Anthony
As a response to modern lute players in ... >> search for a sweeter purer sound, while he thinks the ancients sought for a harsher tone and a very marked attack with sharp parasitic sounds, a change in aesthetics in effect. << I think it fair to say that our aesthetics might well be far removed from those of lute players three, four let alone five hundred years ago. Think only of the changes that took place in tone production in pianos in the 19th century. In the course of one hundred years I can hear a world of difference. Guitars the same story, but here we have to do with modern players projecting their ideas of a perfect sound on an instrument that was build to produce something quite different. Pianos are more objectively judged. But how to judge the sound of a lute when so many variables are unknown? Most of us resort to what we happen to think is beautiful in a lute sound. I happen to like lightly build lutes with gut strings, but I suppose I, too, am guilty of searching for a tone that comes close to my first musical experience. Like so many of today's lute players that was playing a modern guitar, heavily build and strung with nylon and overspuns, played with nails for optimum tone. I liked doing that, and I still love the sound of it. Going from there to what might be closer to a 'true' or 'authentic' lute sound, one that does justice to the instrument and the music written for it makes both work in an optimum fashion, is a long way of slow learning and ear training and appreciating new ways of tone production. David **************************** David van Ooijen [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.davidvanooijen.nl **************************** To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
