Hi All, I'm a beginning student. My goal is to play renaissance and baroque lute music, but owing to financial exigencies, I am using a classical guitar at present. I have a respected lute teacher, and we are using lute technique as far as possible on the guitar (e.g. pinky on belly, thumb out -- my preference, not influenced by guitar technique, thumb/index alteration on accented/unaccented beats, etc), in anticipation of the day when I can get a lute.
But I've been thinking. A lot is made about using the right lute for the job: 8-10 course lute for Dowland, 11 for baroque, 13 for Bach and Weiss, all requiring money, lots of time tuning, and lots of time learning the ins and outs of each instrument. On the other hand, most of the music I enjoy seems to have been quite successfully transcribed for CG: Dowland, Weiss, Bach's cello and lute suites, etc. If you're playing the cello suites, it's no more authentic to play them on the lute than the CG -- is it easier? Or, in the long run, is it simply easier (though not as musically "pure") for the amateur to learn just the one instrument which, though a compromise, gives access to the whole repertoire? Jim -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
