vihuela  

[VIHUELA] Re: Sanz and the High G

howard posner
Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:30:24 -0700

On Apr 26, 2008, at 2:08 AM, Rob MacKillop wrote:

> and I imagine all manner of stringing, tuning and pitch was in use.

It hardly requires imagination, since three stringing different  
configurations are known even before we start talking about high Gs,  
or guitars in nominal pitches other than E, which were evidently used  
in dance-band guitar consorts in the the 17th century.

> I was trying to address whether a 'high g' was possible, and I  
> think it is if the general pitch is lowered.

You mean lowered from 440?

Since there are lots of historical lutes around with string lengths  
of, say, 67cm, and no reason to doubt that they were lutes in G with  
a first course at "high g," it's clear that high g on the guitar was  
possible.  Whether it was common or not is another story. 
  
--

To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html