On Nov 12, 2007, at 12:52 PM, Daniel Winheld wrote: > "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?
Possibly because a capo at the 2nd or third fret is likely to cut down on the sustain of the guitar tones, especially the open strings. > 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. I think it's a matter of resonance, not pitch. Why do you think people prefer to play lute music on the lute, not the guitar? General lute snobbery? Well, maybe there is that, but mostly because on the guitar the resonance is all wrong for a lot of lute music. And if that sounds ridiculous, then consider all the discussions on this list about the subject of stringing, and how certain types of resonance with certain types of stringing is all wrong for the music. That's not a matter of pretending. Also, and this is purely a personal observation, but to me the more generally-expected sound of renaissance lute solo work is on the tenor lute, not the bass lute. My 10c is strung in F, and it sounds guitar-like to me at times because F is so close to what I tend to hear as the pitch of the guitar. David R [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
