Wow Chris, subtilissimo! Closely observed and wisely anlysed! Thanks
for bringing the obvious to better light and better understanding.
F
__________________________________________________________________
Von: [email protected] im Auftrag von chriswilke
Gesendet: So 31.01.2010 17:23
An: Daniel Winheld; Anthony Hind
Cc: [email protected]
Betreff: [LUTE] Re: Tr :Re: Objet : Re: Switching between gut strings
and synthetics?
Anthony,
--- On Sat, 1/30/10, Anthony Hind <[email protected]> wrote:
> I have not read such "blanket
> performance proclamations" in this
> thread.
Sure you have. Many of them are almost at the subliminal level. I
wish to bring them to the surface.
One example: In the very email in which Dan Winheld wanted to show that
he was not dogmatic in his stringing choice, he mentions his "strange
archlute, which is too short for workable gut diapasons." What he
really means to say is that that he believes his archlute is too short
to produce a tone with enough sustain and pitch definition that he
(and, presumably others) will find acceptable in a musical context
using modern gut strings at the pitch he desires. There are a number of
subjective factors in that last sentence that have a direct bearing on
performance. The real wildcards are not the lute nor the pitch, but
rather the properties of the stringing material, of which, I must point
out again, there are many things our best researchers do not know.
Then there is Dan's additional use of the word "strange." I assume the
instrument is not hot pink, in the shape of a Flying V, or emblazoned
with a portrait of Che Guevara in rhinestones, so I'm guessing he means
that the size does not fit into the "standard" size range (another
modern invention) to allow for the pitch and timbre he desires using
string material X. It may be an uncommon size, but research shows that
many sizes existed. We don't know the pitch for which such a small
instrument was intended, but we also don't know enough about the string
material in use in olden times to determine this. The use of the
loaded (no pun intended) word, "strange," with its negative
connotations, says a lot about how we lutenists view ourselves. Why
should a player feel the need to apologize for an instrument that
doesn't instantly fit into an area in which research is incomplete?
One could go on with the statements in this thread about how ornaments
behave this way on gut, one needs to have such and such a touch on gut,
string tensions should be this or that with gut, pitch will be between
X and Y on this size lute... These are the blanket performance
proclamations I'm talking about. Unfortunately, making any claims
about what gut strings do on a lute really tells us nothing about
historical performance practice - it only tells us about modern
historical performance practice predicated on the behavior of modern
strings.
I'm not looking to take away anyone's choices. If you love gut and
feel it enhances your interpretation of the music, go for it.
Chris
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