Hi to all, As a guitarist who sometimes cuts off his nails to play lute, I thought I'd throw in my opinions regarding the recent discussion about nails, speed, etc. I find when I've played guitar with no nails that I can play most things still pretty well, and the sound of course is very warm. However I can't play tremolo, fast clear scale runs, or fast arpeggios, with no nails. Probably with time I could; I know Jason Yoshida, (Hi Jason, I need to call you!) a fine lutenist and baroque guitarist, plays the early classical guitar with no nails and he has plenty of speed. Perhaps, as Michael Thames mentioned, that is partially a function of that type of instrument I've been told by flamenco guitarists that Paco de Lucia plays with very short nails, but he is an unusual phenomeno, to say the least! By the way, my memory of the abum where he plays with McLaughlin and Dimeola, is that he not only could play as fast, but his sound was clearer and stronger; he made them sound rather sloppy, at least to my ears. But it's been a long time snce I heard that record. I play lute thumb out, except for certain passages of single notes (6 or more), and will switch to thumb under for those. I took a lesson recently with Ronn McFarlane and he felt that after the first few rows (in a concert situation) that it didn't seem to matter so much soundwise whether the lutenist was using thumb under or thumb out, nails or no nails. However, Ronn is a very gracious and generous teacher, so maybe he was just trying to make feel better. :)
Sincerely, James -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
