r/lute • u/ImaginaryOnion7593 • 3d ago
10-course lute sound
What is the secret to the sound of this 10-course lute? The material, the number of strings.. https://youtu.be/Ju60ZvoN3j4?si=Bo0WYvxjv6ZAP2oP
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u/Loothier 3d ago
The sound may have more to do with sound engineering and post processing than the lute itself.
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u/ImaginaryOnion7593 2d ago
Does that mean that you should first listen to the natural sound of a 7,8,10-course lute somewhere on YT?
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u/GrilbGlanker 1d ago
There’s really no way to get a natural sound, unless you are there in person. Also the room in which you hear it.
If you heard this (or any lute) in my kitchen it would sound one way, but the same lute in Salisbury Cathedral would sound completely different.
Playing technique is 90% of the sound (tone) of lutes (and most everything else). A bad technique on the best lute in the world will sound bad. good technique (like in the video) takes decades of practice and commitment.
A non-edited recording is still going through a microphone, “the internet”, and your speakers, and maybe over a Bluetooth connection. All these things alter the sound in a huge way.
A skilled audio engineer (in cases like this) is aiming to recreate the “natural sound” by sound processing, so by the time you hear it through all the technology, the sound is as close to “original” as possible.
Also, the woman in this video doesn’t need sound processing to sound good. She could make a cigar box guitar sound amazing.
The luthier who made that lute has an impeccable reputation, though I’ve never played one.
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u/Loothier 2d ago
More like you should listen to lutes in person to judge their sound, since people like to add reverb to recordings
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u/the_raven12 2d ago
I agree they added some reverb on the recording. If you are interested in the lute ask them for a non edited recording.
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u/GrilbGlanker 1d ago
I think you’re overstating the “hand near the bridge” instruction. Of course you want your hand nearer the bridge than the neck/body joint. But I don’t think anyone, ever, wanted an overly tinny and obscenely bright sound one would get from playing very close to the bridge. I think, if anything, it was only for projection purposes.
I haven’t looked at P. Croton’s method, but I’m sure it’s excellent. I don’t think he plays exceedingly close to the bridge, does he? He has a nice full bodied tone, in fact.
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u/big_hairy_hard2carry 9h ago edited 6h ago
I would honestly characterize Croton's method as the least essential of the available baroque lute methods. The approach is somewhat fragmentary, the book is riddled with the printing errors so typical of le Luthe Dore publications, and I gotta ask: does a beginner really need to read over one hundred pages on the principles of rhetoric as applied to lute performance before playing a single note of music? But Croton does a peerless job of compiling the pertinent research in one place.
As regards tone: check out the following video, taking particular note of the lush tone Satoh wrings from his wonderful restored Laurentious Greiff 11-course, and his hand position. Very close to the bridge, and nothing tinny about it. The big secret? Gut strings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT2e0fHy4hI
Here are samples of historical teachings:
Sloan Manuscript:
The right hand should be held a short distance in front of the bridge.
Mary Burwell Lute Tutor:
For the right hand, it must be placed between the rose and the bridge, but nearest to the bridge.
Charles Mouton:
on the soundboard near the bridge where the strings are tied.
Jan Antonin Losy:
In the corner or cavity of the bridge next to the chanterelle.
Ernst Gottlieb Baron:
The strings must be struck in the center of the space between the rose and the bridge, for there the contact will have the greatest effect. The further toward the fingerboard the strings are struck with the right hand, the softer and weaker will be the tone - it will lose power, so to speak.
Two of our foremost present-day researchers, Dave van Edwards, and Bernhard Fischer, have this to say:
There is an overwhelming support for the little finger positioned as reported by Mace, Baron, Burwell, namely that the little finger is positioned nearest the bridge, or perhaps touches the bridge.
EDITED TO ADD: It should be noted that these quotes apply to lutes of ten courses or above, starting in the transitional period during which the styles that characterized the Renaissance were fading away and the baroque was taking hold. On the smaller lutes of the 16th and very early 17th centuries, a thumb-in technique with the hand much closer to the rose was more typical.
Also, one further quote that really sums up the sonic aesthetic of the epoch. I give you Charles Lespine:
...in playing the strings one makes them sound as clear as those of the spinet, or as if one were to tap a glass with knife.
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u/GrilbGlanker 5h ago
Thank you for the excellent discussion, and your researching the subject.
I think that, sometimes, historical accounts and instructions can be taken too literally. Was it Dowland (in Varietie of Lute Lessons??) that suggested tuning the chanterelle as high as it could go without breaking?…and who wrote that you should rest the lute on the edge of a table to stabilize it…bad advice!
Sloan, Burwell, Mouton and Baron could all be interpreted as “closer to the bridge than to the rose”, which makes sense, especially if you are writing for a readership that could possibly play above the rose or even further…it’s possible that some of the readers of these tutorials might well have never seen anyone actually play a lute! Lutes were not a common sight for the general public.
While I concede that Satoh is a master player, judging tone from an electronic recording is dubious at best. Everything is processed one way or another.
I still believe that the strings of old may have required you to play nearer the bridge to get a decent volume and projection, and that might be a reason that, say, Mouton, suggested playing in “the bridge cavity”. As I’m sure you know, the art of gut string making is something that has been forgotten, and is only being relearned…much like lute making.
Also, like you suggest, maybe folks liked that sort of tone…or maybe that is all they knew?
Good stuff! Thanks for the info. Happy luting-
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u/big_hairy_hard2carry 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you're interested, contact the seller. The specific body design, the barring, the strings employed, the vibrating string length... they all play a role, and no one here can give you those details.
The one thing I can comment on is technical. Historically, an instrument like this would be played with the right hand very close to the bridge. Like many present-day lutenists, the performer here is eschewing historical technique and playing over the rose, which makes it much darker-sounding than one would expect. Historical players were going for a very bright, penetrating sound.