Dear Ray, Thank you for the explanation. I remember with pleasure that phrase from the Wizard of Oz, now you come to mention it, having played bass guitar for the show a couple of years ago.
I think it is more than likely that your xerox is from Verchaly's edition. Page 5 would be the second page you have, which you think might be an unrelated piece. The six verses at the bottom of the page are verses 2-7. The second c# I was referring to, the one which would make the music sound like the Blues, comes six events after the difficult chord you mention: |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ | |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ | | |. |\ | |\ | _______f__f__g__f__d____b_______ _d________g________f__|_b_______ _d________g________g__|_d___c_d_ _a__a_____d___________|___d_____ ___________________d__|_________ ______________________|_b_______ a The rogue c# is the penultimate note. Playing the difficult chord is not so hard, as long as you use a suitable fingering. If you play the first chord above with 3 and 4, you can slide both fingers along the strings from the d fret to the g fret. Having established those two fingers at the g fret, you then place your 1st finger at f on the 1st course, and reach back with your 1st finger for a barré. The general principle of fingering is to put down first whichever fingers are nearest the bridge, which means the barré should ideally come last. (That rule is broken for the chord immediately in front of the bar-line, because the barré is already in place.) There will be another slide linking the two chords separated by the bar line. This time the 4th finger will slide from fret g back to fret d on the 2nd course. It is always a good idea to keep at least one left-hand finger in contact with a string. If you take all your fingers away from the strings, you lose your orientation, and are more likely to play a wrong note. Here is the same passage with the c# corrected, and with my preferred fingering: |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ | |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ |\ | | |. |\ | |\ | __________2f__f_4g_2f__d_____b_________ _4d_____4_____g_______3f__|__b_________ _3d_____3_____g_______4g__|_4d____b_4d_ __a__a________d___________|____3d______ _______________________d__|____________ __________________________|__b_________ a Letters without fingering are either open strings or notes to be stopped by the 1st finger as a barré. I have put the 3rd and 4th fingers a long way in front of the two gs, to show that those fingers must be in place before you consider playing f. To make the shift even easier, you could place your 2nd finger at c1 for the 1st chord, even though it is not needed: |\ | | _2c_ _4d_ _3d_ ___ ___ ___ a Then you would slide all three fingers along the strings ready for the next chord, before reaching back with your 1st finger for the barré. Best wishes, Stewart. -----Original Message----- From: William Brohinsky [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 07 October 2008 14:09 To: Stewart McCoy Subject: Re: [LUTE] Ma Belle si ton ame of Gilles Durant de la Bergerie Colliginous: used by the Wizard of Oz in first addressing the trembling Tin Woodsman in the 1939 movie: "Clattering collection of colliginous junk". The word (hard to find in dictionaries) is mildly redundant, meaning "loose collection, barely held together." Trenchancy: noun, from adv "Trenchant", incisive or keen. Together, 'Colliginous Trenchancy" = Collective Wisdom. Forgive me, I hang around with wordsmiths! I can't tell if this transcription is Verchaly's. I was handed a fax or xerox of it with Gille's name in square brackets to the upper left, the top of the title cut off and a second page with unreadable handwritten tab for some other piece with six more verses. There is a footnote 1, which is applied in two places, which matches your description. Dure has the editorial c#. But I can't figure out exactly where page 5 measure 3 would be in this version. Hopefully it will become clearer as my wife and I read through it a time or two before I reset it in django. I've only been through it once with the student who will sing it. French airs de cours have not been something I've studied before. Thank you for the corrections! This is very heartening, because some of these things baffled me last night, when I first saw it. One other question: I have great difficulty with f - g - g - d - - - primarily from the stretch. Is there a special position of the wrist that facilitates this that I haven't learned, having never had a lute teacher? Any advice would be appreciated. Ray To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
