Howdy boys
New boy here. I finally got my 1979 (?) Larry K Brown 8 course Hans Frei c34 replica lute. Strung with nylon, cherry "ribs" (? what the hell is rib? B-B-Q?) I assume the top is also cherry The lute looks wonderful, and historically accurate. The action and sound seem very good as well. It feels like a feather compared to my classical guitar (which itself is light for guitars). The wood and craftsmanship seem first rate. It sounds much brighter than the guitar, more biting and quieter. The rose (based on the c33) looks beautiful. I looked into the rose with a light and saw a handwritten (in pen) "Larry Brown, Washington, 8c 1979" on a tiny piece of paper. I was expecting a guitar like label, so that was weird to see handwriting, but i guess that is a good sign its handmade. It was hard to tune until I got a hand of the friction pegs--you have to push them in to keep them there. I managed to finally tune it. (I considered tuning all courses down 1/2 step except the 3rd course, so I could try guitar music on it--bad idea?). I like the string plucking though, the low tension is more enjoyable. When I switched back to the guitar it felt like the strings were made of brick. Now I would prefer to dwell on the "bad" things because negative criticism is always preferred: The biggest thing is it seems impossible to hold. The thing has no guitar-like lap thing and just slides around. Do you use a strap? How do you hold this thing? Second, I have never played double-strung courses before. I still have nails for the guitar (and dont want to quit the guitar, nails make it 1000x better and easier to play). First of all, how do you pluck both strings of a course? I keep hitting only one, unless I use two fingers. Is this because I still have right-hand nails? The person who sold me the lute says he plays with nails. . . is this bad or not? Do I need to get rid of the nails (That is a hard thing to do once you get use to them)? How do you pluck the double-strings anyway? What does that thumb-under mean? I wasn't expecting the spacing to be so different. Seems like it will be a change and may interfere with guitar playing? I also have no idea how to tie those gut frets, or indeed where you even get gut frets (do they come with string sets?) Me no understand. Me stoopid. _________________________________________________________________ Dont just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
