[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: I shall leave the list.
Juan, I return your best wishes and thank you for them. I am not departing either music or life - at least not for a long time - I'm merely trimming my emails. I hope you will remember my direct address should you have anything to share. Best, Jon On 1/16/2016 2:23 PM, Juan Fco. Prieto wrote: Sincerely, my best wishes to you, Jon. Juan Francisco Prieto. 2016-01-15 13:05 GMT+01:00 Jon Murphy <[1]j...@murphsays.com>: Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to remove myself from the Lute Builder list. Nothing to do with the communications, it is a fine group. I am 80 and no longer can deal with my several instruments - I have chosen to stay with my harp and a couple of others. My old guitar is yet an instrument I play when the grandchildren visit, but I'm not a guitarist - I'm a singer who accompanies himself on guitar. I fuss a bit with the home built psaltery now and then, it is fun to shift from the hammers on the lap to the plucked at the shoulder. What fun to imitate ancient instruments. I'll keep my modified Charango, now tuned as a Scots Mandora, so I can play the pieces from the Skene manuscripts. I think I'll pass on my "flat back" lute (the Musicmakers kit) to my grandchildren, my fingers are not up to handling all my instruments. I'll also pass on that silly bowed psaltery that many think is an ancient instrument, but was invented by a German at the turn of the 19th to 20th C. as a training device. It is a good training device, but at my age I don't need training, just better fingers. The lute is the most beautiful of instruments, and the luthier the epitome of artisans - be he making a lute (al oud) or a violin or any of the other heirs of that Arabic necked instrument. I wish you all well, and the same to your instruments. I am going to clear a shelf in my closet, the storage room for my bedroom workshop, that contains my form for shaping the lute body parts. Not a decision I wanted to make, but a bit of realism. I intend to live another 20 or 30 years (110 would be pretty good), but I know I'll not make another lute. Another harp, maybe, they are easier. I'll not leave the list tonight, you can all bless me for my future should you choose. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:j...@murphsays.com 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Edlinger Lutes
Dear Benjamin, and all, My lute building career ceased before I finished my first real one (still have the form and the body staves I'd made), so what I say may be irrelevant. My interest moved to the Celtic harp, but I did make - and still play - the flat back lute from Musikits (13 string, 7 course). I would guess that the average depth of the flat back is similar to the Edlinger's that I saw on web sites. As the principle of Musikits (Jerry Brown) was a player of 12 string guitar he designed this so one could make a lute shaped 12 string guitar or a 13 string lute by filing the string slots in the bridge and nut - he expected most would make the guitar. Some years back I attended a master class run by Ronn McFarlane (as a listener) and brought my flat back. After the class I asked Ronn if he would play it and give me his opinion. For some reason, probably as he was a bit wrapped up in the master class, he didn't notice that it was a flat back (guitar profile with a lute shape). He played a bit and commented that it had a sweet sound - which I interpreted to be that it was different, but nice. My own ear, listening from the same chair where I'd been for the master class students and Ronn's demonstrations for them on several different real lutes, would agree with your speculation. The sound was less complex, and therefore what Ronn called sweet. It was not a small sound, nor a thin sound - one might call it a clean sound. As to projection, it was similar to the other lutes, although that was hard to tell as all the students had 9 or more courses giving a fuller bass. Let me digress into my totally amateur observations on sound production. You mentioned sound being trapped in the belly, an interesting thought. I am in continual gentle argument with fellow harpists on the effect of the body of the harp on the sound - the woods and the shapes. The harp is unique to our stringed instruments - the strings pull directly from the soundboard, and most of the strings are harmonics (even if distant harmonics) from all the other strings. The object of the body of the harp is to support the sound board and not damp the vibrations of the sound board. The object of the soundboard is to pass the vibrations to the sympathetic strings. The sound production and complexity is almost all from the strings to the air. On the other hand, the lute, the violin, the guitar, and all the others of that family use the body of the instrument to mix the sound. Note: harps don't have sound holes, the others do. The lute family transmits the vibration of the plucked or bowed string to the body through a bridge (the complex bridge of the violin family must have something to do with the way it is transmitted, can't see why it would be that way otherwise). That means the resonance of the body, and the contained air column, must have something to do with the sound. I would guess that, unlike the harp, the shape and wood of the body and the air column would have a great deal to do with the complexity and projection of the sound. The modern solid electric guitar uses electronics rather than an air column to transmit the vibrations, we can drop it as a design for a lute (although I'm sure one could make one that would sound almost authentic). Any instrument that uses air column needs an exit, else the air won't vibrate and resonate - it will just bounce back and forth and the instrument will sound dead. Wow, a lot of verbiage from one who is not an expert. I'd be interested to hear from real luthiers whether I'm off base, on base, or a couple of steps away. There must have been a reason for Edlinger to make the lute this way, perhaps it was for the sweetness. Best, Jon On 10/18/2013 3:04 PM, BENJAMIN NARVEY wrote: Dear All, I am getting a small theorbo made after Edlinger, but my lute maker feels the model is excessively thin; she is worried about sound/projection. I should think the sound may be less complex than deeper lutes, but perhaps I will have more projection since less sound will get trapped in the belly. Does anyone have experience with Edlinger-type models? I would like to stay as close to the original body as possible and see what happens, but the maker has never made anything so shallow before and is getting slightly cold feet about it. Any and all thoughts would be much appreciated! In any event, it should be a dream to hold! Bonne musique, Benjamin -- [1]www.luthiste.com t +33 (0) 1 44 27 03 44 p/m +33 (0) 6 71 79 98 98 -- References 1. http://www.luthiste.com/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Pitch center on a 10 cs. lute
I built a 63+ cm. length lute some years back, actually a bastard lute in that it was Music Maker's flatback. I had the breakage problem with the chanterelle also - I was pitching to A440 and tuning to G. Musical nylon would last a few days, nylgut would break almost immediately. I went to a sporting goods store and chatted with the fishing department - they gave me about 10 feet of nylon leader line to try. It worked, I have had no breakage in ten years. The Aquila article is interesting, but perhaps overly technical as it doesn't start with the basic principle. Please pardon my simple primer, I'm sure it is obvious to most of you - but I had played guitar for years before I realized this. A string (or a rope, or a structural wire/rod) breaks when the stress on it exceeds the tensile strength of the material used. We stress a musical string when we tune it up to the tension for the desired pitch/frequency. The frequency of the vibration is a function of the combination of string (or rope - think of the shrouds of a sailboat humming in a strong wind) length, the tension, and the vibrating mass of the string. The mass is a function of the density of the material (mass/weight per unit - i.e., lbs./cubic inch, grams/cubic cm., etc) and the number of units (length, sort of). I say mass/weight for the very technical, they are the same in our gravity. Notice that it is a cubic measure - a long thin string will have the same weight as a short fat one. The tensile strength is also a function of the specific material, and it is normally measured in weight per cross-sectional unit (i.e., lbs/square in., kilograms/square cm.). A thin string will break when supporting less weight than a fat one because of the greater cross-sectional area. We normally measure the tension on our musical strings using pounds (or a metric weight), but that is shorthand - the newton is the general measure. My revelation (satori?) when I was building that lute was that, given the material and the length, any gauge of string will break at the same pitch. The thicker the gauge the stronger the string, but also the greater the vibrating mass. The greater vibrating mass requires greater tension on the string to bring it to pitch. It happens that the competing factors (the square measure of cross-section that defines tensile strength and the cubic measure of mass) meet at a point we can call the breaking pitch for a given length and material. This, of course, applies to monofiliment strings, wound strings add mass without changing the core strength, but that is another matter. Best, Jon On 1/1/2013 3:02 PM, Paul Daverman wrote: I am building a 10 cs. lute per Robert Lundberg's plans (10-cs Renaissance Lute, Dieffopruchar 1612). I am to the point where I have begun looking at strings so that I have an idea of diameters, etc. As this is my first lute build, I am looking at Nylgut and am looking to tune to AD0. One of the suppliers to which I have inquired has said that in A440 tuning, they have no strings at 65cm length that can take the tension for the chanderelle (and that no gut could either.) He said that the instrument was probably meant for A92 and while he could supply strings in either tuning, I'd have to look elsewhere for a string for the chanderelle if I chose A440. I am wondering if any of you can talk to this topic. Would I be over stressing the lute if I tune to the modern tuning of A440? Would A392 have been the intended tuning or maybe A415? What other repercussions of tuning one way vs. another should I know about? My music theory is a bit poor - is the difference between going from A440 tuning to A392 really any different that transposing down a (??) major second? Any word to help get all this straight in my mind would be appreciated. While I understand that pitch is all relative, I'm having a difficult time getting my arms around the practical understanding of what I should do for stringing. Thanks. Paul -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Hello everyone
I'm not good at choosing the wood as the only lute I've built (a flat back) was from a kit - but I will second, and doubly second, Richard's comments on the weight of the neck and peg box as to the balance of the instrument. The hand position on the lute is different than that on the guitar as the form of play is different - I'll not get into detail, I'll just say that one needs a bit more freedom of finger movement with the lute. I converted a Bolivian charango to a Scot's mandora (small instrument - @ 14 long strings bridge to nut, five double courses) - the charango has a heavy peg box with mechanical tuning pegs. I have to use a saxophone neck strap to support the head of the instrument in order to have the freedom of the fingers (the music for the Scot's mandora is of a vintage with early lute music). With my lute I need no strap as the balance is there - although I do have a button on the tail so I can attach a guitar strap which I sit on to hold the tail down when I don't have a good sitting position (I do like to loll back in my armchair when playing relaxed with a beer). Summary, the balance of the lute, as Richard says, is a very important part of its playability - I'm only emphasizing his comments. BTW, for those interested - it wasn't much of a conversion on the charango, just a bit of widening the bridge tie down holes and the nut grooves for the wider strings in the 4th and 5th courses. The charango is re-entrant, like a ukelele (a one octave range on the open strings) whereas the Scot's mandora has a two octave range across the five courses (tuned in fourths and fifths - i.e. D,G,d,g,d',g'). Actually it is normally higher, but my charango is a bit longer than the Scot's mandora so I made it a baritone. No relationship to the larger mandora of Europe, I guess the old Scots borrowed the name and form but made it smaller. The only reason I got the charango and converted it was that when the Bolivia Mall first came onto the web it was selling at very low prices - my hand carved charango, a gourd shape from one piece of wood, cost me less than the wood would cost ($65) to make it. That has changed as they became successful. Best, Jon On 10/30/2012 6:09 PM, Joshua Horn wrote: Hi everyone, I'm giving a go at building my first lute. (A flat-back) I have a question though, I have a considerable amount of large pieces of dried Oak on my back porch. Would it work to use these to make the neck and peg box and maybe the bridge out of? I picked them up from a neighbor and I have had no use for them yet. They've just been sitting there for years, and I hate for them to go to waste. Josh + Joshua Edward Horn + -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Archlute Bridge
Sterling, I'm sort of a lurker on this list, I had started building a lute some years ago - after getting interested by making the Music Maker's flat back to see if I could handle the play. Medical matters have taken me away from the lute, but I retain interest. I still play, and sometimes repair, harps and other stringed instruments. You say that the split in the soundboard doesn't affect the playability, but it could in the future if it widens. May I make some suggestions from one who deals with wood (I am a wood turner). And if my suggestions are totally out of line in dealing with a lute may I ask the more knowledgeable on this list to say so. Removing the top and replacing it involves a certain amount of work and expertise. I make very thin hollow forms on my turning lathe, and as they are usually of relatively green wood they often split on the end grain. I rub sawdust into the split, then drip in thin CA glue. This effectively makes new wood as the sawdust and the CA glue meld (not really new wood, but better than glue alone). If you are thinking of removing the top/soundboard anyway, perhaps you should try this first. As to the ebony bridge, someone suggested grinding it down rather than taking it off. That also sounds like a good fix to try. You could make a new bridge and glue it on top of the ground down ebony. Let me stick my neck out now, in this community of luthiers. There are two basic forms of stringed instruments. The harp is one in that the strings pull directly on the soundboard. The other form has the strings parallel to the soundboard, and pressing on it over a bridge. That form is separated into two sub-groups - the lyre, psaltery, cithera (zither) is one group and the violin, guitar, lute, etc. is the other. The former have a string for each note, and the latter have a neck and fretboard (whether fretted or not) that allows for fewer strings to make the notes. These differences are important in the production of the sound. Musical sound involves the overtones of the plucked or bowed string (or for woodwinds and horns, the shape of the air column - but we are speaking of stringed instruments). I'll address the harp first. Contrary to the opinions of most of my harping friends (pun intended) the construction material of the harp body has little effect. The harp strings sing to the open air, and the fullness of sound comes from the direct vibrations that the soundboard, under tension, passes to the sympathetic strings. The harp body is not a resonating chamber, except to the extent that it enhances the vibrations in the soundboard that are passed to other strings. I.e., the soundboard is not a transmitter to the sound in the air. Now to the bridged instruments. Here the resonating chamber of the body has more effect, and is more integrated into the sound transmission to the air. At the extreme we have the violin bridge, a complex shaping with cutouts so that the bridge itself affects the passing of the direct vibrations of the strings to the soundboard, and therefore the resonating chamber that is the body. At the other end we have psaltery, lyre, and zither - where the body is not so resonant. A solid bridge, and a high tension, and less resonance. In the middle is the lute group, the plucked instruments with a neck and fretting (in the sense of finger pressure on the string to change the note, not the actual frets). The entire combination of body and soundboard are a resonating chamber, but the bridge is a passive pass through (in contrast to the violin bridge). Where the violin is made as a body of the same material the lute group has a body and a soundboard of different material. The goal of the bridge is to pass the vibrations to the soundboard, but it is also needs to be of a harder wood to not wear away from the movement of the strings in tuning. Perhaps the ebony is too hard, vibrations move at different speeds in different woods (or materials, depending on the density). But I wonder if there is any need to replace the ebony bridge with a more traditional material - it seems to me that it would make a good bridge. Perhaps the amplitude of the vibrations in the wood is reduced with the harder wood, perhaps there is a compromise that resists wear but also retains amplitude. That is pure speculation, but if I had my old shop and silly scope I could test it. That would be fun, one of the burdens of old age and a reduced space is the lack of tools. OK, I've blessed/cursed you all with my ramblings. I'm very curious as to your reactions. In the harp world there is a continuing argument over the solid soundboard and the laminate - but it is a bit silly as the solid isn't solid. A harp requires that the long grain of the wood be across the soundboard, else the tension of the strings would immediately split it (the total tension on a medium sized Celtic harp is over a thousand pounds). To make a solid
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Englemann Spruce
Spruce and cedar, sycamore and (something else I've forgotten). The taxonomy of trees is confused by the local names. The English have different local names than Americans (that is the sycamore, and my forgotten English name). The pear I turn for hollow forms is not the pear of Europe - it is called non-fruiting pear locally in NJ, but I'm not sure that it isn't aspen. No quarrel with this thread, just the warning that names can be local. Best, JOn On 5/17/2012 9:36 PM, Tim Motz wrote: Yes, two different trees. Red cedar will be much softer. My music teacher (no longer with us, unfortunately) had a lute built by Larry Lundy in the 70s that had a red cedar top and I loved the sound of it. I have a red cedar soundboard that I'm planning to put on a lute to try and duplicate that sound. Northern Tonewoods harvests dead standing red spruce in Canada under a license from the Canadian government. I emailed Dan Larson when I got the idea of using red spruce and he was encouraging. He warned about difficulties in carving the rose because the wood is stiffer than other spruces, but my roses are pretty simple and I didn't notice any particular problems. I just need to finish the lute so I can hear what it sounds like. I should say that I've built two lutes using Englemann spruce and I like that too. Tim Sent from my iPad On May 17, 2012, at 8:55 PM, Mark Daylautenmac...@gmail.com wrote: Red cedar and red Spruce are two different trees. Both are native to North America. red spruce (picea rubens) is also known by Adirondack spruce and comes from, you guessed it; the Eastern part of North America along the Adirondack range. Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) is native to the Pacific Northwest. Adirondack or red spruce is famed for pre-war Martin guitars. It is supposed to exhibit properties close to that of European spruces which is not surprising since at one time the western shore of Europe and the eastern shore of North America where probably one. I don't know of anyone who has made the connection and tried it for a lute yet, but it's on my bucket list of things to do. It is very expensive and difficult to get wide pieces because it was indiscriminately logged out by our thoughtful ancestors, but you can still get it. Western red cedar is offered as an option by Dan Larson and Mel Wong told me one of the nicest sounding lutes he built had a WRC top, and I re-topped my cheap Pakistani-built lute with a WRC top and it sounds beautiful. My first from scratch build was a vihuela with an Engleman spruce top. I think it also sounds very nice despite my inexperience in luthiery. Cheers, Mark On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 7:52 PM, James Jackson [1]weirdgeor...@googlemail.com wrote: Shouldn't red spruce be synonymous with red cedar? I've heard of cedar topped lutes - from what I understand (And I really don't understand much yet!), cedar can work well on smaller lutes, A, B, C and D ren lutes. Unless I'm getting this wrong and red spruce IS different? My Englemann soundboard arrived. It's really an excellent piece of timber. No run out, or short grain, amazing tap tone, feels lovely and dry crispy under thumb, and the grain is VERY fine in the area where the rose is to be cut, which is a plus! It's actually the nicest soundboard I've bought yet...I've bought several middle grade Alpine spruce boards, non of them have the tap tone or the lack of short grain this one has. I'm very happy! On 17 May 2012 22:57, Tim@Buckeye [1][2]tam...@buckeye-express.com wrote: James, To further confuse the issue, Northern Tonewoods offers Red Spruce soundboards. [2][3]http://www.hvgb.net/~tonewood/acousticguitar.htm I'm in the middle of building an A lute with one of their soundboards. Tap tone is very clear and bright. I don't know how the lute will sound, but it should be pretty bright. Tim Sent from my iPhone On May 17, 2012, at 8:06 AM, James Jackson [3][4]weirdgeor...@googlemail.com wrote: Thanks for your advice, I've decided to go for Englemann. I'm going for grade 7 (Second down from highest on their grade) which the timber supplier describes as Near perfection - very slow growth, the widest growth ring approximately 2mm within the template area. Very limited acceptance of colour variation, otherwise same as grade 8. Best possible quartering and the minimum possible run-out (short grain). The wood will be stiff with a high pitched tap tone. So hopefully, I should be in for a good soundboard!! James. On 16 May 2012 13:35, Louis Aull[1][4][5]aul...@comcast.net wrote: James, The high grade Englemann I have used produces a very warm full sound. It is also by far the
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Why no mahogany?
