-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: compilation, hello here's a new member Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2005 22:30:50 +0000 From: David Kilpatrick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Organization: Icon Publications Ltd To: Martina Rosenberger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Martina Rosenberger wrote: > If you have it in an instrument, the keys are clearly separate. > This is exactly what the music written for English guittar needs. Quick > arpeggios up and down the scale that are not interfered by long vibrations. > > I hope, I could tell it in a way, that is understandable, this time. > My English guittar had not, as far as I could tell, ever been opened. I had to unglue the ivory rimmed brass rose to repair it and cure the buzzes and rattles it was making, and the inside of the instrument did not appear to have a soundpost, or ever to have had one. It uses an advanced and very finely carved asymmetrical X-braced top, some years before I was aware X-bracing had been used. The correct position for a soundpost would be interfered with by this. I don't think the original bridge design indicates a soundpost was used. I don't agree with the sound you describe. The sound I expect from an English guittar is like a spinet or harpsichord, very much in the taste of the 18th century, bright and sustained and ringing. The entire body, right down to deep knife-thin back braces at 2 inch intervals and the non-parallel front and back, is designed for maximum sustain and the brass rose adds a resonator-like quality which is surely not accidental. Combined with the instruction in Bremner that the 'true forte' of the instrument is a very close ponticello playing - this creates an extremely harpsichord-like brilliance - and the relatively limited use of scalar passages or discords, I would have guessed long sustain and campanella-type arpeggiation (cross string playing) were an important part of the appeal of the sound. My Bohm waldzither never appears to have had a soundpost on examination, but also does not have its original glass bridge, and is generally in poor condition needing restoration. David -- Icon Publications Ltd - f2, Master and Photoworld magazines Resources and links to all our websites, music and picture sales http://www.iconpublications.com/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
