Great advice, Dr. Jordan. All things in moderation! ed
At 03:42 PM 8/10/2011, theoj89...@aol.com wrote: >Take great care with stretching exercises of the hand!! I deal >fairly often with musicians' injuries, and musicians are nearly as >bad as competitive athletes as far as abusing their bodies to try to >get better performance. Remember that Robert Schumann permanently >damaged his right hand trying to increase his performance by >stretching his fingers with some contraption. >Slow and easy is generally the rule of thumb for stretching. Much >damage can be done by stretching too aggressively. Just a reminder.... >trj > > > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Edward Mast <nedma...@aol.com> >To: Eugene Kurenko <eugene.kure...@gmail.com> >Cc: LuteNet list <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> >Sent: Wed, Aug 10, 2011 11:59 am >Subject: [LUTE] Re: Renaissance lute & string length > > >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 > > > > >-- > > > > >-- Edward Martin 2817 East 2nd Street Duluth, Minnesota 55812 e-mail: e...@gamutstrings.com voice: (218) 728-1202 http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1660298871&ref=name http://www.myspace.com/edslute http://magnatune.com/artists/edward_martin
