> can tell you is not much more than an informed assumption that with the > arrival of the seventh course the music changed.
I should think it is more a matter of string material and size of instrument. A third course of gut works fine, a fourth course on a short string length might get a little dull, which can be helped by adding an octave string to supply the plonky bass with brilliance/high overtones. On a bigger lute you don't have to use octave strings on a fourth course, but perhaps only from course 5 or 6 downwards, depending on string quality and personal preference. That's how I see it, anyway. So, maybe Dowland had a big enough lute for unisons on 6, and apparently his preference for 'correct' chord inversions and 'clear' counterpoint made him do so. On my 59cm lute I never used octave strings on 6 with wound basses, with gut I do. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
