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Greetings friends,
After a fit of nostalgia and renaissance-type musings, I felt the urge to return to playing the Lute.
Not since my early college days had I played one, having hired a very nice lute from Brunell University. So I set about joining The Lute Society, an antiquated (albeit nice) bunch who are busy preserving a heratige in complete contrast to the many guitarists who are moving in the opposite direction. Take John McLaughlin, for example, - he's the one who formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 70's that combined music that sounded like Hendrix, Stravinsky
and Indian music: McLaughlin has always firmly believed in moving forward, with occasional glancing backwards allowed. Lemmy, who is from the band Motorhead, contrasted the view of McLaughlin when he exclaimed that he did not believe in development for developments sake because the band might develop into something that they did not understand. Spinal Tap suffered the same fate during their Jazz fusion period. Having joined the Lute fraternity, they sent me a pile of music written in a form a guitar tablature of the sort that I had only seen in a museum. When I joined the Lute Society, they assured me that their lute music was in modern format! I guess they meant that someone had typeset the ancient manuscripts so that they could be printed out and mass (?) produced.
Although shaken I wasn't about to be stirred so I went on to stage two in taking up the lute. Still convinced that it might be a relaxing thing to do one day - to strum upon the lute when having a day off from the guitar - I set about having a lute built for me. So went through the list and found a nice chap who lives near me to build one. We met up and I got to see some examples of his workmanship. It was only when I got to play one that a massive problem was apparent. Because of my classical technique, my right-hand 'plucking' fingers (I exclaimed a similar phrase when I realised the 'problem') protruded into the body of the lute, thus, I would destroy such an instrument within weeks. Proper lutenists don't have nails, nail-care being a more recent advent in beauty trends. Maybe that was why they stopped making lutes?! "Can't I raise the strings a bit?" I asked the luthier, suggesting that the strings be raised up to give me more finger clearance akin to a guitar. The luthier (being a young chap had luckily not completely fallen under the influence of the Lute Society) suggested some interesting adaptations to accomodate my requirements. Although, he did mumble something about "if the Lute 'mafia' ever finds out" they will be knocking at his door!
I'm still awaiting his quotation so that I can have the lute made, and I hope he hasn't been 'nobbled' in the meantime.
To be continued...
DH
After a fit of nostalgia and renaissance-type musings, I felt the urge to return to playing the Lute.
Not since my early college days had I played one, having hired a very nice lute from Brunell University. So I set about joining The Lute Society, an antiquated (albeit nice) bunch who are busy preserving a heratige in complete contrast to the many guitarists who are moving in the opposite direction. Take John McLaughlin, for example, - he's the one who formed the Mahavishnu Orchestra in the 70's that combined music that sounded like Hendrix, Stravinsky
and Indian music: McLaughlin has always firmly believed in moving forward, with occasional glancing backwards allowed. Lemmy, who is from the band Motorhead, contrasted the view of McLaughlin when he exclaimed that he did not believe in development for developments sake because the band might develop into something that they did not understand. Spinal Tap suffered the same fate during their Jazz fusion period. Having joined the Lute fraternity, they sent me a pile of music written in a form a guitar tablature of the sort that I had only seen in a museum. When I joined the Lute Society, they assured me that their lute music was in modern format! I guess they meant that someone had typeset the ancient manuscripts so that they could be printed out and mass (?) produced.Although shaken I wasn't about to be stirred so I went on to stage two in taking up the lute. Still convinced that it might be a relaxing thing to do one day - to strum upon the lute when having a day off from the guitar - I set about having a lute built for me. So went through the list and found a nice chap who lives near me to build one. We met up and I got to see some examples of his workmanship. It was only when I got to play one that a massive problem was apparent. Because of my classical technique, my right-hand 'plucking' fingers (I exclaimed a similar phrase when I realised the 'problem') protruded into the body of the lute, thus, I would destroy such an instrument within weeks. Proper lutenists don't have nails, nail-care being a more recent advent in beauty trends. Maybe that was why they stopped making lutes?! "Can't I raise the strings a bit?" I asked the luthier, suggesting that the strings be raised up to give me more finger clearance akin to a guitar. The luthier (being a young chap had luckily not completely fallen under the influence of the Lute Society) suggested some interesting adaptations to accomodate my requirements. Although, he did mumble something about "if the Lute 'mafia' ever finds out" they will be knocking at his door!
I'm still awaiting his quotation so that I can have the lute made, and I hope he hasn't been 'nobbled' in the meantime.
To be continued...
DH
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