Dear Daniel, > I took delivery of my brand new 8 course Frei Renaissance lute, and > after getting it (slowly) tuned up to modern pitch, I was surprised to > see that the 5th course was at octaves, rather than the unison I had > seen on other lutes. I know that 6 course instruments often have the > bottom 2 courses in octaves, but is there any musical and/or historical > reason that would drive this decision? I find the sound with the octave > 5th course unpleasant, especially in runs that involve it, but that may > be more due to force of habit. In addition, this new lute has a much > "brighter" sound than what I have been used to (may be the brand new > strings) and the octave 2nd string seems to accentuate that. > > Bottom line, I plan to change to unison stringing on the 5th course, but > are there circumstances where people prefer the octave?
I let the historical comments to others, but my personal experience is that you should either have the octave on both 5th and 4th or use the unison strings on both. In my 10 course instrument I have octaves only on 6th to 10th. Byt in my 6 course lute I use octaves on 4th, 5th and 6th. In the 10 course lute I have tried also your system, but (to my ears) that did not work well. Definetely! But let us wait for the comments based on historical evidence! All the best Arto
