Rob MacKillop
Sat, 26 Apr 2008 02:10:42 -0700
Howard, I'm the guilty party re the statement that 'some say 460' for Roman pitch. I was quoting a harpsichord maker. But I agree that it is generally thought to be 392-ish, but string lengths on guitars seem to vary considerably, and I imagine all manner of stringing, tuning and pitch was in use. I was trying to address whether a 'high g' was possible, and I think it is if the general pitch is lowered. I have my guitar at 392. I do not use a gut high g on my own instrument, but did experiment with one on the French guitar in the Edinburgh University museum, with some success - no problem tuning and no breakage. So I hope to establish that it is not impossible to tune a guitar this way, especially if there are no bourdons, so no muddy bass to worry about. Whether Sanz or anyone else used this tuning, I cannot say. Rob -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html