Thank you for this Nancy. Unfortunately I can't find the paper to which you refer on your site - it's probably staring me in the face, so please point me in the right direction.
As an aside, without seeing your paper, I'm not at all convinced of the existence of small Bandoras (ie with string length similar to that of the extant Palmer orpharion) at the time. Ian Harwood's speculations and conclusions on pitch and the sizes of English viols is also open to question. LH stretches are, of course, much a matter of what one gets used to: regularly playing theorbos and the large continuo gallichon (with a string length of 93cm and, interestingly, tuned identically to the bandora), a string length in the mid/high 70s seems very manageable for the extant bandora repertoire. rgds Martyn --- On Tue, 14/6/11, Nancy Carlin <[email protected]> wrote: From: Nancy Carlin <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: bandora tunes To: "Stuart Walsh" <[email protected]> Cc: "Martyn Hodgson" <[email protected]>, "Lute Net" <[email protected]>, "Lute builder Dmth" <[email protected]>, "Cittern Dmth" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, 14 June, 2011, 22:50 Yes, I discussed then "high pitch" bandora issue in my article on bandora music - now available on my web site [1]www.GroundsandDivisions.info I am a big advocate of the orpharion sized instrument for a lot of the solo bandora music. While some of the slower, processional type pieces sounds great at the bass range, there are some pieces with lots of fast notes that sound like mud on a bass instrument. What really sealed the deal for me was when I visited Chris Morrogiello, who has a very nice high-pitch bandora made by Peter Forrester. We sight read through some consort lesson with just me on that bandora and Chris playing a treble lute. The balance was perfect and some of those pieces did not sound bad with 4 parts missing. In addition to the long stretches in the bandora solos, there are also places where you need to fret a note on the 7th course, wile playing notes on the first string. Unless you have very big hands that's hard on the bass instrument. The best explanation of the pitches in England at this time, that I have read is Ian Harwood's article in Early Music. He documents a number of the sizes of gambas and which ones could have been played together. Nancy On 14/06/2011 20:08, Nancy Carlin wrote: I think it is now common knowledge among the few people who build orpharions and bandoras that the bridges should be tapered higher off the belly on the bass side. Here is a link to some details on the Palmer orphario (the 9 course instrument in Denmark). [2]http://www.darryl-martin.co.uk/palmer.htm Unfortunately the bridge is a replacement. If you read the pamphlet on wire strings that the Lute Society (England) puts out you will see that the Rose orpharion also has a replacement bridge. About the tension on my 2 orpharions - my 6 course Rose (built by Peter Biffin in 1984) feels like it has a bit more tension, and I am very happy with the intonation. My 9 course Palmer (built by Bruce Brook in 2009) has lots more strings and the tension feels lighter. During the year + I have had it, the intonation problems have improved with a combination of string changes and my improved skill in getting my left hand fingers where they needed to be for this instrument, plus I got a better tuner. On the Palmer, I had initially tried an octave on the 6th course, but if the 2 different strings were pulled slightly off, the intonation was much more offensive than with unison strings. Both instruments have a tastini to help intonation, but they are in different places. About the string clashing and other assorted buzzes and nasty noises - If you hit a string too hard it can buzz on the metal frets - something that lute players don't need to worry about. With my 2 instruments the feel of the frets is quite different. The Rose has lower scallops between each fret, so it's harder to get a good clear sound for bar chords. The Palmer has a lovely low action and the bar chords are a dream, unless you are pulling a string a bit to the side. The Rose has the string in the pairs closer together, which works well with that bit more tension. The Palmer has the string further apart and it has taken a while to get used to the spacing One more thing about the tension and playability - my borrowed bandora, which is old and seems quite high tension, has no scallops between the frets, but works well for intonation and bar chords. It's biggest problem is that it is quite loud, especially when combined with lutes. Nancy Another interesting bandora issue is that there were (or may have been) smaller bandoras. Peter Forrester and Donald Gill (and others?) have suggested that bandoras in D, a fourth higher, existed. There are some very difficult stretches in some of the bandora solos (but not in the existing bandora consort parts, I think). For example, this chord: third course, second fret + second course, first fret + first course, fifth fret. On an instrument with the first course at about 72cms that's an enormous stretch. (Of course, this might just be an anomaly) Stuart Nancy Carlin Associates P.O. Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA phone 925/686-5800 fax 925/680-2582 web sites - [3]www.nancycarlinassociates.com [4]www.groundsanddivisions.info Representing: FROM WALES - Crasdant & Carreg Lafar, FROM ENGLAND - Jez Lowe & Jez Lowe & The Bad Pennies, and now representing EARLY MUSIC - The Venere Lute Quartet, The Good Pennyworths & Morrongiello & Young Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA web site - [5]http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org -- References 1. http://www.groundsanddivisions.info/ 2. http://www.darryl-martin.co.uk/palmer.htm 3. http://www.nancycarlinassociates.com/ 4. http://www.groundsanddivisions.info/ 5. http://lutesocietyofamerica.org/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
