Dear Stuart and All,
When Jon Banks gave a talk to the Lute Society a few years ago, Matthew
Spring played the gittern, Stewart McCoy played the G lute, and I played
a D lute. When we were rehearsing for the concert, I started playing
the bass part on a G lute but found it extremely difficult
Either we accept Jon Banks' arguments (as I do), and are happy to
refer to these pieces as music for lute trio or lute consort, or
we can opt for Michal's more cautious playable on lutes. Either
way, the music is there to be enjoyed by us all, and as Sean says,
it is great fun.
Best wishes,
But what would the large bass
instruments have been like? Do any survive from this period?
None from the (late) fifteenth-century. However, as far as I know, surviving
Maler lutes are bass instruments, the earliest from 1520s (? Someone correct
me if I'm wrong).
M
To get on or off this
Dear Stuart,
From our modest first forays into reading this rep. I've found that
different size lutes help in the following ways:
a) They put the 'voice range' of the line in the center of the lute
fingerboard. When we consider that they probably didn't have roped or
great strings for the
The Lautenweltadressbuch lists seven lutes attributed to Laux Maler
that have body dimensions available:
WidthDepthDate/Rebuilder
33.5 cm ca. 1520
29.7 ca. 15 before 1550
30.6 15.8 Widhalm 1761
29.3 ca. 15.8
My bass lute is only 68cm in string length. I put beefier strings on
it (ie, 6th course = ~1.62mm gut), tune it to D and it works fine.
Btw, a 6c A-lute is very nice but if you really want to enjoy a
sustaining voice, go long.
Sean
On Feb 20, 2006, at 7:29 PM, Daniel F Heiman wrote:
The
On Sat, Feb 18, 2006, Sean Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
Dear Stewart,
I would add that much of the music under discussion is extremely
complex rhythmically.
Typical for 15c material; including Hayne, Binchois, and Josquin, all of
which I played extensively with the Collegium Musicum of
Dana,
one issue to be resolved, how does a lutenist deal with lng notes,
easy on a bow, they are a challenge to decorate while still maintaining
suspension (especially if one has difficulty playing like ala
balalaika).
As I think Stewart pointed out, it should be ok to reiterate that
I don't know Banks' work and his arguments (yet), but unless there is a firm
evidence that these specific pieces were performed on lutes, claims that
this is genuine music for a lute ensemble are overstatements. Indeed, this
music *could* have been performed by such an ensemble but also by any
A player w/ a 5 or 6 course lute could play at least any
two single voices of a composition and would have been useful in
consort (as well as part of a duo or a soloist and would probably have
been expected to be all three).
This wouldn't be so easy playing with a plectrum, though. But
Hi Stuart,
A player w/ a 5 or 6 course lute could play at least any
two single voices of a composition and would have been useful in
consort (as well as part of a duo or a soloist and would probably have
been expected to be all three).
This wouldn't be so easy playing with a plectrum,
For those of you interested in playing this style of music or just
learning more about it, note that Crawford Young will be teaching a
course dedicated to it at the LSA Lute Festival this Summer in Cleveland
(25 through 30 June).
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~lsa/seminar/index.html
Daniel Heiman
Dear Stewart,
Thank you for your long reply.
Just a few points:
When one is faced with a piece, such as Roelikin's setting of De
tous biens plaine, which has a range of notes from a low G to high
e flat, one has to consider what instrument can cope. Wind
instruments cannot, because their
Dear Stewart,
I would add that much of the music under discussion is extremely
complex rhythmically. If it is to work, it has to be played
incisively, and exactly in time. I doubt whether viols (which have a
similar range to the lute) would be as successful.
I'm sorry to play devil's
I still can't quite believe this is genuinely lute music as opposed to
music that is multiply realisable. There are many sustained notes,
sometimes over two bars.
It doesn't look like lute music.
I don't know Banks' work and his arguments (yet), but unless there is a firm
evidence that these
Dear Stuart,
I also have this book and have been playing out of it w/ friends. He
does cite reasons for why he thinks it is appropriate for lutes. But...
I'm not entirely sold on these were for lute trio either. Maybe I
need to read more of his work on the subject. Some of the music is
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