Break it down into steps. Your mind is very adaptable to pattern recognition. Step 1: G clef. Practice G clef by playing renaissance part music, for example, Odhecaton. Playing this repertory will also tie in to lute music, so it is doubly helpful. You can also read through the Susato dance books, any renaissance part music will do. Josquin and Lasso are very good for style. The Morley duets make nice lute duets if you find a colleague who is interested in reading music.
Step 2: Pattern recognition in clusters, G clef and Bass clef: Lute songs. Start in on lute songs. Use the Elizabethan Songbook--readily available on eBay--because there is no tablature. You must not have the Tab on the page. Start with "Jack and Joan". There are only three or four chords in this piece, you can work through it in 20 minutes or so. The notes are grouped on the clefs, and this is what is needed to get to the next step. Also, you will pick up the voice part subconciously. Step 3: Two parts of three and four parts Using the music that you played through to learn one part, play the lowest two parts. Step 4: Chord recognition Taking both part music and simple scores, write in the chords. Step 5: Figured bass (big topic) Step 6: Larger scores Take the Handel Opera Rinaldo and fully figure the bass part. Step 7: Larger, complex scores: fully figure Rameau's Dardanus You could add an intermediate step for trio sonatas, however Opera is the fastest way to learn. If you cannot work with a teacher you can play along with a CD recording for the later steps. You can easily work through step 6 in two years, working slowly and carefully. The lute song step quickly trains your eye to accept more than one note at once--it is essential. dt At 03:52 PM 3/13/2009, you wrote: >On Thu, Mar 12, 2009, angevin...@att.net said: > > > While I'm fluent reading mensural notation for > > singing or other instruments, I've never mastered it with the lute. > >The ability to play at sight is a professional skill that some never >aquire. It is valued, and orchestral practice recognizes that by >providing pitch-transposed parts for certain instruments (eg, clarinet) so >their players dont have to do the mental twists when changing instruments. > >Frankly, I began with Guitar as so many of us do, I also sang and played >other instruments (winds), so the notation itself was easy; but reading >for guitar, especially chords, was something I just found challenging, and >that over more than a decade; not intensive effort, but enough to decide >it wasnt going to happen for me. Tablature was much easier, and I was >willing to do the transcriptions. > >Then I joined a COllegium Musicum, and discovered how hard it was to read >even single-line staff at tempo. Many dropped notes followed. Thankfully >it was enough for the director to whittle down the possibles into a >semesters program; and also to decide on orchestrations. Plenty of time >later to work out fingerings and get up to speed, time enough to get the >pieces into my head where I could then play from rote and do some artful >improv. > >You are not alone in finding this a challenge, I say pick one instrument >and concentrate on it; consider what role you want to pursue in ensemble, >then focus on that instrument for staff-notation reading skills. >-- >Dana Emery > > > > >To get on or off this list see list information at >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
