Hello, Jim!
I live in a frigid climate in the winter (northern Minnesota), where
yesterday morning it was -22 Farenheit ( it would be much worse, if you
enter the wind chill factor). I always have to have a humidifier
stoked. In the winter, if I can keep it at 40% humidity, I am happy, and
Dear All:
Are we really agreed on a double first course being best for pol=
yphony? I like to think of a lute as having three voices: the top
string is= the soprano, the doubled second and third courses are the
altos, and the o= ctave fourth, fifth, and sixth are the tenors and
Martin, this is very well stated.
ed
>Talking about pitch standards is confusing unless you specify nominal
>pitch. I still think of the "Dowland lute" as being "in G" even though it
>might be at a'=392 or a'=330. Whatever kind of lute we're talking about,
>if it is around 67cm string len
>Tell me if I am wrong, but I think Vihuela players usually keep to
>TO? Would this have something to do with the double top? If there is
>a reason for associating these, then we might have a reason for
>Dowland's adopting TO, while also using double tops.
That's the best question for starting
Dan, I have very much enjoyed your explanations of how you came to
terms with the double top course, and how this improved your TO
technique. It gave me more hope actually, as I am struggling somewhat
with TO at present.
Le 21 déc. 08 à 19:37, Daniel Winheld a écrit :
No need to apologize A
Dear Martin and All
Le 22 déc. 08 à 10:33, Martin Shepherd a écrit :
Dear Anthony and All,
Just to answer a few things from your message:
If the evidence from surviving lutes is anything to go by, a double
first was common on 7 and 8c lutes. There is no reason to
associate this practice w
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:33 AM, Martin Shepherd wrote:
> no higher than f' at modern pitch, probably more like e'. A double first
> tends to push the pitch down because there's a limit to how thin a gut
> string can be made and there's another limit to how much tension you can
> stand to play o
Dear Anthony and All,
Just to answer a few things from your message:
If the evidence from surviving lutes is anything to go by, a double
first was common on 7 and 8c lutes. There is no reason to associate
this practice with any specific number of courses.
I am in no doubt that the author of
And one more thought- I would bet that a lot of the historic lute
players- after the more universal use of the doubled first- reverted
to a single by simply letting letting nature take its course. One of
the strings pops- but the player just keeps on going. And going.
Hopkinson Smith told me at
No need to apologize Anthony, we are in "disparate" straits indeed as
any single factor affects all other factors; and we are processing &
correlating many disparate bits of wreckage- tantalizing clues,
contradictory artifacts, and the opinionated opinions of long dead
musicians, string makers,
Dear Martin, Dan and all
Thank you for such a detailed reply.
Le 20 déc. 08 à 00:24, Martin Shepherd a écrit :
Dear Anthony and All,
The double top course is found on everything from 6c lutes to
Mace's 12c lute, and everything inbetween. Three of our most
popular 7c lutes from the
For a different take on Choc lute, see the sad story of Nicholas Smith
on this page
[1]http://users.stargate.net/~blink/imagepg.html
Unfortunately the image link doesn't work any longer - who knows what
it might have revealed.
P
-- Forwarded message --
Thanks for the link, Dan - this is one of the lutes I mentioned.
Thinking of Italian instruments, does the (converted) Railich have a
single second? I can't remember.
Martin
Daniel Winheld wrote:
Check out this one-
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/furniture/musical_instruments/objects/ob
Check out this one-
http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/furniture/musical_instruments/objects/object.php?id=13&id2=1&action=next&hits=53&page=1&pages=5&object_type=&country=&start_year=&end_year=&object=&artist=&maker=
>Ooops,
>
>Just a further clarification:
>
>I've never seen an 11 or 13c lute wi
Ooops,
Just a further clarification:
I've never seen an 11 or 13c lute with a double first. Mace is the only
late source for it, and perhaps it was just him being old-fashioned.
It seems likely that a single 2nd was the result of converting a 10c
lute into 11c. The easy way to do the conve
Dear David and All,
On the double/single second:
The painting which comes immediately to mind is the anonynous French(?)
one in the Kunsthalle at Hamburg, with red bass strings. It was
reproduced on the cover of Early Music a few years ago.
In surviving instruments there is the ivory 11c in
Everything BECOMES easier once you master that doubled first-
(speaking only of my own experience, of course). Everything I knew
about good tone production had to be enhanced ten fold in order to
strike that first course cleanly, solidly, gently-but-firmly (or the
other way around?) because I
I think relativeley rare is about right, maybe
medium rare. There are enough examples that we
know that there was a presence, and not truly
rare, but not enough examples to think in terms
of "either or". Some very interseting iconography
for earlier instruments as well.
It is a terrific sound,
On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 12:24 AM, Martin Shepherd wrote:
> Dear Anthony and All,
>
> The double top course is found on everything from 6c lutes to Mace's 12c
> lute, and everything inbetween.
..
> iconographic evidence suggests
> that a double 2nd was also quite common on 11c lutes.
I had no idea
Dear Anthony and All,
The double top course is found on everything from 6c lutes to Mace's 12c
lute, and everything inbetween. Three of our most popular 7c lutes from
the Venere workshop, the 44cm C39, the 58.7cm lute in Bologna, and the
66.8cm C36, have their original bridges and pegboxes an
On lutes, would it only have been nine course lutes that had this
double first course (as the one Martin Shepherd recorded with
recently, and Dowland is said to have played), or were 10c, or even
some 11c lutes strung that way (even if there are no extant ones, can
we be sure, they just did
Slightly lower pitch, and slightly lower tension; it's two strings
now and the whole course should feel (and sound) balanced vis-a-vis
the other courses. It need not have literally the same tension as the
second course; but the feel of "balance" should be a steady increase
from bass to treble
Yup--
The double first course is sorta the sleeper in historical lute performance.
Along with the double course theorbos.
The top course doubled sound terrific at a
slightly lower pitch, seamless transition among the top three courses.
dt
At 04:47 AM 12/19/2008, you wrote:
On Fri, Dec 19, 2008
On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 1:40 PM, Jelma van Amersfoort wrote:
> Dear lutenists,
>
> Can anyone shed some light on this:
>
> Why doe the Choc liuto attiorbato in the Victoria and Albert Museum
> have 14 pegs on the first peghead?
Hoi Jelma
Double first course. Have a look at all the wonderfull Sel
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