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
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