Mr Galpin (p. 46) quotes from Thomas Mace’s Musick’s Monument, 1676, the proper method of “fretting” a lute or similar instrument. The frets, or horizontal strings or wires which make cross ridges on the neck of lutes, viols, etc., I had ignorantly imagined to be guides to the beginner as to where to stop the string; but it appears (Galpin, p. 46) that they “add to its tone and resonance by keeping the string from touching the
finger-board too closely.” The word “fret” is said to be derived from the old French ferretté, i.e., banded with iron. [77a]
In Mace’s [77b] book above referred to he discourses with a child-like enthusiasm on his favourite instrument. He does not follow the elder lutenists, whom he describes as “extreme shie in revealing the Occult and Hidden Secrets of the Lute.” He gives the following examples of “False and Ignorant Out-cries against the Lute”:—
(1) “That it is the Hardest Instrument in the World.
(2) “That it will take up the Time of an Apprenticeship to play well upon It.
(3) “That it makes Young People grow awry.
(4) “That it is a very Chargeable Instrument to keep; so that one had as good keep a Horse as a Lute for Cost.
(5) “That it is a Woman’s Instrument.
(6) “And lastly (which is the most Childish of all the rest), It is out of Fashion.”