Bill and Ted, I think the nature of mahogany would be counter to the needs of the lute ribs. I've had mahogany bodied guitars, but the form of the lute and the sound production is different. As a joining piece between the ribs it should work, but the resonating body of the lute is different than that of the guitar. I'm not a luthier, but have some experience with harps. The stave back Paraguayan harp is resonating - the Celtic harp body is more solid and is more an echo chamber. I think the same might apply to lute and guitar. The former wanting a more subtle action from the body than the latter. Sound production is a complex thing in a stringed instrument. The harp is unique in that the strings are directly attached to a stressed soundboard, whereas the lute, guitar, violin, etc. all pass the vibrations through a bridge to the soundboard (and body). But the common factor in all is that there are vibrations in the sympathetic strings - more in the harp due to the stressed soundboard. The shape of the empty body affects the sound transmission by the compressed air in the body, and the resonance of the body affects that. Wow, what a lot of stuff. My point is that there are competing factors between the woods used, the shape of the body, and the attachment of the strings. Just look at the violin bridge versus that of the lute or guitar. The answer is that there is no answer until someone tries it - the theory is yet lagging the practice. Best, Jon On 5/2/2012 4:01 PM, Woodford wrote: Bill, Mahogany as an export timber arrived on the scene fairly late in terms of lute construction. Very little of it made its way into European cabinetry shops until the 18th century. Most of the mahogany growing at that time was in areas controlled by Spain and in 1622 Cuban mahogany was declared a royal monopoly for use in ship building. As a rib material the fibrous, deeply pored structure is kind of at odds with most of the traditional choices like maple, ebony, ivory and yew. I don't see why it couldn't be used, and I'm almost certain I've seen an oud or two that employed it. Central American and Cuban mahoganies are now listed under the CITES treaty as endangered and moving the material across borders is getting difficult. Cheers, Ted - Original Message - From: William Samson willsam...@yahoo.co.uk To: lute-buil...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2012 2:09 PM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Why no mahogany? Dear Collective Wisdom, I see that mahogany is never recommended as a lute building material (except perhaps for neck blocks). I wonder why this should be? Are there no surviving old lutes that used it? I do know that the Jacquemart-Andree vihuela is now believed to have dark mahogany pieces in its 'jigsaw' ribs. Cuban mahogany is not unusual in guitars. Mahogany is stable, can be beautiful if it comes from the Carribean or Central America, is easy to work . . . So why isn't it being used now and again for lute ribs? Just curious. Bill Samson -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Mandora
Stuart, and all, The problem with the old instruments is the naming. We moderns have a bit better communications than they had. A name could change across boundaries and languages. It is said that the name of the lute comes from the Arabic word for wood - oud. A likely scenario is that when the Moors brought their necked stringed instrument (and it was unfretted) into Spain they already called it an oud, but also likely that the instrument had an early life as made from a gourd, or tortoise shell (there are such instruments depicted historically, and yet in use in some native areas). So perhaps there was another name - let us call it the plunk (an old Arabic word I just made up g). So the player of the plunk, made of shell or gourd, might have made one of wood. He then would have an oud plunk. Should he shorten that to oud, then use the Arabic al oud for the wood, one could understand the Spanish were they to call it aloud, then pervert it to lute. The lute family has a number of names - as you so well point out. But that very fact makes all documentation of the names suspect - they come from a place and a time. The psaltery (from the Greek psein, or plucked) was also the lyre (expanded to many strings) and the Kithera (Greek) or Cithera (Roman) - and is now the class of instruments called the Zither group (which includes the mountain/Appalachian dulcimer). I have the entire archive of the Skene book, I am not familiar with Chancy or Ulm or Gallot. I'm not sure if you are confusing the naming of the instrument (the Italian/European) with the actual instrument. I tried to go back through my originals on the computer but can't find the title page of Skene. I rely on Ronn for the dating of 1615 and the naming of mandora with an a. He used the same source I have. I will go through the 200 odd badly reproduced handwritten pages to look for the title page - but not tonight. The key to the exercise isn't the names - my main instrument is the harp and that name is apparently Norse even though the instrument was preserved by the Celts as the clearsach, and played by the Babylonians, Egyptians and Assyrians under some other name. (The harp isn't the lyre shown in Nero's hands, nor the psaltery shown as King David's harp, in medieval portraiture - it is unique in that the strings pull away from the soundboard rather than across a bridge). The music is the tuning, the form of the music is defined by that. Instrumental polyphony started with the ground base and the divisions on top, a duet. Tunings have changed over the centuries to allow for more polyphony in the solo instrument, and then for more combinations of instruments. The Scot's mandora, as written for in Skene, is a solo instrument that might have a ground base - or might play off a harp (the harp being the main instrument of the Celts of Scotland and Ireland - going back in history to at least the 6th C. when tombstone carvings show the instrument). Enjoying this, Best, Jon On 1/20/2011 11:24 AM, Stuart Walsh wrote: As I understand it, mandoras (mandoras/gallichons) are large instruments of the lute family but mandores (mandors, mandours) are tiny. The Skene MS doesn't mention 'mandora' (with an a on the end) nor 1615? Jean-Marie Poirier's website has lots of materials about and pictures of mandores. http://le.luth.free.fr/mandore/index.html As the first image demonstrates, a typical mandore has single strings. As Jon says, the instrument was tuned in fourths and fifths. But the top course was sometimes lowered (not in the Skene pieces, but in some of the suites in Chancy and some of the pieces in the Ulm MS and all of the (few) pieces in Gallot). There is one whole section of pieces in Skene that are in the old lute tuning. There is a good article by the late James Tyler on Jean-Marie's website. Stuart On 1/19/2011 9:55 AM, Mark Day wrote: Hello everyone, Does anyone know where I could find information on the mandora - as played by Ronn MacFarlane on The Scottish Lute? I would like to build one of these instruments. Thank you, -- Mark Day [1]http://neowalla.smugmug.com/ -- References 1. http://neowalla.smugmug.com/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: chisels for lutherie
I concur with Howard on Japanese chisels, the lamination is sort of an analog of the Samurai sword - the cutting edge is softer so as to not be brittle and can be sharpened with a touch up, the body is hard to maintain form. There is another advantage, the grooved back allows one to sharpen only the back of the chisel so one is bringing the edge to the bevel. It does limit the life of the chisel, once one reaches the groove it is over - but that could take a very long time - and the alternative of taking metal from the bevel also cuts back the blade. It is not that they are made in Japan, it is the Japanese format - just as the Japanese format for hand saws is better. The cut on the pull stroke of the Japanese saws is much more accurate than our cut on the push as the blade doesn't bend on the cut stroke. The Japs say it is because of their belief in drawing the wood to their heart, I say it is just a better way to make an accurate cut. The Western push saw is more efficient for heavy cutting, you can put your weight into it, the Japanese pull saw is more accurate for precise cutting. The same applies to the chisels, the Western solid steel chisel is a blunt instrument (no pun intended, or maybe a bit of one). The Japanese laminated chisel is a bit more subtle. One maintains the edge rather than sharpening it (I'm a woodturner, lots of complex gauges and chisels). A few strokes on the back with a small diamond hone (medium grade) and you have the edge back (only use the hone on the part that is flat, don't waste effort on the edges of the groove. I am familiar with Japan Woodworker, but I don't think they are an OEM - I've bought my Japanese chisels from Lee Valley - and I think they use the same source (and have found the Lee Valley prices to be better sometimes). May I add that I do wood carving, and as such have some carving chisels. Again the Japanese format is best, and Lee Valley my supplier (they are about $7 apiece, these are small blades for close work). I suggest that all instrument makers among you look at the carving tools segments of the catalogs - Lee Valley and Woodcraft are the best for these. But for a combination of chisels and carving chisels I'd say Lee Valley has the best variety - and I can vouch for the company as to their service and backup. They are an OEM, they make the Veritas tools (all my planes), and a vendor of other tools. I'm not an advertiser for them, I don't buy any woodturning tools from them. But in the area of chisels, wood carving tools, planes and specialty planes I'd not buy elsewhere without first checking Lee Valley/Veritas. Their planes are home designed, as are the Lie Nielson. The Lie Nielson are a bit more expensive, but both are expensive. I think they are equivalent. Again may I emphasize that I don't represent Lee Valley (and, in fact haven't ordered from them for quite a while as my purchases have tended toward wood turning. I will only make this comment. When, some years ago, I wanted a left hand skew carving chisel not in their Japanese set they looked into it. They did a special order from the maker (OEM), and charged me the price for the standard. I like that. Nothing against Japan Woodworker, I've dealt with them once or twice - but did find some of their comparative prices a bit high compared to Lee Valley. Best, Jon On 12/2/2010 1:58 PM, Howard Bryan wrote: The best chisel investment I've made was a set of Japanese laminated chisels. I also bought the Marples, found that I was spending far more time sharpening them than using them. Those from Japan Woodworker have been great! Not cheap, but great! There are several suppliers, some with pretty inexpensive stuff, so be careful. Japan Woodworker does describe their products accurately, so I would rely on them. Howard Bryan www.hbryan.com On 12/2/2010 1:11 PM, Andrew Hartig wrote: Hi all, I'm looking to upgrade some of my starting lutherie tools, specifically my chisels (Marples Blue Chip -- which seem to have their edges chip out far too often!). I'm wondering what type of chisels others recommend, including specifics around shapes/design, edge-holding capability, hardness, etc. that they have found useful for lutherie. Advice, anyone? Thanks in advance, Andrew To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] A link to an article, by me
I'm published, even if only on-line. I have received the princely sum of $100 (in the form of a gift certificate) from Highland Woodworking for an article in their on-line Wood News. The topic is the small shop, and the link is [1]www.highlandwoodworking.com/woodnews/2009april/bedroom.html . The link is safe, Highland is a legitimate vendor of tools that I've dealt with. Best, Jon -- References 1. http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/woodnews/2009april/bedroom.html To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Technical drawings (and ebony)
Tim, I'm an amateur also, but isn't the pitch determined by the density and breaking strength of the string as well as its length? And, of course the response of the instrument is determined by a number of factors, including volume of the bowl, size of the rose, and the makeup and bracing of the soundboard. Tim Quite correct, but there is a bit of an anomaly involved which which makes the length of the instrument the over-riding factor in the highest pitch for the top string. The lute, like the guitar and unlike the harp or psaltery, has the same length for all strings. The achievable pitch for the highest string will define the overall tuning of the instrument. Please pardon me if this reads a bit like a primer, I'm trying to sort out the competing factors - and those with more knowledge please allow that I'm trying to show the principles, not all the details. The force required to break a string is a function of the tensile strength of the material and the diameter of the string. The tensile strength is measured in force per square unit, i.e. lbs. per square inch or kg. per square mm. or whatever (no arguments on force vs. weight, etc., please). The thicker the string the more force required to break it. The pitch of a string is a function of the length, the tension, and the mass. Note that it is the mass of the string, not the density of the material. The mass is a cubic measure - the combination of the square measure that is guage (or diameter) and the length. There is an obvious interplay here as the vibrating length affects the pitch, and also affects the mass. The anomaly that started me on my book on the topic is something understood by the old luthiers, but it came as a surprise to me when I first made my own instruments after over fifty years of playing guitar. (The book is on hold for the moment, I've been unable to complete my testing of the various string materials due to a medical matter - I carelessly left my right leg at the hospital some time ago and the testing involves lifting some heavy weights). I tuned up my first (and so far only) lute made from a kit and found I couldn't tune the chanterelle to g'. I took smaller and smaller guage strings, nylon and Nylgut, and they still broke at the same pitch. That got me started looking into it. The apparant anomaly is that, given the material and the length, any string will break at the same pitch no matter the guage. When you think of it, it is no longer an anomaly. The greater guage requires more tension, given a fixed vibrating length, to come up to pitch as the string has more mass. It requires more force to break the thicker string, but also more tension to bring it up to pitch. Conversely it takes less tension to achieve the pitch on a lighter guage, but also less force to break it. It happens that the trade off is directly proportional and there is a breaking pitch for each material at a given vibrating length. One thing that is an anomaly, however, is that the most commonly used string materials have factors that trade off and give them similar breaking pitches. Steel, gut, nylon and Nylgut have similar breaking pitches (about a tone and a half). Bronze and brass are quite different. I first worked this out mathematically from standard figures on the density and tensile strength of the materials. As I was unsatisfied with the standard specifications I decided to do actual tests to make averages for the various manufacturers - and that is what is on hold for the moment. (Breaking steel strings of some guages requires 150lbs of weight on my home made jig). But so far my results have confirmed the thesis, and also shown the standard figures to be a bit off. BTW, I was able to tune my lute to G minor - I found a nylon fishing line at a sporting goods store that was just a bit more tensile strength than musical nylon. Nylgut would hold g' for an hour or so and f#' for a few days, musical nylon held the g' for a few days - the fishing line has held it for five years. I haven't tested gut yet, but from the standard figures it should break about a tone and a half below the nylon and Nylgut. I also converted a Bolivian charango to a Scot's mandora (g'' top string). No way, I tune it to d'', although it will take f''. That gives me a d'', g', d',g,d which can work with other instruments. Again I beg the pardon of the list, most of you know far more than I. I have algebraically recast some of the string calculation formulae, and designed some graphic forms for the data. I am not comfortable with using the several computer programs for string selection as I don't know the underlying assumptions - I do mine on an ancient TI - 35 scientific calculator (and can do them quicker that booting the computer and using a program g). I'd be pleased to offer the form of calculation to any who want it. I've set them up so that one can make a single calculation of most of the
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Technical drawings
I wonder about the matter of technical drawings, and am comfortable about writing on the topic since David V. has entered into the discussion. A gentleman who understands the instrument, and the variations. The lute isn't a single instrument, in the sense of the modern guitar. As I understand it it was made in varying lengths, which would define the pitch. The chanterelle defined the overall pitch of the instrument, by setting the max . I may be wrong, as I'm not a luthier, but my impression is that the various makers made instruments of differing length.The lutenist of early times wasn't really concerned about the absolute pitch, most played solo. And absolute pitch itself is a bit of a canard as the preserved organs of the Baroque period range from A=380 to a bit below our standard of A=400. With the full expectation of being corrected I'l say that the real art of the luthier was the shaping, not the dimensions. The length dictates the highest pitch of the chanterelle, the string spacing could have been individually dictated by the lutenist who commissioned the instrument according to his needs. Pure speculation, would be interested in comments. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: rib thickness
Lundberg's book has been on my shelves for about five years (give or take). I also have David van Edward's on-line book. Medical problems stopped my scratch lute building temporarly, but I find the combination of the two to be worth having. David covers things that Robert left out, and Robert covers some things David doesn't. If you have any intent of building a lute, or any other instrument with the gourd shaped back, I'd get both. Each of use has different skills, the shaping of the base mould is skelatal in one and solid in the other. Better to see all the options and choose the way you want to go. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Test
Dana, I spread muck year round, others call it my emails. I no longer garden, live in an adult condo. My cat is upset as my peg-leg doctor today told me that my prosthetic shouldn't be modified to let me bend more deeply to give her the belly roll scratch that she seeks whenever I come home. Gerontion, thou hast neither youth nor age but, as it were, an after dinner sleep dreaming of each. Well T. S. Eliot might have felt that way (it continues here am I an old man in a dry month being read to by a boy), but I don't. I enjoy you all, just have to check in now and then when you are quiet. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: dem...@suffolk.lib.ny.us To: lute-builder lute-buil...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 2:08 PM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Test On Tue, Mar 31, 2009, Jon Murphy j...@murphsays.com said: Haven't seen anything from Lute Builders since maybe everybody is busy gardening? not sure, might be muck-spreadin time. -- Dana Emery To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Test
Haven't seen anything from Lute Builders since Duncan's 3/14 message on pictures. Just checking to see if I'm still on the list. No response necessary, I'll see my own test message if I'm still alive. Best, Jon -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Test
OK, got my message on the lute builder list, I'm still alive - are you g. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Jon Murphy j...@murphsays.com To: lute-builder lute-buil...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 11:44 PM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Test Haven't seen anything from Lute Builders since Duncan's 3/14 message on pictures. Just checking to see if I'm still on the list. No response necessary, I'll see my own test message if I'm still alive. Best, Jon -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: the rose again
Laurence, You have gotten a lot of great advice here both on tools and process, got to stick my oar in again (as a wood carver and wood turner as well as making instruments). Dana correctly mentioned taking the grain into account, but I'd like to add a bit (that I know he is aware of). I do relief carvings of Celtic themes which involve a lot of the under and over that is in many rosette designs. The grain of the wood is not only along it but also in and out of it - and it's not always apparant in looking at it. You might think that if you are getting a good cut in one direction along the grain you will get the same cut in the opposite direction - but you probably won't as the grain will run out in one direction and run in in the other. This can be a problem with an over and under pattern as on one side of the over you will be able to chisel down a stop cut and chisel (or carve) into it. On the other side you want to go in the other direction coming into the stop cut, but you may will find yourself digging in as you are following a run in grain. The solution is a cross or diagonal cut so that you are severing the fibers. All this is practice and feel, and you will get it easily if you just think of the grain as three dimensional (and always not in the exact direction that makes the cut easiest - Murphy's Law). Stop cuts are important, and they don't have to be cuts. On my relief carvings I often use a small pistol grip Dremel with a burr bit to establish the depth and end points of an internal cut, but I wouldn't recommend that for a rosette (I'm going a lot deeper in a high relieve carving). A modelmakers pin drill with a fine bit (millimeter sizes) can be operated with one hand to establish the corner points of a cut-out (as well as a couple more holes along the perimeter to avoid splitting along the grain). A purist might consider it a bit of cheating, but I think the ancients would have used anything that works and makes it easier. Which reminds me of a story. When I was a youngster (back in the forties I have to admit) I was at a YMCA summer camp. On an overnight hike we couldn't get the fire started. One of the counselors said let's use the old Indian method. We campers sat in rapt attention, expecting a bow and spindle or some other such thing. He broke out a can of kerosene and poured it on the damp wood a struck a match. Ever since then when presented with a problem I've thought of the old Indian method - if the Indians had kerosene and matches would they really have spent all that time with the bow and spindle? When I first started my relief carvings I tried to do it all by hand - could do it, but what a lot of time removing the gross material. I now have a small hand router to bring the large area to a level, but as I prefer the hand tool marking I go with my gauges and chisels from there. Now, if I may run on (and to quote the cats from Disney's 101 Dalmations - we are Siamese if you please, we are Siamese if you don't please) - I will run on. The advice on the sharpening of tools is also excellent, but I wouldn't be myself if I didn't comment. Knives are knives, they have a narrow blade with a beveled edge. The bevel is very narrow, sometimes hollow ground. I don't use the scalpels or the X-actos, but that is personal choice. Chisels and gouges are another thing, they should have a long flat - and the conventional wisdom is to sharpen them on a flat stone (and I use a guide also Tim, and I'm sure I'm not a wuss). As a wood turner I have large heavy chisels and gouges, it would take months to hone them on a flat stone as the bevels are a half to 3/4 inches. I hollow grind them on a 10 wheel (so it isn't very hollow) then hone them on the blade and the heel - I find a series of diamond hand flat files to work well. I took that to my small carving gouges as a principle. I use a rat tail hand diamond file to put a bit of a hollow in the middle of the bevel, I can then hone the blade and shoulder (they should be parallel) with a series of diamond flat files. This gives me control, more than I had with my waterstones and honing guides - and avoids any reverse belly that can make the tool ride up. I have every sharpening stone or file available to man - sometimes I think I'm more interested in sharpening my tools than in doing my work (or perhaps I use it as an excuse because I'm chicken to cut the wood g). I do like the ceramic stones, my final touch on all my tools is a ceramic fine rat tail - and I have a couple of ceramics I like for my knives. But this is not definitive, each of us will find his own choice of method that fits his skills and preferences. I use a buffing wheel and compound, but also a leather strop and compound. It depends on the tool I'm working with, and whether I'm sharpening or honing. Everything you have read in these threads is correct, now it is your job to see what works for you. BTW, should you
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: moving soundboard from workshop to house
I confess I haven't read through this thread, and have little to offer in details. But in 1959 I bought a classical guitar in Spain, a decent one although not top of the line. I was there on the tab of my Uncle Sam on one of his haze grey yachts, I was some months at sea in varying climates before returning home. I left the guitar in NJ, similar latitude but a bit cooler and damper. The next time I came home the guitar had exploded. I have scanned the thread and see the caveats - but it would be a rather difficult world if we had to make and play our instruments in a limited geography. As one who turns wood and carves it I'd suggest that the wood is more adaptive than it would seem to be. It needs time to adjust. If the piece, be it an instrument or an artifact, is of differing woods they will adjust to changes in moisture (and that is really the point, the temperature of the wood is really a matter of the nature of the moisture) differently. You want to have your instrument playable when you travel, although I don't think a gig in the Sahara should be immediately followed by one in Alaska. Release the string tension, although that is annoying as the strings also have a memory. If you are making a fix let the wood come back before restringing. I'm having a problem with a harp fix at the moment as it is creeping again with the soundboard pulling out - and I left it several days without putting tension back on it. The side frames are cherry and the soundboard a Sitka spruce, the changes in the wood are not only the changes in the climate but also the speed of the reaction of the wood. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: lute
Brod, I think the most difficult part is getting started, my eight course has been in progress for three years (no work on it for the last two due to moving and a minor medical problem, the removal of a leg). I intend to get back to it shortly. I have the ribs (bowl staves) made to thickness - I'd suggest that the thickness planer might be a bit rough for the finishing cut, but the experienced luthiers on the list will probably answer that. There are several books/CDs on the topic - David van Edwards and the late (it is in my bookshelf, but the name forgotten and I can't get to the bookshelf as I type as I've taken my prosthetic leg off). Both seem to advocate an oversize bandsaw cut of the ribs, then a planing to fit. Van Edwards gives you templates in his package, but you should be able to draw them out if you have a talent for 3D fitting. The mold, which can be skeletal or solid, is your guide (I do have that made). It is not difficult, but it is exacting as it will shape the body. For my thicknesses I resawed on the bandsaw, then I tried both the Luthier's Friend sanding device and the Wagner Saf-T-Planer - both on the drill press. The final thickness probably should be with a cabinet scraper - but the more experienced will comment on that, I only write this so as to get their input when I restart my project. The Luthier's friend is a bit expensive for what it is, but it does thickness exactly although leaving a surface that has to be skinned. The Wagner involves making a jig, but leaves a nice surface. This for what it is worth, ask me again in a year. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Brod Mac in_brod_we_tr...@hotmail.com To: lute-buil...@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Monday, January 26, 2009 1:37 AM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] lute hello, everyone what would be the most difficult part of building a six course lute. I have an extensive wood shop. such as thickness planer, table saw, jointer, bandsaw, hand planner and alot of other hand/power tools. also, does one cut the bowl staves with a bandsaw? __ How fun is this? [1]IMing with Windows Live Messenger just got better. -- References 1. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowslive/messenger.aspx To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: What to build.
Didn't move Tim, just a little levity to excuse my bad habit of staying up until the hours long after the wee ones. I was trying to pretend that it was still the night before when it was becoming the morning after in progressively western time zones. Still here in NJ. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: What to build.
What an enjoyable thread, I will read the rest of it tomorrow to avoid being up until midnight Hawaiian time zone. But I must insert a comment on historical construction. I think I'll make a Greek lyre tomorrow, in my spare time. The tetrachord (and the name of the instrument escapes me) was truely that - a tonic and a perfect fourth (or fifth, depending on whether you start at the top or the bottom), and a couple of undefined intervals in between (actually there are definitions, but they are regional and ethnic). Mankind did evolve his skills, and depending on whether you are biblical or Darwinian it took either many millenia or a few. Music is one of them. Our western music is relatively unique in its evolution, our scales are basically modifications of the Greek, and our tuning temperaments are to a great extent caused by the desire for multi-voices in the Church. The oriental scales are quite different (and I use orient in the old sense that it include everything east of Eden). We can make a good guess that the virtuosos of olden days might have sounded a bit amateurish today, the materials and construction have improved - but that is not to knock them, simplicity has a beauty of its own. The lute is a development on the Arabic oud, as brought into Europe by either travelers or Moorish invaders (and probably both). The oud, and the early lute, was played with a pick (ok, plectrum is the proper term) and therefore a melody instrument as the tuning isn't amenable to a broad strum - and certainly not in the Arabic scale. So far as I'm concerned the music should advance, while also keeping the traditions of sound alive (as best we can judge them). I have a collection of medieval dance tunes I play on harp and psaltery, I know I'm not in their tuning as I tune to equal temperament. We should certainly explore the sounds of old, as best we can approximate them - but we should not worship at the temple of historic sound. When I first heard the Swingle Singers doing Bach's Brandenburgs in scat my reaction was that Bach would have loved it. He had a touch of the jazz musician in him in his use of variations around a fixed theme. As one whose primary instrument is voice I have tried to transcribe early notation of the monastic chants, but am also aware that the Gregorian chants were notated nearly a thousand years after the Pope's death. It is all interpretation with a bit of by guess and by golly. Notation was a late comer into the passing on of music (although there actually is some Greek notation from around 500 BC, but even that is as interpreted). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Test message
I have not looked at this list in a long time, mea culpa, but I see the last message I received was from 7/8 - the barring system from alexandros. Perhaps I am off the list (happens now and then when one's host site is temporarily out), or perhaps, as Alexandros wonders, all are on vacation). Either way I'll offer an update. Six weeks ago I celebrated my 73rd birthday with less of me than at my 72nd, in late February the depradations of Cigareets, and Whuskey, and Wild, Wild Wimmen over the years caused another blockage in my right leg - but this time the doc went to fix it and found nothing to work with. The upshot was that I found myself to be a monoped - not a disaster, just a temporary problem. After all 70 odd years as a biped can become boring, a bit of change is a challenge. But that did put my book on string characteristics on hold as I can't do the string testing I had under way (the tensile strength of the strings we use is a factor in the design of instruments - and that is not well defined by the manufacturers, I was testing the actual strings of various materials from various manufacturers to create an average and a range). The process was simple, a set of shears (as in the two legged derrick on an old sailing ship) and a lot of weights. Load a string segment until it breaks and you have the weight of pull that breaks it. Then a bit of math and you can get the tensile strength of the material. This all started when I made a lute from plans, and found I couldn't tune the chanterelle to the G without breaking it (did find a bit of .017 nylon monofiliment fishing line that worked - musical nylon broke at F#). A Satori, as I tried different guages, they all broke at the same pitch. Not a new revelation, the old timers of hundreds of years ago knew that, they just didn't write it down. What I thought was an anomaly was really quite logical. Steel, monofiliment nylon, gut, and Nylgut (as well as every other string material) have a characteristic material strength. The cross section (i.e., guage) is the controlling factor in the stress (tension) the string will take before breaking, given the tensile strength of the material. At the same time the mass of the vibrating length of the string, a function of the density of the material and its length, along with the tension, defines the pitch. There is an anomaly, it is coincidental that the major string materials - steel, gut, and nylon - all have characteristic in density and tensile strength that counterbalance each other (and Nylgut is right in there) such that no matter what guage one uses the VL defines the maximum pitch (within a couple of tones). I have now gotten my prosthetic leg, but it will be some months before I can go without training wheels (my cane) and restart the experimentation in tensile strength (I won't accept old data from manufacturers) - lifting the weights to the shears is temporarlily beyond me (but easier than before the prosthetic - one of the great difficulties of being a monoped on crutches is that you have no hands to scratch your nose). OK, I'm sitting here typing this with no idea if you, or anyone else, will ever see it. But it isn't a waste even if it doesn't come to you, it is a way to gather my thoughts for myself. Best, Jon BTW, hope you enjoy the book - it will also cover the scales and temperaments, with particular reference to the uniqueness of our western scale - that has been tempered for harmony - versus the more unharmonic Oriental and other scales. They all have the octave, the fifth, and the fourth in common - but not much else in the choice of the intervals. One of the main scales for the oud, as written by (I'd go to my bookshelf to get the name, but I don't want to put the damned pegleg on and go through that) in about the 12th C. had 17 intervals within the octave. We played off the Pythagorean fifths and octaves, and his comma, to work our way into a scale system based on the Circle of Fifths - but as you luthiers well know that wasn't perfect. The oud, the ancestor of lute and guitar, of the Arabs had no frets - and was played as a melody instrument with a form of plectrum. It was in its European evolution as lute and vihuela that the use of the fingers to play multiple strings in harmony became prevalent. I'll quit here, I'd be getting too far into the book if I went into the sacred influence in western music that militated for polyphony while the sacred influence in the Orient dictated the specific intervals. Suffice to say that all temperings and scales are, in a sense, artificial - but yet all are based on the natural overtone series of the string. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: lute body...
