Tim, Very nicely said, and I couldn't agree with you more in principle. There will always be details where there may be legitimate disagreement among us, but they shouldn't separate the members of the craft.
And note that I use "craft" for the musician as well as the luthier. Music is within the musician, the expression of the music on an instrument is a combination of craft and art. I'm sure we've all heard musicians playing a piece with virtuoso "chops", then heard another do the same piece with less velocity yet more sense. You speak of the beauty of striking a single string (gut in your case) just for the sound. But I can do the same on my "flat back" with Nylgut - it is just a different sound. (And a slow progression of random notes on a good harp can imitate music to almost anyone, and in fact it is music). I believe it was yourself who advocated the David van Edwards course on lute making (wishing he'd looked at it before his first try). I bit the bullet and got the course, my mold is almost complete. But that comes to your point on "power tool craftsmen". I have a small shop with power tools (a former 5x5 walk in closet). A small lathe (on which I'll make my pegs), a table top band saw, drill press, belt/disk sander, scroll saw and router table. But 90% of the work on my instruments is done with hand tools in my armchair in the living room in front of the TV and with a bottle of beer. The sander is faster, but the hand chisel is both better and more fun. The home handyman should use the hand tools first to learn the process, then buy his power tools for convenience for rough work. I haven't heard Renbourne's Renaissance on steel guitar, but I love the Swingle Singers skat on Bach. That doesn't mean I find it equivalent to Bach on the original instruments, I find them both to be enjoyable in a different way. Sometimes my fingers dance, and sometimes they just plod through the notes. And that applies to lute, harp, ducimer and psaltery. But with over fifty years on guitar they always dance there. The difference is a certain confidence, and autopilot. If you can think the music without having to think of the notes then the fingers dance. But that will happen some days and not others. You are right, you can make scales and exercises into fun. Think if the scale as a song and play it as one. Gut chanterelles, impossible on my current instrument. The design was bad for a g' lute. The VL is too long (and the designer has shortened it on my advice). It is not for me, a beginner, to inform the historically informed. But I have to assume that nothink remains the same - and that gut strings were made differently then versus now. So it would seem that we attempt to approximate a sound that we have never heard, but have a good guess at from the materials and the surviving instruments. But it isn't proper to assume that the composers and musicians of those days wouldn't have liked to make a different sound if the facility was available to them. The new lute I'm making will have a VL that can handle a g' gut chanterelle, and I may try it. Until then I'll not comment on the sound. Your final paragraph is significant, the art historian has to be interested not only in the art but also the process. And I totally agree. And the artisan with no knowledge of his tools is not complete, and I submit that the musician is an artisan as well as an artist. Each instrument, even if nominally the same, is different. The shape and thicknesses of the soundboard will each militate to a different stringing. I can hit a tennis ball a lot further with a tennis racket than I can hit a baseball with that racket, and I can hit a baseball a lot further with a wooden bat than I can a tennis ball. It is all a matter of balancing the effects and vibrations. As to cooking, there I'm not in the loop. At my advanced age I'm more interested in texture than taste. But even in my youth I'd have known that a "good meal" was a matter of taste and taste buds. I grew up with an English mother, no sauces, but a bit of onion and mushroom in the meat loaf. Catsup is a hot sauce to me, and when Monique is back in the city during the week I enjoy my nightly hamburger - with some fresh red onion slices. I don't appreciate "good food", it is a waste on me. But that comes back to your point, and mine. That which is good to your ear, or to your taste buds, is yet a matter of taste and also breadth. I'm happy that my musical taste is wider than my gastronomic. (But I do love a good veal scallopini picata). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
