[LUTE] Re: Lute sound, esoteric or worldly?

[Mathias Rösel]

> > in a way I have found that the aim to tone production among lutenists
> > could perhaps be divided to two extremes: there are those very gentle
> > players, who hardly touch their strings, and then there are those, who
> > nearly beat the strings.

I'm not a prof player, but I know both approaches. On a day when there's
too much tension in my whole body, there's too much tension in my
fingers, resulting in a somewhat banging and clashing sound. Not nice,
but loud enough. Once I realize what I'm doing, I try to relax by
concentrating on the RH finger tips.

You know, that absolute beginner's exercise. Get a light grip to both
strings of the course with your forefinger. Push the course toward the
soundboard a bit, slightly letting bend the 1st (from the tip) knuckle.
Then let go. Try to connect the parts of that movements into a whole. Do
it once, in one touch.

On a good day, all I have to do is to touch the strings in the described
way, kinda tapping, and the sound is just there with only slightly less
volume than the other way, notwithstanding thumb-in or thumb-out. Mind
you, volume is not the first thing I want to get out of my lute.

Mathias

>> Esoteric and worldly players  - do these words
> > function in English? Anyhow you can easily categorize also the lute
> > "heroes" this way, not to speak of us ordinals... I - as an ordinal -
> > put myself to the latter category: I really try to make the strings
> > sound. I am even ready to use tiny "violence" to the strings to make
> > them vibrate, to make the body of the instrument resonate.
> 
> 
> Arto,
> 
> I have no lute heroes.Youtube etc shows well enough  that there are 
> amazing players of plucked instruments from many cultures who can play a 
> million notes a second.
> 
> Just as an amateur, and in the way you have set the scene, I'm in the 
> opposite camp to you.
> 
> England is a small country with a lot of people in it and, unless you 
> are rich, other people are not far away.
> 
> Stuart
> 
> 
> >  But I also
> > can appreciate the opposite attitude, the soft and gentle, perhaps
> > "philosophical" touch. But to me lute really is "of this world",
> > means of my intentions, not  so much some "living history"...
> >
> > Please, do not ask me to name, to which group I set any of  our lute
> > "heroes"!  :-)
> >
> > Arto



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