Thanks, Taco.
Of course conversions sometimes involved other changes. The point about
the 10-11c conversion is that it could be done with the minimum of
changes. Perhaps we make too strong a distinction between "renaissance"
and "baroque" lutes. My guess is (based on my own experience of many
years ago) that when you retuned your 10c in D minor tuning you felt it
suddenly sounded like a different instrument? The structure of the lute
remains the same, but the tuning, and the different patterns of
resonance it produces, transform it into a "baroque" lute! I felt I
suddenly understood why they changed the tuning - to get a different
fundamental "sound". There is a parallel, of course, in the "open
chord" tunings used by folk (and even rock) guitarists these days....
Best wishes,
Martin
Taco Walstra wrote:
On Mon, 2010-01-18 at 14:54 +0000, Martin Shepherd wrote:
Thanks Martin en daniel for the interesting reply!
My feeling is that playing technique <<could>> have been a reason. What
I understand from several players is that a double second on a baroque
lute doesn't work very well, although perhaps a lot of hard work as
Daniel mentions could help.
By the way, was the conversion of a 10c to 11c only the addition of a
bassrider or were there also changes made inside?
taco
Hi Taco,
We have very little evidence for any of this, of course. But it seems
extremely probable that the single 2nd came into being when people
converted 10c lutes into 11c lutes, because it involved only the
addition of a treble rider, a bass extension to the bridge, and an
overhanging nut - no major rebuild of pegbox, no need to open the lute.
There are plenty of 11c lutes with double 2nd in paintings and surviving
lutes, perhaps they were new-built rather than conversions. Unusually,
Thomas Mace seems to have used a double first as well as a double 2nd.
Mary Burwell's author has it that the single 2nd is used because it is
difficult to find two strings "to agree", but I suspect that the real
reason is the ease of conversion from 10c to 11c.
So I think it is very unlikely that 10c lutes ever had a single 2nd, in
fact one might ask whether or not they had a double 1st, since double
firsts were common in 7 and 8c lutes, and used also by Dowland on 9c
lutes (1610).
I'm not convinced that playing technique has anything to do with it,
except that to a modern player used to the single strings of the guitar
(and then the usual single top string of the modern lute), double
strings can require some adjustment of technique.
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