Here's a question: Why do French prints have 5 lines for the 6 course instrument?
Early manuscripts like Pesaro (but not all of them, like BSB Mus. Ms. 2987) already employ six lines. While 5 lines in Ms. can be explained by the use of the same 5-point pen used for the lines of staff notation, I wonder why this is also occuring in prints? In type-set prints, you need to make different types for staff and tab notation, so why keep 5 lines? :) T* To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html