To be fair to Martyn, he is merely using one of the fundamentals of historical lute stringing, the highest string is tuned to the highest pitch that is possible with the thinnest useable string.
So if you have one of those small theorboes then tune the highest string (the 3rd course) to e, the first to d. Or as Martyn says tune only the first course down an octave for the first course at a. This is what they did back then, before modern stringing possibilities. Not daft just practical. All the best Mark -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: David Rastall [mailto:[email protected]] Gesendet: Dienstag, 17. Februar 2009 17:10 An: William Brohinsky Cc: [email protected]; lutelist Net; howard posner Betreff: [LUTE] Re: Theorbo by Nic. Nic. B. van der Waals for sale On Feb 17, 2009, at 10:32 AM, William Brohinsky wrote: > Is it somehow illegal to play music for long theorbos on short > theorbos? If you wish to play the music of Kapsberger or Piccininni, > but cannot afford to buy (or cannot manage to borrow) a theorbo longer > than some criteria (which hasn't really been stated, but is obviously > longer than the 92mm/67mm instrument I played last semester), you are > daft. Either you don't tune double-reentrant (thus satisfying Martyn > and screwing up voice leading, which is daft) or you do (which, by > Martyn's definition is daft.) > > The obvious conclusion is that any theorbo player who isn't rich and > wishes to play music written for double-reentrant theorbo is daft. > > So, by logical extension, being poor and wanting to play some of the > most beautiful music (or quirky, or whatever happens to attract you to > the music) means you are daft. > > But then, isn't a fundamental criterion for playing a 5' or 6' long, > delicate instrument with enough strings to pass for a small harp, as > long as it doesn't involve passing through a door, being daft? > > So I guess I don't see the purpose in this particular set of > decision criteria. Daft old world, isn't it? And, according to Martyn's historical pretensions, daft new one too. ;-) Davidr [email protected] -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
