ON October 23, 2005 3:50 PM "bill kilpatrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> connection between a fluted, bowl-backed instrument > and the fluted vihuela only makes sense if it's an > aesthetic or sound improving feature that continued > from an earlier time when instruments were carved from > single pieces of wood - like the citole or charango. I wouldn't even dare to establish such connection. Would you? Can't think of any "sound improving feature" in the form of "fluting" that could have been directly inherited from a single-piece-carved-thing. The very idea of adaptation of the built-up construction of the body resulted in a huge step forward that allowed to change / fine-tuning the acoustical properties of the instrument's body in a much more sophisticated way (be it a vaulted-, fluted- or flat-back vihuela, viola da mano, bowed viol etc). In this light, the fluted (by means of bending, not scraping!) back of the Dias allows the achievement of a fairly rigid structure with minimum possible weight and bulk of material - a combination of properties hardly achievable with the hollowed-out type of body construction. And hence its impact on the acoustics. > let's talk about how many of my sun ripened, 100% pure > virgin, genuine, high quality, tuscan olives you would > like in exchange for one of the tatty vihuelas you > have cluttering up your studio and creating such a > nuisance ... I don't quite understand how the idea of sponsoring the experiment grew into exchange for the tatty vihuela ... > hmmmmm? Actually vihuelas never look tatty to me ... even if they are sun-ripened .. Alexander www.vihuelademano.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
