Hello Stuart:
I'll take a stab at answering your question since the rest of the world
seems quiet at present.
Harmonizing a melody is a skill informed by training but, much more
importantly, gained through experience. Those of us trained in
composing have been put on the spot during the course of study to
create a bass line and harmonize a melody, and then to justify our
choices according to this rule or that. We've had the advantage of
studying the work of incredibly creative composers over a few hundreds
of years as an example of what is possible. We've learned how to
imagine a melody as a graphical line that has high points and low
points. We've learned how to intersect those points with conventional
sorts of signposts that provide moments of tension and release.
Now that's out of the way, you can cut to the chase and ask any
Nashville guitar player - who can play harmonic rings around anyone
today playing continuo in any baroque band - how to harmonize a
melody. He or she will tell you, just play what sounds right based on
your experience, ability and taste. Better yet, ask a guitarist who
specializes in pop music from 1930 through 1960 or so - what we now
call jazz standards. It's all about intervals, inversions and
invention, plus an insane amount of practice.
The ability to harmonize Irish tunes, Carolan's more baroque-sounding
output included, comes from experience with functional harmony as it
relates to the style of music, hearing how others do it, and applying
taste and creativity. You might take advantage of the opportunity to
do what I did for 25 years or so, and play music for country dances.
There is plenty of opportunity to experiment with tasteful
harmonization, and it helps build a good sense of pulse as well.
I can answer specific questions too if you like.
Best wishes,
Ron Andrico
www.mignarda.com
> Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 22:49:40 +0000
> To: jmpoiri...@wanadoo.fr
> CC: dwinh...@comcast.net; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
> From: s.wa...@ntlworld.com
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: Souvenir of last summer
>
> On 07/12/2010 19:18, Jean-Marie Poirier wrote:
> > Thank you Dan. Much appreciated.
> > In fact I did quite a few "arrangements" (rather harmonizations in
fact) of some Carolan's pieces for the recording we did last summer
with my ensemble. There are a few solos in the programme, that is one
of them. The cd should be released next mont hopefully...
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Jan-Marie
>
> Jean-Marie
>
> I enjoyed your arrangement/harmonisation too. I wonder if anyone
might
> have thought it was from Balcarres, even though Carolan is from a
> different country and from a different era (and yet maybe your
> arrangement/harmonisation... is more fluent?)
>
> The last time you put up some arrangements/harmonisations with your
> group I thought I'd like to have a go at something like it and I dug
out
> some old Irish melodies - I think they were from Bunting. Anyway I
had
> single lines in front of me and absolutely no idea what to do with
them
>
> Do you create a bass line and/or have harmonies in your head? I can
> understand that once you have some sketch of bass+harmony, you can
make
> it idiomatically Baroque lute music but I don't know where you get
the
> bass and harmony from!
>
>
> Stuart
>
>
> > =================================
> >
> > == En reponse au message du 07-12-2010, 20:02:29 ==
> >
> >> Beautiful! Bravo! I love Carolan's music- very well played too;
wish
> >> I had the time& brains to arrange his music for lute, one of my
old
> >> favorites. (used to play versions on lyra viol, years ago). Nice
> >> lute, too. One of my friends is getting a theorbo from Van
Edwards.
> >>
> >> Thanks, please record more of this.
> >>
> >> Dan
> >>
> >>> A little video on YT, from a concert in August at Conzac, in the
> >>> southwest of France.
> >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLB4tRue6xU
> >>> (My first vid with my then brand new 11 c. lute by David Van
Edwards).
> >>> This piece will be on our cd "Green Sleeves and Pudding-Pies",
with
> >>> music from the Celtic lands (Scotland, Ireland, Wales and
Brittany)
> >>> in the 17th and 18th centuries which should be released some time
in
> >>> January...
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> To get on or off this list see list information at
> >> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
> > ========================================
> >
> >
> >
>
>
--
