly too demanding for me to contemplate trying to learn. I know nothing of the French 17th century styles, is there scope there for an aging novice? Should I stick to the 'Golden Age', simply moving from mostly pre-1550 to focus more on 1600? And then, once more the question arises, how many courses? I know this was discussed a few months ago I can go and look in the archives... Or, should I stick with what I am accustomed to and buy an instrument of different character - a vihuela in A, for example, of a lower pitched lute in E or F? Or... should I simply tell my wife, 'No, dear, I really don't need any more instruments - I think you should buy yourself a bigger greenhouse'? I would seriously welcome suggestions and advice. Alan How about a five-course (Baroque) guitar? I think these might be in your price range though modern makers tend to copy only the most ornate models from the past - and charge accordingly. This will give you a huge repertoire (from the early 17th century right into the 18th) from the familiar (Sanz, De Visee etc ) to... as obscure as you want. And you could dabble with continuo and accompany others. And you can endlessly muse about stringing and tuning. Stuart No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG. Version: 8.0.101 / Virus Database: 270.4.3/1524 - Release Date: 28/06/2008 19:42 To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Archlute strings
-- Cheaper option, and actually a bit better in sound than Sofracob plain gut: (Sofracob) fret gut (you'd be surprised how many pro's do this anyway). Thanks! That's the kind of thinking I was looking for- I've already cheated with fret gut for courses where it should be illegal when caught short for a gut string at an inconvenient moment's notice. I may even have some fret gut to play with already- but I'm also hoping to hear if anyone can recommend, say, Savarez copper wound vs. Nylgut overspun for excess brightness or vice versa- or whether any of the synthetic monofilaments work tolerably, although I don't think I could stomach the appearance of 6 or 7 of those bleached skull dead white nylguts spanning almost 100 cm. in their typical ghostly array. Another not option are the new Type C loads- just got this email from Curtis Daily: The new Type C are available and are supposed to be very good, but they are also incredibly expensive. I recently priced out 6 lute basses for someone at $319.75. I won't be stocking them at those kind of prices and will only be getting them when someone orders them. -- David - has a 61/106cm archlute with single basses I see we are in the same ballpark. Is yours based on a particular historical model? Mine was just a salvage operation, (done as a favor), on an old, small 10 course. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Decisions, decisions
Hi-If you are interested in the baroque lute, you should get one. You just might find the left hand fingerings easier on the fingers than the ren-lute. As to the question of how many courses-that should be determined by the music you want to play. Get a 13 course if you like Weiss and Bach, or get an 11 course if you like early German or French music. If you are not sure, just get a 13 course and you can cover it all. Sterling - Original Message From: Alan Hoyle [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Lutelist Net lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2008 10:39:42 AM Subject: [LUTE] Decisions, decisions As retirement, and subsequent reduction of money to spend on luxuries, approaches, my wife (or 'wifu', David, but never again 'her indoors') has informed me that it should be possible for me to buy one last instrument. Realistically, though, I couldn't really go much beyond £2000( plus whatever I can get for my 1979 nine-course orpharion, which my slightly arthritic wrists, elbows shoulders cannot manage to play now) At present, I have (in addition to the orpharion) a six-course G lute, a six-course G viola da mano, and a seven-course G lute that I built some 30 years ago from the Harwood Isaacs lute kit - no prizes for guessing the repertoire that I have been playing. But now I find myself totally unsure what to choose. For many years I have dreamed of one day owning a baroque lute. Would that be a sensible choice for a man whose fingers are slowing down (to say nothing of his brain!). And if it were a sensible choice, then how many courses? The only baroque repertoire that I am at all familiar with is Weiss (thanks to Robert Barto) and Bach (thanks to Walter Gerwig) - almost certainly too demanding for me to contemplate trying to learn. I know nothing of the French 17th century styles, is there scope there for an aging novice? Should I stick to the 'Golden Age', simply moving from mostly pre-1550 to focus more on 1600? And then, once more the question arises, how many courses? I know this was discussed a few months ago I can go and look in the archives... Or, should I stick with what I am accustomed to and buy an instrument of different character - a vihuela in A, for example, of a lower pitched lute in E or F? Or... should I simply tell my wife, 'No, dear, I really don't need any more instruments - I think you should buy yourself a bigger greenhouse'? I would seriously welcome suggestions and advice. Alan -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 3 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len To get on or off this list see list information at 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
[LUTE] Re: Decisions, decisions
On Jun 30, 2008, at 4:14 PM, sterling price wrote: You just might find the left hand fingerings easier on the fingers than the ren-lute. But be sure your arthritic joints can handle the right-hand stretches. Imagine a few more courses on your nine-course. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Lutes in Eastern Europe
I have added about a dozen of fascinating iconographic titbits at http://torban.org/mamai/index.html and the succeeding pages. Enjoy, RT To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Decisions, decisions
Consider a dual purpose instrument. An archlute, or a 9 course or 10 course can be dual setup to play in French tuning, either with double strings (archlute) or single strings (9 or 10 course) as well as the original tuning. You can also setup the archlute to play in single and double, old tuning or D minor tuning. Weiss on the theorbo in D minor tuning sounds amazing, btw. dt At 09:39 AM 6/29/2008, you wrote: As retirement, and subsequent reduction of money to spend on luxuries, approaches, my wife (or 'wifu', David, but never again 'her indoors') has informed me that it should be possible for me to buy one last instrument. Realistically, though, I couldn't really go much beyond £2000( plus whatever I can get for my 1979 nine-course orpharion, which my slightly arthritic wrists, elbows shoulders cannot manage to play now) At present, I have (in addition to the orpharion) a six-course G lute, a six-course G viola da mano, and a seven-course G lute that I built some 30 years ago from the Harwood Isaacs lute kit - no prizes for guessing the repertoire that I have been playing. But now I find myself totally unsure what to choose. For many years I have dreamed of one day owning a baroque lute. Would that be a sensible choice for a man whose fingers are slowing down (to say nothing of his brain!). And if it were a sensible choice, then how many courses? The only baroque repertoire that I am at all familiar with is Weiss (thanks to Robert Barto) and Bach (thanks to Walter Gerwig) - almost certainly too demanding for me to contemplate trying to learn. I know nothing of the French 17th century styles, is there scope there for an aging novice? Should I stick to the 'Golden Age', simply moving from mostly pre-1550 to focus more on 1600? And then, once more the question arises, how many courses? I know this was discussed a few months ago I can go and look in the archives... Or, should I stick with what I am accustomed to and buy an instrument of different character - a vihuela in A, for example, of a lower pitched lute in E or F? Or... should I simply tell my wife, 'No, dear, I really don't need any more instruments - I think you should buy yourself a bigger greenhouse'? I would seriously welcome suggestions and advice. Alan -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 3 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: [**spam**] Lutes in Eastern Europe
Fascinating, as you say, Roman. Does anyone know what these fellows would have been playing? And the torban players at the head of long lines of horesemen; any comments? Best, CS. Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] 6/30/2008 8:13 PM I have added about a dozen of fascinating iconographic titbits at http://torban.org/mamai/index.html and the succeeding pages. Enjoy, RT To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
