> From: "Roger E. Blumberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 07:51:36 -0700 > To: Alexander Batov <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu> > Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Ian Woodfield's Early History of the Viol (and > Vihuela)
> well, now his theory makes a little more sense because he does agree that > bowed somethings (with waist-cuts) came first. But, turning it around, this > presumes that waist-cuts really did first evolve to facilitate bowing > technique (to help isolate outside strings or something). Almost seems odd > that they did so well without them for so long. Could the cuts have been a > top strengthening devise?, functioning well for both movable and > fixed-bridge applications, i.e. downward pressures on a moveable and higher > bowing bridge or pulling tension on a fixed lute-style bridge? Might the > design require less under-bracing and therefore dampen the top less? Here's those two Aragonese waist-cut fiddles c.1430-40: http://www.TheCipher.com/vlist1/waistcut-fiddle1_c1430deta.jpg http://www.TheCipher.com/vlist1/waistcut-fiddle2_c1430deta.jpg one of those two is bowed at the cuts, the other isn't. Many times the cuts seem so small (on fiddles) as to render them of no possible benefit or facility to bowing technique. Reckoning those as the first waist-cut instruments also means we have to agree to dismiss the Salamanca vihuela as being either a complete fraud or grossly miss-dated. I don't know if Woodfield knew about the Salamanca icon in the early 80s. Someone on the Lute-list said there is some controversy surrounding the Salamanca icon, but I'm not sure if that was primarily an issue of the restoration methods used (sometime in the last couple decades I gather) or what other matters are in question. It certainly seems alone and out of place, too early to me, at late 1300's. But then, the gap from 1390 to 1430 isn't all that great, so who knows. The peg box certainly is archaic. I still can't quite figure it out (it's design). http://www.TheCipher.com/vlist1/Vihuela_Salamanca_14thcent.jpg Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
