"However, her lute teacher recently pointed out to her that if she hopes to play the lute professionally in the future she will need to become much more proficient in playing improvisationally."
Interesting; the unquestioned linkage to a professional lutenist's career with improvisational skills. As was pointed out by David Tayler- one of the very high functioning professionals on this list- improv skills are not the first requirement for a professional career- but sight reading ability is. STEP AWAY FROM THE TABULATURE! Tab is a monumentally ingenious & indispensable system for notating & preserving lute SOLOS, but dependence on it will cripple your daughter for working with our fellow musicians. Absolute comfort & ease with the notational systems is a must; start with G lute, two staves, move on to A lute- (which gets a foot in the door for later A theorbo reading & a step to Baroque guitar), figured & unfigured bass, learn some of the C clefs, and perhaps also D lute tuning- each new step strengthens the previous abilities and enables the next, which extends the transpositional abilities- extremely useful for song accompaniments with different singers as well as various ensembles up to orchestral levels. I would advise getting a theorbo and/or archlute as soon as practically possible; the pros on here can certainly weigh in here on that step. Now about improvisation- a very loaded term- ranging from inserting a few passing notes & cadential figures here and there to on-the-spot wholly decorated and divisioned repeats of pavans & galliards where such repeats are not already written out, and other abilities up to freely improvised fantasias. Improvisational skills are learned skills- but of course some people learn them faster and more easily/consciously than others. But anyone who loves and plays music can learn them, and how far one goes is as dependent on time and hard work as talent. Immersion helps. Pick the passamezzo antico, for example- say Adrien LeRoy's well known one- play it over and over, perhaps with other musicians. Study his "more shorter" ornamented version. Eventually one can't help doing little bits like breaking chords, adding some passing notes, etc. Treat it like the 12 bar blues of the Renaissance. Now take these basic passamezzo chord changes- as well the Folia, moderno, and others- memorize those basic chord changes and learn them in all keys and positions, until the whole fingerboard comes under control. For more advanced work, and more sophisticated music, the books are out there- Diego Ortiz, Sylvestro Ganassi (Fontegara- enough recorder divisions to make your head spin; and the Regola Rubertino- viol and some lute material). A superb course of study is Christopher Simpson's "The Division Viol". Other important works are Thomas Morely's book- forget the exact title wording "Plaine & Easie Introduction to Practical Musick". I'm losing focus & rambling- others will no doubt submit more & better suggestions- but your daughter has a world of fun & hard work ahead of her. Dan -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