Duncan, You have already received your answer, but may I add to it. Any shape can be drawn with a compass and a ruler, given enough time and effort you could draw the complex curves (both convex and concave) of a cove on the coast of New England (or Old England, or anywhere else). The modern discipline known as fractal geometry says that all things are angles, but the ancient science of geometry saw curves. Angles are more accurate, if one gets to the molecular level, but curves are more likely when dealing with gravitational space. That said, and it was really meant as a teaser, a straight line is but the tangent of curves that intersect closely. The solution in integral calculus as the differences get smaller. The cove may be defined by the larger points of land, or the smaller, and then the smaller. The final most definitive result could be mapping each grain of sand in each segment of the beach - a bit of a problem as the tide ebbs and flows. The smooth, yet changing, curve of the lute body can be mapped by a compass with a progression of centers and diameters. As you continually reduce the distance between centers and adjust the radius you will end up with a perfect smooth curve (to the extent your eye can perceive it). But you will have wasted a hell of a lot of time. The French may not be the best physicists, but the French curve is an example smoothing a more general shape into a smooth curve by using its differential radii. By all means do as David V.E. says, but then try a bit of an exercise. Draw a floor plan of the Parthenon with a straight edge and a compass (you will want a ruler to set the proportion of length to width to the golden mean initially). A straight line is merely the end result of endlessly repeated arcs with the same radius and centered on an original line. A curve is a series of straight lines connecting extremely closely spaced arcs of different radii. At the micro level a straight line doesn't exist, it is a projection of the average of the points. Sorry guys, but I always like to go to the general when presented with the specific. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Duncan Midwinter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 6:50 AM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: lute body... Many thanks David, I've just ordered a copy of this! --- On 05/02/2008, David Van Edwards [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear Duncan, There are several different systems. I believe I was the first to realise this could be done and that it was probably the basis of historical lute design in my (very) brief article in The Lute Society Journal number 15 in 1973. (available via their website http://www.lutesoc.co.uk/journal.htm) This would certainly give you the outline of the method Subsequently some historical lutes were analysed in versions of this way by Kevin Coates in his book Geometry, Proportion and the Art of Lutherie (1991)and by an addendum in Mark Lindley's book Lutes, Viols and Temperaments (1984) (ISBN: 0521246709) In fact of course I was not the first, that honour falls to Arnault of Zwolle in about 1450 in his section on medieval lute design of his manuscript now in Paris which was reproduced and discussed in an article by Ian Harwood in The Lute Society Journal number 2 in 1960. The manuscript has some problematic areas which I tried to address in my talk to the Lute Society which is reprinted in their newsletter number 69 (April 2004) Best wishes, David At 06:37 + 5/2/08, Duncan Midwinter wrote: Is there a method for drawing the teardrop shape of a lute soundboard using circles? I've been messing around in Adobe Illustrator drawing different sized circles and can almost get there -- but not quite. -- Duncan Midwinter midwinterDesign creative website design http://www.midwinterdesign.co.uk -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- The Smokehouse, 6 Whitwell Road, Norwich, NR1 4HB England. Telephone: + 44 (0)1603 629899 Website: http://www.vanedwards.co.uk -- -- Duncan Midwinter midwinterDesign creative website design http://www.midwinterdesign.co.uk --
[LUTE-BUILDER] Test
I haven't seen anything on the list for a while - my host has made some changes, perhaps I'm off list. Let's see if this comes back to me Best, Jon -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Test worked
Received my message, I'm on line (and I found all my lost lute-builder messages). -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
I'll not quarrel with Din's list, nor with Tim on the source of hand tools, but will make a couple of comments of my own. I live about five minutes from the Englishtown (NJ) Auction - it is not an auction but a flea market that covers a number of acres on the weekends. Some things sold there have fallen off a truck, others are pure schlock - but many of the vendors have collected the junk from various garages and yard sales. You can find old Stanley planes, fine chisels, and various other hand tools in bad cosmetic condition. If you know what you are looking for you can get quite a bargain. My classic Stanley hand drill was listed at 8 bucks on the tag, but when I held it up and said how much the guy said $6. The shaft is true, and I cleaned it up - it is far better than the plastic ones they sell now for $15, and a lot cheaper than the Lee Valley or Woodcraft reproductions that are narly $50. The band saw is indispensible. Mine is a 10 Craftsman that I got on sale - the key to this model is that it has a depth of cut of 4 5/8 (where most 10 saws are closer to 4) - that gives plenty of room for resawing ribs from stock. It also has roller guides standard. My cost for that saw was $110. I confess that some of my planes are often on the coffee table, but Tim is right - that is when I'm too lazy to put them back in the shop (I do a lot of my work in my lap in my favorite armchair in front of the TV with a Molson's Golden at my side). I have spent some money on planes - I like the Lee Valley (Veritas) planes. They aren't cheap, but a bit cheaper than Lie-Nielson. I have an LV low angle block, an LV standard block, and an LV wide body low angle smoother. I also like their low angle spokeshave. Din said one thing that I thought was my own. I believe it was the late Duchess of Windsor who said you can never be too rich or too thin. My paraphrase has always been you can never have too many clamps. I have C clamps (I think that is what Brits call G clamps), I have plastic pinch clamps of all sizes, I have old fashioned wood clamps, I have long and short sliding clamps. Din seems to agree. Irons, or blades, must be sharp. After trying various things I blew my budget on a Jet low speed 10 water wheel (the equivalent of the Tormek, but a few bucks cheaper). I use both waterstones and ceramic stones for my edges - and agree on the Veritas Mk II for plane irons, the ability to duplicate the angle is superb. But even on my flat blades I hollow grind on the 10 wheel. I do woodturning, and the infamous skew chisel is supposed to have a flat blade. But to paraphrase a recent President that depends on the meaning of flat. If one takes a shallow hollow on a large wheel then one can create the flat by honing the blade and the shoulder in line with hand stones. It reduces the amount of material one has to remove to preserve both the edge and the shoulder - a bit of extra work to start, but makes it easier to maintain. The drill press is not necessary, but I do other work and so am glad to have it for drilling. And it also provides a platform for the Luthier's Friend, and the Wagner Saf-T-Plane. I'm not a great fan of the Luthier's Friend, given the other things I have. But I got it early in my making of the shop, I was one of (mental block on the name, and I'm not going to look in my files at the moment)'s first customers. We exchanged pleasant emails at the time. Nothing wrong with it, a good design, but a jig I could have made easily. The $35 Wagner Saf-T-Plane is an efficient planer, and with care can leave a decent surface. It works off a drill press, but you need to make a table jig (a fence and a melamine surface bolted to the DP). A Dremel tool, with the Router attachment. Remove the fence from the attachment and make a triangular jig to replace it and you can make a fine rabbet around a curved surface to set a rim inlay. I hate my combination 6 disk/ 1 belt sander. It is noisy and takes a lot of material off quickly. But I use it, very carefully. Unless you want to make your own pegs you don't need a lathe, but I love working with the lathe so I'll speak of it. I have a Delta Midi, which has a swing of 10 and a length of 14 1/2. I'd like to replace it with a Penn State Industries variable speed - or one of the several new midi's with a bit better length and swing for the same price. But I have no excuse to do it - the Delta works beautifully, and I've not tried to make a bowl even approaching the 10 swing yet. Just the usual woodworker's desire for a bit more. I do make my own pegs. Penn State Industries does have a conversion motor for about $100 with variable speed (the Delta, and others, vary the speed by shifting the belt, the variable does it with the motor). There are other machines in the shop, but not relevant to this discussion. I'm awaiting an Indian made plow plane from Highland, I don't know why I ordered it except that it was
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute construction
I will compete for the smallest workshop - my 5' x 6' former walkin closet contained my entire shop (except for the hand work in my favorite arm chair in the living room). It has since expanded into my bedroom to avoid having to heft one tool off the bench and replace it with another. I do have a 10 table saw, but that is not used in luthiery (it was on sale, so I bought it - and it is useful for other things, although I could easily do without it). My main tools are a Delta midi lathe (also used for other projects) tucked into a small alcove, a Sears 10 bandsaw (relatively unique as I get a 4 5/8 depth of cut, enough for resawing rib stock). A 10 drill press, and a low speed water wheel grinder. There is also a router table (desk top) that was also an impulse at a sale - don't use it much as I prefer hand tools for sensitive cutting. And a combination 1 belt/6 disk sander - another auxiliary. I could get rid of several of them - the sanding could be done with the collection of discs for my drill press - and for thinning the Luthiers Friend concoction. I do like my Wagner Saf T Planer (fitted to the drill press, and with a home made jig) for nice cuts. None of this is relevant for the future, I hope. My lady and I may have bought a new place (she has been living in an apartment in the West Village of NYC for 42 years - and owned it as a co-op for the last twenty - and I've been here in NJ for the last 12 in a rather nice condo, but not well laid out for a workshop). In our declining years (read we ain't gonna quit) we have decided to combine expenses. The new apartment is a short drive from my current one (short for Tiger Woods, a driver and a five iron for me). My new bedroom will be 15 x 15, and with judicial alignment of my bed and whatever I'll be able to devote most of that to a workshop. She gets the living room, the 13 x 15 bedroom, the kitchen and such - I get my workshop and a small bunk to sleep on. If there is a heaven I think I'm about to enter it. I'll lay down masonite, or plywood, on the fully carpeted floor. I'll set all my tools on wheeled stands, except the lathe - that goes in front of the five foot wide window so I have great light (and room for the Delta extension). And we will have an attic, with a ladder (in my place I have one, but it is a crawl hole I can no longer manage). Wood supplies, old stock that one doesn't want to throw away. Old tools one really intends to refinish (I've a couple from the 19th C., and also my model of 1842 Springfield musket (1849) that I'd like to reconstitute). Should this come about I'll be able to be an exemplar of the bedroom workshop, and also probably produce production psalteries for the market while simultaneously making some rather decent lutes. I'm in love with the psaltery, but not in it's current incarnation that is more like a toy. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Re:
What a pleasure it is to participate in a list with such people. We have three approaches to the forming of a lute body. We have three experts advocating their own approach (two of them the primary sources, David and Dan - and the third a student of the late Bob L.), and we have no argument. Some of you may have spent time on the lute list and seen the arguments over the number of angels who can sit on the head of a pin (is it a baroque pin or a renaissance pin). Dan's photos of his jig are good, and I think I see how it works. David's CD is my bible (when I get back to making my lute - my lady and I are in negotiation to sell her NYC Co-op and my NJ Condo and move to a joint apartment), and I think I'd be more comfortable with Bob's solid form as described in his book. A side comment on the above, the conjoining of residence will reduce our separate expenses greatly, and increase our space. Over thirty years together and we finally get a bit of sense! (but I've only been here in NJ for 12, used to be a couple of blocks away in NYC). I will get a 15' x 15' bedroom for a small bed and a large workshop (instead of having my lathe and workbench in a walk-in closet - and the rest of the tools in the bedroom and living room). She will get a living room to decorate, without my sawdust, and a bedroom next to it. I will get an attic to keep my spare wood and seldom used tools (as well as her twenty boxes of summer and winter and spring and fall - and should she go to Mars or Venus - traveling clothes). At that time I'll get back to my lute, and the clearsach carved harp I've planned, and the easy manufacture of my own designs for psalteries. I hope the deal will be consumated shortly, but there is a potential block on the funding due to her Co-op Board - something annoying I shan't explain here. Back on topic. I agree with all three approaches. I like Dan's approach of the variable jig - but then when I see the ego wall that David offers in his link I am awed (and David, the term ego in that isn't meant as insult - the ego wall is a standard US phrase for the wall of diplomas that doctors and lawyers (and some less qualified) display. You have joined another friend (that one a lad of 70 that I sang with some 55 years ago, and ever since each year) - his ego wall is the shapes of the boats he has designed - Rod's J-boats are perhaps the fastest class boats in the world in all classes, or perhaps only in most - and he does custom work as well - and all that as a Princeton Tigertone with a bit of a love of sailing, and a talent for design discovered in middle age. The Wind in the Willows, water rat like nothing better than messing around with boats, just messing around with boats. I can't speak for Bob, regretfully we lost him too soon. But David has already done so with the magnificent wall of solids and skeletals. And Dan's pictorial of his cutting jigs shows us the shape (pun intended) of his process (although I'm not yet clear as to the gluing of the ribs, is the last cut rib on the form - or is the jig arc put aside and the ribs contained by the frame). Whatever, there is a real dichotomy here between the beginner and the professional - and that is not meant to imply any choice between them. It is David's wall of forms that tells me what I should do. At my advanced age (72) I may make but one lute from a form, I want to make that one carefully. I confess that I'm a bit less concerned now having found a local vendor of good woods, my cherry ribs that I carefully shaved down from 1/8th after buying them from Exotic Wood a two hour drive away aren't as sacred ( or as expensive) now that I have my own facitity for resawing. I may blow those ribs in a practice test, and then make my own from scratch. LMI and Exotic Wood are the only two instrument quality makers I knew when I started. Now, or at least when I get the new shop set up, the only thing I'll need to buy is from a musical wood vendor is the soundboard (no way I can do the resawing that deep, I'm limited to five inches). I'll go for the Englemann, or German, guitar soundboards and shape them - unless anyone has a better suggestion. Should I live long enough to make lutes for sale (and that would require a number of years, not for my skills but as lutenists are picky about the reputation of the instrument), I'll try all three methods. But for now I think I'm going to be happiest with the solid form (although I might note to David that my skeletal, as per your instructions, looks pretty good - I might try forming on that first - in fact I should since I now can make new rib blanks - I guess I'm just in love with my draw knife and spokeshaves - and trying to put off the day of reckoning in shaping the ribs). A note on my work on psalteries and harps. I'm comfortable with the good laminates of Swedish Aircraft grade birch, or a five ply 1/8th of Sitka Spruce - the soundboard on those
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar
Ooops, meant YMCA, jwm index.html To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar
Din, Carving skills are a combination of craftsmanship and artistry. Artistry and craftsmanship when carving a free-form scupture - but craftsmanship in duplicating a fixed form. The craftsmanship can be considerably enhanced by the proper tools. Like you I note that Lundberg's book doesn't show the process of carving the facets - the photos jump from a smooth form to a faceted form with nice gullies to allow the ribs to sink into the facet (something David v.E. also recommends for his skeletal form). I had quite a time doing the neck block on my DvE mold also, but I was using free hand gouges from my carving tools, a small slip can screw it up. Most good woodworking catalogs (Lee Valley and Woodcraft come to mind) offer small planes as luthier's planes or finger planes some of which have laterally curved bases and blades - the same applies to small spokeshaves. They are not expensive, and being planes and spokeshaves they have the advantage of a controlled cut (and a bit of reshaping of the tool can adjust the radius to what you need). I have no fear of doing the facets with the small planes, but I'd be quite fearful of shaping them with the free hand gouges. I'm sure that Bob Lundberg could have shaped them with a kitchen knive (as Steve points out that Dan Larsen can shape a peg hole with a knife), but Rob will tell us that. The sharp eye is always needed, but the steady hand less so when the tool is taking a minimal cut. It may take a bit more time for the beginner than the expert, but the result can be the same. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Din Ghani [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Rob Dorsey' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'Jon Murphy' [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 'lute-builder' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 11:25 AM Subject: RE: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar Jon, I wish I had your carving skills - next time I make a lute I'd like to try a solid mould, but the thought of producing a complex shape with accurately curved lines and surfaces out of a lump of wood terrifies me! I'm sure with your experience of carving you will be able to work out how to go about it. I just about managed to carve the neck block with fairly accurate facets, following detailed instructions from David, and using the lines and facets from the completed mould to guide the carving. Unfortunately, as far as I can see, Lundberg's book does not even mention how the facets on the mould are cut. Rob, I hope you might be able to give me a clue, having learnt directly from him. I assume there is a systematic method, not relying just on a steady hand and a sharp eye? At heart, I guess I'm more of an engineer than a craftsman... Regards Din To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar
Rob, I envy you your 5 years of study with Bob Lundberg, and have no quarrel with his methods to the extent that they are represented in his book. I'm glad to have the book on my shelves as a cross reference and backup to David van Edwards' course. I don't regret the dual expenditure in having both, although I probably would have gotten Bob's book later - after my first completed lute from David's CD. You make a good point, start cutting wood. David's CD is far more a step by step instructional than Bob's book - perhaps it is that aspect that makes it easier to break through that first block of getting started. On the other hand Bob's book (I just pulled it from my shelves and glanced through it) is a bit more general, what you call an intellectual approach. An example - the mold (mould, form). David makes a skeletal mold from MDF - and provides full scale templates for it. Bob builds up his form from layers of wood (almost as in the transition from the ancient masada type Egyptian tomb to the smoother pyramid) which he then shaves with a draw knife. David's method is initially easier - but my next mold will be done Bob's way. In part because I love using a draw knife, and in part because one of my concerns is fittting the belly segments over the skeletal ribs of David's mold - and that may be my delay in restarting. There is a great deal more effort involved in matching the skeletal mold ribs than it would appear in the instructional - it took me months, and I won't be sure I have it right until I actually make the belly. In fact, come to think of it, I may consider canning the mold I made from David's instructional and making one with Bob's method (using David's templates). Not to knock David's method, I'm sure his skills at shaping the belly over the skeleton mold give him consistant and excellent results - but perhaps the fully carved form that Bob uses might instill more confidence in a beginner. The final shape of the form will be the final shape of the belly, whereas with the skeleton it will involve some extra skills in the wood bending process. Sorry for the bit of stream of consciousness, and the picking out of one detail, but it emphasizes that there is more than one way to skin a cat (and luckily my cat, Lucky, isn't watching me type this - she doesn't like that analogy). I thank Troy for bringing this up, and Rob and Din for mentioning the competing instructionals. I am ashamed of myself for chickening out, but I think this will get me back on track - and particularly as I'll now compare the two approaches at each step and make my own decisions. I like the thought of redoing my mold, I think I'll be more comfortable with a solid one. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar
Mike, Glad to be back! I'm going to append a message to you below your quoted message so that the entire list doesn't have to read it. But I send it to the list because some might be interested. JWM. - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 11:19 PM Subject: RE: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar Jon- Nice to hear from you again. Mike Wilson * Mike, and all, For some reason I haven't been seeing Lute Builder communications for some time, I guess I got them lost in a filter somehow. I'm going to toss in a bit of the personal just because I feel like it. I got off track for a while due to some medical problems, these happen when you reach my advanced age g, luckily my age ain't that advanced (72) in these days. I have continued with my intent to write a book on strings - I've been doing physical experiments on the various materials with a few devices of my own concoction. The manufacturers provide some specs as to density and tensile strength - and these are key factors in instrument design - but many are out of date, and don't allow for the differences in manufacturing quality. I've built a set of shears (the two leg derrick used in the days of wooden ships to raise the masts) and a block and tackle rig to test the tensile strengths (the weights were a problem, then I got body builder's weights at a Modell's at a discount). I can put direct tension of up to 170 lbs. in increments of a half pound (and no, I don't start low and add half pounds). A jeweler's scale lets me test the density of the material. I'm working with steel, gut, Nylgut, bronze and brass - I hope to come up with a practical reference book for all stringed instruments. I'm sure those who have read this far wonder why this effort when the formulae and principles of the strings have been known for centuries (and the basics known since Pythagorus). I got off onto a side track this summer when an emergency operation on one of my legs made me keep my leg up. I couldn't play my harp, which is my main instrument, and it wasn't a great position for the lute - so I started working with the medieval psaltery I'd made a couple of years ago - and had considered a bit of a toy. As I played it I realized that there was more to it than I thought - and I looked up the various paintings and sketches from the times and found it was often played as a polyphonic instrument laid horizontally, and with many more strings than the current makers use. Not the simple melody instrument of the new age practitioners. That returned me to the writing of the book, and started me on the idea of making fully capable psalteries for sale. (They are a lot easier to make than lutes). Harps and lutes, psalteries and dulcimers (and I convinced that historically the dulcimer is a psaltery that is struck - they separated a couple of centuries ago). The strings are the same (given the material) but the criteria for selection are different. It is said that the lute should be tuned just under the break pitch of the chanterelle, then the rest appropriately. My flat back from Musikits was over length - it took a particular fishing line of a slightly higher tensile strength than musical nylon to get it to G. (Musikits changed its length on my advice). That brought me to the personal discovery of the long known fact that there is a breaking pitch, something that should have been obvious - but like Columbus and the egg not generally recognized. Yet all the articles and texts that dealt with the string formulae were specific to the instrument. The harp maker, with his many strings pulling directly away from the soundboard, has to consider the total tension of all the strings (which can amount to over 1000 lbs), else the soundboard will pop. The luthier has different concerns as his strings are stopped to change the pitch, making the fixed length variable. The zither/cithera/lyre/psaltery maker is in between. I've recast the formulae algebraically, and am graphing the competing characteristics, such that I think I will come up with something universally useful (including the recasting regarding the use of weight measures of tension and the force measure as in Newtons). They are all the same, just use different fixed and independent variables. OK, I've rambled. Now a bit more. My workshop is in a converted walk-in closet in my bedroom, and has spread into the bedroom. Storage of supplies and partially completed work is almost impossible. My lady and I have decided to move (she will sell her NYC co-op apartment and move here - we have bid on a slightly larger place in my development that has an attic!!! And a bedroom for me big enough to sleep in and have a properly laid out workshop - and keep my sawdust out of her living room). I expect that to happen in February, and the move is only a short drive (for Tiger Woods, a
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: Lute - Baroque Guitar
Troy, You have two good suggestions from Din and Rob. My lute is temporarily on hold for medical reasons, but I invested in both the Lundberg book Historical Lute Construction and van Edwards CD-ROM. For Din, I only have two and a half years into my lute. A stroke two years ago left me with the mold made, and the ribs shaved to thickness. Like you it is a matter of belief - I'm scared to make that next step of forming and shaping the ribs over the mold. Once I get that done I think the rest will go quickly. The stroke is no longer relevant, now it is a matter of the guts to step into the making of the body. Troy, if you were to choose to buy one of the suggested instructionals I'd spend the extra and go with David van Edwards CD-ROM - it is in PDF format and you can print out the pages as you go along to keep them by your workplace. The Lundberg book is excellent, but not quite as step by step, yet a good reference for the experienced builder of stringed instruments. I'm not unhappy to have both, but were I to do it over again I'd go with van Edwards for my first try (I got Lundberg before I heard of van Edwards). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: toirtoiseshell fingerboards
Perhaps I am a fool, but I often wonder about faithful reproductions when it comes to cosmetics. To me a faithful reproduction would be using a wood and a shape that would duplicate the experience of the old time player - instruments are made to be played, not to be visual replications. The beauty of the instrument is, of course, a part of its attraction - the workmanship of the old craftsmen is something we all desire to attain (and can, if we take the time). But the instrument itself is the goal, to use Shakespeare in another sense the play is the thing. The old masters of luthiery used the materials that were available to them, who knows what they might have used in a different time. Sometimes an instrument was made for presentation to a noble, an instrument of supreme craftsmanship that might not have sounded worth a damn - but as long as the noble put it on display it didn't matter. I don't suggest not trying to make the reproduction, only that you should consider the purpose - is it for display or play. I think a lot of the old boys would have appreciated a band saw, or other modern conveniences. I am making a clearsach (the old carved Celtic harp which is like a dugout canoe in that the soundboard is integral to the body - the back is the addendum). I confess that I'm using Forstner bits to drill out some of the waste, although all the final work will be with hand chisels. I can't use the woods they used, I have no access to a log that has spent 200 years in a peat bog. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Solaris Solarium [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 11:21 PM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: toirtoiseshell fingerboards I am trying to make a faithful reproduction of my 18th c. english guittar, and want to remain true to the redish hue of the toitoiseshell fingerboard but am unwilling to slay a tortoise, obviously. Any ideas on a non-plastic alternative to fake this? christopher davies, portland oregon - Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: String spacing. Please Help.
Juan, and all, I hesitate to say that the spacing of piano keys is irrelvant, but I'll say it anyway. The pianist has an advantage not often noted. The keyboard is in front of him (just once will I be PC and say or her) and the music is just above the keyboard. My main instrument is the Celtic harp (but the same applies to the orchestral). Our music is off to the side, and our reach for the strings is limited by arm length. A pianist with small hands may not be able to play more than an octave chord, but his hands are within view of his periferal vision. The standard spacing is valid there, its limitation is minor. The lute and the harp are a different matter, and each of them is a different matter. The guitar is also different, as the string length is fixed so the instrument is always about the same size. But I may point out that the string spacing is quite different on the various guitars (I've been playing since 1947). The classical, or spanish, neck is a bit over 2 inches at the nut and the folk or western neck is a bit under (with the country steel string a bit more under). The narrow neck guitars are played with a lot of double string bridging by large fingers, having small fingers I've always favored the wider spacing of the Spanish nut as I can't bridge the narrow ones. On a piano it matters not if on hits the center of the key, as long as one doesn't hit two key. But with strings the fingers become important. On lute and guitar one can't look at one's fingers as they play, one has to construct a muscle memory for the spacing - so the spacing becomes more important for the individual. That also applies to the Irish penny whistle, I know a man who is expert there (and I do play it also) and he has to spend an hour of practice when switching from a low whistle to a high one (the spacing is quite different as it is dictated by the air column). The harp is similar to the piano, as each string is independant, but also similar to the lute and guitar as the spacing involves finger size (if the finger is thicker than the spacing then there can't be play without buzz. For David van Edwards, I finished the lute mold from your CD a long time ago, and I shaved the slats for the ribs - but I dropped the project a year and a half ago when I had a stroke. I will finish it, and send a picture as I promised way back then. But it may be a bit of a while as a few other projects got in the way as they were better for rehabilitating the old left hand hit by the stroke. The Compleat Musician must be able to play without looking at the strings (but not all of us can be that good). The piano makes it a bit easier with the standard spacing and the spread of the keyboard in front of the player. But that doesn't mean the lute should be a standard spacing, it can't be when one condiders that the family includes the renaissance and the baroque, the tenor and the bass. Nor can the harp be, a larger harp (say 36 strings) involves an arm reach which can't be faked. The smaller ones (mine is a double strung of 26 x 2 strings, so my fifty two strings are in the space of a 26 string lap harp). I yet think the instrument and the player are inseperable when it comes to spacing. After all, the lutenists of old were far smaller people than those of today - if we accept the population statistics as we know them from artifacts of the earlier period. Henry VIII was considered a large man for his time, but at age 12 I couldn't have fit into his armor as display! ed in the NYC Metropolitan Museum. Make an instrument that sounds like the original, but make it to fit your hands. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Juan Fco. Prieto To: Jon Murphy ; lutelist ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 28, 2007 5:59 AM Subject: Re: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: String spacing. Please Help. Thanks also for your contribution, Jon. I agree mainly with you but I think that pianists, fortunately, have not such problems -like us- : All the keyboards are identical, regardless hands size, and this standard make possible people to play around the world. No matter they have small hands like Alicia de Larrocha or big ones, like Arcadi Volodos. That's another world. My son plays piano and he was not worried thinking about the key spacing on his recently bought instrument. He had only to choose model (brand) and size. Even in the classical guitar world seems to be a more standard spacing (about 11 mm. between strings at bridge) than for the lute. I want to encourage you to keep enjoying the lute and the music for a very long time. My best regards, Juan Fco. Prieto. P.S.: Jon, I'm also playing a 10c. lute I built from a kit in 1980. This was a very funny adventure that ended happily: I was able to finish it and... the lute sounds quite well! But in some moments I was afraid to end with a pile of crashed woods, useful for barbecue. :-)) 2007/5/27, Jon Murphy
[LUTE-BUILDER] Re: String spacing. Please Help.
