On Friday 27 January 2006 12:31 pm, Eugene C. Braig IV wrote: Sorry, I inadvertently went off list. Here is the resend:
> At 05:13 PM 1/26/2006, Arthur Ness wrote: > >Hoboe = German for oboe. "oboe" IMO is a better way of marking up music than "sul ponticello", and it's Italian too. Sold! As for Sor's nails, I think there is an impression that nails give a brighter sound than no nails. I used to believe that. It is only true at moderate volume. When playing at the limits of loud, there is very little or no difference. By all accounts both Sor and Carcassi were strong players, and capable of rendering a brilliant tone without nails. Carcassi is a better example because he toured for years and Sor didn't. Get the Carcassi 'scales' on my website. Others of the period wrote similar exercises. They show what those Romantics were after. They force you to balance the apoyando thumb with the escape stroke fingers, so with any luck at all you develop a rich powerful tone. Even the very accomplished player who has never practiced the like intensively will find working on them illuminating. [The Carcassi scales and those like them keep you on the edge of what's possible in playing the guitar loud. Moderns don't think that way.] A working acquaintance with them will at least convince one that a brilliant tone is possible without nails. My own scales, and those of many others, are tech, and they develop balance and 'physical beauty of tone' among other things, rather than power. Carcassi's are almost etudes, which is clearly indicated by the bars and the ending chords. I am not an advocate of playing without nails. My objection to it is that there is a control problem with sweaty hands when fingerprint ridges grab the string, which is of course what they are designed to do, or when they fail to grab the string and slip. I have observed both of these to occur in concert in the same performance of a Carulli concerto with orchestra. OTOH, the lack of decent nails is no reason to be discouraged from playing the guitar without them, because clearly it can be done and done well. I have no solution to the sweaty hands problem but I strongly suspect that Sor and Carcassi did have one, or several. daveA > At 10:39 AM 1/27/2006, David Raleigh Arnold wrote: because he toured for > >years and Sor didn't.. > > > Interestingly, Stanley Yates quotes Fetis as having this to say of Sor: > > > > "We regretted the sounds Sor drew from the guitar were not sufficiently > > cultivated; it appeared to us that he had neglected to study this essential > > part of the instrument...Joseph Anelli, on the contrary, has felt that the > > great charm of the guitar principally consists in producing good sounds...at > > once clear, sonorous, mellow..." > > > I don't have access to the original source, but hmmm... Thanks, I feel that supports my contention that Sor could play loud. Yes, it does seem to indicate that Sor cultivated power possibly at the expense of beauty of tone, but most likely he was faced with a reality problem in the room acoustics. What wouldn't those guys have given for a modern sound system? Segovia could shut people up. Back in the day there was always another guitarist ready to step up. Now that there are sound systems loud is not so much of a concern. daveA -- Free download of technical exercises worth a lifetime of practice: "Dynamic Guitar Technique": http://www.openguitar.com/instruction.html email: "David Raleigh Arnold" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>|<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or use [EMAIL PROTECTED]: http://www.openguitar.com/contact.html To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
