I don't know why playing from a score that has been memorized would somehow
free you from a "literal interpretaion of the law" or why reading from a
score in front of you would bind you to some kind of fundamentalist
position. If you are playing from a score that has been memorized, you are
still playing from a score. And, if you are playing from a score in front of
you, you still have to make decisions about phrasing and articulation and
dynamics and tone production. This whole discussion seems a little
nonsensical to me.
Gary Digman
----- Original Message -----
From: "bill kilpatrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Jon Murphy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Lute List" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 2:15 AM
Subject: Re: Blind players and memory
> not unrelated to jon's balanced, intelligent
> observation is the comment that those who slavishly go
> by the book ... obey a strict, literal interpretation
> of the law - or the score - exhibit a lack of
> imagination and a mind numbing fear. fear of what,
> i'm not exactly sure but it could be that individual
> expressions or creative interpretations require a
> sense of responsibility that this "fundamentalist"
> attitude can not - will not - accept.
>
> - bill
>
> --- Jon Murphy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> I can't speak of the old lutenists, but there were
>> many harpers of medieval
>> and renaissance times who were blind. Although it is
>> well past the
>> renaissance era the Belfast Harp Festival of 1792
>> listed 10 harpers (nine
>> men and one woman). Six of them are listed as blind.
>> The prolific composer
>> for the Celtic harp, Turlogh O'Carolan (1670-1738)
>> was blind, but most of
>> his pieces have been written down.
>>
>> Consider the position of the musician, before the
>> complexities of our more
>> modern orchestral compositions (and the specific
>> composed pieces of those
>> such as Weiss). Or consider the position of the
>> blind son of a decent
>> family - and what proper occupation he could choose.
>> O'Carolan was such - he
>> couldn't work the farm, nor could he work in
>> business - but he was supported
>> in an apprenticeship on the harp, and he had the
>> talent to succeed. Could
>> there not have been lutenists of the period who
>> learned the basic tunes, and
>> the harmonic structures, and who could play the
>> instrument in combination
>> with others - adding divisions and variations that
>> fit the piece? Is the
>> instrument limited only to the specific composers
>> that we seem to worship
>> (because their works are written down), or could
>> there have been a great
>> deal more?
>>
>> I speak with no knowledge (as I'm sure some of you
>> may point out), but given
>> the general history of music I think a lot of it was
>> unwritten, and often
>> improvised for the ocassion - somewhat like a modern
>> jam session (or Irish
>> "session"). When one takes any history entirely from
>> the written record one
>> can miss some nuance, and will miss the ambience of
>> much of the era.
>>
>> Try it, play a random set of notes (within a
>> framework of a scale), then
>> embellish it. You may come up with a fine piece (now
>> try to remember how you
>> did it).
>>
>> Best, Jon
>>
>>
>>
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>
> "and thus i made...a small vihuela from the shell of a creepy crawly..." -
> Don Gonzalo de Guerrero (1512), "Historias de la Conquista del Mayab" by
> Fra Joseph of San Buenaventura. go to:
> http://www.charango.cl/paginas/quieninvento.htm
>
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