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Welcome to all who care about the fortunes of the guitar, past, present and future. The idea of this list was brought about by the First Guitar Summit — Encounter and Exchange — at Lake Constance in March 2007, organized by Gerhard Penn and Andreas Stevens. This was a small meeting of some 20 scholars, teachers, guitar makers, historians and publishers from all over the world. Besides the official papers that were read at the meeting, there was a great deal of informal discussion concerning issues that are dear to all of us. We all felt rather proud of ourselves and enjoyed the short meeting enormously. It became obvious to us that this initiative should continue, with the goal of organizing a full scale International Guitar Research Congress in an easily accessible central location, perhaps in 2009, which will serve as a centralized clearing house for information about the guitar. Such an effort would require a great deal of advance planning, and the contributions of many more people than the few who were present in Lake Constance. Hence, this mailing list was established in order to facilitate communications between us.
Langauge:
This being an international list, there is no way we can define any language as the official language of the list. It goes without saying that English will be the most prevalent language used and the one understood by most participants here. However, not everybody is fluent in English and sometimes we will have an occasional post in other languages. We would expect people might post in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and eventually also in Russian. The best way to handle the situation, it seems to me, is for readers who have a good command of the non-English language, to immediately translate it for the rest of us. Readers may also use Internet translation services such as http://babelfish.altavista.com/tr and other similar sites. The important thing to consider is that what we are mainly seeking here is the knowledge and wisdom of all participants, regardless of their language.
Topic(s):
As noted above, our main concern here is with the organization of the next Summit. As we endeavor to secure input from as many people as possible, we would expect list members to discuss on the list any subject which deals with guitar related research that might impact the planning and organization of the Summit. In other words, tell us what is important to you. As happened in Lake Constance, some of the subjects discussed involved guitar history, organology, bibliography, pedagogy, technology, biography etc. What we would like to discourage is discussion of the best strings, the best guitarist, Asturias and RdlA (unless the discussion deals with important discoveries regarding these works), arcane details about subjects that appeal only to a small number of people without any universal interest. Examples of such discussions can be found on many current Internet guitar forums and there is no need for us to duplicate them here.
We would welcome announcements by list members on what topics of research they are involved with at the moment, their WIP (Works In Progress) so to speak. This may include details about current research, the output of which may result in new publications, new recordings and new concerts.
Rules of Engagement:
This mailing list is hosted on the Topica website, and uses its facilities and structure. At the present time, the list is unmoderated, i.e., no one controls the content of messages posted in advance of posting. However, the List Owners reserve the right to delete any message which contains any offensive material. To facilitate our work, we ask that those who choose to subscribe, follow some simple rules:
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Thank you for joining us and let the discussion begin.
The list owners are: Gerhard Penn, Andreas Stevens, and Temporary list owner and Ad-hoc webmaster Matanya Ophee. To send private messages to the List Owners, click on their names.
Note: a List Owner is a legalistic Internet word signifying that the person(s) have control over the list.
Last updated: Friday, February 22, 2008 04:01:39 PM