Good point Stuart. I suspect that, like me, you were brought up according to Diana Poulton's strict philosophy of only doing what there was firm historical evidence for doing. I remember being chastised by her for my bad classical guitarist habits, though it took me (and most other lutenists that she taught) a long time to lose them. 'Heresy' is a good word for these abominable practices (a.k.a. the 'Breamian Error'). Still, when you're as good a musician as Nigel (or Julian Bream for that matter), maybe you are entitled to think the unthinkable; or even make the unplayable, playable?
Bill From: Stuart Walsh <s.wa...@ntlworld.com> To: Cc: baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, 1 September 2011, 23:56 Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Hammering on and snapping off There was an interview with Nigel North in a recent issue of the LSA quarterly (xlv/2, summer 2010), where he referred to those written out final phrases with many flags in English manuscripts around 1600. IIRC he said that the fact that they are written out, doesn't mean you have to hit each note with your right hand. Rather, these groups of very fast notes can be slurred. ...... Isn't this some sort of heresy? Aren't there little dots in the tablatures carefully written out to indicate the articulation of thumb and finger, or fingers? Haven't people claimed that this is a feature of all music of that time - to articulate every note, rather than Baroque-style, to slur them? My admiration for Nigel North's musicianship knows no bounds but if this is true, why hasn't he, or other professional lute players, said this for years? If this is true, a gazillion more lute pieces are accessible to mere mortal amateurs. Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
