All, OK, so with all this talk of baroque lute being somewhat easy to play, I need to do something useful with my 10C baroque lute, once I get a proper set of strings for D minor tuning. Does anyone have any recommendations for easy pieces with which to begin-- something easily accessible, both in terms of laying ones hands on and playing it. I've checked out the items on Wayne's Baroque Lute tab page and some look and sound possibly do-able. I'm not an accomplished lutenist on the ren lute, so ideas for something easy would be most appreciated. Thanks! Steve __________________________________________________________________
From: Thomas Walker <twlute...@hotmail.com> To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2011 10:12 AM Subject: [LUTE] Mace Hey all, Interesting discussion. I have to say, I'm with Sterling & Roman et al on this one. I started on renaissance lute (actually, guitar before that), and D minor baroque lute is still a secondary instrument for me. But if you can find the basses (most of us can with some patient work), there is a vast repertoire that is available, and much easier than most of Dowland, for instance. From my perspective, the hardest lute music is Italian, c. 1580-1620. Piccinini's music, straddling the two epochs, is unrelentingly difficult. The bass work isn't too bad (even Toccata XX from his 1623 print doesn't demand too much of one's "thumb radar"), but the left hand work is brutal. Zamboni's music for archlute doesn't spend a lot of time below the 9th or 10th course (I think most of it you could play on a veil ton 10c lute), but even as his textures are leaner than Weiss', the left hand work is considerably more demanding. D minor works! Cheers, Tom Walker, Jr. -- To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html