Juan, I hesitate to interject here, I am a very amateur lutenist (and although I still receive the email from the lute-list I direct it to a separate inbox as it is so voluminous). This came to me through the lute-builder list. I am not a purist for the instrument, I play a kit version of what Musikits called a flat back lute. The designer was a guitarist with no knowledge of lute (he made his G lute too long) as he really expected his customers to buy it, and make it, as a renaissance twelve string guitar. I made the modifications, and I would call it an excellent practice instrument rather than a flat back lute. It has been played by several real lutenists, including Ronn McFarlane, and judged a sweet little instrument - I think we can call that damned with faint praise. Yes, I ramble, but I'm coming to a point. I am currently making a renaissance lute from plans (for those who have heard this before the delay was caused by a minor stroke - but all is well and I'll be getting back to making the lute in the late summer). One thing I've learned from my practice lute is that the course spacing at the nut should be defined by your own fingers and hand, not by some classic formula. The stroke hit my left side, and although I have full mobility of the left hand fingers I find I don't get a clean touch on the courses and tend to buzz the next string. My hands are small, in one sense, as the fingertips are narrow - but I have a good reach (fifty five years on guitar). I intend to widen the fingerboard (and the nut) on my new lute in order to make it fit my fingers, instead of trying to make my fingers fit it. I'm sure that the old boys did the same when they went to their lute builder. I'm also thinking of spreading the bridge a bit, as my aging body hasn't the accuracy of placement it used to have - but as my right hand isn't affected by the stroke I'll think about that a bit. Basically what I'm saying is that standards have no place in instruments, except the standards of the music and the play. There are too few lutes preserved to show the individual differences that might have been made for the particular lutenist. Find a separation that works for you, and an easy way to do that is to make a dummy lute. Cut a piece of wood of appropriate length and get a bunch of zither pins (as used for the folk harp, or psaltery) to anchor the strings. Then make several nuts and bridges to guide them. It won't be an instrument, as it won't have any resonance, but it will let you try the feel of the spacings. (I'm going to do that before I settle on my modifications to the plans I have - which I may also modify from a 7 course to an 8 course renaissance). As an old curmudgeon I would normally say that one should learn to fit oneself to the standards, but as one who has been around a long time I can recognize that each hand is different, and one can't change the shape of one's fingers. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Juan Fco. Prieto [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; lutelist lute@cs.dartmouth.edu; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2007 2:29 AM Subject: [LUTE-BUILDER] Re: String spacing. Please Help. My most sincere thanks, Chad, Bob, Clive and Sterling. This copy you mentioned, Bob, may help me a lot. I could resend it to my luthier. On the other hand, I found a modern tendency to separate a bit more the strings at the nut (more separation between the strings of a course, moving the octave to the right of the former position, as we can see in the image linked below. Note the previous nut marks and the real position of the octave. That's probably trying to minimize the *slapping effect?*) http://www.lute.net/instruments/blute0606/pegf.jpg My best regards for you, Juan Fco. Prieto. P.S.: Ah, Mr. Barto, let me say that your 7th Weiss recording is breathtaking! One of the best of the Naxos series IMHO (I own till now all the 8 CD and it's really very hard to make such choice, because we are accoustomed to an always outstanding performance). The sound itself is even richer than usual, with some *microfluctuations* in tone (Maybe due to the more flexibility of nylgut? I don't know, but your Rutherford seems to sound deeper and more *nasal*) that are adding a *plus* to the final sonic result. I have no words -my English is so limited...- to express how this recording impressed me. I noticed, also, the main tone is lowered one half tone respect to A=415. Don't stop recording, please. 2007/5/25, Chadwick Neal [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Hi Juan and Bob I am finishing a swan neck b lute, and I thought a discussion would be nice also for the left hand. For the eight fingered courses I have made two templates with an overall spacing of 57.5mm and the other at 59mm. I am unsure which to start with. I was reading some info on Linda
[LUTE] Re: Renaissance Lute ARIA Model L-85 ?
Murphy is alive and well, and quite busy. But I thought I'd toss in my opinion on maintaining pitch. As most of you know I play and make harps (as well as making one lute, and playing it). Pitch, as we all know, it a matter of the tension and length of the string (given the string guage). Any change in any of the three criteria will change the pitch (ok, the density of the string is another criterion, but that is factored in in chosing the guage, and doesn't really change). The string length can change with changing climate that allows the soundboard to belly more or less (more important in a harp). It can also change if the anchor is unstable. In the case of the Celtic harp that may be a pull down of the zither pins used as anchors, but unlikely as they normally use a bridge pin to set the length. On a lute it can be a looseness of the tuning pegs in the peg block, but the length is defined by the distance between bridge and nut, so it is only the tension that may vary (assuming that the soundboard belly is not a factor in length, and it shouldn't be as it is a small vector and should be consistant on all strings (within reason). Strings do lose resiliancy over time so the strings themselves may be a problem, but on the assumption that it is the lute then the problem has to be in the pegs or the peg board. My one home made lute is from the plans of Musikits, and it is a hybrid. The peg bos isn't a box, it is like a western guitar with the pegs coming through a horizontal plane. That gives them only one friction point, and a pull from an unsupported end of the peg. It is a bitch to keep in tune. The normal lute form has a peg box such that the string pull is in the middle of two friction points (although it is suggested by luthiers that the narrow end not have too much friction). The key to the tuning sensitivity is a consistant taper, both of the pegs and the peg holes. Wear over time can ruin that, but the peg holes can be re-reamed. The pegs themselves are a bit harder to even up - I turn my own so that isn't a problem for me. Not that this solves any problems, but it raises the issues. If I had that Aria I'd probably plug the peg box holes and redrill and taper ream, the plugging should take care of the cracking if you spread the glue well. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: recommended lute pitch
I have a 63cm VL lute, it is over length for a G chanterelle. (The kit maker has shrunk his lute by a bit since I communicated with him). Look at Andrea Damiani's book, as translated from the Italian by our list member Doc Rossi. Without going into details of string characteristics Damiani lists the maximum pitch for the chanterelle, given VL, as A for 56-58 cm, G for 60-62 cm, and F# for 62-64 cm. - F for 65-66, and E for 67-68. I'm sure this is empirical, and he is referring to gut at A=440. It is an anomaly of strings that there is a breaking pitch no matter the guage, given the material. For the last two years my 63cm lute has been tuned to G at the chanterelle, but that string is nylon fishing line. Musical nylon strings wouldn't hold better than F#, an nylgut about the same (I tried them). I didn't try gut, but it would probably have snapped at about E or F. The old canard that luthiers chose the pitch, given the VL, by tuning just under the breaking point is valid, if not true. Each material has a density that is a part of its nature, and it also has a tensile strength that is inate. If one neglects the possible destruction of the instrument by the total tension of the strings (a real factor in harp design, as the strings pull directly on the soundboard instead of across a bridge) then one can look at the strings in isolation. Any string, no matter the guage (given the material) will break at the same pitch (given the VL). I said it was an anomaly, but it isn't. The resistance to breaking increases with the cross section, as does the effective density (weight per unit length). So if you put on a thinner guage to increase the pitch you will also have less resistance to breaking under tension. The upshot is that the VL defines the maximum pitch. Empirically the gut will be about 1 to 1 1/2 tones below nylon at the max, with nylgut about 1/2 tone below nylon. That depends, of course, on the particular gut used. There is an anomaly in the commonly used strings for the various stringed instruments. The balance of characteristics between steel and gut and nylon and nylgut makes them all about the same in breaking pitch. The only string used today with totally different characteristics is bronze or brass. I've done some work with this and can provide figures for any who are interested, but write me at my direct address as I don't look at the Lute list often (no predjudice, just rather busy). Best, Jon BTW, pitch don't matter unless you are playing with others. I'm in the process of transcribing medieval plainsong and counterpoint chants for the harp ensemble, there is no pitch involved except the general pitch of the voices of the monks who sang them. One guesses from the nature of the Latin words and the sense of the music whether it should be brighter and in higher registers or more melancholy and in the bass. jwm. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: The lute builder as woodworker.
As the movie trailer said, Hee's back, Woodworking and luthiery. I haven't read the entire thread as I've been a bit busy with all the damned doctors keeping me alive (and they've done a good job, I expect make it another 30 years and check out when I reach three digits, or later). I do work with wood, and note the comments on joinery and such that aren't really in the luthier's repertoire. But they really are. It is just the power tools that are used today to make that faster for cabinetry, carpentry or construction that aren't. I do fine woodcarving, little creatures from basswood (which is a good wood for that). My tool set is a bunch of knives, gouges, and chisels - at my last surgery I offered my doctor my tools in place of his scalpel, they are sharper. I also make cabinetry, I'm rather hoping to make a small business of wooden music stands. And I've made a number of instruments, but the only lute is that flat back from a kit. Yet I'm still in the process, somewhat delayed by a stroke, of making a proper lute from scratch. So let me give my assessment of the power tools, and the wood knowledge needed for luthierie. First the wood. It would be a tautology to say that not all pieces of the same wood are the same. The wood comes from the tree, and the tree is a complex thing. What is the grain? We normally think of the grain as the longitudinal grain that is parallel to the core of the trunk of the tree, but there is also the radial grain, and the vagaries of grain. Even with a hand plane one can experience a different result depending on the direction of cut. Learn to see the several grains when selecting the wood, not all quarter sawn wood has the same point of origin. Does the grain run up through the surface, even when longitudinal? I'll drop the wood here, it is too complex for a simple email - all I'll say is to try it, use samples from waste cuts to test the way it will react. OK, tools. I've invested in a lot of them. But my favorites are my hand planes and my knives. But that does involve a lot of time if you are trying to get some rough work done. I just spent $70 for a device from Rockler (it is $80 when not on sale, and I got free shipping on a promotion). Wow, I'd have paid more if I knew what it would do for me - I can get rid of my router table (but I won't, I can use it for some things). This is a milling table that one can mount on a drill press - no use in lutherie that I know of, but it's great for making the mortises and tenons for my music stands - and I'm sure it will be great for other things. That was a digression, but I just did some things tonight on it that made me very happy. Back to the lute. I like the Wagner Saf-T-Planer ($35) for thining rib blanks, make a good planing board for a bench top drill press and it saves a lot of time over a hand plane (but use the hand plane to finish) if you can't order, or re-saw, the blanks to something close to thickness. A band saw, that is quite helpfull, but it is only a saving of time (and it's great to have for other things). My mold is rough cut with the bandsaw (and I recommend the Craftsman 10 that is almost out of print if you can find it. It is a bench top with a 4 1/2 depth of cut, most have a half to 3/4 less, and you'd be surprised how often that little bit helps (forgot to say I'm also a woodturner, and that does help in making blanks). It is also solid and has a good air flow for the dust collection, and roller guides standard - I'm giving away two 9 (a Delta and a Ryobi) because I like that machine so much. I can't think of much that you can't do with a band saw and a drill press, if you set up the jigs for what you want. But I confess that the 10 table saw I've got is convenient for fast roughing (not on a lute, other woodworking). And there is the making of the tuning pegs, I do have a Delta midi lathe for that. But they can be bought from stock. (A note, if you are going to make your own pegs you will need a good taper reamer for the holes, but don't invest in the peg shaper - just ream a block of wood and set a jointer blade into it (like an old fashioned pencil sharpener) - saves about $80. Most of the work is hand work, and hand work wants sharp tools. I like the artificial Japanese waterstones for keeping all my tools sharp. No objection to the oilstones, the Arkansas and such, but the oil in the stone does tend to get onto the workpiece if you aren't really careful. Waterstones don't have that problem, although they take a bit more maintainence. I keep mine in a plastic bucket of water next to my living room chair (where I play lute and harp, and occasionally other instruments). That way I can take my beer time in front of the TV putting a honed edge on any tool (including the turning gouges that normally reside in the workshop). But there is nothing wrong with the hand diamond sharpeners, as long as you do a clean hone with a fine stone. (And a bit of leather for the last touch can't hurt). Wow, did I go
[LUTE] Re: Mean tone temperament
I am reminded of the days when I was a salesman of government bonds - as the pricing decision approached the various salesmen would announce out loud the interest from customers, many of whom were State funds. One called off State of Minnesota, State of Iowa, State of Confusion, State of Michigan. I am in that famous State of Confusion. What are distant keys? Are these the modes, or are we speaking of the upper and lower ends of the keyboard? The natural overtone series of a plucked string doesn't match the harmonic sounds (and sympathetic vibrations). The various temperaments try to solve this problem. As long as one is playing a solo instrument it doesn't really matter, the sound may be different depending on the temperament chosen but there will be no discord with other instruments. The old hexachord system started at gamma, which is G two below middle C. Each hexachord scale was Do Re Mi Fa Sol La, with the next scale starting with Do on Mi, until you hit the third (or is it fourth, I'd have to write it out to figure that) which made the b (just below c', middle C) an anomaly - natural or sharp?. The sequence of intervals is fixed in the western scales, when one speaks of the Ionian (or major) mode. But those intervals aren't really true to the natural overtone series. (And I do quarrel with the statement that the keyboards can be retuned. They can, but I don't think I want to retune a piano for each change of key - I can do that easily with my harp). The third and the fifth are modified in any temperament (and the other intervals along with them). But that, in effect, fixes the tonic key to be used as the relative interval depends on the starting point on the keyboard. Equal temperament developed when various instruments had to play together in various keys. The fretted instruments are fixed in their intervals (and let us say that the lute is one of them, even though one can adjust the frets on it with a bit of sliding of the gut fret). The fully stringed ones; like the harp and piano, have variable intervals - but in practice one doesn't want to retune them each time one changes from C to G so as to get the natural third and fifth. The compromise allows the orchestral instruments to play together in all the keys (and in all the modes). Only the unfretted fingered instruments, like the violin, have the privilege of changing temperament in mid stream. This is the usual top of the head comment, and please don't pick nits on the comment. I'm sure that the lute in HIP should be mean toned, in one of the several mean tone tunings. And the hautboy or flute or harp played with it in medieval times would be tuned the same. But that limits the instruments to playing all their performance in the same key (neglecting modes), or taking the time to retune. Equal temperament is not a compromise to the modern ear, it is a compromise that enables ensembles of instruments to play together, and to do so at various base pitches (note that I don't refer to keys, they are arbitrary - What is C when the history of frequencies for the tuning A ranges over about 50 Hz. C, and all other notes, is an interval based on the primary tuning point, which is normally a', but that a' has been anywhere from 380 Hz to the current narrow range of from 438 to 446, and usually 440. The gist of what I'm saying is not an argument with the previous parts of this thread; it is a statement of practicality in tuning. The several mean tuning temperaments were an evolution, and the equal temperament a compromise consistant with that evolution as music moved into the orchestral and multi-instrument setting - and pieces were written in differing pitches to match the strong levels of the primary instrument within a spectrum of possible primary instruments. One is not going to set a violin concerto in a pitch (again, I say pitch instead of key as I don't want to put a name on it) that puts most of the play on the lower strings and loses the vibrant upper register, unless that is the composer's desire. If my memory is correct the violinist plays certain notes differently in an ascending scale versus a descending scale - a subtle difference, but a real one that matched the natural overtone series (or approximates it within reason as compared to the mean temperaments). But few other instruments have that privilege (a notable exeption is the trombone, never figured out how those guys could move the slide so exactly). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: making a simple rose
Stewart, The rose has no real effect on the sound except as it releases the enclosed sound chamber. That is an incorrect statement, but it is close enough for government work. The guitar and most other lute family stringed instruments have merely the sound hol. But the lute does have a diffential thickness in the sound board that is relevant to the sound. The rose is normally cut into the solid soundboard which is braced according to that plan. The figures in the rose are irrelevant to the sound (except to the extent that they block the reflection out of the soundbox). But if you do a glue in you will be changing the vibrating characteristics of the sound board, and the lute. You can buy pre-cut roses from www.musikits.com, and you can set them by making a shoulder on the soundboard (and planing the pre-cut thin), or by making a ring for support and glueing it to the back of the soundboard to support the rose in a simple circular hole. But that latter approach (which I have used on other instruments) will change the stiffness of the soundboard at a sensitive point. I don't recommend it. Go to a woodcarver's site, you have more than a few in the UK (which I could name, but won't for the moment). Woodcarvers sites have chisels of 1/8th inch or less, and mildly curved gouges, that will be quite comfortable in making a rose from the raw soundboard. And after all, if you make a mistake, you can always make it into a simple circle. It is not the open area of the rose that gives the lute its sound, it is the fact of the opening that provides release of the echoing in the soundbox - and the local stiffness of the soundboard that is affected by the soundhole. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Stuart Walsh [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2006 4:34 PM Subject: [LUTE] making a simple rose I've dug out some old home-made instruments - small plucked things; very simply made. I just cut out circular sound holes for them. I did try carving inset roses and felt that a monkey on a typewriter would be shoving out the entire corpus of Shakespeare's plays before I got anywhere near making a rose. I'd just like to make a simple design I could glue in with supports. Any ideas on materials, tools, techniques - a bodge job, as we say in Britain - would be much appreciated. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Question on Lute stringing
Nick, The exception that proves the rule. The basic answer is that 63cm is too long to comfortably tune to G at modern pitch A440. My flat-back is 63.5 cm VL, and I tune it to G. But there is no musical string that will hold that at that length. The closest is a nylon string, I've held G without breaking for a day or so, next comes nylgut, that snaps in about a half hour of being tuned to G at that length. But I did find a fishing line (nylon) that holds G at 63.5 cm VL. I'm stuck with the A=440 pitch as I play several other instruments (and sometimes in sequence), and have to match them to an ensemble I play with. Notice that I don't state the guage of the fishing line, or the nylon or nylgut I tried. The guage is irrelevant, in a sense, to the top string (chanterelle). Although a thinner guage requires less tension for the same pitch it is also thinner and therefore has less strength. It is an anomalie of materials that all strings of the same material have the same breaking pitch (given the VL) no matter the guage - and that the most usual strings used have competing characteristics that end up making them all have the approximate same breaking pitch (within about a tone and a half). Even steel falls into that structure. The real point is that a lute has a VL (vibrating length, nut to bridge) that is commensurate with its intended tuning. You can muddle that a bit by finding a particularly strong string for the chanterelle if the instrument is over long (as I've done with the fishing line for my 63.5 mensur). One doesn't increase overall tension significantly that way, it is safe for the instrument. For those who want to get technical, the string has two relevant characteristics. Its density and its tensile strength, where density implies the weight of the material and tensile strength its innate strength under a pull. (This is not entirely exact, but close enough). The breaking point is a combination of the thickness (cross section) and the innate material tensile strenght. (Steel wire rope will hold a stronger pull than hemp rope of the same diameter, but a thicker hemp rope can be stronger than a thnner wire rope - oh yes, I was a sailor). A thick rope will sound a lower pitch under the same tension as a thinner one. Two ropes of equal tension and thickness will have a different pitch if the density is different (the weight per unit length). Let's relate that to musical strings. It is a coincidence that steel wire, gut, nylon and nylgut all have charateristics that (in balance) come out almost the same. Bronze wire is quite different (and it is still used on some instruments). Lutenists aren't interested in steel strings (for good reason, as steel wants a higher tension to get the right sound as it has a higher density, and tensile strength. Gut, nylon and nylgut are so similar that they are only distinguishable (as to tuning pitch, not sound chararcteristics) by a tone to a tone and a half. (I've not worked with gut for breaking pitch yet so I'm not exact). To finish this I'll give the listing of VLs and chanterelle pitches with gut strings from Damiano's Renaissance Lute Method, my own work with nylon and nylgut matches his list (with the modifications of the differences). A 56-58cm (22-23 in) G 60-62cm (23.5-24.5 in) F# 62-64cm (24.5-25 in) F 65-66cm (25.5-26 in) E 67-68 cm (26-26.5 in) These are guidelines, not absolutes. But the maximum pitch for any string material witthout regard to the guage, given the VL, is an absolute. But let us remember that the absolute pitch of A has ranged from as low as 380 to our current standard of 440. But who cares? Nick has a point, you can capo - but if you do so on the lute you should think of it as changing base pitch and the nut, and adjusting your frets if youare in a mean temperament. It matters not if you are playing solo lute what the base pitch is.And if you are playing ensemble you'll have to work that out with the other instruments. For myself the flat back that is overly long is a temporary instrument, I'm building another from scratch. Best, Jon You could tune to G at A=415Hz - ie a semitone lower equivalent to F# modern pitch - fine for solos and singers and a lot of viol players, but not for playing with instruments at modern pitch, unless you use a capo on the first fret- no not very authentic, but very practical. You could tune it to F, fine for solos and singers, and tone apart duets with a lute in modern G, but you would need a capo on the first fret to play with viols at 415. I have a flamenco style capo made by my lute maker with a peg matched to the tuning pegs and it works fine. Be aware though that if you use equal temperament fretting, there is no problem, but if you use something else like 1.6, mean tone fretting, you have to move some of the frets a significant distance. I use a piece of paper with the frets marked on which I slip under the strings to the nut, and slide along the frets to match to
[LUTE] Re: Music Therapy
Charles, I have to add to this thread without reading the many messages in it - I'm a bit behind in my reading having recently had a stroke myself. So pardon me if I say things already said by others. Music Therapy is bullshit, but music is therapeutic. As a harpist I've been in some discussions of this. Several members of my harp ensemble are official trained Music Therapists, and I have a CD I was given by a harpist/composer for covering her booth at a harp festival. The CD has specific tunes for the various stages of disease and dying. Bull, each of us is different. The selections for the terminal, as defined by the academic discipline of Music Therapy (I'm waiting for an academic discipline of the best way to scratch a cat's ears) is soothing and saccharine. Personally I'd prefer a rousing march from a brass quartet. I have no plan to go gentle into that good night, I'm going kicking and screaming. I had a message a while back on the harp list from a young lady who was going into an academic experiment as to the best harp music for patients in the ICU. Having been in ICUs about six times in the last seven years I pointed out that the best thing for a harpist to do would be to stay out of the way of the ICU nurse, and to not trip over the IVs, and to not worry about the music. Dogs and cats are known to be very therapeutic for patients, but the ICU ain't the place for them. The harpists claim scientific evidence that the special features of the harp are especially therapeutic. I can't argue with that, the harp is unique in a way. Someone mentioned a violinist friend who is doing Music Therapy for wounded soldiers. Dare I say that the violinist isn't doing Music Therapy (he mentions that they like their requests). He is making music for the troops (as contrasted to performing a fixed plan). That is a good thing, but it isn't Music Therapy. Music Therapy is a trained occupation with rules as to the play depending on the condition of the patient (at least as far as I can gather from the Music Therapists I know). I was asked by the young lady on the ICU study what I'd do. I'd noodle the harp a bit. Make some note sequences in differing modes and speed, no particular tune. Watch the patient's reaction (which might be quite subtle in the case of the semicomatose), then follow up on the sounds that seem to work. That latter is probably why the harp is said to be suited to therapy, it has a nice resonance when picked as single notes, and it can fully chord them. The lute could be a therapeutic instrument, but that would need patients who like renaissance or baroque music (or other fixed pieces). The lute, and any other instrument (I'd love to hear Bach trumpets in my hospital room, but my roommate and the people in the next corridor might not), are of help to some in hospital. When one is in extremis it is not always clear what will help. And there is certainly no one size fits all for each condition, as is implied by Music Therapy. Play it, if they like it play it again. If not, try something else. I don't claim to speak for all patients, but at my age I've had more experience in hospitals lately than I'd prefer. Music, dogs and cats, and anything comforting is a help. But there is no specific that applies to all. when my mother was going out, fifteen years ago at 88 (and semicomatose) I played her recordings of her favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. Each patient is different. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Charles Browne [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Lutelist lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 3:29 PM Subject: [LUTE] Music Therapy A Happy New Year to all! There was an article in one of the UK national newspapers recently about Harpists being 'employed' in operating theatres and in Chemotherapy Units to help reduce tension and anxiety in patients. I followed this up by looking at various links to formal Music Therapy and I gather that the Harp, among other instruments, is often used because of its particular properties. I wondered whether the lute would be similarly useful. Has anybody on the list experience of this? best wishes Charles To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Do pegs wear out?
