[LUTE] Re: future of the lute
To my friends on the Graying Lute List: Due to a two-century long and world-wide shortage of lute players, we can now get into heaven for free! Smile, George __ From: lute-...@new-old-mail.cs.dartmouth.edu on behalf of Nancy Carlin Sent: Thursday, August 27, 2020 2:15 PM To: howard posner ; lutelist Net Subject: [LUTE] Re: future of the lute Howard is right about the graying of audiences and it's been talked about for years here in the US. I think one problem is that early music is the poor step-sister of "classical music" - a category that was solidified (along with ethnic, folk etc.) back when record stores started. It seems to me our music was the pop music of the day, with a bit of a division between music for use in church, court and things like popular ballad tunes. Currently I see a couple larger baroque orchestras and concert series moving past the baroque, but I also see some interesting series who explore putting on concerts in non-traditional venues, such as bars and coffee shops. We had an article by Deborah Fox a year or so in the Quarterly - about some of the things her Pegasus music is doing to encourage a younger audience. Stephen Stubbs in Seattle (Pacific Music Works) in Seattle is also doing this. I suspect that all this targeted music aimed to fill medium sized concert venues will change because of Covid-19. It will level the playing field and people will have found out it's very nice to listen to a well-produced concert on your TV (via YouTube). Recently I have listened to online lute concerts by Paul O'Dette, Ronn McFarlane and Brandon J Acker. In each of them there was no ticket price, just a suggestion to follow a link to donate on PayPal. None of those concerts took place in my part of the continent and I would not have heard them without the pandemic. I think this will continue even after we get our vaccine. The success of these kind of things will depend on things like Facebook spreading to work far and wide as well as people contiruting - Brandon Acker has done a great job getting lots of connections on Facebook, so has access to his potential audience. Nancy >> On Aug 27, 2020, at 8:58 AM, Is Milse Póg wrote: >> >>I am a young amateur lute player (just 21), so I guess I am a part of >>the next generation of players. I think the lute will continue to be >>played for the foreseeable future, since there's always someone strange >>enough to fall in love with the lute's music and sound, but it's sad to >>see little to no young people in ancient music and classical music >>concerts in general. Perhaps it has to do with the distance that has >>grown between contemporary composers and the general population, the >>former usually earning their bread through the academia. > It has to do with classical music being a taste that listeners tend to acquire as they get older. Old listeners are replaced with lots of middle-aged listeners, and not so many young ones. > > Alarms about the âgraying of the classical audienceâ have been sounded for decades, and in the USA probably peaked in 1988. The general manager of the public classical music station in Los Angeles came back from the Audience 88 conference that year convinced that classical music was dying and he had to wean the station away from it. He was gone within a year or so. The station was was playing Satie, Rossini and Beethoven this morning. > > It reminds me of the line in the Hitchhikerâs Guide to the Galaxy that the galactic emperor is ânearly dead and has been for centuries." > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- Nancy Carlin Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA [2]http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org PO Box 6499 Concord, CA 94524 USA 925 / 686-5800 [3]www.groundsanddivisions.info [4]www.nancycarlinassociates.com -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 2. http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org/ 3. http://www.groundsanddivisions.info/ 4. http://www.nancycarlinassociates.com/
[LUTE] Re: Strings for an English theorbo set up as a baroque lute
Hello everyone, I have been using salt-water fishing line on all my lutes for about 5 years now. For the open bass stings on my baroque lutes and arch-lute I use 150 and 200 pound-test mono-filament leaders. For octaves I use 90 pound-test. The easiest way to select the right size is to match the diameter of the string(s) you are replacing. That way you might not have to enlarge the clearance for that bridge, peg and nut guides. Some fishing lines are available with color and I find that useful for visual recognition / hand position. For the chanticleer I use 15 pound-test clear mono-filament. This works fine for some of the fret-able octaves as well. I have found that when I have a peg that slips, because of greater new string tension, I can replace that string with another having a smaller diameter. I have only had to do this once for my 7 lutes. I can suggest you avoid using wound fishing line because it is abrasive. Yard trimmer line lacks mass and did not produce sufficient volume for me. Also any special cutting-edge profiles render it impractical for our use. I have found fishing line strings enable me to play my lutes louder than my voice can project without a microphone and that is sufficient for me. My playing abilities are nowhere near that of many. So, I am not able provide any comparison to the strings experts use on their instruments. The best way to obtain salt-water fishing leaders is from the internet. It is available in small spools with length will last you a lifetime. I can re-string a baroque lute using less that $10 of new salt-water fishing line. Thanks, George __ From: lute-...@new-old-mail.cs.dartmouth.edu on behalf of David van Ooijen Sent: Sunday, May 3, 2020 4:48 AM Cc: Lute Dmth Subject: [LUTE] Re: Strings for an English theorbo set up as a baroque lute >> 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 have plain gut, singles, so only the lower octave, on the neck extension of all my theorboes and archlutes. David *** David van Ooijen [1]davidvanooi...@gmail.com [2]https://davidvanooijen.wordpress.com *** On Sun, 3 May 2020 at 11:22, Martyn Hodgson <[3]hodgsonmar...@mail.cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote: 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. <[4]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 <[5]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk> To: Jay F. <[6]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
