Interesting mail, Tristan. While many of us (including me) would like to see the lute flourish in the world of modern classical music, maybe its best chance is actually in more popular types of music. I think a few factors might block that though: 1. Obscurity: Sterling Price gave an anecdote in one of his videos (If I recall correctly), where he told someone he plays the lute, and that fellow thought he was referring to the flute. Yes, many people don't know what is a lute or don't know that it's still played today. 2. Price: Like you mentioned, not everyone can even afford (or want to buy) Luth Dore lutes, but most would stay clear of overpriced Pakistani lutes. Something like Yamaha guitars; cheap but playable enough, would do wonders to the lute world. 3. Available repertoire, which lacks two things: popularity of the old music and modern popular music. If Taylor Swift (for example) suddenly started playing the lute on stage and had songs for it, we would definitely see a large influx of new players. Having intabulations of popular music to the lute is not enough, it's also important to bring the instrument out of obscurity. The lute does have a lot of advantages such as the easy systems of French and Italian tablature. The availability of a lot of cool (but obscure) repertoire. Its portability and its sweet, delicate and warm tone more suitable to the human voice than the guitar (in my opinion). I'm not sure if all these are enough to tackle the above problems. On Dec 23, 2017 02:08, "Tristan von Neumann" <[1]tristanvonneum...@gmx.de> wrote:
This is probably too pessimistic, for reasons I will now try to explain I hope in a deeper look at today's music. Of course this is just an educated guess, not a prophecy, and more of an encouragement. The Lutists ultimately set the course. (oh no - back in the pundaemonium...) 1. The audience for Early Music (even really early music) is bigger than the "New Music" ("Neue Musik"). Whenever a composer is successfully appealing to a general audience, you can always assume it is because of a great sense of traditional tonality or modality. Philip Glass and John Adams seem widely popular in the US even among the non-classical audiences. In Europe, there's Arvo Pärt who left the path of atonality and serialism, and it seems the Spectralists of France are well based in the tradition of Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen (take Dalbavie for example). Therefore, an obscure instrument is just introduced into an even more obscure scene. (viewed from the mass standpoint) Such musical approach was at least until around 2000 also part of the film score scene. Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams and others have treated film scores as New Music. But here is the strong move: By forcing it onto millions of movie buffs, for the duration of popularity of this movie, there is a considerable amount of time for a good tune, a good theme, to leak out as a "cover version", establishing a basis even for canonification. Some are more successful than others. Compared to a First Performance of some fancy delicate atonal piece of chamber music in front of 100 people of whom 80 don't really get what is happening on the stage, it looks pretty obvious to me that though we all wish they were more popular, our little bubbles of special music do not represent the reality of most people. Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, indeed mostly fantastic movies contain a great deal of popular classical music today, which is probably the closest many people get to hearing a real orchestra. But this is actually a pretty good basis and should not be ridiculed. 2. If you behold the big picture, the mass audience is completely going into a different direction. If you pick the most complex or well set music of "non-classical new music", there is: a) Metal, Progressive Rock, Post Rock - highly complex and often deliberately referring to Renaissance and Medieval music, embracing concepts of modes and even iso-rhythmia and counterpoint, though often very fast paced. b) IDM ("Intelligent Dance Music") - more closely related to "New Music", but occupying spaces classical performers almost never reach. Exceptions (to my knowledge of course) maybe "Alarm will Sound", a chamber orchestra from New York, that plays complex Electronic Music arrangements. "Ensemble Resonanz" in Hamburg, who are for years getting their foot into the club scene, attract new audiences for "New Music", while also playing Early Music (and everything in between). They are not afraid to play Perotin and Philip Glass in the same concert, or have Finnish electronic musician Jimi Tenor write music for them. Other ensembles in other countries and cities might try similar things, though when I search on youtube, such fruitful crossovers seem rare. c) Computer and Video game music. The Japanese have now for years a very healthy relationship to music composed for video games. It is completely normal to hear the Tokyo Phil play the Super Mario Bros. theme, or a Legend of Zelda Medley. These compositions are often surprisingly good and well arranged, because - in reverse - classically trained composers have no fear writing for a video game. If you look on youtube, there are literally thousands of videos of teenagers playing video game music on their piano, guitar, ukulele, etc., some even forming little ensembles, making even their own arrangements. 