I don't mean to be unduly negative here, but that remark hit an old sore spot- I started out on a classical guitar back in the 1960's and people used to tell me- "Put a capo on your guitar- NOW you have a lute!" Sorry, but I sure as hell did not. And then it took years just to get a bad lute, then more years to get a half decent one and more years learning to undo guitar technique and play it half way competently. -Dan
"The music will sound much more lute-like at that pitch." This statement is misleading. Why would a Terz guitar (guitars scaled to "G", built in the early 19th century and also sometimes seen in Mariachi bands) or a capoed E instrument sound more "lute-" like than my old E bass lute? Even a "G" lute at historic pitch levels (another can of worms to be sure) will really be f# at its highest pitch, and possibly as low as E if you credit A=370 as a legitimate historic pitch. At G, (A=440) you actually have an A lute at an historic pitch- nothing wrong with that, of course. Just don't pretend that a particular pitch has anything whatsoever to do with defining an instrument or its timbre. The only reason to capo a guitar would be to accommodate left hand fingerings if a particular performer needs it (hopefully while waiting for his 58cm lute to be built) but it seems that all dedicated guitarists who like to include Renaissance lute music in their repertoires have no trouble with the stretches. -Dan >Adding one tiny thing to Charles' instructions: since the tuning of >a guitar is a third lower than the 6 course lute in g, you can place >a capo at the 3rd fret to raise the guitar to the same pitch as the >lute. The music will sound much more lute-like at that pitch. > >Jim Parker -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
