Thank you for your interest, Vance. I agree that 6 course lute
iconography show the thumb-over position, and that may well be an
indication that the thumb was still being used to stop strings, but I
suppose lutists could have continued to hold the lute in the old way,
while barring instead of using thumb-over when playing.
Actually, I am not sure that would be very easy to do. I don't have a
6 course U shaped lute, but I am wondering how easy it is to hold the
lute thumb over, and also manage to bar "chords".
I write "chords" because I wonder whether we should consider these
shapes as chords at that time.
This question also came up recently, but it might be relevant to
associate these two questions. Some lutists consider that a knowledge
of chord shapes are shown in some latish Renaissance lute manuals,
Besard for example; although no names were given to these shapes, as
would be today.
While music moves from monodic to polyphonic, at what point would
these shapes have been felt as pre-chordal shapes? Would this have
corresponded with the change from thumb over to barring, for example,
or are these issues completely separate?
Sorry, I can sort of feel there is a link between these two
questions, but I can't quite express my feeling in a sufficiently
explicit manner.
Regards
Anthony
Le 7 nov. 07 à 13:29, vance wood a écrit :
Excellent summary Anthony. The iconography does in fact portray
the thumb over on an abundance of Lutes of six courses or less.
The fact that Variety of Lute Lessons does not mention it, that I
recall, only shows that the added number of strings dictated a
change in technique. Unless you have a very large hand or a very
small Lute, thumbing over a seven course or greater Lute seems to
me to not be possible, or practical, except by someone trying to
prove a point.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Anthony Hind"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Luca Manassero" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2007 6:37 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Neck section thumb over
Oups, yet another problem, I am all thumbs it seems.
Luca and All
First, I should apologize to all left-handed players, such as
Jean- Marie, since I am going to take it for granted that all you
lefties are just mirror-image right handers, as most lutists do
when talking about left-hand and right-hand technique.
As Denys Stephens implies in his article, which I quoted
previously, much work has been done on rediscovering Renaissance
right-hand technique. I was struck by how close Jacob
Heringman's hand position is to the portrait that could be of
Francesco, on Arthur's site. However, rather less has been done
on left hand techniques. It is probable for example that where a
barring can be used to avoid thumb over, most players will do
that, even if Renaissance players might not have done so.
The reasons for this could be complex, first the neck shapes, as
you have pointed out are not always historic (guitarists have
often preferred a wider shallower neck), and do not easily allow
such a hand position. Also, Carlos Gonzales, lutemaker, suggested
to the French list that Renaissance string spacing was much
narrower than is the case at the moment.
Then most specialist Renaissance lute players, such as JH play
various lute sizes from 6c to 10c. They can maintain the same
right hand movement, with slight variation, but going even from a
6c to a 7c would radically change left hand technique. Some
lutists have even suggested that thumb-over would have stopped
with the change from 5c to 6c lutes. Personally, I think the
change would have been progressive, and probably the technique
would have coexisted with barring on 6c lutes.
A further reason could be that most players think that while the
historic right hand technique improves projection and effects the
pulse of the music, historic left hand technique would not make
all that much difference to the music produced. I think the
difference between Baroque and Renaissance right-hand technique
would have have a greater effect than any left hand shift, but I
do think that the early Renaissance left hand technique could
effect speed and pulse to a certain extent. Denys Stephens would
be able to discuss this better, as I believe he sometimes uses
both these techniques.
Many lutists are also ex-classical guitarists, and the thumb-over
is almost considered as vulgar and popular in the worse sense,
rather than somehow being seen as folk musicians having carried
on older techniques, that were not in the least scorned in the
past. Denys rather thinks that thumb-over is a "natural " way of
playing if barring does not become essential.
Barring might become essential in chordal music, but not at all
natural in a polyphonous music.
The Hungarian psycholinguist, Ivan Fonagy, developed a theory of
the Semiotics of secondary speech features, in which he claimed
that any vocal gesture that is not an essential functional part of
a language tends take on a symbolic interpretation. Thus lip-
rounding, in a language that does not use lip-rounding
significantly, is often interpreted as mouthing the shape of a
kiss (a problem for English speakers, particularly men, when
learning the French front rounded vowels), while the very wide-
open back vowels of Standard British English (as in "car") are
often shunned by French women students, who have always learnt to
speak with the most closed vowels possible (widely opening the
mouth even to laugh, can be considered unacceptable in some
cultures, where women may even cover their mouth "politely" while
laughing).
Fonagy suggested that rolling the Rs in a language that no longer
has the rolled R, could be associated with rudely poking out the
tongue, or as an expression of rustic virility, while replacing
the R with W, or dropping it completely, a sign of extreme
effectedness (Les "Incoyables" (Fr. Incroyables) of the French
Directoire, c.1800).
Thus wiggling your thumb at the audience over the top of your
lute neck for a musician for whom this is not part of his lute
culture, could also take on some similar gestural role, that
somehow is just rather difficult to come to terms with.
Finally, for this sort of left hand technique to be resurrected
we would need players to specialize in 5c and 6c music to the
exception of anything else.
Regards
Anthony
Le 7 nov. 07 à 08:42, Luca Manassero a écrit :
Dear Collective Wisdom,
thank you to absolutely everybody who contributed to this
discussion! It has been very interesting to read all opinions
and to see all those great details from Arthur's and Jean-Marie
sites.
I am now more than convinced that the lutemaker was right
follwoign Dieffopruchar's measures, but then I am also sincerely
concerned with our habit to play Renaissance lute music mostly
on a 7- or 8- course lute. The point being not only the
stringing, which tends to double courses 4-6 at the unison, but
also the hand position on a much "thinner" neck.
I believe everybody needs to meet not only a good, but a great
lutemaker to be able to discuss forms and measures of her/his
instrument.
The more time I spend on Italian Renaissance lute music, the more
I believe that that music REQUIRES a 6-course instrument.
Travelling around with an 8-course can be obviously a necessity
(Hopkinson Smith does it for instance, as far as I could see) or
an economical choice, but as far as the XVI century repertoire
is concerned all details, even the iconography we just examined,
seem to lead to the obvious decision that a 6-course instrument
is a MUST.
Many thanks again to you all,
Luca
http://liuti.manassero.net
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