Herbert, Taco has given you a good answer, but let me add to it (I make my own pegs). The peg is hardwood, and so is the pegbox. There is wear on both. If each were perfect, like the legendary One Horse Shay that had every part so perfectly matched that it never wore out until the whole thing fell into dust one day (an old New England poem) then the wear could be taken up by just pushing the peg in deeper. But unfortunately nothing is perfect, no matter how lubricated. Anomalies in the grains of each will eventually result in differential wear, usually a bit of out of round either of the peg or the peg box. Taco is also right that the violin pegs and lute pegs have a different taper (off the top of my head I think the lute is 30 to 1 and the violin 25 to 1, but don't call me on that). A reamer for the tapered holes costs about $80 so is not practical for the occassional fix. But if you can borrow one you can make a peg shaper for about 5 bucks. Picture your old hand pencil sharpener in the school pencil box. Buy a jointer blade (I had to spend $10 as I could only fine a 2 pack, but as each blade has two edges I figure I have about five hundred years worth of blade surface of I reshape 10 pegs a day). Drill a hole through the long side of a block of scrap wood the length of a peg (the hole near one long edge). Take the borrowed reamer and ream the hole in the block to the taper of the peg. Shave the surface of the block to make a place for the jointer blade (picture the old fashioned pencil sharpener) and screw the blade into place. Now you have peg shaper (but do test it on a cheap peg first to see that you have the angle of the blade right). As to the peg box, it can't hurt to gently use that borrowed reamer very gently to smooth the holes. But the enventual result would be to make the hole too wide. But you can always trim the shoulder of a peg a bit, and subject it to the pencil sharpener to gain more length. Coming back to basics, if the peg wear and the hole wear are perfectly even then you won't notice it. But that is unlikely, more likely the wear will be uneven causing grabbing and/or slipping. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Herbert Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 12:10 PM Subject: [LUTE] Do pegs wear out? A bit mundane, lo siento mucho. Do pegs wear out? If so, how long does it take, and what are the symptoms, and what do you have to do to fix it? I tried a Google search on this subject, figuring the violin community might provide an abundance of information, but such was not the case. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Now we are one, forever (New Boy Gets Lute, and a cherry tree dies)
Howdy saw (or new boy, and I agree with Stewart that a real name signature is more approprate to this list). I'll leave the matters of play (thumb under or over) at to the plucking of both strings to the real lutenists, but suffiice to say that is is a long finger that avoids the nails. I'll speak only to the mechanicals. BTW, the ribs are the body of the instrument, The separate strips of wood that make up the bowl. OK, we think of ribs as being transverse due to our anatomy, but these ribs are longitudinal. As to the holding of the instrument there are many pictures of the old boys using straps. It bcomes a matter of mounting the strap. If you want one there is no way to avoid setting a mounting pin in the base the lute, but the other end can be hooked to the neck or pegs without a mounting. I prefer the approach Damiano uses, I set a strap on the base and pass it under my leg to hold the base down while leaving the neck free. At the same time you can get a chamois (shammey) cloth at qn auto supply store and use it for friction in your lap. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Strings 'n' things
There are emergencies and then there are necessities. My flat back was designed too with too long a VL for a G tuning of the chanterelle, a fact that the kit maker has corrected in his new version (due to my input). You all know that gut has a lower breaking pitch (given length) than the synthetics, but there is also a small difference with the Nylgut, the nylon and the fishing line - and in that order. I can tune to F with Nylgut, and F# with musical nylon - but I can hold G with fishing line. Among those latter three it is just a small difference in the tensile strength/density combination. Not the best solution, the better would be to have an instrument of the right length for the desired tuning (and I'm building that now). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: An epistle from the gut
I yet have difficulty understanding the purist as I'm not sure how one defines what is pure. Yes we can attempt to duplicate the several string formats of old, and we can duplicate the instrument from museum pieces (but never exactly how they sounded together). But can we duplicate the tempi of the tunes? I use that as an obvious problem in purism. There is no metronome setting in the tab, nor can we be sure just how fast a renaissance dance was (unless we want to assume that Hollywood has the Gavotte right in its period pieces). Timing, emphasis and the sense of the tune - these we have to guess. Educated guesses certainly, but still guesses. Nor can we say how the old masters would have played had they some of our modern advantages. Would the old lutenist have turned his nose up at amplification if it allowed him to play above the sounds of the feast? I believe in being as true to the sense of the assumed sound as one can be, but that includes a sense of the song - and I'm sure the old boys didn't play exactly as written. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: New Boy wants lute
Hello New boy, RT has given you the answers, but as usual they are rather cryptic. Having played guitar for over 55 years now, and the lute for about a year and a half, I may be able to help on your questions. Firstly unless you are you are incredibly talented you aren't a guitar player yet (in 9 months). The guitar, unlike the lute family, is a standardized instrument. But guitar music is far from standardized. Modern guitar, as used in Rock and much of folk and jazz, is a chorded instrument. One can strum the full six strings (although my play over the years has been the finger pickin' folk accompanyment. But there is also the older and more traditional Spanish and Classical. (Lute list, please forgive me for the simplification). You don't say how you are using your guitar. I have to assume that you are using it for modern styles of chording rather than the more careful playing of the individual strings as in the Classical guitar. The lute is more difficult than a strummed guitar, but not more difficult than a well played one. I'll go to your specific questions (which RT has properly answered). Questions: Why are frets made with 'gut' on a lute? Does this mean they wear out, if so how do you fix them yourself or do you need to be a professional? I assume that you are referring to the contrast between the fixed metal frets of the guitar and the tied frets of the lute, whether they are gut or nylon. The lute is a traditional instrument dating back to before the days of a fixed equal temperament and so the ability to slightly move the tied frets allows one to use a different tempering of the scale so as to better match the sound of historic times. If your musicology is not sufficient to understand this please ask me directly. BTW, metal frets (aside from being fixed) do ruin the sound. Do you use gut string with lutes? Will nylon ruin the sound? You can use gut, nylon or Nylgut. The sound and the feel is a bit different between them, but none will ruin the sound except for the particular ear that prefers gut. How bad are the old-style tuners? I heard they go out of tune a lot. Is this true, if so does it ruin the whole thing? Old style? Like on a violin? As RT says a well shaped peg is quite satisfactory (and aesthetically pleasing). If you get anything other than a 6 course lute, will it ruin your guitar playing? Or not? I still want to play guitar There is no relationship between the 6 courses of a lute and those of a guitar. One doesn't strum full chords on a lute, although there is chording. (And for the Spanish and Classical guitarists on the list I'm referring to the common guitar of today, not your machine). Other than the skills with the fingers the practice and technique is quite different. I am trying to break folk guitar habits in learning the lute. Is a 6 course easier to play than 7-8 course? Or not? RT said it, a 13 course is easier - but as is typical of him (with all due respect RT) he left it cryptic. The lute is a 6 course instrument in a sense. The courses below that are tuned a tone or a half tone off the string above them and are normally played open. If I want to play a piece written for 10 course lute on my 7 course I have to down tune the 7th course and recast the tab to finger the notes in between on that 7th course. So, in a sense, the more strings below the 6th course the easier to play pieces that use the lower harmonies. How much more difficult is it to play a lute versus a guitar? They are the same, as are all instruments. It depends on what you want to play. The early lute was a melody instrument played with a pick (sorry purists, a quill plectrum - and you might not call that a lute). But as music developed the play of the lute changed and became polyphonic. A chorded guitar is more difficult than a single string lute, but a lute played as in the late medieval and from then one is harder than a strummed guitar. I play penny whistle, it is an easy instrument to play slowly in ballad form, but an extremely difficult one to play as a virtuoso. A beginner can make credible music on a guitar, or on a lute, but the music written for lute is a bit more demanding of accuracy than the guitar when it is used for accompanyment. Best, Jon (PS, comment solicited from the list - I just pontificated without half the knowledge of any of you). To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Technique and Tendonitis
jim abraham wrote: I'm wondering if thumb under would be less stressful. I can't think of a reason why it would be, but the only way you'll ever know is to try it for a while. I doubt that the problem is your thumb under or over technique. More likely it is the actual movement (and probably the tension you use). Try this to test the strain and the pain. Put the finger tips of your left hand on the spots where the tendons of your right fingers enter that tunnel (the base of the back of your right hand). Play air lute with different angles of the fingers and hand. Change the hand angles, and the tension on the right fingers. Find out where it hurts and where is is most comfortable. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Antique tools.
Scalpels and chisels, carbon steel and stainless. As you all have said it is a matter of purpose. Stainless does sterilize better, but it is also true that surgical instruments are now disposable. I'll not blame it entirely on the lawyers, but in these days of litigation and awareness of contamination borne diseases the hospitals are playing it on the safe side. I am bled once a week for a condition (yes, the old boys with their leeches and bleeding weren't entirely wrong - just mostly). The needles are thrown away. They could use brass or bronze, or whatever is cheapest, as they are used for only one insertion. A kitchen knife has to cut through a thickness of muscle, and do so for every slice for every diner. A scalpel is cutting through blood vessels and other things as well. It ain't the sawing of the beef the kitchen knife sees. Each tool to its purpose. I found that surgical blades are manufactured from both stainless steel and carbon steel. I hadn't known that, but it is logical. Although it contradicts the sterilizability versus the sharpenability (stainless is harder to sharpen, but easier to sterilize). The Civil War surgeons would have loved stainless for their many amputations a day. They had no time to sharpen and had no knowledge of sterilization. They also wanted to cut fast to reduce the time of the pain. Carbon steel blades are described as somewhat brittle, and hobbyists using them forcefully are advised to wear safety glasses. And therein lies the crux. I don't use safety glasses with my carbon steel chisels, but then I don't use a hammer to drive them. The handles have the caps that would allow that, but I don't use them forcefully. The right tool for the purpose, I have stainless alloy Craftsman chisels for that heavy work. Xacto knives are very sharp, and are stainless alloy (as are my razor blades). But when they dull we throw them away (sooner if cutting hardwood, later if cutting balsa for that model airplane you built at age ten). I can't really say more than that the blades you buy are always a tradeoff of expense, hardness and sharpenability. There are now ceramic blades with incredible edges, but a bit brittle. The Damascus blade was the western epitome for swords, but the Samurai sword with its multiple foldings and refoldings beats it. The Japanese make chisels with a dual character, simplistically they have a hard strong edge with a softer layer above so as to be amenable to sharpening, but they are very expensive (don't pick me off on that, I know it was over simplified). If I were working professionally I'd put a lot of money into my blades - but as an amateur I'm willing to go to the waterstone relatively often for my softer chisels - and to the grindstone now and then for the hard ones that are for roughing. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: lillibullero
Ho by my soul it is the Talbott, Lillibulero bullen a la, And he will cut all de English throat, Lilibulero bullen a la. Lero, lero etc. (chorus) I don't remember the rest of the verses, but it seems to match Howard's derivation from 1641. The Talbott would match the use of a name as a title that is common in Irish usage. I'll not go with the rest of his interpretations, nor will I reject them. Irish traditional music is full of nonsense syllables (as is the old English with the good old hey nonny nonny). I do like the Gaelic victory chant interpretation, the words fit. And one can add that the Irish were a bit allied with the French at the time (as were the Scots) on the Arabic grounds of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So the lily of France could have been a standard. I'll not speculate further, nor can I remember where I got the words from the verse. Perhaps they are tribal memory g. - Original Message - From: bill kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute list lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 2:21 PM Subject: [LUTE] lillibullero if this is has been gone through many times before, please excuse me, i missed it. i was under the impression that purcell lifted the melody to lillibullero from an unnamed irish tune. is this correct and if so, does the refrain ... lero lero lillibullero lillibullero bullen a la .. have any significance other than nonsense rhyme? - bill ___ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Lillyburlero or Lilliburlero
Oops, I hadn't followed to the bottom of Howard's message. Now having looked at his link I see my one verse was a part of the words. And the rest are quite familiar - Tyrconnel and the rest. But I question the reference to the Battle of the Boyne (when King Billy won). And also question the words as being from that era. The Irish revolt of the 1740s was an Irish revolt against the Crown, and one of the leaders was the Protestant Wolfe Tone. The words of Lilibulero as quoted on the link are definitely Catholic, but that dichotomy came a bit later in modern history. The original English invasion was in the 1200's ( I think, but about then) and was Roman Catholic England taking Christian (but non Roman) Ireland with the blessing of the Pope. (Richard Longshanks, and all them). Many of the invaders were Welsh and carried Gaelic names (Fitzgerald being one). Over time they integrated, and the original Irish accepted the Roman church. The Crown, under Henry VII, and Cromwell, and King Billy took crusades to Ireland - Cromwell was temporarily successful, William did better. But then the Protestants and Catholics rose in common cause against the Crown in the mid 1700s, more political than religious. Enough, that is very bad history and I should know better than to write off the top of my head, but it isn't a bad head - just a bit confused now and then. In the morning I'll remember better. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: OT: tuning in 19th century London
Somewhere in my files of printouts, or in my bookshelves, I have a reference to a German tuning with A=380. I don't remember the era, but as all my research is on harps and lutes - and I haven't looked at harp pitches - I assume it was on the lute. I think it was probably something referenced by Ephraim Segermann as he seems to address that topic in the notes I can find immediately. But that leads me to a question for you all. How did they know? In the absence of modern measuring equipment how could one tell the actual frequency of the vibrations? I doubt that anyone could actually count the number of vibrations in one second of even the best mechanical clock of the time. Of course there were standards, the tuning forks. We have estimates of the ancient Greek pitches, although I know of no tuning forks from that era. Probably good guestimates from the size of the instuments and the string material. I would have to assume that the orchestral instruments were made to a relative pitch to some tuning fork standard rather than an actual knowledge of the cps (Hertz for you new guys) of the pitch. I think it likely that there were various standards in various eras and various places, each with their own A fork. I would like to be disabused of this opinion - I would love to know what technology allowed the old musicians to know the absolute number of vibrations per second that they pitched their instruments to. Until someone can tell me that I have to assume that we know the absolute pitch by using their forks and testing them. It was hard enough to measure a second in olden days, much less one 440th of a second. The relative pitch is easy, the octaves double the frequency - but where is the base? Best, Jon (Yeah, I know, a Ukranian genius invented a water driven occilliscope in 1647) To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Antique tools.
I basically agree with everyone, but choose this message to respond to as I've a bit of disagreement here. Probably because they make a lot more selling slick-looking but poorly made crap to consumers who don't know any better... Also, there isn't really a big enough market for the more specialized tools to make it worth their while. There are some very well made modern tools, just not by the old standbys. Lie-Nelson planes, for instance, are probably as good as any antique. Not cheap, though. The problem is not consumers who don't know better, the problem is that there is no market for fine woodworking tools as there are few people who want to spend the time doing the work. Dick, gmbh in Germany has some fine chisels - but the cost with shipping is prohibitive to the US unless it is something you really need. It is not that Craftsman, and other majors, are making crap. Their tools are excellent for their market. My Craftsman chisels are fine for making gross work on 2 x 4s for construction - but can't cut the mustard for fine work. My pair of Buck Bros. chisels (Home Depot, don't know if they are an alloy or carbon steel) have the characteristics of carbon steel. They take a fine edge when honed on a waterstone, but dull quickly. The woodworker has the patience to rehone his tools regularly (fifteen minutes of work and I put my tools to the stone) - the home repairman doesn't, and shouldn't have to. The fine blades are available, mainly Japanese, but they do have a price. There is an old saw (no pun intended) it is a poor workman that doesn't know his tools. It would be a waste to buy expensive tools for rough work, but it is a false economy to go with the wrong tools. I do wood turning and have some fine gouges and some cheap roughing tools. Dr. Oakroot didn't say it, but he implied it. There is a trade off on bladed tools. Some take a fine edge but need to be continually honed (not ground), and others hold their edge, but not so fine an edge. Which you choose for which job is a function of what you are doing. I don't think I'd want an old carbon steel chisel to make the mortise and tenon joints for a building extension, but that old chisel would be a lot better than a Craftsman for refining the mold and neckblock of the lute I'm building. It is less a matter of quality than of purpose. You can cut a tomato with any reasonbly sharp blade, but the thin slices of sushi require a fine blade (and a very steady hand). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Ownership
Craig, Indeed. Um, you don't own any rocking chairs do you? My cat solved the rocking chair problem, she springs to the seat and then to the top, and rides the waves. But then she may be planning ahead about the tails of any potential feline interlopers. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Ownership
Carl, Congratulations on the litter, and for taking in the stray. I note that the expected comments on lute string supplies have come in. My one cat (the vet calls her dilute tortoise shell, I call her muddy grey) is a feral refugee. Born in a friend's garage with littermates, but then taken back to the woods by her mother, she returned to the warmth of the garage when she was barely mobile. We took her on, but now I don't dare type or speak the word cat gut (except that at the moment she is not looking over my shoulder as she usually is when I type). Twelve pounds of in shape feline, I don't want to argue with her. But for the list, I am getting comfortable with my first mold (a la D. van E. instructions). A few more weeks and I'll start finishing the planing of the ribs, and finally get up the guts to cut one to shape. The mold is the key, as you all know. I love David's course, and it was fully worth it. But for amateur shops I might suggest a different sequence in making the mold than he uses (no knock on his way, just that he is well practised and I've made my errors that one sees as one is in progress). Take good care of the kittens Carl, find good homes. If you are anywhere near NJ, USA we might consider a companion for our Lucky cat. You never look for a cat, you wait for it to find you. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: One more damn question about which instrument...
Eugene, I concur. Absolutes and blanket statements are anathema to me, perhaps because I've been around a long time and seen a lot of exceptions. I was entertained by my son and his family for my 70th birthday (yeah, I accept all congratulations for making it that long as a heavy drinker and smoker) last Saturday. Entertained! I had to do the cooking as they are visiting for two semesters from Minnesota and wanted a lobster dinner. I wouldn't trust the boiling of a lobster (and particularly four of them timed to arrive on the table together) to mid-westerners. Simple process, complex timing. My son is living in my old home town of Summit, NJ for nine months as a visiting professor at Seton Hall Law School, on leave from his firm. That was a side comment to lead into the guitar. My daughter in law is a music teacher of children with no specific instrument, although her skills are on keyboards. She had her guitar with her, a wire string narrow neck. I had a problem playing it, not with the wire but with the narrow neck. And that brought to mind an anomaly I noticed years ago. I have rather small hands and narrow fingertips - one would think that would militate for a narrow neck. But in my years of experience I've found it the reverse. The large hand players can cover two courses on the same fret with the narrow neck, I can't. So I find it easier with the wide neck where, except on a barre, I hit each course individually. I think the basic problem with many of our conversations on this list are with absolutes, which may be more absolutism than historical accuracy. The Segovia paradigm may have had more to do with Segovia's fingers than with actual music (and I was not aware that his choice had dictated the form of the instrument, thank you for that). You have made a good point, width of the fingerboard has nothing to do with the sound (within reason), except as it fits the style and hand size of the player. My first guitar ($15 with hard case, used - bought in Newark, NJ at a musical pawn shop in 1947) was a small Martin pin-bridge narrow neck that I strung with nylon and used for over ten years, until I got a spruce top Martin and sold the old mahogany to a girl friend (but that was still narrow neck and pin bridge). Sold that to a fool for enough to buy a Martin classical in '61 with a net expense to me of 50 bucks. Used that in my tour of the country playing and singing wherever I was welcome (and paid). That was stolen from my Greenwich Village apartment in a break in in about 1989, and I had been offered $2000 for it by a guitar teacher only six months before. But I found a used Yamaha classical by good fortune that had a similar action and tone a year later, $200. The Music Barn salesman saw me work through all the instruments, new and used, and saw which I liked (we were not in conversation, I was just shopping). He came over and said try this one, it is a return of a Christmas present given to an incipient guitarist who decided that he didn't want a guitar. I've modified it a bit to soften the action, and the nice thing is that it never had a Yamaha decal on it so it could pass for a custom instrument. Oh my, I rambled as usual. But the point is that music is sound and that is made by the combination of artist and instrument. A guitar or a lute is a tool of the player.They can make various sounds. The lute started out as a plectrum instrument in ancient days, the unfretted oud with a goose quill (or whatever derivation you prefer). A style developed in Rennaissance times of polyphony that required more plucking fingers, and then evolved into more advanced polyphony, or harmonies and the several instruments in concert and the continuo. When did nails go out and soft fingers come in. A plectrum is sharp and hard, as is a fiingernail. The lute as we see it is the fingertip sound. Nothing is absolute in music, or in anything. I play what pleases me, some play to recreate a particular sound of a particular musician of a particular time. They have to guess a bit as to the details, but they are sure they are right. I can't disagree, but I can say that others of a similar time played differently, and others of near but different times played differently. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: EUGENE BRAIG IV [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Jon Murphy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Lute Net lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2005 9:46 PM Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: One more damn question about which instrument... - Original Message - From: Jon Murphy [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Saturday, September 10, 2005 4:01 am Subject: [LUTE] Re: One more damn question about which instrument... I've been playing a Spanish/Classical guitar for fifty years without nails (admittedly not much of the Spanish or Classical music, although I can pass doing that). I think you are referring to the particular sound of the music rather than the use
[LUTE] Re: Double-striped wood.
Eugene, My lady of over thirty years (we still live in sin, but don't tell the grandchildren of our trangression) has a phrase. Ask Murphy the time and he'll tell you how to build a watch. Wow. There's a whole lot of writing going on here to clrify Herbert's inquiry into what, I'm pretty sure, was trying to address the flame/figure of maple (or similar flamed timber). Yup, but had he said figure instead of tiger stripe I wouldn't have given the instructions on watch building. It was a fun speculation on the way that a wood can have that pattern. I had just accepted the pattern before his question. Given that every tree grows with annular rings and with longitutinal vesicles (the grain we work with) it would seem that all trees should have un-figured planks, except as the annular rings pass through them cross-wise. It made me think about the flamed/figured maple. I have a guess. What if the genetic evolution of the tree in question involved closely spaced branches (that would make the patterns of the branches in the live wood), but then the further evolution, as climate changed, inhibited those closely spaced branches. The embryonic nubbins of the abortive branches would make patterns in the live wood, that would then be preserved in the deeper wood. Just a thought. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: One more damn question about which instrument... (fwd)
Wayne, I have found that using the lightest classical guitar strings (medium??) and tuning a pitch low gives a lower tension to the strings. The guitar won't sound as good as a lute, and it won't sound as good as a regularly strung classical guitar, but it will hael you work on lute rh technique. After spending a bit of time with the lute I found my guitar to be to hard an action. But instead of changing the strings and tuning I took down the nut grooves and the bridge a bit to lower the strings over the fingerboard. That reduces the maximum volume you can play without buzzing as you can't strike too hard, but I play quietly anyway. I'd not suggest it if you don't have a lot of patience as it is a gradual trial and no error process. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Double-striped wood.
