On Thursday 29 September 2005 21:58, Christopher Schaub wrote: > Ok, it's been a tough week and I've only been making it worse by messing > with my tunings, string tensions etc. :?) I've been bothered lately about > all of those paintings with rh pinky fingers planted behind or on the > bridge, even on non-baroque lutes. The implications of this rh position > are huge, almost hard to get my mind around once I start experimenting. > This affects string tension, lute construction, playing approach -- > basically the whole thing, every aspect of one's playing. Have any luthiers > seriously tried to make an instrument that would be playable/stringable for > this hand position? You can't really play this way with anything close to > normal tension strings. I'm not talking about close to the bridge either, I > mean right on it or behind like most of the paintings show. I remember a > post a while back about (I think) Toyohiko Satoh working on this problem, > and I was wondering if there is any more information posted about his > findings? Anybody else trying to look like a painting? Just kidding of > course.
Toyohikoh has indeed done much study on this subject and published some interesting articles in the LGS (lute, guitar society of japan) newsletter (david can add more details). I've restrung my 10 course lute with gut where the basses have a tension of ~27N which is a quite low tension. I normally played somewhere between the rose and bridge, but experienced that with this tension strings touch eachother and the sound was not really what I wanted. Playing near the bridge gave immediately a better and full sound and by experimenting you finish automatically with a rh baroque style position as giving the best result, although I put my thumb not really outside. I don't have positive experiences with a pinky behind the bridge, although more because I don't like this hand position when playing. But pinky on the bridge is fine. With higher tensions the sound becomes harsh and unpleasant when doing this. Taco > > > > ------------------------------------- > Christopher Schaub > Lute & Voice > web: http://www.christopherschaub.com > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
