Tom,
Nice thinking. On a recording, I doubt few, if any people would notice
that you capo-ized. Just to keep your early music street cred, be sure to make
up data for your "new" lute on the liner notes, i.e. "alto lute after
Gerlenbrucher by S. Kubrick, 2001." ;-)
Chris
Dr. Christopher Wilke D.M.A.
Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
www.christopherwilke.com
--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 10/11/13, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments
To: "R. Mattes" <[email protected]>, "Dan Winheld" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Monica Hall" <[email protected]>, "Gary R. Boye"
<[email protected]>, "Lutelist" <[email protected]>
Date: Friday, October 11, 2013, 12:08 AM
Hello All,
and thanks for this discussion.
I have an 8 course Renaissance lute which I recently used
to play and record a piece a whole step higher.
Instead of arduously
fingered transposing, I strapped a nickel-silver section of
a
candle holder across the fingerboard at the 2nd fret with
thick hair ties.
This is no joke - it worked quite well. While
it probably would have
been better to acquire an instrument designed to be pitched
higher,
I don't have that kind of expendable income, so I
improvised.
A 1/4 x 5 or 6 machine screw with a solid shaft would
probably work
just as well.
All the best,
Tom
From:
Dan Winheld <[email protected]>
Subject:
[LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments
Another good point- the only lute for which I built my own
capo (pain
in the butt piece of fussy work) was a 72 cm SL "Division"
bass lute
that worked very well as an "E" lute (a-415 or 440) with a
generous 10
fret neck, and narrow-ish sloping shoulders at the neck-body
joint.
But, in order to work, required equal tempered frets. Great
instrument
for accompaniment as well as a substantial amount of solo
work. But a
58 - 62 cm SL, 8-fret neck tenor lute with meantone
fretting? forget
the damn capo!
Dan
On 9/25/2013 4:13 PM, R. Mattes wrote:
>> He makes the point that they did it in this way
because the vihuela
>> >had only 10 frets and a capo on the fingerboard
would have reduced
>> >this to 9.
> and lutes only had 7 or 8 frets ...
>
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Tom Draughon
Heartistry Music
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