On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 05:28:26 -0800 (PST), Christopher Wilke wrote > > I agree that seicento pluckers often played "harmony below the > bass."
How would you know. > This is another way of saying that they recognized and used > chord inversion Now what? This definition is _disagrees_ with the example given. > even though musicians weren't "supposed" to be aware > of root equivalency at the time. We know how the thought, wrote and reasond about it. Of course we can just ignore all texts written by musicians for musicians and play "Captain Let's-pretend". Not my way to aproach early music. > However, we know that guitarists > certainly did with alfabeto, in which identical finger shapes > resulted in harmonic units that would change position dependent upon > the tuning used. First, as I've said before: a guitar accompaniment is not a vaild source for continuo realizations! Guitar players where actually known for there inability to play sophisticated music (and that's why everyone and their grandmother sneered at them). > Lute and theorbo players did as well. For > example, in the songs with bass lines and written theorbo parts in > Castaldi's "Capricci a due stromenti...", he often inverts chords to > make the part idiomatic to the instrument. There's a passage in "Al > mormorio" in which the bass line steps down, A-G-F#. In the written > out thoerbo part, Castaldi harmonizes the A with a root position > minor chord on the 6th course, but then unexpectedly places a root > position D major chord UNDER the F#. Tellingly, he then omits the G > because its role is to provide smooth voice leading between the A > and F#.As Castaldi has an F natural 8th course, his whole reason > for introducing the change is to accommodate some type of harmony on > the F#. He could have simply played a 6/3 chord on the F# by placing > it in a upper octave, but this would have resulted in a thinner, > less resonant sonority. It is extremely interesting to note, > therefore, that he feels free to alter the chord position where > needed to make the part more satisfying according to the resources > of the instrument. Wait, wait. Do yo uthink that the lower vocal part is also meant as a BC part? This is a vocal duo with written out theorbo accompaniment. The theorbo bass voice is an independent voice. At exactly the place you mention it's playing cute motivic games with the vocal basso (voice: a g fis g, answered by g a b c). > This sort of practice must be what Caccini > had in mind when he enigmatically stated in the preface to "Le nuove > musiche" that, "I have made use of counterpoint only so that the > parts would agree [on paper?]". He also says that an aria or solo > madrigal performed in this manner, "will delight more than one which > has all the art of counterpoint." In other words, the bass line may > function in much the same way as the chords on a jazz lead sheet: as > a generator of notes that a player may potentially re-arrange > according to dramatic context or idiomatic needs of the instrument. Sorry, but I can't even start to see how you would drwa such conclusions from Caccini's words. That text just claims that the art of the composition doesn't rely on the artfulness of the counterpoint (as did music up to then). That's what makes his music "nuove". Cheers, RalfD To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
