Stewart,
Yes, Simpson is indeed the only other source (to Galilei who disparages them)
to mention any such additional intermediate fret ('tastini'). However, isn't he
saying that for an isolated chord the sound may be 'sweeter' but that in a
practical situation where one is obliged to modulate it's not really of any
help.
If they were at all common why don't we see them in iconography?
Martyn
--- On Wed, 18/6/08, Stewart McCoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: Stewart McCoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: [LUTE] Meantone
> To: "Lute Net" <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, 18 June, 2008, 10:57 PM
> Dear Jean-Marie,
>
> You are right that evidence for tastini is thin on the
> ground, so all
> the more reason not to overlook the evidence provided by
> Christopher
> Simpson. In his _Compendium_ he mentions the use of an
> extra first fret
> by some players of the viol and theorbo. I have the modern
> edition of
> the original 2nd edition of 1667, edited by Philip Lord
> (Oxford: Basil
> Blackwell, 1970). The relevant passage begins on page 51:
>
> "I do not deny but that the slitting of the keys in
> harpsichords and
> organs, as also the placing of a middle fret near the top
> or nut of a
> viol or theorbo where the space is wide, may be useful in
> some cases for
> the sweetening of such dissonances as may happen in those
> places; but I
> do not conceive that the enharmonic scale is therein
> concerned, seeing
> those dissonances are sometimes more, sometimes less, and
> seldom that
> any of them do hit precisely the quarter of a note."
>
> He goes on to say that singers, violinists, and players of
> wind
> instruments, can adjust the pitch of their notes, unlike
> players of
> keyboards and fretted instruments. The fact that fretted
> instruments
> sound out of tune when they modulate to less familiar keys,
> must surely
> mean that he has in mind unequal fretting for them. This
> passage is so
> important in relation to the present discussion, that I
> feel it is worth
> reproducing Simpson's next two paragraphs, in spite of
> their length:
>
> "Now as to my opinion concerning our common scale of
> music, taking it
> with its mixture of the chromatic, I think it lies not in
> the wit of man
> to frame a better as to all intents and purposes for
> practical music.
> And as for those little dissonances (for so I call them)
> for want of a
> better word to express them) the fault is not in the scale,
> whose office
> and design is no more than to denote the distances of the
> concords and
> discords according to the lines and spaces of which it doth
> consist, and
> to show by what degrees of tones and semitones a voice may
> rise and
> fall.
>
> For in vocal music those dissonances are not perceived,
> neither do they
> occur in instruments which have no frets as violins and
> wind instruments
> where the sound is modulated by the touch of the finger;
> but in such
> only as have fixed stops or frets, which being placed and
> fitted for the
> most usual keys in the scale, seem out of order when we
> change to keys
> less usual, and that (as I said) doth happen by reason of
> the inequality
> of tones and semitones, especially of the latter."
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Stewart.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jean-Marie Poirier [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 18 June 2008 21:58
> To: lute
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: Meantone
>
> Dear David,
>
> Thank you for your reply. Of course I agree about most of
> your
> assertions, but I am still very reluctant to adhere to the
> general
> enthusiasm regardin the so-called "tastini". As a
> matter of fact, I know
> only one source mentioning this practise : Galilei's
> Fronimo. One late
> sixteenth-century source is a rather slim piece of evidence
> to
> acknowledge this idea as an almost universal solution to MT
> tuning
> problems, including earlier and later repertoire, don't
> you think ?
> Or maybe you know of other sources describing or explaining
> clearly this
> practise. I don't. Bermudo, Gerle, Le Roy, Dowland,
> Praetorius, Mersenne
> (more or less in chronological order) do not mention this
> technique for
> tuning their lutes "properly".
> The passage of Jean Denis (a harpsichord maker in fact, who
> like all
> harpsichord specialists looked down on the lute or viol as
> an imperfect
> instrument because of their supposed tuning limitations)
> that I sent
> earlier in the day speaks of placing frets "en pied de
> mouche", i.e. in
> a broken line, ("staggered" as Mark Lindley
> translates in his book
> "Lutes, Viols and Temperaments, OCambridge UP, 1984),
> not slanted at
> all, and that is the reason why he concludes by saying that
> this can be
> done by using ivory frets, that can be cut and placed
> accordingly...
> Hardly "tastini" or very drastic ones indeed.
> It's true that this sort of fancy fretting was used for
> some citterns
> and maybe bandoras (I am not sure ) but these were
> metal-strung, not
> gut-strung, and doesn't this make a difference in terms
> of practical
> intonation ?
>
> Anyway, the bulk of historical evidence is clearly in
> favour of a more
> or less equal temperament when considering fretted
> instruments like
> lutes or viols, and the ear of the musician (not the OT-12
> or any other
> tuner ;-) usually is recommended to be given the last
> "word", which,
> after all, sounds very reasonnable to me.
>
> All the best,
>
> Jean-Marie
>
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
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