On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 6:20 PM, <angevin...@att.net> wrote: > > No, I mean plain old modern staff notation. Not the esoteric, specialized > stuff of early Western music. Mensural, as is "Add mensural staff" of > Fronimo. Sorry if the use of the not-quite-exact term was confusing. I'm > just meaning to contrast tablature with staff notation. > > Suzanne >
Awww. that spoils all the fun. OK, basically, you're going to read one of two clefs with lutes in G or A (which we could call tenor lute and alto lute, if you want): treble clef and alto clef. If the treble clef is transposed-treble (i.e., has the 8 underneath the clef sign), then an interesting thing happens: A in the alto clef (second line up) is G in the transposed treble clef. So, if you learn the treble clef using the A lute, you can read the alto clef by changing lutes. You have to be aware of some niceties. Mostly, you have to be aware that, if you are playing in C in transposed treble on the G lute, all the notes on lines and spaces are natural, but if you are playing the A lute on the alto clef with music written in C, you'll be "three sharps up" on the other parts. Think of it this way: if you start with G lute on the second line of the transposed treble and play three notes, G A B, you are playing a whole tone and a whole tone up. If you start with the same note on the same line (concert A in this case) in alto clef on the A lute, you'll put your finger in the same place as you would have on the G lute in Transposed treble. The next note up, concert B (looking like an A), will be whole tone up. But the next note would be concert C natural with no sharps or flats in the signature, and you will want to play it as a concert C# because it will look to you like a B. So to adjust, you'll have to add three flats. If the key signature has sharps, each sharp nullifies a flat. If it has flats, you just add them. So if the original signature has one sharp, you'll have to play alto clef with the A lute and use a signature with two flats, but other than that trick, you can read the notes as if you were reading transposed treble on the G lute! So I'd start reading transposed treble clef on the G lute, and after I was comfortable with that, start reading alto clef parts on the A lute with the signature gimmick. Only I wouldn't. I, personally, have always found it more convenient (and less confusing) to just learn each instrument as its own entity, and then learn to read each clef on it anew. It's a facility I have, but probably isn't shared by many others (judging from the amount of work that goes into coming up with ways of circumventing it, like the above.) ray To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
