Martyn Hodgson's Page

"Tyler's paper here: https://www.sscm-jscm.org/jscm/v9/no1/tyler.html"

"Provenance?"

"Dear Bernhardt, I have a photocopy of V's LIBRO SECONDO (Roma 1647) which I could photocopy again and send by ordinary surface mail to you. My copy is poor (many pages are very dark and difficult to make out) and my scanner is very slow and…"

"My dear Bernhard, Thank you for this and I'm sorry I did not explain matters to you with greater care. What I wished to say was since you agree that 'Clearly, the absence of a piece of wood could not possibly indicate anyone's…"

"My dear Bernhard, Hurrah! - I think we are now agreed: in short, there is no more reason to attribute this instrument to Sellas than to any other Italian maker of the era. Perhaps any future liner notes, marketing, etc should make this…"

"My dear Bernhard, Many thanks for your further clarification. It seems that the only outstanding substantive matter between us is about whether a missing(?) piece of wood can be said to strongly indicate that the instrument was by Sellas as some…"

"Dear Bernhard, I'll try and answer your own questions: 1. Do you mean to say it could be a Stradivari? No, but it could be a seventeenth century Italian instrument by any other maker than Sellas. Strad's patterns and shape are…"

"Dear Tom, Many thanks - I should have liked to hear you play them on an instrument with ocatve basses - either just the sicth, fifth and sixth or all three. In practice  I prefer to use octaves (like Vargas y Guzmán) on all three…"

"Dear Thomas, Very nice. I'm familiar with these works and much imprewssed by your playing of them and the velocity! Just one thing: as you'll know they were conceived for the six course guitar with octaves on the basses (and on the…"

"Dear Rainer, Your modern version does, indeed, appear very close to the original. Thank you for the clarification. It is regrettable that the custodians of our heritage insist on payment for simply reproducing images in their care - I suppose they…"

"Dear Mark, As suggested, simply calculate the strings required for each instrument based on the tuning, the string length and string tension you would like and order strings accordingly. Most strings will last indefinitely (except for the first…"

"Dear Rainer, Thank you for the speciman page. I didn't at first realise the original had been rewritten in a modern hand and had expected a facsimile edition. Is the source document so very poor as to require the new version? regards Martyn"

"Dear Mark Hoemmen, I presume this is a serious query so will respond in kind. It all depends on the nominal tuning of the instruments (ie of the four course guitar/ukulele as well as the others) and on the tension you require. One could, indeed,…"

"Dear Bernhard, Many thanks for these links. I had, in fact, already seen them and it was the paucity of actual objective evidence contained in them which led me to contact you directly. In my view, on the available evidence of the general…"

"Dear Bernhard, Is the instrument signed or are there any objective indications that it's 'from the workshop of Matteo Sellas'?  The inlays, general shape, peghead design, decoration, rose, bridge design etc look much the same as…"