Herbert, Alan has given you a good answer but may I add a bit. And my use of terms may be argued. I have a problem with the word grain as applied to the annular rings versus to planing with the grain. Close grainded wood is wood with small annular rings, according to the definitions I've seen. But lute ribs, and all other planks, are cut perpendicular to the annular rings - along the long axis of the tree. (The rings grow outward while the tree grows upward - although I know this isn't standard nomenclature). The grain we plane along is the vesicules that run vertically in the tree to carry nutrient in the live outer ring(s). The annular rings are the circles we see when we cut across a log. The closer the rings the more closely the vesicules are packed, and the closer the grain. There is no way to cut a tree longitudinally without having a curved grain, in the sense of the annual rings. Just go to Home Depot and look at the end grain of the planks. Some trees have patterns of the vesicules within the annular ring, I have no idea how or why that happens, but that is your cross pattern. Theoretically there sshould be none as one would expect (neglecting knots or deep roots of branches) a longitudinal pattern if there were a difference in the growth rings. I quit here, my imagination can't picture a way for the tiger stripes to be natural, but I think they probably are. The wood in the back of me lute has stripes which run perpendicularly to the regular growth-ring grain. Oops, I may have misinterpreted this. What do you mean by growth ring grain? You only see the growth rings from the end grain and I was assuming you meant the longitudinal grain from the pores. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Cat gut
Stewart, You make a fine point by not taking a position on terminology. There is no cat's head on a ship, although the Romans did have the heads of lions and tigers and bears (with apologies to the Wizard of Oz). But your comments do have a certain validity. There is a cat head on an old sailing ship, and also on a modern one. But I don't know where the nomenclature comes from. The cat head is a solid timber with no decoration that is a beam from which the anchor is hung when about to be dropped, it is only there to allow the anchor to be dropped clear of the hull, the strain is not taken on the cat head. There are various lays of the lines and cables on a ship, but all are multiple layers. Cable laid versus rope laid, the opposite twist. But I can see no relationship to the cat gut, these lays were many layered, unliked strings. As to it being an actual cat I object, and so does my cat. Unlikely that even them most anti-feline medieval lutenist would choose to take the innnards of a cat - sheep have a lot more length of innards (and are normally slaughetered for food, where cats are only immolated for being witch companions in medieval society). I suggest that most hypotheses of word origins are false, too easy to make a link between a similar sound and a linguistic origin. Were I to have the time I'd make a message too long to read of nautical terms that have no relationship to the land lubber's vocabulary, even though they sound alike Stewart, I agree, Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Stewart McCoy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Lute Net lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 3:26 PM Subject: [LUTE] Cat gut Dear Arthur, I understood that minikins were so called, because they came from Munich. I'm afraid I can't remember the reference. Strings are discussed in _Varietie_, where there is mention of Monnekin and Mildorpe as being the best. Venice Catlines are also mentioned, but no proper explanation is given for the term. There was a time when I found plausible the hypothesis that a catline was the line or rope tied to the cat's head on a ship, usually a lion's head. The catline had a special twist to make it stretch when pulling the anchor. Lute catlines were so called because they had a similar twist to those anchor ropes. I don't know how this hypothesis was originally promulgated, but I would need more persuasion now to be convinced of its veracity. In seeking further information, I had a quick glance at the Burwell Lute Tutor. There we learn that lute strings were made from sheep and cat gut. I give up. :-) Best wishes, Stewart. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Re: V.
Craig, I asked Wayne if he could add the [LUTE] in the Dartmouth software to this list. It makes it much easier to filter the mail (all my other lists use such a prefix). But I suggest that it isn't badly written email software that causes the recurrance of Re's and Fw's, it is the misuse of it by the senders. Often we get multiple mails from a single source - for instance if you reply all to a message sent to the lute list and an individual that is on the lute list he will get two copies - one direct and one from the list. And if there are CCs there it will proliferate. May I gently suggest a procedure. Filter your email lists to special files (and the [LUTE] prefix makes that easy). BTW, if you use Outlook or Outlook Express from M$ the file folders sort alphabetically below the fixed Inbox, Outbox, Sent, Deleted, Drafts folders. I make a folder for each of my email lists that starts with the word About (i.e., About Lute List, About Harp List, etc), that sorts them to the top (except for the Aah so, need to read folder that I move things to from my Inbox if I want to look at them tomorrow). Then the other files that I want to save under specific names are sub folders under a major folder that is prefaced by Archives (i.e., Archives, Music - Archives, Friends - Archives, Princeton). These latter come into the Inbox, but I move the ones I want to save to the Archive. Obviously the naming has to do with the automatic sort by M$ Outlook. I'm glad Wayne has added this prefix (hadn't noticed it until your message). I can now simplify my filtering of lute list messages to About Lute. And for all of you I recommend that you look at the To line and the CC line before sending a message, and the subject line. You can edit each of them and eliminate the redundancies that can proliferate. The old carpenter's rule is measure twice, cut once - the emailing rule should be think twice, send once. Edit the header, you know how to do it. Best, Jon And now having said that I'm going to break the rule as an example. The To line on this message, that I'm replying all is [EMAIL PROTECTED], lute@cs.dartmouth.edu, Roman Turovsky. Properly I should delete corun and Roman as they will get a copy through the lutelist, but to make my point I'll let it ride and they each should receive two copies, on through the list and one on direct email. If everyone understands their system we'd have less duplication. jwm - Original Message - From: Craig Allen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu; Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 11:52 AM Subject: [LUTE] Re: Re: Re: Re: V. Roman, It is not the added [LUTE] that causes the repeating Re: Re: Fw: Re: RE: AW: Re: to occur, but badly written email software. I've seen this occur on this list before the addition of [LUTE] which use I heartily approve. So asking Wayne to remove [LUTE] will not remove the problem caused by some email software. Welcome to the 21st Century. Craig Wayne, These silly Re: [LUTE] Re: Re: Fw: Re: RE: AW: Re: are devouring them subject lines. Could we please return to the good old ways?? RT ___ $0 Web Hosting with up to 200MB web space, 1000 MB Transfer 10 Personalized POP and Web E-mail Accounts, and much more. Signup at www.doteasy.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Lundberg lute for sale
Thomas, I am not in the market as I'm broke and building my own lute from a combination of Bob Lundberg's book and David van E.'s course. But I have to congratulate you, or Gerd, for including the lovely picture of Bob with his lute. He died long before I became involved with the lute, but I felt I knew him from his book (as put together post mortem by his friend). That picture shows a man I think I would have liked to have known. If none of you agree then let this be his memorial, and I think I'll print that picture of a man I never knew. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Monday, August 22, 2005 2:47 AM Subject: [LUTE] Lundberg lute for sale Dear list, I received a mail offering a lute by the late Bob Lundberg. The instrument was built in 1986 but never played due to an accident of the hand of the owner. He now decided to sell it. Price negotiable basis 6500 Euro. Pictures of the instrument can be seen on http://www.gmelin-verlag.de/Lundberg/Bilder.htm Please don't ask me about the owner or the instrument. I don't know neither of them. Rather contact the owner Gerd E.Gmelin, email:[EMAIL PROTECTED], phone number: ++49 (0)8152 90 99 762 Best wishes Thomas the original mail: ich besitze eine wunderschöne 8-chörige Renaissance-Laute von Robert Lundberg (gestorben 2001), Baujahr 1986. Das Instrument ist in makellosem Zustand, da ich es nie gespielt habe (Handverletzung in 1983). Nun muss ich es aufgrund meiner ernsten gesundheitlichen Probleme verkaufen. Der Verhandlungspreis ist 6.500,00 Euro. Ich habe damals das Instrument über meinen ehemaligen Lehrer Prof. Dieter Kirsch gekauft, der mit Bob Lundberg befreundet war. Ich hoffe, Sie können mir helfen. Danke für Ihre Bemühungen. Mit freundlichen Grüßen Ihr Gerd E. Gmelin (ehem. Mitglied Würzburger Gitarrentrio) Kontakt: 08152-9099762 Bilder vom Instrument: http://www.gmelin-verlag.de/Lundberg/Bilder.htm To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Maintenance--strings
Concur with Edward and Howard. And will add that on both lute and harp (opposites in the way the tension is applied, parallel versus semi-perpendicular) the lose of one string is a tiny fraction of total tension. And that a release of tension (stress actually) won't hurt the instrument - in fact it is a good idea to relax the strings on either before shipping them, one never knows what heat or cold may meet the instrument in the back of a truck or the hold of an aircraft. I wouldn't suggest taking a knife to all the strings at once and having a catastrophic release of stress on the soundboard - but I'd guess that it wouldn't matter. The wood has a memory, but it could be overflexed if one cut the strings every day then brought it to pitch with new strings. Sort of like flexing a paper clip that could be destructive. Enough, I think I'm trying to say that the sudden minor flexing of the wood can't make a hill of beans, and even major flexing would only matter if it were repetitive. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Leonard Williams [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Lute List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 8:09 PM Subject: [LUTE] Maintenance--strings Strings break--its a given. Very often it's unexpected. When the string pops, there is a very sudden change in the tension on the instrument. Can this be damaging? Is it better for the lute itself for one simply to change a string when it shows acoustic or (especially with gut) visible signs of wear (aside from the comfort of knowing you've got a solid string for that up-coming concert)? Or, is it safe for the sake of economics just to wait until it breaks? I'm not talking about having to put up with increasingly untrue strings or any aesthetic aspects of the problem--just the wear and tear on the lute. Thanks and regards, Leonard Williams PS--I just lost a gut treble, and the replacement was up to pitch and stable enough to play a few short dances without retuning within about an hour and a half. One of the nice things about gut, which otherwise can be like wet spaghetti in this humid weather. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Tempo and divisions
Stewart, A fine analysis of tempo and divisions. But I have to punt on this one. Is it faster or slower? We can't know. And the note values can't tell us. Take modern staff notation with the metronome beat assigned to the piece. The tempo signature indicates the emphasis within the measure, not the speed of the measure. We have no metronome beats assigned to older music, we have to guess. One way to guess is to hear the internal beat of the music, and if it is a dance then picture the dance form. Another is to take the segment of the piece with the most divisions and play that as fast as possible, then back down for the lesser division segments. Neither of these can be accurate. Take the dance, we are pretty sure that a Minuet was stately and slow, but how fast was a reel? Was a Sarabande as fast at a Tarantella, or a slip jig? Who knows. We have only the subjective concepts of the dances to judge the pace. And who is to say that the pace of the piece, and the dance, didn't increase during the performance. Take the Russian cossack type dance pieces, as I hear them from old players they become a contest. (OK, RT, I'm not an expert on that, make it something else). Some folk dances, which are as much the origins of old music as the court dances, are just that. A contest to exhaustion. The pace increasing until the dancers have to drop out (or the musicians, but more likely the dancers as they expend more effort). A minim is as long as a minim is for the piece being played. Just as our system of whole notes and fractional parts suggests no pace for the whole notes so the introduction of the shorter divisions of notes indicates nothing. Given the overall developement of notation one could assume the subdivisions represented faster play, but that isn't a good assumption, as the long was a double whole note which would make an eighth a quarter. Nothing is absolute when it comes to beat - a long of 120 would make sixteenths almost unplayable. But I would concur that the number of divisions increased, and so the form of notation changed to accomodate that. But the pace of a piece is not the speed of the divisions, it is the overall pace of the main notes. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Stewart McCoy [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Lute Net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 21, 2005 6:43 AM Subject: [LUTE] Tempo and divisions Dear Howard, The tendency of some kinds of music (like the saraband) to slow down has a parallel with the history of note values. In earlier times music was measured in longs and breves, but gradually, over the years, faster note values were introduced. A minim (half note) gets its name from being the shortest note. For us today it is usually quite a long one. I mentioned dances like the saraband, but 16th-century intabulations of vocal music are also likely to slow things down, with all those fast, complicated divisions people like Albert da Rippe added. Maybe he just played incredibly fast, but when less competent players like me come along, trying to play his intabulations, the tempo slows right down. You have set me a difficult task: to find an example of a composer comparing performances of the courante in his day, with performances a few decades earlier. Well, the nearest thing I can find is Thomas Mace in _Musick's Monument_ (London, 1676), page 236: ... observe with what a Wonderful Swiftness They now run over their Brave New Ayres; and with what High-Priz'd Noise, viz. 10, or 20 Violins, c. as I said before, to a Some-Single-Soul'd Ayre; it may be of 2 or 3 Parts, or some Coranto, Serabrand, or Brawle, (as the New-Fashion'd-Word is) and such like Stuff, seldom any other; which is rather fit to make a Mans Ears Glow, and fill his Brains full of Frisks, c. than to Season, and Sober his Mind, or Elevate his Affection to Goodness. Now I say, Let These New-Fashion'd Musicks, and Performances, be compar'd with Those Old Ones, which I have before made mention of; and then let It be Judg'd, whether they have not left a Better Fashion, for a Worse. Mace complains of the new generation of players, particularly violinists, who play too quickly and too loudly. Quicker may mean that the tempo increases, or that faster notes are introduced as divisions. If it is the former, we end up with a faster coranto or saraband than before; if the latter, and faster note values become more established as the norm for the piece, the tempo will eventually slow down to accommodate them. Perhaps everything slowed down again when that New Generation of violinists in turn became a load of old codgers. I agree with you that there may be other factors which cause the tempo of music to slow down, and that it is possible for tempo to increase as well as decrease. Best wishes, Stewart. - Original Message - From: Howard Posner [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Lute Net [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 6:25 AM Subject: *** SPAM ***
[LUTE] Re: Leonardo Sciulzzo
Being uniformed on this thread I'll say I don't know no MO. I have some knowledge of piracy, but only on the high seas. Is it so important (and it might be for the personal income of the individuals involved) that this list be dedicated to the finding of rights for publication. If that is the case is there a list with all the same people where publishing rights are less important than the music? I am not a scholar, nor do I pretend to be. I do read things, and make opinions for myself, but I gather that a scholar must have some qualification. I don't. I shall retire to my bed at this late hour with that knowledge (where I shall console myself by eating popcorn and reading a book, the latest being Evan Thomas' writings on John Paul Jones, a flawed but seldom examined Naval Officer who basically created the US Navy. But I might choose another book on musical history, or another on Celtic Warriors. I'll know which I read when I pick it up off my bedside table. But scholar I'm not, as one needs an official imprimature for that. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Arthur Ness [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Lute Net lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Friday, August 12, 2005 6:49 PM Subject: [LUTE] Re: Leonardo Sciulzzo Besides, Ophee's edition has so many mistakes, I couldn't refer to it to make my point about Beethoven influences. MO deliberately inserts mistakes into his editions, to track down potential piracy. A scholarly type, isn't he? RT ___ $0 Web Hosting with up to 200MB web space, 1000 MB Transfer 10 Personalized POP and Web E-mail Accounts, and much more. Signup at www.doteasy.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Lute Player Needed in Philadelphia Area!!!
If anyone among you knows Philadelphia it is the home of many tracks. The process of riding a train from NYC to Washington involves getting through about twenty tracks, and sub tracks, in Philadelphia. Thirtieth St. Station, Broad Street, and a number of others. And they all wind and mix at low speed. Whether the third track leads to Bach is not of concern to me, but I'm interested in how one can combine Hip-Hop with classical. The Swingle Singers did a great job of combining scat with classical, and I think old Joe Bach might have enjoyed their Brandenburgs. I'm sure the lad McNeill is of good will, but there is a problem with a traditional lute and the Hip-Hop, the latter being highly amplified and the former a rather more subltle music. I am reminded of Resphighi's (sp?) Antique Airs and Dances for Lute - from Oscar Chilosotti (a favorite of mine in undergraduate days over fifty years ago). An orchestration of the sense and sound of the early lute dances, but an orchestration that lost the subtlety of the singular lute. No objection, it brought many people to the listening to older music. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Ed Durbrow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: bill kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED]; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 12:53 PM Subject: Re: Lute Player Needed in Philadelphia Area!!! He mixed up the tracks. It's the THIRD track and uses the famous Bouree from Bach's lute suite. On Aug 4, 2005, at 10:38 PM, bill kilpatrick wrote: the following was posted to the yahoo fretted friends list: Hello, My name is Jeff McNeill. I am an artist who specializes in combining Hip-Hop with Classical Music by recording and performing with classically trained musicians. Most notably, in 2002 I became the first Hip-Hop artist to perform at Philadelphia's prestigious Kimmel Center with musical accompaniment from members of the world-renowned Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. I have incorporated a Lute Suite into one of my songs and I may re-record the piece with live instrumentation. I may also perform the piece very soon with a lutenist. I feel it suffice to forewarn any prospective musicians that the piece contains profanity. So anyone who may find that audacious and sacreligious please disregard this post. Feel free to contact me at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can also find a snippet of the recording on: www.myspace.com/theephantom. It's the second track. Thank you for your time. Jeff Mcneill Thee Phantom ___ To help you stay safe and secure online, we've developed the all new Yahoo! Security Centre. http://uk.security.yahoo.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/
Re: OT: Mozart for guitar
Stuart, The passage from Segovia's autobiography which I vaguely remember goes something like: You play the guitar to woo your lover. When you are betrayed by your lover, you play the cello to tell your sorrows to your friend. When you are betrayed by your friend, you play the organ to tell your sorrows to God. My lady of thirty years has always wondered why I insist on playing other instruments when she was wooed by my guitar - but it was my guitar so much as my singing with it in a traditional folk form - I was never skilled on the classical guitar. But I am interested by the quote from Segovia, whom I always thought of as a great mechanic on the guitar, but one lacking a bit in the soul of the instrument. I liked the passion of Montoya (admittedly Flamenco) and in the more Spanish Sabicas. But seeing this quote I think I understand Segovia better. I'll adjust my opinion. How well said, substitute the lute for the guitar - or for we ethics play the airs on the D whistle to your love, and play them on the low whistle to the moon. But the double betrayal deserves the power of anguish. Nothing better than the organ to send all your music into space, and simultaneously. The pipe organ can bring down the walls, or sing to the corners. But it is yet for the small clear voice of the lute to fill the cathedral when the echoes of the organ stop. Or the guitar, or the whistle, or any small instrument. My own preference is for small music, but I can enjoy the large if followed by the small, and then filled out again. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Playing without a warm-up.
