----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Saturday, September 10, 2005 4:01 am Subject: [LUTE] Re: One more damn question about which instrument... > I've been playing a Spanish/Classical guitar for fifty years without nails > (admittedly not much of the Spanish or Classical music, although I can > pass doing that). I think you are referring to the particular sound of > the music rather than the use of the instrument. The modern instrument > wasn't designed with nails in mind, just with nylon strings in mind.
I can see this point. Also, isn't there a fair deal of evidence to show that there was a fair amount of experimentation with nails on lute relatives, especially in Italy: Piccinini, e.g. (I don't remember the exact quote I'm seeking and am too tired to look it up; I'll leave it to you good scholarly folk who might care to refine my point). I think the blanket statement that nails are not appropriate at all on lutes imposes assumptions of universal historic absolutism that should not be made. > One must remember that the "modern" steel string acoustic (oh how I hate > it that I have to say acoustic) has a very similar construction, in fact > the basic differencebetween the commercial classical and the commercial > "steel" strung is just the width of the neck and the way the strings are > attached to the bridge and the height of the action. Of course, I mean no offense, Jon. This is too much of a simplification based on relative superficialities. After all, there are "crossover" classical guitars made with narrow fingerboards, and, outside of Spain, pin bridges and narrow fingerboards on historic "classical" guitars were status quo before the Segovia paradigm washed over the world of the plucked string. I think internal bracing patterns are a greater distinction between guitars built for nylon/gut and those built for high-tension wire. Best, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
