I can vouch for Milan / Spanish tab to be really easy to be able to hear unplayingly!
G. R. ----- Opprinnelig melding ----- Fra: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Til: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sendt: 14. september 2004 14:02 Emne: Perhaps of interest | | Dear all, | | I once more wondered about tablature, and this is the priavte exchange of=20 | letters Vance and I had. Perhaps it will interest the 'Collected Wisdom', pe= | rhaps=20 | not, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Cheers | | Tom | | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- --= | -- | --------------------- | | | Dear Tom: | | I know this post has kind of dropped off the radar screen but I have | continually thought about the issues you have raised. | | You wrote: Thanks for your reply, Vance. For from thinking I am too | ignorant to cope with normal notation, my wife and others are astonished | that I have managed to cope with what to them are hieroglyphics. As you say, | tablature tells you exactly where to place the fingers, but when I play the | guitar, one of the great joys is finding fingering to fit the piece I'm | studying. That's something I really miss, experimenting around till just the | right sound emerges, and a fingering to go with it. Is that at all an option | on the lute? | | Yes this is an option, very much so. As you get acquainted with the Lute | and some of it's clich=C3=A9s you will find that many of them, because of th= | e | voicing, must needs be played in a manner that departs from 90% of the | usually fingering configurations. This is particularly true of Milano where | a chord normally played with the first, second and third fingers must be | played with the second, third, and fourth fingers. The Lute uses the fourth | finger of the left hand much more than the Guitar. | | | You also wrote: Often learning a piece seems almost 'mechanical'. True, I | am nothing like as experienced on the lute as I am with the guitar, but that | whole aspect of music-making which staff notation allows, seeing the | structure of the piece immediately, being able to work out the fingering, | indeed recognizing the harmonic progressions, all that seems to fall by the | wayside and, while I enjoy tablature, it still seems limiting, and limited, | to me. | | I addressed in part earlier this issue but it deserves a further | examination. You are in part allowing yourself to be dependant on the | musical interpretation of a third party, the individual who transcribed the | tablature text into staff notation. If you are using this as a guide for | understanding the voicing in a particular piece you are in essence depending | on the competence of the aforementioned musician which in all, or some, | cases, may be incorrect understanding that he or she had to first | understand the original tablature or at the least know what notes were being | played. | | I was thinking the other day about Milano's work and its dependence and | heritage from vocal music. I was working with Fantasia #3 Ness and it | struck me. A number of years ago I heard a vocal group that specialized in | doing Madrigals, perform a work from this same period in six voices. Each | voice was related musically to each other as we find in Milano's themes. | There was a cute little game that played within the Madrigal, the name or | composer of which I can not now remember, where the themes and words came | together at certain points to say something that was not intentionally | written into any one of the particular voices. You may remember I mentioned | the phantom voices in Milano's work. This kind of clarified the issue for | me. If you think of this music from two points of view, vertical and | horizontal you will at least understand what I am talking about. | | You have a set of voices that run horizontally through the entire | composition, often repeating each other, or imitating each other in | fragments or in entirety. This would be what I view as the horizontal | structure and is mostly what you get when you are understanding the music | from staff notation. However getting back to the above mentioned Madrigal. | This particular composition had a fascinating way of coming together at | certain intervals where the separate voices could be understood to speak | little naughty phrases like "Tickle her taint". These little musical | versions of grafitti exist only in the vertical understanding of the music. | Voices and themes that seem to evolve out of the clashing or melding of | voices to express a theme or idea that is really not even there but the ear | hears it anyway. This is particularly true of