Doc Rossi wrote: >Off the top of my head: Rob MacKillop has recorded one CD dedicated >to this instrument and plays it on others as well. There are at least >two Japanese players. It became my main instrument about 10 years >ago. I've recorded one CD and am working on a second of solos and duets. > > > > One of the limiting factors is the availability of the instruments. I've got one, and for the most part it is unplayed. It is not quite as bad as being in a museum - I do play it occasionally and I do show it to others - but as Rob found, there is no need for an antique instrument to be used in a folk context, and very little demand for it to be used in performance for audiences other than musicologists, a tiny percentage of folk-instrument and guitar fans, or for rare historic events.
For 'folk' use I play a waldzither instead, and even that not very often. It has to be tuned to A instead of C to accompany smallpipes and some fiddle tunes. Other fiddle tunes require D, capo fret two on guittar or waldzither in normal tuning, or G. I guess one of the reasons that the Gibson of Dublin guittars included longer scale models tuned to G may have been to fit in better with popular Irish music of the era played on fiddle and other instruments. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
