Hello James,

Sorry about the delay in answering your message. I think the
renaissance/archlute tuning is a good one. I use it on both of my
8-course renaissance lutes.

I have heard about th Yepes-type re-entrant tuning but have not tried
it (yet).

For the Dm tuning I am using Savarez for the first three, a durable
Hannabach D for the 4th, a standard silver wound Savarez or D'Addario
J51 for the 5th. The 6th through 10th consist of Savarez or D'Addario
6th silver wound strings and the 11th is a Hannabach 7th guitar string,
medium tension. Hard tension is a bit too much for the 11th.

If I change to something else, I will try the Aquila Alchemia Nylgut
and silver wound for the standard strings although I will probably keep
the Hannabach strings where they are.

Thomas Shall is a very good lutenist and very nice too. We traded CDs.
He sent me 3 so I owe him 2 more. I have not seen his Dalla Casa piece
but look forward to finding it.

I was only half joking about Laplace and Lagrange, although Alexander
Borodin was both a chemist and a composer. Other than him and myself I
know of no other C&C combination but would be glad to find others.

When my second baroque lute is received I probably will stick to the Dm
tuning on my alt guitar. However, I like the archlute tuning and have
made plans to acquire an archlute but both seller and I agree that
therer is no rush.

A domra concerto is something I want to write but I have so many
projects ahead of it, that will have to wait until I finish more
recordings.

All the best,
Marion

--- james r smith <vector10@...> wrote:

> Hello Marion,
> You ask about my favourite tuning for the alt. I have only ever used
> that in G, as a major
> interest is renaissance / archlute repertoire. Undoubtedly, the Dm
> tuning is very
> convenient for 11c baroque repertoire, though the pieces I have
> transcribed work with 8s/
> 10s tenors in E with only occassional modification of the bass line
> and problems with
> internal harmonies. A Yepes-type re-entrant tuning on 9&10 would
> solve a lot of left-
> hand awkwardness. I prefer to play baroque, either on an alt in G, or
> a tenor in F sharp,
> used as transposing instuments. I feel this brightens the sound.
> Incidentally, what strings
> do you use for your Dm tuning? I use Hannabach medium tension for my
> alt in G.
> Have you found the Dalla Casa piece in the Thomas Schall website?
> All the autobiographical material I have read on Laplace, Lagrange
> and Legendre has
> concentrated on their scientific careers, with nothing, as far as I
> can recall, on their
> cultural
> interests. I would be suprised if they had no musical interests, but
> the lute was very much
> in decline during their careers. At the French court, before the
> revolution, there was an
> amount of experimentation on lute/guitar hybrids. I wonder if any of
> these prominent
> mathematical physicists were ever called upon to offer advice on
> acoustics? At a Lute
> Society meeting in London a couple of years ago, a speaker indicated
> that books on
> playing the (baroque) lute were still being published in Germany in
> the early nineteenth
> century, so, perhaps the lute did not die as quickly/completely as
> usually supposed. Other
> than wondering if Mertz came across any of these, and thereby came up
> with his
> "romantic" tuning, which takes the bottom four courses of a 13c lute
> to add to a standard
> 6s, it is perfectly possible that the lute may have had some role in
> their households.
> A concerto for domra...?
> Kind regards,
> James.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>


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