At 10:35 AM 9/22/2008, Michael Gillespie wrote: > Friends, > > I read somwthere that the tuning pattern is more important than the > shape (of the instrument), like the theorboed guitar - lute shaped, > guitar tuned. Just a thought.
I would say "it depends." That would make the modern mandolin (beginning in the mid 1700s) more a violin than of any plucked lute-like kin. Does that mean if I develop, popularize, and standardize a different tuning on an existing instrument built for an older tuning, have a transformed it into something totally different, something it was not built to be? (The answer in my mind to this hypothetical is "no.") Tuning is only one piece of any instrument and its tradition. Best, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
