On Feb 22, 2009, at 1:12 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: > You say that Praetorius doesn't mention pitch (tho' many might > disagree with you) but then go on to relate your derived size of > 79cm to modern practice and thus draw insecure conclusions.
My "conclusions" are not "insecure," but rather downright silly, since they are based on the assumption you've stated repeatedly: that all historical theorbos were built with the longest practicable string length for maximum volume. If we retain that unsupported assumption, an 89cm string length is, by definition, the maximum for a double-re-entrant theorbo in G, and thus a theorbo in A has to be smaller. Drop the assumption and the whole "toy theorbo" debate vanishes in a puff of logic. > It was precisely the unecessary stringing of small theorboes (say, > fingered string lengths around 76cm) Why, Martin, I believe this is the first time you've actually given us a Toyosity Threshold Number. I'm very disappointed to find out my instrument doesn't qualify as a toy. I'll fix that right away with a hacksaw, of course, and notify Mattel. > You ask about Praetorius's 'Paduanische Theorba' and the stringing > of its long basses (at 128cm) and imply his evidence is thereby > somehow discredited. What I imply is that if his Paduan Theorbo is otherwise unknown, it's a poor model of "the historical theorbo," even if Praetorius did his drawing based on x-ray examination of a real instrument someone sent him from Padua. > In fact the obvious answer is that, unlike his Roman theorbo, the > Paduan version used contemporary lute bass string technology > (loaded, high twist, flexible, roped,....). For example: a 64cm G > lute with a low course at D relates exactly to the lowest bass (,D) > of the Paduan theorbo at 128cm. I thought a major point of theorbos was to have bigger, hunkier, louder, stronger basses than 64cm G lutes. But maybe I'm one of those people who's just hung up on big theorbos. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