a lot of Milano's works, and | it is this kind of thing that no notation I know of can bring out. It is up | to your ear to hear them and understand them. In this case Tablature is a | better vehicle. Yes you may get all of the horizontal relationships | correctly but you may miss the really interesting vertical stuff going on | that I believe is more than accidental. I hope this helps you in some way, | it has helped me in thinking about it and expressing it in words. | | I am sending this to you privately and not on the list though if you desire | to share it with the rest of the group be my guest. | | Vance Wood. | -------------------------------------------- | | | Dear Vance, | | Many, many thanks for your letter. I have only just read it, as I was away=20 | from home for a couple of weeks, enjoying the sea air at the coast in Devon.= | We=20 | were at a small seaside town, still very Victorian, typically English seasid= | e,=20 | that curious mixture of working harbour with holiday resort. I don't know=20 | what these places are like in America (I imagine you are American), but here= | they=20 | are largely a very working-class affair (I say this without any snobbery,=20 | just as a statement of fact), shops filled the cheapest tat, silly postcards= | with=20 | vaguely sexy innuendoes (Elderly husband and wife in bed: HE [staring sadly=20 | at his nether regions] 'I wonder if the doctor can give me anything=E2=80= | =A6.? SHE:=20 | 'The doctor can only cure the living, not resurrect the dead!'), endless=20 | fish-and-chip restaurants, and the remains of what were once extremely posh=20= | hotels.=20 | The English are very snobby, and it is amusing to work out who would have, i= | n=20 | the 19th and first half of the 20th century, stayed at which kind of hotel.=20= | The=20 | bank manger of a small town, a considerable figure in his community, would=20 | have put up at the 'Imperial', while his number two would merely have manage= | d the=20 | 'Grand'. English literature and the best TV comedies are full of such things= | =E2=80=A6 | | But it's nice nevertheless, and uncomplicated. When my wife and I do mix in=20 | the 'appropriate' circles, the intellectual and other sorts of snobbery are=20= | so=20 | intense that neither of us can bear it. Last winter we stayed in the South o= | f=20 | Portugal, where our fellow (British) guests loved giving themselves airs and= | =20 | graces, stressing their status in life, and the like, though had we chosen t= | o=20 | play that silly game, we could have outshone them by a mile. We obtained our= | =20 | revenge at the twice weekly whist sessions (a form of Bridge), when we both=20 | played with the greatest innocence combined with a fair measure of cruelty a= | nd=20 | wiped the floor with them. Otherwise we conversed with each other in German= | ,=20 | reserving English for the snobs, which also made the point for us. But you w= | on't=20 | want to know all this=E2=80=A6 | | To come to your main points: I see we agree on many things. Your remarks on=20 | fingering are particularly illuminating, and I entirely see what you mean. =20 | When studying various pieces it soon became clear me that quite of a lot of=20 | guitar fingering is not appropriate for the lute, and in this respect tablat= | ure is=20 | a great help. But as regards being 'dependant on the | musical interpretation of a third party', I am only partially convinced. I=20 | would imagine that anyone transcribing from tablature to staff be competent=20 | enough not to make silly errors. This problem is not, it seems to me, merely= | =20 | confined to tablature. When I look at many of Beethoven's original manuscri= | pts I=20 | have often wondered whether it was not the copyists who actually wrote the=20 | music, as it appears extremely difficult to make much sense of the great man= | 's=20 | chaotic scribblings and scratchings. I don't know whether you play Milano us= | ing=20 | Italian tablature. I don't, as I can't read it fluently, but use=20 | transcriptions from the Internet using French tablature.=20 | | Yet having said all that, and while I fully appreciate what you are saying,=20= | I=20 | find it difficult to agree that only tablature can accommodate the various=20 | nuances you mention. I don't see that your advice to 'think of this music f= | rom=20 | two points of view, vertical and | horizontal' puts it in a radically different category from say, Bach, or eve= | n=20 | Schoenberg. Polyphony and harmony combined, which is, I assume what you=20 | mean, are in essence the same in all music, and I don't really see why the k= | ind of=20 | subtleties Beethoven gets in the string writing of his late quartets, or=20 | Boulez with various instruments in something like 'Le Marteau' should not al= | so be=20 | achievable on the lute were the music to be written in staff notation.