Herbert, I like all the answers so far, when I was singing for my supper I always opened with the same simple piece - I played it before introducing the program. Call it a signature piece instead of a prelude if you want. And Craig suggests a breathing for relaxation, but as one who likes his booze I always found a small drink to be relaxing (no more than a half a beer in a half hour, or a wee drappie well watered). I'm sure I'll be told that is an artificial means and that alcohol reduces performance (which is correct), but inhibitions and nerves also reduce performance. Each will have his own best method for relaxing. The key to opening with any audience is to realize that they are human also and will accept honesty, and enjoy it. Tell them, if you choose that route, that you are playing a warm-up prelude in front of them. Or perhaps develop a routine of scales and runs with an educational description of the lute to use as a signature prelude to each performance. Demonstrate the techniques, if you are a solo act, with the guise of giving them a better appreciation of the instrument and the pieces you are going to play (tough to do if you are a rock guitarist, but not so tough if you are playing the exotic lute). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: OT: Mozart for guitar
Also OT, In my aging memory there is a quote from Mozart (probably apochryphal). The guitar is an orchestra unto itself. I have no idea where I saw it, or heard it, but it was many years ago so I have lost the context. If the quote is accurate then it might imply that Mozart might have had guitar sounds in mind when writing for piano. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: OT: Mozart for guitar
Arthur, If I may, and I did spend some typing time saying how much I respect your opinion on another thread, may I ask you not to shout at me. I did say that it was a vague memory that the quote was from Mozart, and that it was probably apochryphal. You don't need the caps NOT from Mozart, nor the NOT from Beethoven. You could simply say I recognize the quote and it was from an obscure Parisian journal and attributed to Berlioz. ] When speculative answers are given to questions it is not a matter for correction in the sense of a beating, merely for a gentle correction with the facts. Should we deny the speculative answers then we would lose the threads of consciousness that lead to real answers. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Arthur Ness To: Jon Murphy ; LGS-Europe ; Lute Net ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 4:04 AM Subject: Re: OT: Mozart for guitar The quotation that the guitar is like a miniature orchestra is NOT from Mozart. The quotation is NOT from Beethoven. The quotation is in an essay about the guitar that BERLIOZ wrote for an obscure Parisian journal of the arts, _Debats_ (8 June 1855). While we're on the subject, there is no evidence that Chopin declared that the only sound lovelier than one guitar is two. That seems to be a paraphrase of something Mozart also did NOT say, The only thing worse than one flute, is two. Beethoven is sometimes said to have attended a guitar recital by Giuliani. If he did, of course, he heard nothing! He even wrote a little note to one of his Viennese publishers, asking please give my regards to Giuliani. Of course, the publisher's Giuliani might be the guy who polished up the brass on the big front door. The guitarist Giuliani played 'cello in the first performance of the Seventh Symphony, but I imagine Beethoven didn't hear him that time, either. He wasn't asked back to play in the Eighth. The point? There's no factual basis for the belief common in the guitar world that Giuliani influenced Beethoven. They may never even have spoken to one another. Oh yes, I also doubt that Schubert had a guitar hanging on the wall above his bed. This should end Guitar Mythology 101 for tonite. - Original Message - From: Jon Murphy To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, July 24, 2005 3:40 PM Subject: Re: OT: Mozart for guitar Also OT, In my aging memory there is a quote from Mozart (probably apochryphal). The guitar is an orchestra unto itself. I have no idea where I saw it, or heard it, but it was many years ago so I have lost the context. If the quote is accurate then it might imply that Mozart might have had guitar sounds in mind when writing for piano. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
Re: Historical pitch (was lute notation)
Nicely said, But there is yet the question as to what note is correct. I'm sure we all know the format of the tempering of the natural scale, but that has put a memory scale into our heads that is the equal temperament piano scale. But you have made the point, the sound in one's head is the goal. The ascending and descending scales are different when dealing with other temperaments, or the natual scale. But most of us are indoctrinated to the sound of equal temperament - even in singing where the variations are infinite. There is no note that is correct, the Scot's pipes are in a limited mode, and the various whistles all have a bit of a variation in relative pitch. Nothing is perfect. I don't know the serpent, but I'm sure it all fits. The wind instruments, whether horn, trumpet, reed or whistle, all have fixed formats that can be bent a bit by fingering. The stringed instruments can be bent a bit by tuning, or on the fretted ones a bit of fussing behind the fret. It all comes back to the same thing, some instruments work off the modes and scales of the West, and some the less accurate (in the Pythagorean sense) of their own scales. Ir is fun to work with the quarter tones and the disharmonies. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Historical pitch (was lute notation)
Tony, P.S. Does anyone else who dabbles in different instruments experience the same phenomenon as I do, one example of which is that I can play the gamba from alto clef, but I can't read it on the keyboard? TC Yes, in a sense. I play double strung harp (along with other instruments). My left hand has a reading problem (nothing to do with my brain g). Pieces written for the 2X will often use the treble clef for both lines, but as the instrument has 3 1/2 octaves I'm often reading the bass clef for the left hand, sometimes tranlating it up an octrave and sometimes in the written range. It involves a mental adjustment (and there are some small harp pieces that are all in one stave of the treble using up and down whatchumacallums (note flags) to indicate the hand. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Historical pitch (was lute notation)
Howard, You have a point here, but if the point is that there is not a difference in the difficulty of a sound on different wind instruments then you are wrong. When I lost that best of instruments (due to age, cigareets, whuskey - and the wild, wild wimmen probably had nothing to do with it - but they were fun), lost the voice, I took to the penny whistle. (And there may be some on the lute list, and harp lists, that wish I'd stuck to it). No one can accuse the penny whistle of being complex - there is no embouchere to produce the sound, just blow. But yet there is a difference between instruments as to pitch shift. I have a collection of whistles, some cheap and some expensive. As I'm sure you know the whistle is basically a two octave instrument (can go more with skill) that changes octaves on the overblow. I have whistles, of the same basic pitch, that have a subtle octave break, but need a contining addition of wind to continue in the upper octave - and I have others that need a real push to jump from C to D (most whistles are D scale based), but then nothing additional to go to the top of the upper D scale. The same must apply to trumpets and cornetti, and the horns. I've not played them, but have to feel that the overall construction and pitching of the horn may not define it's particular comfortable pitch level. I believe Daniel is correct, although in the whistle of my experience the breath control is the defining factor, while in the trumpet/horn group the embouchere comes in. Best. Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Transliteration
Alain, I haven't the vaguest idea of what you are talking about. Tony, His real name is Spaminabocks, Alain But I think I agree with you. I promised myself some time ago not to get into the nit-picking of words and HIP details on this list, but I am weak and broke my promise to myself. Can't blame anyone else. I blame Canada (a convenient place to blame, I drink their beer and I am of biology a Canadian - my father was born in NWT in 1898 - and was a green carder in the USA from the mid twenties until his death at 90 in 1988). My message was silly, definitions aren't perfect - but this list seems to require perfection. Luckily, for all of us, and particularly for music, there is no such thing as perfection, although there is always the goal of perfecting. We can define a perfect thing, even within the scope of language. An atom of Hydrogen, or atoms of many simple elements. So many electrons and so many protones and so many neutrons (but it gets a bit hazy when one looks at the super sub-atomic particless that may have transient mass - but let's not go that deep into the sh!t); Carbon has several major isotopes, the definition of carbon on the physical scale and the chemical scale differs. And that simplest of molecules, the free hydrogen, has variations. Think deuterium (heavy water). Nothing is perfect, and the sound of strings is a fine example. Somewhere else in this thread someone mentioned the use of the lip muscles on the brass, but that is a canard when it comes to sound. It is true for the brass, and for the reeds. But there is no way to manipulate the sound (pitch) of the whistle, or organ pipe. (OK, you can do it, but is is a lot of effort). Who gives a damn if it is a' = 392, or a'=440. That is one of the beauties of tab. Pitch is irrelvant. If the musicians come together intentionally they can tune together in tab, Tab has no pitchesl But the key signatures come into play with the other instruments. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Byrd
Transliteration (not mentioned in this thread), the rewriting of words into a different language using exact definitions or lettering. Not always an accurate reflection of meaning. Wrong. Transliteration is rewriting of words into a different alphabet, essentially the same thing as transcription, KAK NAPRIMER VOT ETO (in transliterated Russian). Mea Culpa, that is what I meant. I should have said alphabet rather than language. But I beg to differ that it is the same as transcription. There are languages that can transliterated letter for letter, but still don't correspond letter for letter with the sounds of the target language. I know you don't think much of Celtic civiliation (and in fact have the impression that you think the pairing of those words is an oxymoron). I don't have the font on my computer to type the Celtic letters, but there are various rules of pronounciation (particularly paired consonants) that aren't clear when transliterated. The easiest examples are in proper name (as that way we don't get into the language itself). In the Celtic the character for b is pronounced as such, and the character for h is also (when hard, and beginning a word). The Tranliteration from the Celtic font for the name of the actress Siobhan Mckenna is just that - with the bh, but the pronounciation of that pair is v (sort of). So she spells her name in transliteration, but not as a transcription. The transcription would be Shivahn. (Yes, the s sound varies with the following letter Sean is pronounced Shawn. (Annd my own last name, Murphy, some has been cross tranlitered and transcribed - in some way I can't figure yet from the alphabets - from Mercou to Murphy). I'll not be told by the late Stanley Sadie how I should use words, and I doubt that he would have disagreed. Sadie was an excellent writer, and you might learn a few things from him. I agree, and that was an unfortunately worded comment. The intent was not to deny Sadie but to emphasize that he might have been the first to acknowledge that not all definitions that are generally correct are perfect in all situations. In any dictionary one must address the audience and maintain brevity (which I haven't done here). Not all nuances can be addressed. I have been working for weeks on defining Force, and other things, for some things I'm writing. Easy, F=ma, but how do I define it in terms the general player can understand without offending the physicists. Technical definition: That which pushes, pulls, compresses, distends or distorts in any way; that which cahnges the state of rest or state of motion of a body. Get into the formulae for string calculations and you get into force as tension force, and some include the force of gravity - which seems irrelevant. Yet we mesure tension force in terms of pounds, kilos and Newtons. Each involves an acceleration component. No sweat, they cancel outin the math when we include the opposing force. My problem is to be complete without being windy for the book I'm working on. Sadie's problem with the musical dictionary was to be as complete as he could for the purpose of his dictionary (and the audience). My comment, that seemed to denigrate Sadie's work, was ill advised. But note that I said he wouldn't have disagreed with the idea that not all definitions (including his) are complete. JWM To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Byrd
Charles, This raises the interesting question as to what is an arrangement. My harp ensemble is preparing for a Christmas perfomance (among other things, but this is a pay for our supper performance for the Church that allows us to use their parish house for our practice). One piece we intend to play is Noel Nouvolet (The March of the Three Kings), a carol from Provence of about the 18th C, and also a march piece used by many classical composers as a component. I have an arrangement (copyright) for the double strung harp - the ensemble has an arrangement from another source for single course harps. My arrangement (written by a friend of mine, so the question is moot as she would give me permission) starts the piece in A minor, then modulates the piece, and the other arrangement starts at the key of the modulation and goes on rather boringly. The JSHE (Jersey Shore Harp Ensemble) is comfortable with the boring one. If I, as I will do, transcribe (yeah, transcribe) the 2X harp arrangement into three harp parts, one hand each (the limitations of my ensemble). Then set the modulation of the 2X piece (and the second hand of the 2X harp as a line for one group), and take the bass line of the other arrangement (with the glissandos my fellow harpist love, and I hate), then top that with the variations from my friend's 2X version, then close with a walk off of the A minor - - will I have made an arrangement? The variations, the modulation, and the 2nd harp part would all be from Beth's 2X arrangement, but the base structure would be from the traditional (and I think copyright, but I can't find my sheet music at the moment) arrangement. There will be original (to me) interplay between the 1st, 2nd and 3rd harps, as well as the use of the sound of each arrangement - both of which are written for single harps. I'm not really seeking an answer, and I certainly have no intention of seeking copyright. Just seeking thoughts on what is an original arrangement. The lute, with the base piece and divisions is a prime example. We all know that adding a few divisions to a theme doesn't a copyright make, but where is the line. A matter that comes up less with the lute than with some other arrangements due to the lute's long history and the form of play. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Byrd
This depends on whether you are able to extract the original music from Bunting's icing. Not an easy task. RT No way, that icing was on a cake that had been baked over time. For some pieces there are other collections that have the originals as played by the people who had listened to them and remembered them, but even then one would depend on their memory. But nothing was ever transcribed (another meaning of the word, to take the performance and write it down) at the time as O'Carolan, and most of his brethren, were itinerant. O'Carolan is unique in one way, all his pieces called Planxty someone or other (a word of no known meaning, although some guesses) were writtten (in his head) and played on the spot for his sponsor of the night. That is the only way we know that he wrote them rather than playing a traditional piece to new words. That is documented contemporarily. But yet, just as you can with your knowledge of the music of your heritage, and the music of the baroque lute (I got the impression you were a bit more baroque than renaissance - but if I'm wrong it still applies) find a sense of the music by a feel for what it should be, one can probably strip the icing from Bunting's cake with a knowledge of the capabilities of the harps of the time. But there are other sources as well, I have books of the whistle songs and airs of the time. They have, of neccessity, no icing (ornaments, yes, icing no). It all comes back to the sense of what is ancient and what is modern in music, Occam's Razor in a musical sense. Whether is is possible to make the sounds of old is a question I can't answer. The only thing we know is that the sounds were there. BTW, with no desire to raise an old issue I have found contemporary documentation of the early Celtic wire strung harps in the British Isles. But you were correct, they weren't drawn steel wires. They were brass or bronze (both of which I can yet buy today from string makers). The heavier strings were coated with a heavier metal (gold or silver), but not by electroplating obviously. The basic Celtic harp can be dated to about 700 AD, and probably earlier. It wasn't a common instrument, the harpers had a sponsor and status. Forget the Brian Boru or the Queen Anne that have been called early, they have been shown to be later, but it is clear from the carved relics and the written accounts that they were there, and important to the courts of the time. JWM To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Byrd
Nancy, I think you've found the crux of the issue. This is an interesting case, but not completely relevant to the early music we are discussing on this list. From what I have read the case had a lot to do with the money Hyperion made selling the CDs and didn't pay to Dr. Sawkins, who reconstruction the music and made a playable edition. I don't think Dowland and Weiss had the same royalty driven concept of ownership. Nancy Carlin I'm not sure if there is a sub-set of international copyright law that might say that one can't use someone else's work for his own profit. Let us take an early music example, you (or I, or any one else) expend a lot of effort to make an early document readable. Oops, just remembered an old joke The junior monk goes to the archives for the original documents. The senior monks wonder why - after all we have been copying them for hundreds of years. The junior says that he just wants to see the originals. Many hours later he misses dinner and they go to look for him. They find him deep in the archives beating his head on the table and crying the word was celebrate. If someone expends the time and effort, pro bono, to extract the music from a medieval document (which as we all know are hard to read) - and then passes that on to the commmunity, again pro bono. Then does anyone have the right to take that work product and use it for commercial purposes without compensating the author. The law might say that once the author has put in the public domain without copyright it is fair game to be copied and published, then charge a fee for the publishing. The fee for the publishing is valid, under any law, as there are costs involved in the preparation and marketing. This is a sticky one, I'm reminded of Bill Gates' purchase for $60,000 of Seattle Systems' DOS. Gates took a risk as to whether it would sell (but not much, as he'd already sold the OS to IBM for the PC). The Compaq suit allowed other computer companies to reverse engineer PC BIOS, and the world was opened to M$. The lad who had developed the original system was still in Seattle living on his $60,000 - and to the best of my knowledge still is. OK, I am a dedicated capitalist, and believe that the winner should take the prize. In the M$ case there is no obligation, the man sold his product free and clear. But a gentleman would have made sure that his benefactor (foolish as he may have been to sell full rights) was taken care of. As to the music, the same applies. Many of you on this list are European, and as such have a negative view of capitalism. You have seen a modern capitalism that isn't the one that grew the US. There used to be moral values there, not because they were such gentlemen but for the practical reasont that they wanted the reputation of dealing fairly to enhance future deals. Actually I've known, and still know, a number of them. And most do want to provide for their customers and developers. But the speed of today's celebrity, and the stasis of the Robber Barons over a hundred years ago, have hidden the number of good people, good gentlemen (and ladies) who have run fair businesses for ages. There should have been no court case between Hyperion and Dr. Sawkins, Hyperion should have come to Dr. Sawkins and said we are using your work to make playable CDs, we aren't sure if they will sell. But if they do sell we would like to compensate you with a piece of the action. That isn't a gift, it is good business practice which ensures that later work products of pro bono transcribers will be available to them. Good business practice, don't cut off your first supplier if you want more. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Byrd
Right on Gary, And that is why we have dynamics. I leave yours below intentionally, then comment. Dear Stewart; Regarding the situation you described of two viols playing: __a__c__d___ and __d__c__a___ - it occurs to me that unless the timbres of the two viols are very different the listener may indeed hear the passage as __d__c__d___ __f__f___ as per the lute intabulation. You are quite right Gary, and I run into this ofen on the double strung harp where I am playing both left and right hand in the same octave. Sometimes I don't know here the melody is. But only if I'm not playing the notes according to the key signature, or am not making the melody dynamics clear. The same applies to the lute. beginner as I am. As to the viols, each should know where the line runs, even if the instruments are perfectly matched. The players should make the distinction with their bows, or else let it just be a sequence of notes rather than a piece of music. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Byrd
RT, I both agree and disagree, which makes me indecisive on the face of it. Nothing is original, and everything is. I just bought the Bunting book facsimile (1840) that transcribes, and arranges for piano forte, the harp music of Ireland - in order to preserve it. I have some of the same pieces from 1625 as lute tab from other originals. What is an arrangement, and what is a song? For once I am in agreement with you. Scarlatti and Bach did original work in reworking (arranging) earlier works. But if I take the Bunting piano arrangements and return them to harp am I original? I don't think so, but it is a puzzlement. I think we need new words, actually not new words but a different sense of the old words in context. I really enjoy playing the Sarmantica XVI that you lured me to by speaking of parallel fifths (not many in there, but it got me there) as well as other Sarmanticas. So now let us have a test of words, and this isn't directed only to you, it is to the list. I think we agree on arrangements as originals. I take the tab notation of Sarmantica XVI and put it into staff notation for harp (or piano, or whatever). I have transcibed it for another medium, but I've done nothing original. Now I take the voices in the lute piece and separate them a bit, using the fact that the harpist can play more voices than the lutenist can, I'm still not original, but I am arranging the same piece for a different instrument. Yet the arrangement doesn't qualify as an original. Now I include the lute piece into an orchestral score as a theme across the instruments - now I'm original. What is original and what is derivative in music is a difficult decision. I once had a project to put A.E. Housman to music, but only wrote one melody (for Moonlit Sheep). I came up with a unique chord progression that made my melody perfect, then found the same chord progression in the Theme from Exodus (the movie) which was written later. There are only so many ways you can use notes in a melody, and only so many chord progressions - but there are an infinite number of ways to make a song. Therein lies the problem, and the solution. If the sense of the music is the same then it is a transcription (or translation). If the sense is similar, but enhanced with additional instruments then it is an arrangement. If the sense changes then it is original. On the lute the inversions of chords aren't easily available, unless one has the fingers of rubberman. But on the harp the inversions are easy. So if I change the inversion of the chord the other guy wrote for the piece am I arranging, or just making easy fingering for the same piece. I don't know, and I don't really want to know. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: lute notation
Let us put the question of pitch to bed. Pitch, in the sense of Hertz, or vibrations per second, is a relatively modern concept. The size of the instrument dictated pitch (tune just below where the chanterelle breaks). Renaissance lute music isn't pitched to an absolute key in our sense of the keys, No occiloscopes in those days, the frequencies of the pitch were approximate. And what does it matter? If I am not playing with another instrument, on of fixed pitch, I can tune my chanterelle wherever I want (and whoever the instrument fits it). Absolute pitch is a modern invention, relative pitch is as old as music. A = 440 couldn't be defined until one could measure the actual frequency (although the A tuning fork could be made empirically without reference to Hz, as a standard for all, like a meter stick that defines the meter - a self definition). Key is irrelevant with an equal temperament scale, but as we aren't always using equal temperament on all instruments it does have an effect. (Piano is the prime example of equal temperament, but even piano may have a bit of favoring of the keys). Pitch is a matter of letters. There is no difference between D minor and C # minor, except the tuning of the instrument, if you are speaking of pitch in equal temperament. (There can be a difference with differing temperaments). Best. Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Byrd
In defense of Michael Thames, and in defense of logic. Arrangement is a particular interference with the piece of music. I spent the weekend at the Somerset Harp Festival and was able to buy the Bunting book (of 1840) in facsimile. Bunting arranged the old Irish harp music, that he had collected by going from county to county after being the scribe for the 1792 Belfast Festival. He arranged the pieces for piano forte as he felt the old Celtic harp was disappearing, and the music had to be preserved. I will soon be transcribing much of that music back into harp friendly arrangements (the piano is quite chromatic, the harp is diatonic with the lever changes possible - but the old harp that Bunting described had no levers). Transcription means just that, a change of a form into another. But if I take an old tune, medieval Europe or medieval Scotland, that it written in French tab for the lute, and then turn it into stave notation for the harp, and then make some modifications (fitting the song) that make it better for the harp - Am I Trascribing or am I Arranging? Or if I do it in reverse, and take the staves to the tab? Am I transcribing or arranging. I bought a book today, at the harp festival. I have a 26x2 double strung harp. The book I bought is for 26 string single course harps (the writer is an old friend, and a fine cross strung harpist, and I've corrected his original book). Am I arranging when I play off his arrangments, or would I be transcribing if I were to set his piecec to the double strung harp (which I play and he doesn't). This thread was too detailed for me, but at a fast scan I think Michael is correct, with all due reverence to Arthur's opinion. It comes back to original intent, a great canard that will soon be bandied about in the recent nomination to the US Supreme Court. I've always felt that J.S. Bach was a covert jazz player, and that he would have loved the Swingle Singer's skat version of the Brandenburgs. Too much detail from Arthur for me to read, the individual composers an their instruments. Be it transcription or arrangement (the latter requiring a bit of modification to the instrument) the music is there. There is nothing sacred about a tune as played on a particular instrument, it was probably played on another in a different form before, but just not printed. The lute is a relatively late entrant into medieval music, although quite dominant in the renaissance. And having said this I can't see the correction of Michael T, as it all fits what Arthur has said. Fit the music to the instrument, play the song as it can be played. play the whistle or the hautboy, the psaltery or the harp, or the lute. I see no argument here. Other than a silly one between Transcription and Arrangement. Not mutually exclusive. Michael had it right. Transcribe from notation to notation. Transpose when using fixed key notition (as with classic staves). (Then one could also transcribe, but that is piling on). Or arrange, when one wants to make the best simulation of the original sound on another instrument. But don't be too damned sure that your instrument is the original. Yesterday I discussed a 1625 Straloch lute book piece with a harpist, who knew the same piece for the harp. The harp is far older in Scotland than the lute (and older than the lute, as a lute, in Europe). Which song/arrangement is older. Which is the transcription/rearrangement? I have no idea. And nor does anyone else unless they have specifics, which are available but rare. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Neceffarie obferuations
Michael, Ed are you basing your theory on iconographical evidence? If so, Baron very clearly states to play half way between the rose and the bridge, at least for the German style. I think with less tension one could risk the clashing of courses, when played with any forcefulness, some that would be needed in 1750. Doesn't that depend on the overall length of the instrument? And the placement of the rose? I have a Bolivian charango that I've modified to make a Scots mandora (as classified in the Skene Mandora Book). It has a 31cm VL, and the neck to body ratio is quite different than the renaissance G lute. And unless I'm wrong I think the neck to body length ratio is also different among the lutes, the Baroque being a bit more neck than the renaissance. The rose is fixed to the best point of the body/soundboard for resonance, whatever the overall VL from bridge to nut. On my modified charango (I alternately call it a chandora or a mandango) I get the best sound by playing at the north end of the rose, but that places my pluck at about the same point (on a percent of VL) as a renaissance lute played south of the rose.I suggest that the variation of RH position is less the relationship to the rose than the relationship to the overall VL. As to tension, the lighter the tension the greater the displacement of the string at the pluck point given the same manual stroke. But the vibrating width is defined at the mid point of the string, the tonic note full length vibration, no matter where it is plucked. I'm not sure (but intend to test it), but I think that the displacement at the tonic mid point is greater than the displacement of the pluck when the pluck is hard and near the end. The string takes energy from the pluck, then divides that energy into its complex vibration. So, if I am right, the courses could easily clash at the midpoint on a lower tension instrument (given that it is easier to make a large displacement at the pluck point). I do hope I've explained my mental picture of this clearly, but I may not have. So I ask that you not criticize before considering. And my thoughts do depend on my assumption that the energy imparted to the string will make a wider swing at the central point (not node, the nodes are the negatives in displacement). And that latter brings up an argument of physics, wave versus particle. I am told by a member of the lute-builder's list that the displacement of the string doesn't echo from nut to bridge and back, but that the complex nodes of the vibrating strings become instantaneously in effect all at once. Don't ask me to explain this, I don't understand it. But it does match the effect. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Neceffarie obferuations
I am reminded of an old joke. The searcher for truth is in search of the ultimate guru. He travels to India and Napal, he works his way through the villages, climbing ever higher into the Himalayas. He follows every lead in his search. After years of trekking, and always uphill, he finally comes to the place he is being guided to. There is a mystic in a cave, a great ascetic who contemplates everything. Oh ultimate guru, tell me the meaning of life. Life is a fountain, my son. Damn it to hell, I climb every mountain, I seek through the villages, I spend years looking for the ultimate guru to tell me the meaning of life - and all you can say is Life is a fountain. The guru says isn't it?. I work my butt off and wear down my fingers and now you tell me that Dowland liked thumb over?. Ah so, like the guru, whose disappointment had to be greater than the seeker's - after all he had devoted a life to the principle that life is a fountain, and a life on a mountain top, whereas the seeker had only wasted a few years - I wonder at any absolute. O'Carolan was the definitive Irish harpist of the 18th C., he was blind (as were many early harpists, a good job for the blind who couldn't bring in the harvest). What if there were a fine lutenist without a thumb? Would he be able to play the songs of the time with the other four fingers, I think he would have found a way. Not the same sound exactly, but he might have started a four finger school of the lute, were he skilled enough. And we might all be playing without using the thumb if the cognoscenti of his time decided that his technique was best. Oh tempore, oh mores - and who was the Paris Hilton of the renaissance? (Pompadour might have a claim to her time). Best, Jon Michael Thames wrote: Is Dowland suggesting thumb out, rather than thumb under? Yes. It comes up pretty often here. There's a remark in Johann Stobaeus' manuscript that Dowland changed from thumb-in to thumb-out in mid-career. For newbies, here's a more complete quote from Dowland: ...stretch out your Thombe with all the force you can, especially if thy Thombe be short, so that the other fingers may be carried in a manner of a fist, and let the Thombe be held higher then [sic] them, this in the beginning will be hard. Yet they which have a short Thombe may imitate those which strike the strings with the Thombe under the other fingers, which though it be nothing so elegant, yet to them it will be more easie. HP To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Neceffarie obferuations
