To All:
We have a new blog post raising a few questions about modern music
on
the lute - not against the idea, by the way.
[1]http://mignarda.wordpress.com
Ron & Donna
What an interesting moment for this to come up- I have been playing
mostly "modern" (classical) guitar music on the lute since last
October. Several things came together in my life that made this
inevitable.
1. Been listening to & falling in love with guitar music that I had
never paid attention to since abandoning the classical guitar decades
ago. Started wishing I could play some of this stuff again.
2. Got a new lute by Dan Larson last August- (8 course Renaissance,
64.3 cm SL, A-415, 9 gut frets & now another 6 wooden frets).
3. Dug out my old Villa-Lobos collected guitar works; mainly for
Etude #1- a fantastic arpeggio study. I needed to give my old thumb-
in technique a tune-up, gotten rusty while living without my
Renaissance lutes. One sold to a student, the 6 course on a one year
loan to another student. I had been playing only the archlute, B-
lute, and vihuela, all of those thumb out.
Not only is the Etude #1 a fantastic exercise (thumb-index only; in
or out) -but the new lute sounded very good with this music. Very
surprising to me- even the Brazilian Suite as well as some of the
other Etudes and Preludes. (Choros #1 is a hoot on the lute) None of
my other instruments comes close. So it can, indeed, come down to the
individual instrument. Some guitars are not good at all for lute
music, others (handled sympathetically by sensitive, expert players
of course) are fine.
I have about 4 works by Leo Brouwer cooking as well, but my great
love is Piazzolla- many of the tangos have a biting, incisive edge on
this lute (all gut stringing, too) that makes up for the lack of body
that the guitar supplies. The gut basses also make it unnecessary to
employ the special "pizzicato" muffling technique that guitarists
often use. The occasional extra low notes available on 7 & 8 also
help make up for lack of guitar bass volume/fullness.
4. Final irony- I decided it was time to re-include classical guitar
in my life, got a very good-for-price upper level student type model,
and after a couple months hard work suffered a tennis-elbow
tendonitis relapse (Anti-ergonomic Segovia style partly to blame. My
fault for the rest). The guitar is on a (I hope) temporary sabbatical.
Back to thumb-under on the lute, glued more frets to get up to high b-
flat- and right or wrong, I am stuck playing this music I love on the
only instrument possible for me at this time. Oh yes, Piazzolla
doesn't seem to fit on the Baroque lute. Not me playing it, anyway.
Dan
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