Thank you, Joseph, for sticking your neck out. I've been a bit confused about the technique issue and how it might relate to a guitar player's technique for some time now. I've played the guitar for 30 years and the thumb-under technique looks to me to be a tortured anachronism, but I've spoken with people who wouldn't dream of playing a lute any other way. But Douglas Alton Smith mentions thumb-under as falling out of dominance in the late 1500s... I can see how thumb-under might be appropriate for some music (the Capirola lute book specifically mentions the technique), but for later music I'm not so sure. And for any music I'm inclined to think that whatever technique lets the player comfortably play is "good enough", but that doesn't seem to be the majority opinion.
I'm never sure where these discussions lie on the line between 'academic' and 'practical'. I'd hate to think that someone might be turned away from lute playing not for lack of appreciating the music but for simply not wanting (or being able) to execute the currently fashionable playing technique. I imagine I'll be hung for such heresies eventually. But I have lived a rich full life and I regret nothing. :) - m On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 11:49 AM, Mayes, Joseph<[email protected]> wrote: > I know I am sticking my neck way out here, but I thought I'd throw in my 2 > cents - let the flames begin! > > As I see it, in the early days of both lute and guitar, the technique was > largely the same: thumb-under, pinky on the soundboard, etc. As time passed, > and both music and the technique to play that music evolved, lute technique > moved toward what "purists" consider "Guitar technique" that is, thumb-out, > alternating between index and middle, etc. The guitar continued in an almost > unbroken chain of development to the present day, while the lute, its > players and its music went away. Ergo, one can think of modern guitar > technique as evolved lute technique. There is no difference in lute set-up > to use guitar technique. I have never heard of a luthier being asked to > accommodate a different style of play in the string spacing at the bridge