[LUTE] Seeking Purcell's Hornpipe on a Ground
Dear collected wisdon: Can someone direct me to a copy of Purcell's Hornpipe on a Ground from his Theater Music 3 The Married Beu? this may be in stave or any tablature. Thanks in advance, George __ From: lute-...@new-old-mail.cs.dartmouth.edu on behalf of Ron Andrico Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2020 7:58 AM To: Frank A. Gerbode, M.D. ; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: Transposing/transcribing in fronimo. I use Fronimo constantly and cannot praise Francesco's efforts enough in terms of its usefulness for lute music. But in transposing and transcribing, please take care that all work is checked thoroughly. I find that tablature characters are wrongly assigned at times, and carefully applied slurs simply disappear. In mensural music, transposing in Fronimo can be a real mess and I find that all rests and tied notes must be repositioned. Again, for lute music there is no better program. RA __ From: lute-...@new-old-mail.cs.dartmouth.edu on behalf of Frank A. Gerbode, M.D. Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2020 6:31 PM To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Transposing/transcribing in fronimo. You may already know this, but transcription from one instrument (or tuning) to another can be done pretty easily through fronimo. Say you start with a version for Baroque lute in ton ravissant. If you go to F5/instrument, click on "transpose and transcribe" and then change the tuning to archlute (customized to fit whatever key you are using. This field doesn't use the "b" symbol, so you have to specify, e.g., Eb as D#, etc.) and hit OK, you will get a new version for the new instrument. Looking at the new version, you may need to tweak it a bit to make it playable, but that approach definitely works. I also use this strategy for converting from one sized lute to another. For example, suppose you have a ground written for bass lute in D. To rewrite it for, say, a 7 or 8-course or archlute in G, you start with the original version, go into F5/instrument and change the "first course" setting to D (the default setting is G), without hitting "transcribe or "transpose and transcribe", then hit "apply"; then change "first course" to G and choose "renaissance 7 course" or "renaissance 8-course" or "archlute", hit "transpose and transcribe", then OK, and you will get a new version for lute in G, which, again, you will usually have to tweak a bit. I use a similar approach to convert pieces where the 6th course is tuned down to F (or where other variant tunings have been used) to a version for 7- or 8-course lute or archlute in standard tuning. Under f5/instrument, I first put in the custom tunings using "modify custom tuning" as necessary to make the piece sound correct when played in fronimo. Then hit "apply". Then change to the tuning or instrument you want to change to, hit "transpose and transcribe", then "OK", and you will get the transposed version, which, again, will probably need to be tweaked to make it more playable. --Sarge -- Frank A. Gerbode, M.D. (sa...@gerbode.net) 11132 Dell Ave Forestville, CA 95436-9491 Home phone: 707-820-1759 Website: [1]http://www.gerbode.net "The map may not be the territory, but it's all we've got." To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. [1]http://www.gerbode.net/ 2. [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.gerbode.net/ 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Sorting pieces for compilation
Hello Tristan, I have made a collection of lute scores and put all of them in books by instrument (number of lute courses). I select those I play well enough to perform and put them into a "performance" book for each instrument. In that book the songs are in order of keys starting with the most flats and progressing to the most sharps. This minimizes the effort to re-tune when moving on to the next piece. I have found strings hold their new pitch better when tuned-up to a sharp. Thanks, George __ From: lute-...@new-old-mail.cs.dartmouth.edu on behalf of Ed Durbrow Sent: Saturday, August 10, 2019 7:47 AM To: Tristan von Neumann ; LuteNet list Subject: [LUTE] Re: Sorting pieces for compilation I would add number of courses and tuning. On Aug 10, 2019, at 8:28 AM, Tristan von Neumann wrote: > Here's a "problem" to which any ideas are welcome: > > > I'm preparing a lute book for myself that shall contain all my favourite > pieces, about 500 pages. > > I am still struggling with the order the pieces. > > Apart from solvable problems like page turns of pieces with more than 2 > pages, I am not sure what concept is the best. > > There's plenty of possibilities: > > * by date of sources - useful for experiencing history, offers a nice > mixture of genres within > > * in alphabetical order of the composer (though this would make A as in > anonymous the biggest part...) > > * by country of origin > > * by genre (as in historical prints - Fantasies, Chansons and Madrigals, > Motets, Dances) > > * a mixture of those above > > > Any experiences/suggestions are welcome. > > > :) > T* > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan [2]http://www.youtube.com/user/edurbrow?feature=watch [3]https://soundcloud.com/ed-durbrow [4]http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ -- -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 2. http://www.youtube.com/user/edurbrow?feature=watch 3. https://soundcloud.com/ed-durbrow 4. http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
