Sent my reply to the wrong list - for what it is worth.
Gaspar Sanz:
For those who wish to use the guitar to play noisy music, or to
accompany the bass of a tono [a vocal work] or sonada, the guitar is
better strung with bourdons than without them
His examples of basso continuo in tablature are completely without
strumming.
There are two parts to this comment.
Bourdons are useful when
a. Playing noisy music.
b. When accomapanying a bass line.
There is nothing contradictory in what Sanz says or does. I would have
thought that was obvious.
Furthermore his examples are designed to
illustrate how a bass line can be accompanied in one particular way. They
don't rule out the possibility that the accompaniment might also be strummed
(nor does Doisi de Velasco's)
You have thin sounding passage work punctuated by thumping 5-part
chords - and no reall bass line.
The balance depends fully on the technical abilities of the player, not
on octave strings.
I have yet to hear a player who possessed this techical ability and the
player in question certainly didn't - on his CD anyway. I haven't heard
him play live but the person who started this discussion had and apparently
wasn't very impressed.
MH
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