Dear Jay,
Most Italian theorbos were, in fact double strung - it's a modern day
fashion to think they were only single strung.
A 'baroque' lute based on early instruments and contemporary
information would generally have a string length in the high 60s (say
around 68cm) for most of the seventeenth century; - by the eighteenth
the instrument, now being played in mostly German speaking lands, was
around the low 70s (say 71cm) - although a few larger instruments are
extant up to around 76cm which, of course, need to be tuned at a very
low pitch to bring the first course up to nominal f'.
In short the baroque lute and the double re-entrant Italian theorbo are
two entirely different, and different sizes of, instruments and must
necessarily needs be configured in wholly different ways.
regards
Martyn
On Sunday, 3 May 2020, 08:52:56 BST, Jay F.
<existentialismy...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi Martyn,
Yeah I have no intention of actually using it as an English theorbo -
its merely so I can have a 2-in-1 baroque lute and double course
italian theorbo. The idea is just to use the design of the english
theorbo to achieve that because its not possible to set up an italian
theorbo with double courses.
Cheers,
Jay
__________________________________________________________________
----- Forwarded message -----
From: Martyn Hodgson <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>
To: Jay F. <existentialismy...@hotmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, 3 May 2020, 08:24:35 BST
Subject: Re: [LUTE] Strings for an English theorbo set up as a baroque
lute
Dear Jay F,
An English theorbo with such a short fingered string length (ie
76/77cm) would only have the first course an octave down, The
historical practice was always to tune strings as high as they could
reach (ie just short of Breaking Stress). Thus a second course on a
nominal G tuned English theorbo would be d' which is fine for this
string length at the pitch standards common at the time.
MH
On Sunday, 3 May 2020, 08:17:17 BST, Jay F.
<existentialismy...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi everyone,
I'm considering doing something a bit crazy and getting a 14 course
English theorbo, albeit one strung in D minor as a baroque lute. The
logic here is that it will allow me to play baroque music (mainly
Weiss) but if I feel so inclined I can just change the top two courses,
add the 14th and then play standard 16th century theorbo solo
repertoire in A. I'm sure a double course theorbo would sound pretty
cool.
I've only just come up with the idea so I haven't really put much
thought into it which is why I'm reaching out to the collective here.
Can any of you think of the major problems with this idea?
One obvious problem will be selecting the right strings. I'm thinking
I'll go for the top 8 courses with a string length of 76 or 77 cm (for
fretting) and have the bottom 6 courses stagger up to about 135 cm. My
understanding is that Italian theorbos are single course instruments
because the octave courses snap once they are required to be beyond a
certain length at a given pitch. The English theorbo is I guess
supposed to keep the octave strings short and the bases long. I'm sure
I can use plain gut for the strings that go up to 100 cm, but beyond
that is what I need to work out. I imagine beyond that they will not
work. Any suggestions would be helpful. I'm thinking I might need to go
for carbon strings? Linda Sayce's theorbo appears to use metal
overwound strings which I would prefer to avoid.
Cheers,
Jay
-[1]l
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