That may be hypothetically possible, but no one would ever build a
deliberately ugly
lute, for several reasons:
1. It could never be sold, because
2. No one would want to be seen with one.
3. Acoustic and visual aesthetics tend to go hand-in-hand.
I only know one luthier who has no visual sense, and his acoustic sense is
similarly lacking.
It is no surprise he has difficulty selling his axes.
I have also known a maker who made beautiful looking lutes that had no
sound,
but that is another story.
RT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Eugene Kurenko" <[email protected]>
To: "Jean-Marie Poirier" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Luca Manassero" <[email protected]>; "Lute List"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, April 07, 2012 11:50 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: What makes a good lute?
Well I prefer to differ.
Sound is the sound. And its quality not always goes hand in hand with
pretty look.
As former classical guitarist I can say that I knew some 3000$ guitars
with sound like 800$ yamaha. Not better.
The only differences were: french polish, intarsia and more expensive
wood for body. So the pretty look costs much more than sound. It's
weird for me. Why and what for? If I need musical instrument for 3000 I
want sound on 2900$ and exterior on 100$
But not the opposite. Only the sound must amount 90% of price. Not
exterior. If maker spends 6month for building the musical instrument
let him spend 90% of this time for sound and pay a lot for this sound.
Even if maker muild that great sound from cardboard pay for this great
sound as for brilliant. The music is the language of sounds first of
all. It's not a painting. So the lute must have the greatest sound
first of all. And what we can see nowadays? Hardly understandable to
me. Brrrrrrrr :)
2012/4/7 Jean-Marie Poirier <[1][email protected]>
Eugene, you wouldn't consider the problem of sound as an aesthetic
one...???
Aesthetic doesn't only mean the aspect of the instrument? It's a little
bit more complex than that, isn't it?
Best,
Jean-Marie
=================================
== En reponse au message du 07-04-2012, 17:07:11 ==
> I vote only for sound and playability!
>
> Aesthetic have no sense for me. The instrument may looks like total
> horror but if it can produce great sound and is comfortable to play
> it's ok for me. By the way I really hate highly ornamented
instruments
> with that flowers, hearts etc.
> IMHO theese nice "things" suits well on instruments for women but
not
> for men. So as for me the great lute - is the lute which looks more
> like bloody viking axe and sounds like hell bell than another one
which
> looks like romantic candy-box with sickening sweetest tone :)))
> 2012/4/7 Luca Manassero <[1][2][email protected]>
>
> 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
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