On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 9:33 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Today's my day for quesions. This statement by David v O brings one up: > "It really is a 7-course piece, and on the 10-course I used it was beyond > me." > > Assuming the same tuning (other than the added bass courses) on a 7 course > and 10 course lute, what are the difficulties involved in performing music > written for 7 courses on a 10 course instrument? From looking at the two > videos of Nigel North on youtube, I get the impression - perhaps quite
Good question. First part of the answer: I'm not Nigel North ;-) Second part of the answer: the piece has many fretted notes on the 7th course and playing these on open basses on 10-course lute demands a very secure thumb in a piece full of fast divisions on the higher courses, where the thumb is needed for thumb-index technique. That is more difficult for me. Just hitting the lowest course in the middle of all these runs is easier than picking out course 7, 8 or 9, as the case may be. It's no wonder on a 10-course a technique with alternating middle and index fingers for the higher courses with the thumb reserved for the bass courses is more idiomatic. But this Holborne piece needs alternating thumb-index finger in the runs. That's how it is for me, anyway. David -- ******************************* David van Ooijen [email protected] www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
