This isn't an answer to my question, I don't care which is older - that was just a guess. I believe we know that the provenance of the lute was as a melody instrument played with a quill plectrum. I don't know the provenance of the guitar tuning. The question was this, why the difference when they are almost the same? Removing the first string isn't the solution, it is merely a description (and then one has to have a seventh tuned a fourth below the sixth to make the six strings - and now we'll just rename them from 2 to 7 to 1 to 6, as we don't have a 1st anymore). That is trivial.
The question is this. The six strings of the Renaissance lute (neglecting the lower strings) and those of the guitar are all tuned to fourths, except one that is a third. The choice of where the third is is different between them. Why? Did the guitar develop after polyphony? Is the tuning a matter of ease of chording? After all the melody lute could have had a tuning by sixths, sevenths or octaves. Just a bit longer run on a course for a scale. It would be a pretty good bet that the choice of fourths has to do with the four fingers for melody work (can we call it monophonic?). And that the one third course to course interval was practical in hand movement. So why the difference as to where it is for guitar and lute. My guess, as one who plays both, is that the shift made chording easier for harmony -and that the guitar evolution came when polyphony was already extant, whereas the lute stayed with the traditional tuning intervals that worked for melody. Best, Jon > > Given that the lute > > tuning seems to be older (can't prove that, but it seems to be), > It is not older. Guitar tuning is contained within Lute's (just remove 1st > string). > RT > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
