[LUTE] Left hand positioning

[Daniel Ramey]

Greetings All,

 

    I am a rare poster to this list, but I was practicing last night and
found an interesting issue cropping up.    I am a beginning lute player and
most of the songs I have learned to this point have been out of the DeGroot
"Learning to play the lute" book.  This is the one that came with my EMS
lute.   Now, I have another book of 31 pieces for the Renaissance Lute, and
those are a bit more complex.   Well, I was feeling brave and attempted a
couple last night. I quickly found the left hand fingering patterns to be
more than I bargained for.   I realized after a few attempts, that the
tablature showed me everything (which finger to pluck with, which course to
pluck, and which courses should be fingered at which frets).  But it did not
tell me which fingers to use on my left hand!

 

    Are there any general rules for fingering position with the left hand?
I tend to use my pointer finger for the second fret and my middle for the
third, but I find it difficult when I have two or three positions I need to
have depressed, that are on the same fret and vertically far apart.

 

Any advice would be appreciated,

 

Thanks,

Daniel


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