Matt, got to this one second - already answered your direct email. Thanks for the historical references, they are interesting and informative. You properly say that the p/i thumb under technique derives from the use of the quill pick in the early music. As do others in this thread (including myself). But what seems to be left out of the thread is the stroke. Damiano (current) makes a distinction between the finger articulation of polyphony and the forearm stroke of the p/i thumb under. The latter duplicates the stroke on the quill pick, using the entire forearm to make the sound. When one adds additional notes to the stroke one must use more RH fingers (obviously). The modern mandolin player in a country band uses a wrist action with his little plastic pick, but I doubt that could have been done with the more unwieldy quill pick. So it seems likely that the stroke was full forearm (weaker on the upbeat). It is consistant that the change to thumb out would come with the advent of using the instrument for a polyphonic line. One would want the strong sound in the bass to hold through the divisions in the treble. The instrument became two voiced. The lower voice being a line to play off of. Sometimes contrapuntal and sometimes harmonic, but always needing to carry against the divisions. Thumb over or thumb under, the thumb can make a nice legato in the bass, but I see little difference. The difference seems to be in the use of the fingers as the impetus. Are they articulated to produce the stroke, or are they riding on the forearm stroke. That is why I call thumb under/in a misnomer. It isn't the position of the thumb and fingers relative to the strings, it is the way they are used to make the pluck. A full chord can be made with a thumb stroke down with the full forearm, or up with a finger. But an open chord requires articulation of thumb and fingers since the forearm can't move in two directions at once. Please pardon an analysis from an amateur, but I think there is logic here. In my humble opinion the change over around 1600 matched the change in the music to two voices on the single instrument. The m/i articulation would have been used when the thumb was needed to provide the bass voice, and the p/i forearm stroke when making a fast run in the treble against a held bass note (which requires either an open string bass, or a bass note that can be held with a finger on the fret while playing the upper run). OK, so I'm full of Molson's and writing a lot of BS, I tend to do that - and am always willing to be corrected. Somerset annual Harp Festival this weekend. Got to switch gears. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Mathias Rösel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Lute net lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 7:43 AM Subject: Re: Neceffarie obferuations Hi Jon, the aside remark *notwithstanding HIP* was actually supposed to help make it out of the academic ghetto. I'm wondering which technical demand leads to changing the right hand posture. You may call *thumb in* a misnomer, but I use this name to make sure you can recognize what I'm talking about. Thumb in is the earlier playing technique on the renaissance lute, dating from medieval times. Around 1600 it came to be generally dropped in favour of *thumb out*. The change was mentioned and discussed by teachers like Besard, Dowland et al (even someone as late as Reusner). Thumb-in has been explained as having developed from playing with quills, with the quill dropped but the posture kept, shortly before 1500 (cf. Joe Baldassare on medieval lute playing). It's good for playing runs with a steady interchange of heavy and light strokes (thumb--index). Then came a change, thumb out became more popular. This has been explained with expanded bass-registers which can be more easily reached that way. Runs were to be played with interchanging forefinger and middle finger. It is undisputed, I assume, that runs can be done much easier and quicker with thumb-in-technique than with i-m. Vice versa, you'll have to practice a lot more to achieve the same speed and fluency in playing runs with thumb out. Moreover, bass courses can be reached with thumb-in just as easily as with thumb-out (at least, that's my experience). To put it short, thumb-out cannot necessarily be called an improvement in terms of comfortability. Nevertheless, players around 1600 are generally depicted as dropping old fashioned thumb-in, replacing it by cute thumb-out-playing. Why was it that they did so? What was the big deal with that new fashion? Perhaps a new taste in strong, or preponderant, bass notes? Maybe a new sound ideal? (Thumb-in in the middle between rose and bridge vs. thumb-out as near the bridge as possible?) Just guessing... Best, Mathias -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Neceffarie obferuations
Michael, I couldn't tell you the physical principles involved. Maybe it has to do with friction and mass, and the fact they play with rest stroke. All I can say is it true! and Paco plays 10 times as fast as any of the guys you mentioned, and plays with nails... I know this because I saw one of his nails ( a fake one ) explode into the sky above the audience at a concert once. I can't speak to the use of nails on guitar or lute, I've never used nails. But I've observed it on the harp (easier to see as the instrument is more open). The players of the wire strung harp (the Celtic Clearsach) use nails, the more modern gut or nylon players use finger pads. The pluck is a shorter stroke with nails on the wire harp, and the possibility of speed better. Your physical principles of friction and mass are correct. But there is also the matter of skills, a big man can hit a baseball (or golf ball) farther than a small man - unless that small man has exceptional hand speed. So to say (as someone did) that there is one player who can play with fingertips as fast as others with nails is to compare apples and oranges. Any one individual may have an exceptional talent that overrides a perceived disadvantage. (As size, in the hitter - or nails in the player). To extrapolate the general from the specific is normally an error. The balalaika or mandolin player with a pick is probably going to make faster runs than the p/i player with nails, and the finger tip player will probably be a bit slower. Unless the finger picker is using all his fingers as a roll (that the nail player can also do). The issue is moot. The guitar is a higher tension, the nylon/gut guitar can be played with nails. The lute and harp have a bit less tension and the sound production is better with finger pads, except the wire strung harp (and I'm not sure about that, I've played them with fingertips). And since when did speed become music, a well paced piece is more enjoyable to me than a virtuoso race. I confess I took piano lessons 60 years ago until I could play Jack Fina's Bumble Boogie (a boogie woogie version of Flight of the Bumble Bee). In later years I've learned that music isn't meant to be a contest of speed, it is a matter of the appropriate pace, and the voices of the piece. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Call for WWW Sites and locations, builders and other resources
Allan, Good idea, but may I make a suggestion to ease your progress. Why don't you email a listing of the sites you already have, and do so periodically as you get mail and set up the site. I'm sure you'll receive lots of duplicate suggestions and if we know what you already have it might save you a bit of email. Some obvious one's could be missed as everyone might assume you already had them (I like Ronn McFarlane's site), and you might hear more often than you need about some obscure ones. - Original Message - lute@cs.dartmouth.edu lute@cs.dartmouth.edu From: Mathias Rösel [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Sunday, July 17, 2005 12:59 PM Subject: Re: Call for WWW Sites and locations, builders and other resources Allan Alexander [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: I'm putting together a resource of lute sites. I would like to include builders, sites that offer music in pdf, TAB or fronimo format, sites that are informative, anything that would help someone know more about the lute and its music. good to know, because I was under the impression that your HP didn't work any more... Best, Mathias -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re:
Chad, I declared the guitar unclean when one had to say acoustic to distinguish it from the beastie called guitar today. But your point is well taken. You are referring to the instrument we used to call the guitar, some of the younger folks may be thinking only of that similarly shaped instrument that only plays three chords (or am I confusing the instrument with the players g?). I love finger pickin', which is why I love the lute. Funny, the lute started as a plectrum picked melody instrument, and evolved into a polyphonic instrument by adding finger pickin', the guitar has reversed the process in recent years. Bang across the strings with a few chords and a pick and make a lot of noise. But that isn't my guitar - I still love my guitar. Here is my manifesto. Music is a wonderful combination of harmonies and scales (some, like the middle eastern not conducive to harmonies - I'm doing some harp arrangements there to try to duplicate the sense of their scales on a fixed tuned instrument). I love the Japanese drummers (and the African) and their polyrythms, but also the subtlety of a simple contapuntal chant. Modes and scales, quite different BTW. The Gaelic sean nos singing (old style) and the clear semi-modern ballad on the western scale. Why can't we enjoy it all, even if we prefer one or another. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Chad McAnally [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 5:13 PM From: Michael Thamesmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Marcus Merrinmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ; lute listmailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu ; Arthur Nessmailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 8:57 AM Subject: Re: Byrd Yes, La Lutine by Fran=E7ois Couperin. I don't know a lute version. Maybe someone could make one for Michael to play on his guitar. I'm not one to take a stick to a hornet's nest but, what's this problem with the guitar??? My guess is most of us played guitar some before switching to the lute, and I know several who still play both. Has the guitar been declared unclean?? And does this apply to any other plucked strings; for instance are baroque harps still O.K. or do I have burn sage in my music room? How about more discussion on music and fewer manifestoes!!! Chad -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Neceffarie obferuations
Wow, What a description, and what a lot of BS (with all due respect to the writers). I may be a beginner, but I play a few other stringed instruments. I love the feel and sound of thumb under when playing runs, it duplicates the feel of the pick that was the original form of lute playing (even if it was a goose quill). The forearm moves the stroke. But as the lute moved to polyphony there needed to be other fingers involved. I can't see how there can be a rule in a complex piece. It seems to me that the PIPI divisions should be played thumb under when possible, but sometimes one has to move to a different form by slipping in ring finger here and there. Well, I feel the legato comes from playing with a very connected left hand, from note to note. The right hand is the attack, the left is the expression of the line. Both hands are involved, but I feel the left hand has a greater role or harder role with thumb-out. And therein lies the rub. The lute of the middle ages and the early Renaissance was played as a melody instrument, in the main. How else can one play it with a pick? The addition of the contra line requires a legato on that line. Even as you vary the treble divisions you have to keep that continuo on the solo instrument. Perhaps that has been lost a bit in the movement to multiple instruments. After a year and a half of (untaught, no bucks here for lessons) practice I'm having to change my left hand positions to maintain the legato in the bass. I'm beginning to hear what was played centuries ago, but it takes a bit of work to get it from the tab. I don't yet see the difference between thumb in/out as to the expression vis-a-vis the left hand, but the thumb in does allow m to make a better sound off the doubled strings. Needless to say, my hand being normal, my ring finger is never over my thumb. I've also just discovered that renotating my fingering on my music, based on shifts of the entire hand, has enhanced my playing (although it has killed my skills at some pieces). On guitar one usually moves to a pitch level, on lute it seems to be a different approach (the same chord form done with different fingers in order to prepare for the next move). I am preaching to the experts, but I have no fear of that. I know I'll be corrected and will appreciate any correction. Yet it seems to me that the ancients each probably had their own ways of playing, but put the standard way down for their beginnning students. That is true of everything, and every skill. Learn by the book, then break the rules when you get good. I've always liked Mondrian's color patches, but to me they are decoration rather than art. Many moderns do abstract art, but I don't accept their work without their basics. Look at Picasso, look at his early drawings and paintings. then look at his abstract work again. My friend, and colloge classmate, John Eaton is a composer of Opera and innovator in microtuning (he was interested in working with me and my double strung harp so as to make the mini-scales he works with). I don't like his current work, even though I'm quite capable of hearing the good in off scales and new modes. But I have a fifty year history with the man, and his music, and I know how it developed. I run on, as usual. So I have to stop with a comment. Not all music is musical, and not all painting is pleasant. But all efforts in either, if grounded in sound principles of historical developments (whether one scale or another, or the polyrythms with undefined pitch) are valid, if they have a grounding. You don't have to choose them, or even like them. But if there is a grounding in melody, or form, then they are to be considered. And if there is no grounding then it is garbage. The lady who claims that painting her naked body in chocolate is art is not an artist (whatever the NEA thinks). The jury is out on Jackson Pollack. Best, Jon The only area where I think thumb-under has an advantage is to achieve that swing affect with dance pieces. (...) I think it's safe to say that thumb-under was generally used for the first 1/3 of the lute era and thumb-out for the last 2/3. So which is really the dominant technique -- or even the technique to be taught? I didn't mean to discuss which technique is preferable but whether or not there are certain technical demands that require thumb-in, or thumb-out, respectively, notwithstanding the well known fact that the shift from one to the other technique did take place. of course What would Dowland do with his students? I think he makes it clear his intentions that he recommends thumb out. I'd love to find out what made him do so. You and the rest of us. Maybe it was just changing times. Thumb-out does generally produce a brighter sound which, to my ears, cuts through an ensemble better. Maybe it was just keeping up with the young hot shot players? It seems that an emphasis on thumb-out with the ability to thumb-under when really necessary is the
Re: Built-in action?
Michael, Andy has come up with a wonderful quote, and quite relevant to this discussion (in which I'm a total amateur). But you do raise the point as to why our modern scholars didn't bring this up at the beginning of the thread. There I separate from you, you seem to believe there are scholars. With all due respect for the academy, and the study involved, there is yet the matter of practicality. The scholar isn't necessarily the antiquarian, he also should be the student of the modern materials (and the one who understands why the old boys picked, and used, what they had to work with). The real scholar understands the time and place and purpose, the historian may (but not always, if he is good) a descriptor of the past. We made it to the moon on a space ship using the laws of physics as proposed by Newton, but the materials that were developed more recently. Newton's laws have been shown to be inaccurate at very high speeds, as in Einsteinian relativity, and the further work of Bohr, Hawkins and others. But they were quite adequate for the trip to the moon. In a similar sense the lutenists of many years ago might have been quite happy to have the technology of finely defined gut fret levels that are available to us today. I've always felt that Columbus would have preferred a steamship to the old galleon, had he had the availability. Would the old lutenists really have faught the pegs, had they had tuning machines. I'm not sure, and the lute I'm making will have pegs. But perhaps we worship a past that would have been more practical had they the opportunity. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: any particular recommendations for micrometers
Wayne, I think there may be a matter of taste involved in the topic, although I agree with having both caliper and micrometer. Despite having had a career in the computer business I'm not yet comfortable with digital readouts, or any electronic device, for measuring in the home or small shop. I have a Sears Hardware micrometer (about $30, and inch measurements) that is quite accurate enough for any string measurements, but I find my vernier caliper from Woodworker's Supply ($16.50) is almost better. Someone mentioned the idea of a ratchet clutch to ensure a similar pressure when measuring soft materials. I was a bit disappointed when I got it as I found it had no wheel to adjust the jaws, but I've found that it is so well machined and smooth that my fingers become the clutch. The lack of the mechanical advantage of a screw mechanism makes it easy to feel the pressure (it does have a locking screw to fix the measurement). Six inch, 15+ cm, range - calibrated in both. Verniers to 0.001 and 0.02mm. Vernier plates adjustable for zero point. Price is right, and being a normal caliper style it has the depth plunger, and, covering another point made, comes in a nice padded plastic box (sorry, not wooden). I don't know the maker, it isn't on the caliper - but it is German made as it has a conversion chart glued to the back auf Deutsch - but I have no idea what it is converting despite the fact I speak German (anyone know what METR. ISO-GEW is, with a column for a GEW 0 x STG M multiplier - a column for Mutter Kern [which sounds like the mother of a composer] - and one for Bohrer). My distrust of electronic measuring devices has nothing to do with their accuracy when used regularly in an active shop (I do think electron microscopes are a bit better at looking at molecular structures than Galilean optics). And I'm sure that really good electronic devices have good self checking for such things as low battery (which can effect a reading if the device isn't designed well). But where price is a consideration a well made mechanical device is my preference. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Built-in action?
OK guys, I'm thoroughly confused. Someone said that the action is the height of the string above the fret, others have other definitions. To me the action is a subjective thing - the pressure needed on the string to make a clean sound. That can vary on the same instrument with different players depending on finger placement - close to the fret or in the middle. And on the distance between the frets. (That may not be so clear on a lute, but on an Appalachian dulcimer which is diatonic - so the low frets are very far apart - it is clear. When one fingers a string one is making a small triangle between the fret and the fret below, a bit of local string stretch involved, and it is easier to fully depress at the midpoint between frets, although not musically advisable). So my point is that action is a complicated interaction of string height, string tension, and fret separation. And that is complicated by the large triangle between the bridge and the nut, the middle of the string is relatively softer than the nut or bridge ends - yet it has the greatest range of vibration when played open, so has to have the greatest spacing above the frets to avoid buzz (these latter have contradictory effects, so the string should be higher above the fret at mid range - except that the frets are closer spaced there, so they have a stiffer action due to the fret spacing effect.) Wow, what a lot of stuff to think of. Maybe we should have a multi-contured neck? I don't think I'll try that. I'm over my head. This is a physics of counter effects, and all must be considered. I think I'll let it stay subjective and experimental. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: symm/asymm perfect/imperfect
I'm not sure to whom to reply, so I pick on the good Dr. of Chemistry. It comes down to the question of what is perfection. Is a straight line straight, or is a mess of fractals (don't pick on me for the joking reference, I realize that there is more to fractals). Are we really going to go to this level? If I shave my lute soundboard to a fraction of my goals, but one small segment is a ten thousandth of a millimeter off will it affect the sound (Answer, it will, but will I hear it? Every tiny difference effects a totality, but the effect isn't necessarily noticeable - or predictable). Chemistry isn't Physics, and Physics isn't Chemistry - and Quantum Mechanics (my day, fifty years ago - now should we say Quantum Theory) would suggest that everything is random and undefined, but statistically comes to a form when treated as a whole. (Sorry love, I'm trying to be careful to put this general terms). I know that I've sent you a private message on the topic regarding my father at Bell Labs, but your rather detailed comments here require me to comment. Symmetry and crystaline structure are both synonymous, and also a matter of degree, in fact everything is a matter of degree. My father sent an internal memo to his colleagues at the Labs in about 1047, it had to do with his theoretical speculation on what might happen at the P/N junction of a doped crystal, a crystal whose structure was compromised by impurities. He was working with quartz, a very stable crystalline structure. Schockley's crew was working in Germanium, less strict in structure. It didn't work with quartz, but Germanium was flexible and we got the transistor (and Schockley the Nobel, although it was the crew that did it). Silicon based transitor crystals came in later, with developement. Where is the point? Not in the perfection of structure or symmetry. Those don't exist if you go deep enough. Even though I'm a political conservative I'll support relativism when it comes to the perfection of sound, or the symmetry of the scale. And I'll not email our good Dr. of Chemistry to argue the left and right hand symmetry, we all know that the well made lute will have a difference of bracing and soundboard shaving to accomodate the bass versus the treble. That isn't symmetry, that is good design and making. I repeat, nothing is symmetrical if you go to the right level. The String Theorists are proposing 13 levels, and 13 can never be symmetrical. But that isn't important, what is important to the musician is the symmetry of sound - and that isn't really a symmetry. We all know that the natural overtone scale of the tensioned string has faults in it when compared to our chosen even temperament scale. Perfection is the exact form (frequencies) of the overtones on the single string, but that isn't perfection when wanting more notes, or different keys. How many times must I punctuate with the Pythagorean comma? And does my cat hear the tones as in the Oriental natural scale, or hear the nuances of the middle eastern quarter tones (and they are a bit smaller than that - my personal ear distinguishes about 5 cents, or less, on the cent scale where a half tone is 100 cents). What is a pleasant and harmonic sound? It isn't defined by the physics of sound vibrations, else we would have none. It is the compromise of our scales, and the training of our ears. Luckily my mind is asymmetrical, so I've no horse in this race (or dog in this fight). I shall retire to bed and contemplate my navel (were I able to see it). But I shall do so with well made popcorn (as I will make it) and a good book. It is a matter of level when one discusses symmetry. And it is a matter of level when one accepts or denies it. I'm not sure if I accept fractals as geometry, but the advocates have a point (no pun intended, they do have points on a straight line). Best, Jon The term perfect symmetry does not exist in chemistry. The branch of mathematics that deals with the characterization and categorization of symmetry is called group theory. Molecules and crystals are categorized according to the degree and type of symmetry into groups. Depending on the temperature and pressure of the ice, the crystals will belong to one point group or another. If one were to apply the principles of group theory to lutes, most lutes would belong to the C1 point group. That means that the lute is not superimposible on its mirror image. This is why we need right-hand and left-hand lutes. If anyone does not believe me he or she is welcome to email me off list and we can debate it. -Original Message- From: guy_and_liz Smith [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: May 23, 2005 6:44 PM To: LUTELIST lute@cs.dartmouth.edu, Manolo Laguillo [EMAIL PROTECTED], Michael Thames [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: symm/asymm perfect/imperfect Crystals are only symmetrical to a point. It's a convenient and reasonably good approximation, but perfect symmetry runs afoul of the second law of thermodynamics,
Re: symm/asymm perfect/imperfect
Michael, I thought I'd covered my views on this topic, but I have to add my comment. Is it wrong for humans to try to achieve perfect symmetry? It seems nature is trying. Nature is trying, very trying (I hope you know that English trope). Can we know perfection? No. Can we aspire to it? Yes. Perfection is a goal, even in nature. Einstein rejected Bohr's thoughts on Quanta, saying God doesn't play dice. (the quote may be aprochryphal). Bringing it back to the lute, your ear is the best tuning device. Even the paired courses have a diffence in tonality. Nothing is perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't aspire to perfection. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: The List!
Arto, I didn't read your comment as one having to do with the non-skid, which is clearly lute related. I read it as a comment on the general manners of the list. I started on lists before the web (developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989) and the general public use of the internet. I was a co-manager of a technical advice list on Delphi. We had a few with bad manners, but they didn't last long. We didn't ban them, we isolated them. But in those days the list, and the internet, were a small community. My old site (it became a web site) is now a haven for flamers on the idiocy of those who disagree as to what is the latest and best video card, or audio card, or whatever card. For all I know I may still be listed as co-manager, I still was only a few years ago when I hadn't visited for years. We each offend the rules at times. You have done it with political commentary - but passed in passing rather than meant as pontifical. I have done it by sometimes speaking too soon before I know enough - but with the urge to contribute. RT has done it by denigrating views other than his own, although I'm sure that is his style rather than his substance - no one who can research and offer such enjoyable music as the Sarmanticas can be all bad g. So it comes down to this, manners are a matter of style (in a sense). Most of you are from Europe and aren't exposed to the daily in your face commercials on US TV - where the values of the hoodlum are used to promote sneakers (plimsols for the English, basketball shoes as a generic). Confrontation is counter productive, it merely provokes more confrontation. It isn't the matter of the specific relevance to lutes, a few side issues are fun now and then, it is the presentation. Arto, you may be getting old - but imagine how I feel! I met my first computer in 1961 after graduating from college and spending three years as a Naval officer. In those days one still used the title Mr. to anyone you didn't know well. And I've watched the evolution of the internet since its inception (in 1969). But I will say that there is little screaming on this list (that defined as SAYING IT ALL IN CAPS). Very bad manners in the early times, but often used by the kiddies. This list is pretty balanced and well run. I get to run through the postings quickly with my delete key, but most of those I delete aren't irrelevant - they are just too advanced (and on topic) for my beginner status. I'm not yet into discussing the relative merits of Weiss and Dowland, not until I can play them. But those discussions belong here, and it is easy for me to bypass them until I'm ready for them. But so do those about the technical aspects of the instrument, and the strings - and the players with no interest can bypass them as easily as I can bypass the deeper matters of composers and styles (until I reach that level). Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Arto Wikla [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Dr. Marion Ceruti [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 3:30 AM Subject: Re: The List! Dear Marion and others, sorry, I did not mean to insult you, and not even RT! I understand the paper bag's linking to lutensts problems. And I understand also how the (in)famous S actually has something to do with lutes. In the good old days all was better... ;-) So perhaps my main message was only the last sentence: Perhaps I am getting old? ;-) All the best Arto To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Nonskid lute pad
Ed, As a beginner, and a long time guitarist, I first fixed a strap to my lute (and, like you, fixed it to both ends of the bowl). I took my only lesson, from a nearby lutenist, and noticed that he had his strap hooked around a peg on the pegboard. I found that to be better support. But in both cases there was a feel that the strap controlled the position of the lute. Finally I reread the opening passages of my copy of Damiano's Method for the Renaissance Lute and noted that he put the strap under his leg/butt (which obviously won't work standing up). I am no great source for virtuoso lute performance, but I do find the freedom of the neck when the lute is anchored to one's lap to be helpful for me. I confess not to taking the recommended sitting stance on a proper chair with a left foot stool and legs not crossed - I like my arm chair in front of the TV. I sit up and cross my left leg over my right, contrary to Damiano's instructions - put the chamois in my lap and pull the strap from the base under my right cheek and leg, and over my left leg. It fixes the instrument at the body and supports the neck without argument with the strap about position. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: Ed Durbrow [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute list lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2005 1:54 AM Subject: Re: Nonskid lute pad I don't use any non skid surface. I always perform standing with a strap. When I practice I sit and use the strap. My strap connects on both ends of the bowl, not to the neck, rather like a guitar strap. The few times I play without a strap, I often just brace the lute against the edge of my desk just like so many paintings show. Anyone else do this? I often pull the mouse pad over the edge of the desk so I don't scratch the instrument. -- Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Gone 'the whole hog'!
OK Marion, I'll give it a try. As a guitarist I find all dedicated electric guitars to be unworthy of the name guitar. The solid bodies, the various other electronic instruments of varying shapes, all those that use the electronic amplification of the direct sound of the strings instead of the combination of strings and body (so this doesn't include electronic pickups on a basic instrument). But, unlike many on this list, I'm not going to make a semantic issue of the name of the instrument - the Bud guitar is an electronic guitar with an irrelevant, but very ugly, shape. If there is no resonance in the body of the instrument (as is the case with many other guitar shaped electronic instruments) I could take a hickory board and get the same sound from the electronics. But the Weiss guitar is another matter. The waisting of the guitar shaped body must steal from the sound of the unbalanced bass strings (the bridge stretching across the parallel of the waist). But that isn't what I most noticed. My MusicMaker's flat back lute has been denigrated by a very few on this list, but it was a cheap kit at $350 and let me find out if I really wanted to play the lute (and learn it). The Weiss guitar has the same failings of my flat back, and not the advantage of economy. It isn't the flat back that is the only problem with mine (although the sound is pretty good - it is said that the body of the lute contributes only about 10% of the resonance, the soundboard is the main contributor). It is also the peg board (note that it is peg board, not peg box). Like my MusicMakers the Weiss uses vertical pegs through a board. That works on a modern steel strung guitar with tuning machines, but not with friction pegs. There was a reason for the peg box with the strings pulling between the two supported ends of the friction peg, the tuning holds better with friction at both ends - and a pull that isn't a cantelever. So, given the practicality of both instruments (the Bud and the Weiss guitar), my deep consideration has decided that the Weiss is uglier. Both are physically ugly, but given that the Bud guitar is electronic there can be no increase in ugliness in the sound compared to other electronic guitars. But the Weiss looks as if it would have a musical ugliness also. It wins the contest. Best, Jon OK, lutelisters, lutenists, luthiers and Duluth residents, which instrument looks more horrid, the Bud guitar or this gem? http://www.weissguitar.com/ Cheers, Marion To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Gone 'the whole hog'!
What would you expect from Budweiser? I would hope they could make something good, they make a very bad beer. (Not a fair comment, they make Michelob which may not be great, but it is drinkable - Bud itself, however, is so thin that I won't drink beer if it is the only offering, as it will be at my 48th college reunion next weekend as Bud has the franchise). Do you know how much Clydesdales eat? and eliminate? Years ago the annual Reunions P-Rade at Princeton was led by the Budweiser wagon with the eight Clydesdales, before political correctness made them stop the advertising of drinking. The parade is led by the 25th year reunion class, and at mine the Bud wagon was still in front. Try keeping your shoes clean when walking two miles in a group behind eight Clydedales. We never noticed it before as we were at the back of the parade and the mess was already mushed into the ground. And now it is gone, sadly, as the administrators prefer to pretend that the lads aren't back there to share a few beers with old buddies - but to attend University lectures on the humanities and politics. What a canard, politics and humanities are important on a day to day basis - but should go out the window when old friends meet from far flung places and only once a year (and most only every five years). Ed Nell is a devout Socialist professor at The New School, I am a somewhat devout capitalist and conservative. We both wrestled, he at the college level and me at prep school. Should we wrestle with our political differences at our Reunion, or should we share our friendship of many years. Sorry, I digressed. I beg your indulgence, but this might apply to the thread the list which I also replied to. I could just not send this, but I think I will send it (as I'm full of good beer, Molson's - call me a chauvanist Yankee on politics, but a chauvanist Canadian as to taste in beer). There is a time and a place for everything, and all discussions. And sometimes it is of value to bring up a topic that is not generally appropriate. Do it with manners and it will be either followed up or gently put off. Do it harshly and you will raise the hackles of the assembled multitude. The sun is rising, and I am the fool for staying up all night. But not that much the fool, the forecast is rain and I've nothing to do tomorrow (oops, this morning). Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Nonskid lute pad
Disadvantage is that rubber goes dry and loses its adhesive power after some time so that it has to be replaced. And you can't blow your nose or wipe your fingers on rubber. Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
