Dear Jon, I am amazed that you "wonder whether the actual text is that important." The text is essential. Without it, you have nothing. We know a lot about lute music, because so much was carefully written down, often with detailed instructions on how to play it. It is quite wrong to suggest that "the various notations are reasonably recent, when compared with the age of music." We learn the same notation people used in the past, and their books of music survive for us to study. It is also pie in the sky to imagine that we can "know the feel of the music of the age", by ignoring the very sources which provide us with that knowledge.
I think it is important to know what your aims are. You may want to look at music from a historical perspective, in which case you will want to learn as much as possible about the music, and to be able to play it exactly how it is notated in the source. On the other hand, you may want to adapt the music for your own needs, and historical accuracy may not be important at all. Both approaches have their merits. Yet even if historical accuracy is not important to you, I still think it is wise to learn as much as you can first, before trying to do your own thing. For example, when I tried learning the banjo by listening to records, I would play the notes g', e', d' like this: ----2---- -------3- --------- --------- -0------- T M I Fortunately a friend noticed me struggling to play the notes with a reverse roll (T M I), and advised playing the same three notes like this instead: -------0- ----5---- --------- --------- -0------- T I M I would never have thought of playing them that way, but using a forward roll (T I M) was so much easier. In other words, relying on what I could pick up on my own by listening to a record, would have caused me no end of problems. I was turning a simple piece of music into a difficult one. After studying the instrument for some time, I was eventually able to improvise, to do my own thing, to choose how to play notes in a way which suited me best, but all that had to come later on. It doesn't matter if the music you want to play is by John Dowland or Earl Scruggs. You first need to learn what the experts did, before you try doing it yourself. Much may be learned, of course, by listening to recordings, but if music is readily available in written form, it would be foolhardy to ignore it. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Murphy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "bill kilpatrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, December 11, 2004 11:10 AM Subject: Re: Question about lute courses/strings > Bill, > A comment on your message, without seeing the start. Stewart has pointed out > the difference between learning from slowed down sound and the written music > he didn't have. But I wonder whether the actual text is that important. We > all know that the various notations are reasonably recent, when compared > with the age of music. So isn't it important to know the feel of the music > of the age rather than the specific notes and style of another perfomer (who > may be playing just note rather than music). I'm yet incompetant on the > lute, but many of the pieces I've down loaded as text I feel I play > properly, if a bit slowly and with mistakes. Given the form of the notation > I doubt that the rythmes were strictly kept, the dance and the song probably > dictated the sound. > > One can take a single melody line and make the sound of an age by playing it > well, or one can play every not of a transciption and make a series of > notes. Of course it is best if one has the skills to make the polyphony > work, but better a well played melody than a mish-mosh of notes. > Best, Jon To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
