Herb, Where do you come up with these questions? You should submit them to Imponderables. <g>
>Suppose you put a large thick book on >a music stand, directly in front of the lute. > >To what extent would this decrease the perceived >volume for the audience in an auditorium? My guess is that it wouldn't effect the sound much if the lutenist was more than a foot or so back. Different frequencies are blocked easier than others, so the tone might change fractionally. This could be tested by recording your lute with and without a book in front of it and varying the distance of the lute to the book and the microphone to the book. As Howard noted, the most noticeable effect would likely be visual. I've often pondered about performance situations in the old days. We can see paintings of amateurs with music on tables and also those of what appear to be professionals (less likely to have music in the scene?). Check out http://www.xs4all.nl/~amarin/Page1.html Cheers, -- Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
