The biggest problem you are going to have is the right hand. Within that issue is the use of nails, wrist position and thumb position. If you hold your right hand out in front of you with the palm away from you, you can see the obvious, there are two sides to the fingers, left and right. (front and back do not apply here) If you wish to keep nails for playing the Guitar it is possible for you to play the Lute without nails if you adopt the thumb under technique which requires your fingers to point more parralle to the strings and the thumb striking the strings inside the motion of the fingers. In other words the fingers operate outside the motion of the thumb. You often see beginers on the Guitar assume this position naturally. This position allows the use of the right side surface of the fingers to play the strings and also makes it far easier to activate both strings in an individual course. If you trim the nails really short on the right side of the fingers you can play the Lute in the above position. You can, in theory, leave the nails long on the left side of the fingers for playing the Guitar with the thumb out, wrist bent perpendicular to the strings position used by most Classical Guitar players.
To try to put this in a different light that might make it more clear look at it this way. In Guitar position if you close up your hand your thumb will be on the outside of what is now a fist. In thumb under Lute position if you close up the hand your thumb will be folded under or inside the fingers. Garry is correct understand and accept the fact that the Lute is not a Guitar, it is a totally different instrument with just enough similarities to the Guitar to make it tempting to play like a Guitar. Do yourself a favor-----don't do it. Approach the Lute like something from Mars, something totally alien and unfamiliar. If you learn it as a different instrument in the begining you will be further ahead five years from now than if you try making it like some odd shaped Guitar. If you go the Guitar route eventually you will encounter that point where you understand that you are not getting a good sound out of the Lute and must change your technique if you are to improve. Vance Wood. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Garry Bryan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "saw 192837" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 9:20 AM Subject: [LUTE] Re: Now we are one, forever (New Boy Gets Lute, and a cherry tree dies) > saw 192837 wrote: > > >Howdy boys > > > > > Now you've done it. > > > > >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 > > > > > Jon's already given a concise definition of "ribs", so I'll just mention > that the top is most likely some variety of spruce since that's the > "standard" top/belly/soundboard material. Other materials that were > possibly used in your lute ( i.e. pegs, fingerboard, etc. ) are: > Rosewood, pear, apple, ebony, cocobolo, sycamore, walnut, pecan, maple, > poplar, basswood, and a host of others. > > I suspect Larry's annual lute production , prolific though it is, > probably consumes less trees than the text books for the average 1st > grade elementary school class in the U.S. > > > >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?). > > > > > If you tune the third course up 1/2 step, the lute should then be in > "guitar tuning". > Sure. You could do it the other way around, but why would you want the > extra work? > > >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? > > > > > Here's a link: http://www.luteshop.co.uk/rhtech.htm > > >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? > > > > > "thumb under" kind of resembles plectrum playing. That's simplistic, but > it looks that way when you're watching someone else do it. Again, go to > the link above. Martin does an excellent job of laying out the right hand
