Hi Tomzooki,

I must be a rarity on here, a happy a 11 stringer!

I have been playing the 11 string alto for 2-3 years now and I have not yearned for the extra two basses. It has pretty much taken over my playing of anything from the renaissance and much of the baroque and has opened my eyes to the potential of multi-string guitars but for me 11 strings is as far as I want to go.
I teach and spend most of my time playing six string which I still love. The alto is a just for me but I don't always get enough time to devote to it and more strings would increase the time it would take me to re-learn those extra basses!
I have quite small hands for a man and as I mentioned in another thread when I am playing with the thumb on 11 and my 'a' finger on 1 that is pretty much the limits of what I can reach and maintain a consistent treble sound so an extra two strings wouldn't work for me.
I have always been interested in transcribing/arranging and with the 11 string alto guitar having a slightly greater range than the 13c baroque lute, I have been pleased to discover that if the transposing key is chosen with care, then much of the 13c lute repertoire fits well and with little compromise on 11 strings. Many of Sollscher's stellar arrangements of Weiss such as the Tombeau are from the 13c lute!

good luck

Bill

silvanig wrote:

QUOTE:
First 11-string , later 13-string alto?

Tomzooki,

As you obviously have made up your mind how to proceed, I have been hesitating to post the following message. On the other hand, I don't want to hold back some (IMO good) arguments.

My mind is not so made up, I am still hesitating....

What I know is I will not constantly retune my guitar from early to late baroque tuning. I stopped to play Domeniconi's Koyunbaba because I got tired to tune and retune my guitar... Of course I have another less good guitar, but play Koyunbaba on it is not as enjoyable. And for a good two years I will not have the time nor the energy (I am studying at university in pharmacy, a terrible program) to work on big Bach and Weiss pieces. On the other hand, having played viola da gamba for ten years, I love Elisabethan and XVII century french music, for which the 11 string is perfect. When I will be ready to play the Weiss and Bach repertoire (= have time for it) I will be beginning my pharmacist carreer, = earning a pharmacist salary, so be able to buy a 13-string . Yes it is expensive, but I have no other expensive projects.

And there is something else. I listened to some 13-strings recording. The tone is not the same, it is somewhat darker. Very loveable, perfect again for Bach and Weiss, but for earlier music I would prefer the brighter 11-string. But here I am also conscious that it may be, at least partly, a result of the different tuning

Still thinking.......

Tomzooki,
Interestingly, Marion Ceruti is a physical chemist by background.
I think you will have everyone's sympathy going through extended re-training.
The early XVII century lute repertoire is in renaissance tuning up to the early 1620's. There was then a period of "transitional tunings", of which French flat was the most wide-spread, and finally, by the 1640's, the standard Dm tuning emerged for 11c lute.
The XVII French baroque lute repertoire is often thought to be not so much technically, but musically difficult. It was much influenced by the highly stylised manners of the French court. There are some very fine composers in this era, the Gaulthiers, Mesangeau, Gallot, de la Richée, and of course, Robert de Visée. Guitarists often think of him as just a baroque guitarist, but he was a virtuoso lutenist and theorbist as well. Very little of this repertoire has been transcribed into standard notation, so, to play it one has to transcribe the tablature, or, tune one's alto in Dm and work from tablature.
If you have not already found them, there are some very good sources of lute music of all eras to be found on the internet, but with the excerption of Jean Daniel Forget's site dedicated to baroque lute music, it is all in tablature. If you played viola da gamba from tablature, your way into lute tablature will be much simplified.
Do you like the music of the later renaissance lutenists who wrote for 10c lute such as Picininni, Kapsberger, etc.?
James.

Yes! I love that music! Concerning viola da gamba, I read mostly from standard notation, but was having fun with keys: G key, F key, C3 key, C4 key.... I read tablature with Tobias Hume music; nice music.


Cool, I have a lot in common with Marion Ceruti
Before going back to college I was a molecular biologist; some years ago I worked in a biotech making transgenic pigs. I was constructing the transgenes

Tomzooki,
Creating transgenic pigs sounds horrific! I avoided biology at school; did not like the idea of cutting up frogs, etc., so, concentrated on math and physics. I am an applied mathematician.
There is plenty of music available by Piccinini and Kapsberger on the internet. A very useful site is that by the French lutenist, Richard Civiol. It contains not only lute music by these composers, but has the complete, "Les Rhétorique des Dieux", by Denis Gaultier, for 11c lute, which is considered by many to be one of the finest French baroque works. I downloaded it in a moment of enthusiasm after attending a lecture on French baroque lute music at the UK Lute Society, but have never had the courage to start transcribing, it is very long ... . It consists of sections recalling aspects of the mythology of the Greek Gods.
RC has also done a performance edition of the music by the Italian lutenist, Pietro Paolo Melli, who composed much charming music for the 11c attiorbato/archlute. This music fits perfectly onto an 11s in G. Like the music by Piccinini and Kapsberger, that by PPM is in Italian tablature, rather than French tablature. Although Kapsberger was a German aristocrat by background, he spent his adult life in Rome, and was assiociated with the papal court.
As you probably realise, because the renaissance lute and viola da gamba have the same tuning, music for VdaG transfers to lute/alto guitar without difficulty; indeed, one can enhance it by the use of the additional strings.Tobias Hume's music is very attractive, and is readily adapted to alto. Another good reason for getting an alto!
James.

tenvec wrote:

QUOTE:
Tomzooki,
Creating transgenic pigs sounds horrific! I avoided biology at school; did not like the idea of cutting up frogs, etc., so, concentrated on math and physics. I am an applied mathematician.

I never touched a pig or a mouse or another animal. I would have been very unhappy if I had to. My work of molecular biologist was to cut and paste DNA pieces. But on the other hand, in order to get that DNA to work on, I murdered trillions of Escherichia coli!!