One thing I didn't address in my rant; > Are we in the lute world systematically harming our playing standards, > even the reputation of our instrument, by spreading ourselves too > thin? Wouldn't we do better to specialise?
As to harming playing standards (apart from time constraints) I find that archlute/Baroque lute practice mutually reinforce each other, archlute/vihuela reinforce each other, and 6-course lute/vihuela "sort of" reinforce each other. 6-course lute and Barque lute don't care if they never see each other; and the steel-string guitar is happy to ruin things for all the other instruments if practiced to excess. Specialization always helps when practice time is limited. I don't know about you all, or "the instrument" as a personified entity, but we won't even talk about my bad reputation. Dan -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
