The thing I find extremely puzzling in the 'awful lot of paintings' you
mention is that, for late 16th and almost all 17th century examples,
there is a nearly uniform depiction of a thumb-out technique, which is
also described clearly in written sources. With one exception, nearly
all our notable baroque lutenists of today use a thumb-under
technique. This even applies to a lutenist I've seen in a recent video
who is described as never having played renaissance lute. What gives?
Why don't baroque lutenists today use what is an unquestionably obvious
historical technique?
Thumb under/in was the best way to make a clean break from unworkable
classical guitar technique in the early days of the lute revival at
the point when lutes built on real & proper historic principles made
such a break a necessity; not merely a stylistic indulgence. At the
same time, the harsh, but twangy sound quality of the strings
available- particularly the thin, overspun basses- could only be
adequately tamed by rounder, softer strokes resulting from the
thumb-in hand position, also played closer to the rose than the
bridge. One anachronism cancelling out the other, as it were.
Speaking as a lifetime player who made that exact transition, back in
the 1970's, by practicing it fanatically five hours or so daily, I
can tell you that one does not give up or radically change such a
hard won goal lightly. (No historical record of any of the original
players making the difficult switch from thumb under to thumb out,
and then going back to the prior technique) But, when I obtained a 10
course lute some years later, I was indeed bothered by the
injunctions of Nicholas Vallet- whose music I had fallen in love
with- Stobaus, etc., and the overwhelming iconographical evidence.
I slowly began exploring historic thumb out/over, nothing at all like
classical guitar. It was only in 2004 that I felt comfortable enough
to use historic thumb-out in performance, but having given up music
as a profession I had more time to experiment and fewer high pressure
gigs requiring unconsciously rock-solid technical security. Also, gut
and more gut-like bass strings made such a refinement sensible and
rewarding. Not that my videos are anything to write home about, but
you can see and maybe hear the differences between my RH techniques
on the 6 course lute vs. the vihuela. They will be more obvious if I
ever record on the archlute or d-minor Baroque lute.
http://www.vimeo.com/user814372/videos
Apologies for some harsh sounds, much work still to do if I live long enough.
Dan
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