Thank you Bruno and both Eugenes, Paul O'Dette's comments are very interesting - I'll read the whole interview, Eugene. ( I wonder what string length P O uses on his Renaissance lutes). Yes, scale passages are not a problem with longer string lengths, I'm sure. I would expect the problems to be with fingered chords, especially barred chords. Your stretching exercises are impressive, E.K. I can't achieve that kind of stretch myself - with practice?? Certainly no problems for you in performing the Dowland, at least using single stringing.
-Ned On Aug 10, 2011, at 2:03 PM, Eugene Kurenko wrote: > From interview with Paul O'Dette: > > Q: Much lute music would seem to be played more easily on smaller instruments > than today's typical G lute, yet contemporary paintings don't show a > preponderance of such small instruments. People living then certainly weren't > bigger than us. Did they stretch more or perhaps weren't so attached to > sustaining notes or am I missing something? > > A: This is a very interesting question which has many different aspects. I > think early players developed more stretch than we do today, by doing > exercises to keep the skin in between the fingers as elastic as possible, > they also used various oils to keep the skin flexible, they developed > stretching techniques which involved releasing the thumb from the back of the > fingerboard, and also used the left hand thumb to play some bass notes. The > string spacing of most Renaissance lutes is very tight at the nut, making the > lateral stretches easier than on today's wider spacing. The problem this > creates, however, is that it is more difficult to keep from brushing up > against other strings with left hand fingers since the courses are closer > together. This would suggest three things to me: 1) That they had smaller, > thinner fingers which required less clearance, 2) that they came straight > down with the l.h. fingers using only the tips of the fingers and 3) They > were less fussy about li! ttle noises and buzzes than we are today. I suspect that they also did not sustain bass notes to nearly the degree we do today. > ----------------------------------------------------- > Thw whole interview can be found here: > http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/PODinterview.html > > BTW I play now on lute with 67cm. Not easy but possible even with my smal > hands. But I had to stretch my fingers like this: > http://pics.livejournal.com/_m_a_s_t_e_r_/pic/0009xtz8 > > Here is my Dowland on 67cm: > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2srIsT8xuE > > As you can see it's not perfect but quite satisfactory. The main difficulties > for me were from double courses. Especially in chords. There is no > significant difference for me in playing scale passages between 60cm and > 67cm. But in chords theese 7cm are very important. So I had to remove all > that doubles and now play on single courses. > > 2011/8/10 Edward Mast <nedma...@aol.com> > The more I read about the lute during the 16th century, the more it seems to > me that the norm for string length then was closer to 65 cm than the 60 cm > which seems more favored and common today. Are we (myself included) - who > choose the shorter mensur - wimps? If classical guitarists of all shapes and > sizes can manage a 64 cm mensur, should we lutenists not be able to do > likewise? Just wondering . . . > -Ned > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > --