[LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number
Praetorius, Mace to name but two. --- On Wed, 18/2/09, howard posner howardpos...@ca.rr.com wrote: From: howard posner howardpos...@ca.rr.com Subject: [LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number To: lutelist Net lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Wednesday, 18 February, 2009, 2:25 PM On Feb 18, 2009, at 3:26 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: However without troubling yourself to trawl these, you will also see from my recent postings that there's absolutely nothing 'wrong' with small theorboes but just that the use of large theorbo tuning (ie double reentrant in A or G) on the smaller instruments does not tally with the historical record (see archives). So Martyn keeps saying. But if you were to trouble to trawl through the archives that he always refers to generally but never specifically, you'll see one post after another in which Martyn resolutely refused to admit what everyone knows: that there is no evidence tying any specific historical instrument of any specific size to any specific tuning or stringing. Mostly he did this by referring to the archives generally but never specifically. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
[LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number
What about the Castaldi duets? What tuning for the smaller instrument? R -Original Message- From: Martyn Hodgson [mailto:hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 2:58 AM To: lutelist Net; howard posner Subject: [LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number Praetorius, Mace to name but two. --- On Wed, 18/2/09, howard posner howardpos...@ca.rr.com wrote: From: howard posner howardpos...@ca.rr.com Subject: [LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number To: lutelist Net lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Wednesday, 18 February, 2009, 2:25 PM On Feb 18, 2009, at 3:26 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: However without troubling yourself to trawl these, you will also see from my recent postings that there's absolutely nothing 'wrong' with small theorboes but just that the use of large theorbo tuning (ie double reentrant in A or G) on the smaller instruments does not tally with the historical record (see archives). So Martyn keeps saying. But if you were to trouble to trawl through the archives that he always refers to generally but never specifically, you'll see one post after another in which Martyn resolutely refused to admit what everyone knows: that there is no evidence tying any specific historical instrument of any specific size to any specific tuning or stringing. Mostly he did this by referring to the archives generally but never specifically. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
[LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number
On Feb 19, 2009, at 6:12 AM, Roland Hayes wrote: What about the Castaldi duets? What tuning for the smaller instrument? R Just like the big one, an octave higher To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number
Apparently by way of associating a specific historic instrument with a specific tuning, Martyn Hodgson wrote: Praetorius, Mace to name but two. What surviving instrument does Mace describe? What specific measurements associated with what specific tuning does Mace give us? Praetorius' 1620 Theatrum Instrumentorum is an encyclopedic work that shows generic theorbos, not any specific identifiable instrument, but what the heck: Praetorius' Lang Romanische Theorba: Chitarron is 14-course double re- entrant in G, with a length of about 89cm (roughly 3.1 Brunswick Feet multiplied by 28.536cm per BF) for its six fingerboard strings and an extension about twice that. Scaled down for a theorbo in A it would be about 79 cm. Would such an instrument be a toy? Praetorius' Paduanische Theorba is a 16-course instrument, also in G, about 96cm for the eight fingerboard strings, and 128cm on the extension, which goes down to a contra D (i.e. a full octave lower than the ninth course). I'd be interested to know how such low notes at such a short length would work, and how they would balance the long fingerboard strings. The lowest fingerboard string on the Paduan theorbo would have been an E, and thus considerably shorter in relation to its pitch than the lowest G on the fingerboard of the Roman theorbo; to match the pitch/ length proportion of the Roman theorbo's G, the E would need to be about 106cm. Put another way, a theorbo string tuned to A (the sixth course of a theorbo in A) with the same relation of length to pitch as a 96cm E string would be 75cm long. So even the Paduan theorbo has its toyosity problems. Has any such instrument survived? Did anyone else ever mention such a thing? Or was it a short-lived variant? Or was Praetorius' information faulty? And is anyone playing such an instrument now? Praetorius does not mention an absolute pitch level. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number
On Feb 19, 2009, at 9:39 AM, Roland Hayes wrote: So much for no double reentrant tuning on small theorbos. R. On Feb 19, 2009, at 6:12 AM, Roland Hayes wrote: What about the Castaldi duets? What tuning for the smaller instrument? R Just like the big one, an octave higher Well, if someone wanted to be obtuse about it (not that anyone around here would be obtuse) he could argue that the tiorbino, like the theorbo, was strung in double re-entrant tuning because the instrument was built to such a size that it was impossible to tune it as an octave lute in A. There are such large holes in that argument that we're be none the worse for skipping it. You're right in that the tiorbino shows that someone liked double re- entrant tuning for musical reasons, not because of necessity or practicality. On the other hand, there's not much evidence that Europe was overrun by tiorbinos. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Theorbo Nicki don't lose that number
On Feb 18, 2009, at 3:26 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: However without troubling yourself to trawl these, you will also see from my recent postings that there's absolutely nothing 'wrong' with small theorboes but just that the use of large theorbo tuning (ie double reentrant in A or G) on the smaller instruments does not tally with the historical record (see archives). So Martyn keeps saying. But if you were to trouble to trawl through the archives that he always refers to generally but never specifically, you'll see one post after another in which Martyn resolutely refused to admit what everyone knows: that there is no evidence tying any specific historical instrument of any specific size to any specific tuning or stringing. Mostly he did this by referring to the archives generally but never specifically. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
