On 08/11/2011 09:30 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote:
Playing close to the bridge is a story in itself. It's not proved that
it was common practice on theorbo. It's logical however, but playing
with nails was perhaps also used, or both.
What you call "historical practice... only lower the first course..."
was the tuning used on an english theorbo, not the "standard" theorbo.
"Historical practice" was tuning small theorbos in dm, although even
this is not very certain (it's mostly based on a few examples, like the
pieces by visee which exist in staff notation and theorbo tablature).
Even the small tiorbino usied in the italian Castaldi music has the 2
top course reentrant, if I remember well.
But what is the problem with the second course? As you can see in the
list by David he uses 0.78 mm. that's not 0.36 or whatever. with
archlutes in G you encounter such problems, not theorbos.
If you use a theorbo only for continuo playing, your advice can be a
good idea, but I assume that David Smith will surely like to play Visee
and other beautiful solomusic, which is problematic when you do this.
Taco
Much depends on your technique and whether you play close to the bridge
(as the Old Ones generally seemed to have done) or up to the rose.
However whatever tension you decide upon, with such a small instrument
why don't you follow historical practice and only lower the first
course an octave? The stress of the second course at such a short
string length (at , say, A 415) is well below breaking stress.
MH
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