=20 | | As regards the fingering, about which I agree, surely one would merely need=20 | to regard the two instrument, guitar and lute, as distinct from each other a= | nd=20 | think in the appropriate fingerings, which I do anyway. So while I fully=20 | understand where, as the modern jargon would have it, you are coming from, I= | =20 | remain unconvinced. Certainly tablature, as it evidently demands examining=20 | fingering first, has certain undeniable advantages, but these would appear t= | o me at=20 | least to be outweighed by the disadvantage of not knowing what I am playing.= | =20 | | Perhaps I can illustrate what I mean as follows. When I started my PhD at=20 | Oxford, I was perfectly able to read a classical score and hear the music in= | my=20 | head as though it were a gramophone recording. My post grad work, however, w= | as=20 | on 12-tone music, and I very quickly discovered that my abilities in hearing= | =20 | that kind of music off the printed page were extremely limited. As I am not=20= | a=20 | pianist (or at least one worth the name), I was unable to play the music on=20= | the=20 | piano, and had no choice but to listen to records. So I shut myself away for= | =20 | two weeks and listened to Schoenerg's 'Erwartung' for hours at a time with t= | he=20 | score, and was soon able to relate the notes to the sounds, and from then on= | =20 | had no trouble reading atonal and 12-tone scores. Indeed, I was one of the f= | ew=20 | in the land who could, and was thus given the job of reviewing music of that= | =20 | nature for the distinguished magazine 'Music and Letters'.=20 | | As I say, I managed that in two weeks. I have been playing the lute for=20 | around a year now, and still cannot read lute music as I can other music, th= | ough of=20 | course I'm getting to recognise clich=C3=A9s, patterns, scales and the like=20= | and=20 | have an idea how they should sound. But it's not the same and, to sum up, I= | =20 | still fail to see why one shouldn't use staff notation. Kindest regards | | | Tom (Richard just happens to be my first name, but no one has ever called me= | =20 | by it) | ------------------------------------------------------ | | | | Dear Tom: | =20 | If you want to put this up on the net go for it. We will probably get the=20 | good the bad and the ugly in this debate. I also now understand your prefer= | ence=20 | for staff notation. I cannot do what you can do I cannot, except in some=20 | cases, hear the music in my head just by looking at the score, this is a gif= | t I=20 | envy. I can however sight read Italian Tablature competently enough to keep= | =20 | up, but German Tab is a mess in my mind and I have avoided it just like most= | =20 | everyone else. | =20 | You are right I am a Yank and by your standards of musicality probably a hac= | k=20 | as well but I have always enjoyed sharing my love of the Lute especially whe= | n=20 | I encounter someone who is going through something I had to struggle with. | =20 | Back to the issue of Tablature and the scribes who convert it into staff=20 | notation. Not everyone who does this activity actually play the Lute. That= | being=20 | said there is also a degree of self righteous arrogance in some corners of=20 | the discipline who disdain the Lute, making the observation that the instrum= | ent=20 | is not capable of what those of us who play it know that it is. Example: =20= | I=20 | have heard it said that the Lute and even the Guitar are not capable of=20 | playing true counterpoint but only imitating it to a certain degree in the h= | ands of=20 | a good player. IT is people like these that are often the kinds of=20 | musicologists that make the transcriptions. =20 | =20 | If as you say you can hear the music by looking at the score is it also=20 | possible for you to hear the structure of some very close counterpoint as di= | stinct=20 | voices when a scribe may have written it down as one? The best example I ca= | n=20 | find right now off the top of my head is the first variation in John Dowland= | 's=20 | Earl of Essex Galliard. I was once exposed to a staff written version of=20 | this piece, at this point it was written out as a long scale passage totally= | =20 | ignoring or missing the fact that there are two musical voices working here=20= | and=20 | not just a disjointed prolonged scale passage. It is also one of the most=20 | difficult "raps" to get right musically and technically, diabolically so. | =20 | Vance Wood. | | --
