Posted on June 6, 2024January 15, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Primitive Motifs in Lutherie and Music Letter: Primitive Motifs in Lutherie and Music by Clive Titmuss Originally published in American Lutherie #72, 2002 Dear Tim, It was great to read Fred Carlson’s evaluation of the synthetic nut material TUSQ in AL#70. I felt a great sympathy with his ethical viewpoint regarding the apparent inconsistency between an animal-considerate view and the luthier’s traditional materials. I don’t know how many of us share his qualms about the use of animal products, even shellac, for “industrial” use, but as a sometime lecture-demonstrator of the playing and building of both period guitars and lutes, and as a luthier and longtime vegetarian, I have had to consider the idea from the layman’s point of view. How shall I show thousands of years of musical and instrumental evolution simply and effectively to the audience? Out of my little bag, I pull a “gembrae,” a Moroccan/Algerian folk instrument that my mother bought in the ’70s, while touring ruins in North Africa. It is a small (bowed or plucked) rebec with three strings, made from a sea-turtle shell about 8CM long. Calf-skin is stretched over its former belly, and what looks like a length of broom handle comes out of its former head hole. The strings are held by pegs carved with a penknife. Then I pull out a Baroque lute. “Same instrument!” I exclaim, with a seraphic smile and a wink. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on January 10, 2010February 7, 2024 by Dale Phillips Letter: Remembering Robert Lundberg Letter: Remembering Robert Lundberg by Clive Titmuss Originally published in American Lutherie #71, 2002 Dear Jonathon: I has been several weeks since Historical Lute Construction by Robert Lundberg arrived. I wanted to really absorb it before showering you with well-deserved praise for your great work of lutherie documentation. I have read the whole book several times. It’s a great work. Bob built my two lutes during his early period, while I was a student in Basel, a time which also saw the beginnings of my attempts at lutherie. I once played my Bach suite program with Susan at Reed College in Portland, partly arranged by Bob’s first wife Ellen. One of the works I played that day was my own Tombeau for Glenn Gould, a piece for lute and harpsichord. Bob liked that, I remember. We had borrowed a Flemish double by Byron Will for Susan to play, and he and Byron seemed to get a real charge out of a couple of very determined musicians trying to play in a cafeteria full of hungry students on a Sunday evening, with the smell of frying fish heavy in the air. The 300 or so students were perfectly behaved, as they listened to a French Suite, Prelude Fugue and Allegro, the Chromatic Fantasy, and works by Weiss and Hagen, played on some of the best early instruments made by American crafters. But they seemed not to notice, as if this were normal, or perhaps such a smoothly executed event that it was no more to them than a violin and piano recital. Bob was happy to hear his own lute played in such demanding circumstances. My last memory of Bob is of his kindness, his gentleness, and his understanding of my struggle with the hardest music anyone could ever write for a lute. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
