Important to remember that Iadone worked with Paul Hindemith, starting out as a bass player before taking up the lute. That alone has incalculable meaning. I never met, let alone studied with him- just listened over and over again to few lute bits of his on recordings that I could extrapolate out of the ensemble playing. As a young classical guitarist going over to the Dark Side of lute/early music (to my Segovia-bot teacher's despair) I was of course heavily influenced by Julian Bream- but never totally comfortable with his sound.
Perhaps for others as well as for me, it was the acquiring of a light weight, highly responsive, properly constructed lute (for the time, 1972 or so, by late great HUGH Gough, clavichord builder in New York City) with gut strings that impelled- in fact, forced me to finally throw classical guitar RH technique- with or w/o nails- overboard. It just could not work! Didn't matter whether or not I "wanted" to use guitar touch/technique. I had heard rumors of players in Europe actually succeeding in the strange, counter-intuitive style that seemed to mimic iconographic sources & some of the curious instructions of Besard that had puzzled me for years (in the "Varietie"- got my facsimile copy in the 1960's- it looks as old as the real thing, now). Worked at it 4 - 5 hours per day in my 6th floor walk-up apt. in the East Village of NY- modified Segovia scales as well as lute repertoire. Thumb-under, no claws allowed. Meanwhile continued to teach Classical & basic guitar to kids. Played the treble-ground lute duets with Sandy Hackney all over New York in weird venues in those days. I brought this newly learned but increasingly comfortable, efficient style of playing the Renaissance lute to the attention of the LSA at an early seminar (Barrington, R.I. Some of you old farts out there may remember) . The late Stan Buetons (may he rest in peace) was NOT amused! This way of playing the lute bothered him far more than it did any Classical Guitarist I had ever met. Coming to Ironic Full Circle- I eventually achieved fluent & comfortable playing thumb-out, much less parallel to the strings, 17th - 18th century style; but just for Baroque, archlute & ten course lutes. Not as close to the bridge as Mouton, and the pinkie comes up every time it has too, not glued down- just touching when necessary. For what it's worth, I have heard some players (dedicated guitarists who cannot be cavalier about throwing away their nails) who get very good tone on "proper" lutes with their nails, sometimes even better than some who play without. Great discussion, and I am very grateful for the explanations- so far- of Picinnini's instructions. Dan On Mar 28, 2012, at 6:14 AM, William Samson wrote: > Jim was one of these rare birds - a very fine musician AND a respected > musicologist. > > Bill > From: Edward Mast <nedma...@aol.com> > To: William Samson <willsam...@yahoo.co.uk> > Cc: Lute List <lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> > Sent: Wednesday, 28 March 2012, 13:45 > Subject: [LUTE] Re: Right hand plucking position - was Re: Quality vs > Quantity > Hi Bill, > Certainly Jim Tyler would be the most well known (at least as a > performer) of Iadone's students. But I don't know if there is any > similarity in playing styles - I haven't really heard Tyler. Chris > williams studied with Iadone and recorded a bit with the NY Pro Musica, > as did Lucy Cross. But Iadone was a unique musician; the only > comparisons that come to mind are musicians such as Art Tatum or Oscar > Peterson. He developed that kind of rhythmic excitement. I attended > some of the summer music workshops that he directed, and never had a > lute lesson or heard a lute solo. All ensemble work, singing, theory, > or lute songs, and of course faculty and student concerts - but no > solos. A different emphasis. > Best, > Ned > On Mar 28, 2012, at 3:18 AM, William Samson wrote: >> Hi Ned, >> It looks like quite an independent strand of development of lute > technique was developed by Iadone, likely starting with the same > sources as Poulton used. I think Diana Poulton and Susanne Bloch > became great friends in the '60s, but I could have my date wrong > there. Diana did attend at least one LSA get-together. >> I would guess Iadone's influence on this side of the Pond mostly came > via his student, the great Jim Tyler, who lived in London for many > years. >> I wondered if Paul O'Dette had studied lute with him, but as far as I > can see the only lutenist teacher mentioned in his resume is Eugen > Dombois - yet another strand! >> Best regards, >> Bill >> >> From: Edward Mast <[1]nedma...@aol.com> >> To: William Samson <[2]willsam...@yahoo.co.uk> >> Cc: Lute List <[3]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> >> Sent: Tuesday, 27 March 2012, 21:36 >> Subject: [LUTE] Re: Right hand plucking position - was Re: Quality vs > Quantity >> >> Fortunately, I think, Iadone had no teacher (of lute) . He was from > quite a different musical and lute 'family' than Dolmetsch and > Poulton; no relation to Dolmetsch, I would say, and only a very > distant relation to Poulton. >> >> Best, >> >> Ned >> On Mar 27, 2012, at 3:02 PM, William Samson wrote: >> >>> I couldn't agree more, Ned. But Schaeffer was the one who > successfully proselytised and tipped the balance. >>> >>> Even before Iadone there was Arnold Dolmetsch - a > flesh-plucking-pinky-on-bridger, uncontaminated because he learned > straight from the sources and didn't play classical guitar first. > Here's an image of him around 100 years ago: >>> [4]http://tinyurl.com/ccmoxu6 >>> >>> He went on to teach Diana Poulton, who went on to teach . . . > almost everybody! >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Bill >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> >> To get on or off this list see list information at >> [5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >> >> > -- > > -- > > References > > 1. mailto:nedma...@aol.com > 2. mailto:willsam...@yahoo.co.uk > 3. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu > 4. http://tinyurl.com/ccmoxu6 > 5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html >
