Hi Joe-
I'll take that 2¢ and put in my bank account.
Need all I can get these days- NO SMUDGES ON MY
LUTES! There are other branches in Lutedom
besides Orthodox. There is Conservative- finger
down, but flexible and moves up and down with the
hand. There is Reform, sometimes off the
soundboard, sometimes on. I am
Reconstructionist/Atheist- that little finger is
out, but mostly no solid contact; a bare touch
like the feeler gauges on old cars for sensing
the curb when parking - sometimes light contact
for fast thumb-index runs for thumb under, and
off for chordal play. I think it is always off
when playing thumb out (Baroque & archlute,
usually also vihuela) but will have to watch
myself next time to see for sure.
Modern guitars have an elevated fingerboard,
which puts the top enough further out of reach of
the fingers to make little finger down a complete
disaster (at least for me) and the extensive use
of the 3rd finger means the pinky cannot ever be
tied down- esp. if the distance from strings to
soundboard is another 1/2 centimeter or so. Some
of the pick guards on archtop guitars function as
much as a platform for the pinky (plectrum
players) as top protection- location here, as in
real estate, is everything.
And that's my 2¢ back- don't spend it in one place.
I think that the "little finger down" thing has
become a religion, these days. It is likely that
there were as many styles of play as there were
players in the "old times." It's interesting
that not all surviving instruments have the
"smudge." Were they cleaned up? Were they
repaired with new soundboards? Were they played
without that pinky on the face?
Guitarists do not play with the pinky on the
face and play fairly fast and acurately. It
seems a somewhat unnecessary bit of the
"Orthodox Lute technique."
Just my $.02
Joseph Mayes
________________________________________
From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
[lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Herbert
Ward [wa...@physics.utexas.edu]
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2011 12:43 PM
To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Subject: [LUTE] Stability of lute in playing fast.
Below I use the word "jerk" several times. I suspect
there may be a more elegant and accurate verb. If
so, please excuse me.
A few weeks ago I watched a bluegrass mandolin player.
This man had won a (Texas?) state bluegrass mandolin
championship, and, as one might suppose, he could quite
fast.
In watching him play, I immediately noticed the large
degree to which his mandolin "jerks around" (for lack
of a better phrase) while he's playing, with no tendency
to jerk less during the fastest and most intricate
passages, or indeed even during the quieter passages.
This contrasts starkly with my modus operandi, which
is to stabilize the lute as much as possible, in order
to give myself a stationary target, especially for
my right hand.
The obvious explanation for this is to suppose that
the mandolin player's hands, and in particular his
right hand, move with the mandolin while he's playing,
and thus negate the effect of the "jerking". But, in
playing the lute, my right hand is, more or less,
glued to the lute in that my little finger rests
on the soundboard and my forearm rests on the lute's
edge close to the strap button.
All this leaves me fairly confused. Do all elite
lute players keep their little fingers and forearms
solidly on the lute? Do they stress this in
their teaching? Do they present this as part
of the technique needed to play fast? Do any of
them play with "jerking" lutes? Have any of this
list's readers worked through this issue personally?
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
Dan & Rachel Winheld
820 Colusa Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94707
dwinh...@comcast.net
rwinh...@comcast.net
Tel 510.526.0242
Cell 510.915.4276
