When i got my theorbo i also first tuned it to G for two month and later wished i would have started in A straight away for the following reasons:
- Playing together with other people when tablature part for theorbo is written out - Theorbo feels like a completely different instrument anyway (use of the diapasons, esp. hitting the right ones :-), reentrant tuning, what to play in continuo, ...) so learning the A tuning together with this seems easier to me than later relearning the tuning. - chord shapes for lute and theorbo differ, so choosing the G-tuning because of the familarity does not work too well anyway. Simply applying lute shapes on a theorbo will cause problems. - It was quite frustrating not to be able to play any continuo at all on theorbo when i changed to A tuning. More or less fluent reading in that tuning took some time in which i was not even able to play the pieces i already did on theorbo (and therefore pretty useless for any ensemble). Probably a bit like starting to learn italian tablature after already playing for a few years. - when the base moves higher i run out of ideas to play 7-6 or even thirds without moving to high or inconvenient positions or transposing down an octave. In G the trouble simply starts a tone lower. - only tuning the first string down an octave was not an option because of the solo music. - having one insrument in G and one in A makes things easier: Played Schütz:Musikalische Exequien the first time on archlute, second time on theorbo. Second time was much more fun... Benjamin > Although I'm primarily interested in Ren music, I haven't been able to > resist the temptation to dabble in continuo a bit (we have a continuo > group in Seattle, loosely modeled on Pat's Continuo collective). I'm > afraid that I might have finally taken complete leave of my senses, as > I am now in possession of one of those overly large lutes with too many > strings (on loan, but...). > > > I plan to seek professional assistance soon, but in the interim, a > tuning question. The instrument is currently in A. I could retune it to > G, so I could more easily transfer my experience with the G lute, or I > could leave it in A and relearn a bunch of chords. Any advice on which > option is likely to be preferable? FWIW, I don't have to perform on it > for around 6 months, so relearning the chords should be manageable, > although the next rehearsal or two might be a bit rough. > > > Guy > > -- > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
