Dowland, writing in 1610, speaking of the 6th course of a 9c lute, says:
Secondly, for on your Bases, in that place which you call the sixt
string, or r ut - these Bases must be both of one bignes, yet it hath
been a generall custome (although not so much used anywhere as here in
England) to set a small and a great string together, but amongst learned
Musitions that custome is left, as irregular to the rules of Musicke.
We don't know exactly what segment of the past Dowland is referring to,
but Barley's instructions (1596, but borrowed from Le Roy) describe a 6c
lute with octaves on courses 4-6, and there is plenty of internal
evidence in the music of Holborne, Cutting, Johnson, and Anon that this
was a common tuning in England in the 1580s and 90s. Le Roy attributes
the use of unison stringing (of at least the 5th course) to Fabritio
Dentice and his followers - so it seems that the English were a bit slow
to catch up with continental developments.
Martin
On 29/11/2019 10:42, Anthony Hind wrote:
Just another thought, I think I originally chose Unissons on 5C because
I thought I might be playing more latish English renaissance pieces,
Dowland, Holborne etc. I note most speakers here seem to prefer 5C with
octaves whatever the music? I seem to remember Martin Shepherd
discussing this issue on his site.
Regards
Anthony
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Le jeudi, novembre 28, 2019, 2:56 PM, Bruno Cognyl-Fournier
<[email protected]> a écrit :
Love 5th and 6th in octaves...only play that way.
Le sam. 23 nov. 2019 5 h 10 p.m., Edward Martin
<[1][2][email protected]> a à ©crit :
I think you will be surprised at how you will like the 5 th
course in
octaves. Good luck!
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 23, 2019, at 12:34 PM, Jurgen Frenz
<[2][3][email protected]> wrote:
ï » ¿
Hello Edward,
thank you very much, I feel encouraged now to "go octaves" all
the way
down from 5th. course.I should consider myself stupid that I
hesitated,
because who is there to judge me apart from myself. I am not
competing
in any academic exercise :-)
Thank you very much again, gut is cost-wise prohibitive to me.
Best regards
Jurgen
----------------------------------
"Close your eyes. Fall in love. Stay there."
JalÃl ad-DÃ «n Muhammad Rumi
âââââââ Original Message
âââââââ
On Saturday, November 23, 2019 9:16 PM, Edward Martin
<[3][4][email protected]> wrote:
Hello Jurgen,
I agree that in with 8-course lutes, they do tend to not sound
as
brilliant as with octaves. Of course, it is a compromise, but
on my
8-course lute, I have octaves on 5,6,7, & 8 and like it very
much.
Whatever brand of strings you try, I think you will like the
5th
course
in octaves, as it brightens up the sound. I do not see it as
confusing
the voices as you say, but adding to the richness and
complexity
of the
sound. Another thing that could very much improve the sound is
to use
gut. If you do not want gut, at least consider using gut for
octaves.
On Sat, Nov 23, 2019 at 6:19 AM Jurgen Frenz
<[1][4][5][email protected]> wrote:
Hello there,
I have an 8c lute now since 10 months and from the beginning
I'm
"unhappy" with the sound of the unison C strings on it. I
changed
the
plain Aquila strings to round-wound Aquilas but to me it
sounds
quite
the same. What I'm missing is the high frequencies that we
have on
6c
instruments with the octave string. In my mind I call the
current
sound
"plastic-y". The maker of the instrument suggested to try out
the
Savarez early music strings but I do not think I would
recover
high
frequencies with them.
Any remedies that you have tried out with success other than
"just
get
used to it"? An octave string shouldn't be a good idea
because
it
would
confuse voices.
Hoping for some suggestions,
Jurgen
----------------------------------
"Close your eyes. Fall in love. Stay there."
JalÃl ad-Dà ï ¿ ½n Muhammad Rumi
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