Good Lord, has it come to this in perfection? Softening the finger pads for better sound? If that is so then I'll never get good sound out of the lute unless I give up the harp. And as to washing the hands before playing I'm reminded of Shelley Berman's comic record of the fifties where he discusses Zen - "what is the sound of one hand clapping?"). I'll not know until I finish my "lute" whether one needs callouses on the left hand fingertips on the lute, but I certainly need them on the guitar and dulcimer, so how do you wash one hand?. My dulcimer is wire strings and hardens the right hand fingertips, but my harp likes a softer touch and so I use a different part of the fingers for each. You also have to avoid your nails (and if you are lute only they would be short, but I sometimes borrow a wire harp which uses the nails for the pluck). On those other instruments one can shift between them by adjusting the "angle of the dangle", we'll see what happens when I have an instrument that is lute strung and lute shaped. As you all know I've been practicing the music on a retuned guitar, but now that I have the body and neck of the "lute" formed I can see it will be much easier on that instrument as the relatively shorter neck (although the overall instrument is a similar length) will improve the ability to place the lute fingering. I look forward to trying it.
Best, Jon > >
