Tuning with sound trains your ear, and therefore trains your musical abilities. Get a tuner that plays sounds, and tune unisons (or other intervals, if you wish). When your ear is trained, you will then know for sure if the lute is in tune; no box required :) The visual tuner is useful for tuning in noisy environments.
If you wish to try try the tastini, start with F sharp and C sharp below the first fret on the 4th and 5th course, assuming that the lute is in "G" The rest depends on the temperament, but you can easily set the first fret major (bigger, farther from the nut), second fret minor, third fret major, fourth minor You can see a photo here: http://voicesofmusic.org/chitmt.html Don't damage your instrument with a ton of glue! use a pin to put on a drop. You can also try David v.O. system with wires. A completely harmless way to try it is to tune the fourth and fith courses each down one half step, then move the frets up and down, No tastini required, unless you wish to add a sharp somewhere. Then you can see if you like it. This is the way I tune my mandolin. Note that the frets have been bent to get a better tuning, that is due to the differences in the strings, action, etc. You can add perhaps a G sharp on the third fret of the fourth course, then you will have the ability to play F minor and E major, if the 6th fret is minor, you can also play B major "high" and C minor low. It may seem like a drag to tune by ear, but ultimately musical skills are more important than technical ones. Think down the road. dt At 12:15 AM 10/28/2008, you wrote: >So, few days ego (i think it was Sunday, not what day it is today...) >I received the Super Duper Sonic Tuner as some of you recommended. > >A great tuner, but I really need tips to use it, I'm still used to my >old needle tuner, I always used them and now all the flashing lights >confusing me. I read the instruction manual, it is great becuase now I >know how to change temperaments, cents, save, delete, backlight etc. >But I'm not really sure how to tune, the manual fails to explain it >(at least for me) in nice and clear way. > >For now i don't care about flats and sharps, I just want it to tune, >when I'll get used to it, I'll think some more. But how, in the name >of the great Henry the VIII, I know if my string is tuned? So any one >with this nice tuner (and it really nice) please help me. > >The second part of my tuning trilogy goes to the temperament. I have >decided 1/6 Comma for my first test. according to LSA i need Tastino >which i guess supposed to be an extra fret (had little time to read) >and i don't have one for now, I only have the frets already on my >lute, i can try other temperament that not requires it, like the >Mersenne's Spinet #1, Kepler #2 but from what i see, they are... >different from what i want to try. so again, suggestions will be >gladly excepted. >Other problem i have, are the 10th-12th frets, they are on the lute >body, how should i handle that problem? > >My lute is a 7c, 61cm and it is now tuned to Equal Temperament, I have >9 frets on the neck and three more on the body. > >Thank you again and again > >Omer Katzir > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