3. Sounds familiar? Well, the Lute repertoire fits exactly these purposes - you want crazy Ricercars for the outgoing experimentalists, some popular songs, some dance music, you copy your favourite tunes, make mixtapes (Lute books), copy music from friends etc. Some hits appear everywhere, some gems (nearly) get lost. The lute is an instrument that appeals to Metal/Rock people, because it allows great versatile styles more intense, somehow brighter, louder and more subtle than a modern guitar, and it's Medievalish cool. A cittern might even be considered the "electric guitar" of its time. I don't know what happend to the group "Pantagruel", but the leader of the band had deeper experiences with rock music, his Early music interpretations felt very engaging. Or maybe someone remembers the late Owain Phyfe. This is the attitude at least I am looking for. The lute is great to sing to, and it doesn't matter if it's Dowland or Bob Dylan, it will still sound great. Lute is for songs. Today's dance music might be difficult to recreate on a lute, but with some percussion, this could be achieved. And last but not least: there are tons of Fantasy RPG's with catchy kind of medieval/renaissance-ish tunes that people would love to play on the lute. And the movie scores again. 4. For some time now, German music shoppe giant "Thomann" has taken Lute instruments into their portfolio. These are specially commissioned lines of instruments - I don't know if one of you had tried one of those Lutes, Theorbos or Renaissance/Baroque guitars. I'd be interested to hear about experiences with these instruments, as it seemed to me that these are not the infamous Pakistani instruments. Well - basically you can now get a Lute for $500 if you don't mind the clean cut flat rose etc., similar to Le Luth Doré, which seems to make similar restrictions to achieve a lower price. If Lutists and Luthiers overcome the resentment of these production methods and instead encouraging lowering the bar for the huge number of amateur guitarists, who might not be able to afford a real hand crafted master lute. These people might even try the original stuff, as they have not only the actual instrument, but also a great popular tab system (French) and lots of great original pieces at hand in the internets. 5. Conclusion: I see a brighter future for the lute. Neither in the Early Music scene, nor in the New Music scene, but in popular music through the playing of popular music on the Lute. Some steps are made, but it's on you to widen your repertoire a bit. What you can do: Play Metallica or Katie Perry, or Depeche Mode on the lute, and if your intabulations are any good, other people will want to play them. You will at least encourage them to try it on their guitar, where they will come to the conclusion that the lute might just be the cooler instrument after all. Of course there were no copyright issues back then... This would have to be sorted out. There should be more themed intabulation contests, or even "intabulation and fantasy" Paladin style. Legend of Zelda, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, it's all there. Don't let guitarists be the only ones :) Here's some inspiration: [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtDX-KsBDQA [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3h9jGSBVJo [4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG3wpCeYogQ [5]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnINBKOnDZU [6]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkRd_OmsJKk Props to those people, maybe some of them are here on the list. Am 22.12.2017 um 20:13 schrieb Ron Andrico: Both Chris and Gilbert have made excellent points: New music for the lute is not widely accepted because the lute is considered to be a representative emblem of early music, and new music for the lute is not taught in conservatories because lute teachers holding conservatory posts must adhere to the received and accepted idea of what defines early music. I have expended a great deal of time and energy researching and digesting information describing the arc of the early music revival and, in my view, the lute simply will not survive the apparent downward spiral and eventual demise of the early music revival - unless the instrument somehow transcends the bounds of its associations with early music. New music for the lute may help the instrument survive, but it will not happen without certain compromises. I'll have much more to say on the topic in the coming year. Watch this space. RA -- To get on or off this list see list information at [7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:tristanvonneum...@gmx.de 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtDX-KsBDQA 3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3h9jGSBVJo 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG3wpCeYogQ 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnINBKOnDZU 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkRd_OmsJKk 7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html