Sorry for the "p".
Maybe i forgot to say: "IN MY OPINION..." --- On Sat, 4/7/12, Jean-Marie Poirier <[email protected]> wrote: From: Jean-Marie Poirier <[email protected]> Subject: [LUTE] Re: What makes a good lute? To: "Lute List" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, April 7, 2012, 6:24 PM Not a very easy question to answer and by the way not a very relevant question. The very notion of "good" applied to a lute or anything is obviously subjective. The few potentially objective criteria are evident : craftsmanship, woods, string action and price. All the rest is open to debate. I do not quite agree with Hera to say that Paul Thomson (no "p" by the way ;-) and Joel Van Lennep are the best makers to date, however good they may be, ans they are good ! There are, thank God, several other excellent makers, who produce excellent lutes as well, not to name them : Martin Haycock, David Van Edwards, Alexander Batov in England, Andy Rutherford in the US, Julien Stryjak or Stephen Murphy in France, Hendryk Hasenfuess in Germany and the list could be made much, much longer... All these people ARE excellent makers too. Now the problem is aesthetics, what you are after in your mind, your "ideal" of sound; and the price may be another good reason to go to this or that maker rather than the supposed top brass ! If you want the same lute as say Paul O'Dette, ok, go to the other Paul (Thomson) but if you have; if you hope to emulate Hoppy, then go to Joel in Boston. But if you have a precise idea of the lute you would like, the sound you would like for such or such repertoire, I am sure it will be easier to discuss details, and to experiment with makers who are not reputed to be simply the best... I know people who have sold their Thomson's lute because the sound eventually did not correspond to what they were after. My twopence anyway ! All the best, Jean-Marie ================================= == En reponse au message du 07-04-2012, 16:39:34 == > Hi, > very nice list. Let me put them in a slightly different order: > 1. sound (very subjective, but when you hear it, you know you found it) > 2. playability (again very subjective. Most of present lutemakers > dogmata are rather funny, especially when supported by arguments like > "this respects the original instrument in the collection ABC". Fine, > what if that istrument had been built for an 11 years old girl?) > 3. Aesthetic. A lute si suppose to be beautiful. Sometimes it happens > to see really ugly instruments. With all the research involved in XVI > and XVII (and XVIII) century lutemaking, an ugly instrument is > "unauthentic" ;-) > 3. quality of craftmanship (it's sad when you get a nice sound out of a > lute a bit too toughly built, if you get what I mean...) > 4. authenticity of design / construction (again we need to be very > careful: there are TWO 6 course lutes survived which tells us not much > about the variety of 6 course instruments available to XVI century > players) > 5. materials (I'd dare say that if it's nicely playable and have a good > sound and looks beautiful, well, materials must have been selected the > right way...) > I don't care about the maker's reputation. If it's an investment, OK. > If it's a music instrument, then the maker is not the first point on my > list either. > Very exciting conversation: I look forward to read other opinions :-) > Thanks! > Luca > William Samson on 07/04/12 15.25 wrote: > > I haven't really got much to add to the subject line. I've been > chatting with Rob about this and various points have emerged I'd be > interested in hearing what priorities you might put on the various > characteristics of a lute in deciding if it's 'good' or otherwise. > > The kinds of things that have come up are (in no particular order): > > * playability (action, string spacing etc) > * sound (which I can't easily define) > * authenticity of design/construction > * materials used > * quality of craftsmanship > * reputation of maker > > > Of course these are rather broad headings and might easily be refined, > clarified or broken down. > > Thoughts, please? > > Bill > > -- > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >[1][1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >References > > 1. [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > ======================================== -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
