Thanks, Tobiah. It's something that's been on my mind ever since I heard the term 'historically informed performance'. Why doesn't anyone talk about historically informed listening? It's every bit as important as the performance but so infinitely more difficult.
"Oh that's wonderful how he brought the tenor voice into the -- hang on, did I park the car in a legal space?" Sean On Aug 4, 2014, at 5:36 PM, Tobiah wrote: That was fun Sean thanks. You have a great ability to express yourself keeping the reader int mind. Tobiah On 8/4/2014 5:11 PM, Sean Smith wrote: > > Hi Tobias, > > Despite holding it upside down, Hendrix did adhere to a lot of > standard techniques of electric guitar playing. His rendition of a > certain repurposed English glee song was more an experiment in melody > and feedback (and propriety) than technique in my opinion. Be that as > it may - let's not get into a Hendrix loop if we can help it. It's a > shame he never recorded Suzanne un jour, tho. It would have been > glorious! I'd click on that and crank it up - because I can. > > But, Tobiah, I did like this line of yours: Our ears are in tune with > a different set of practices now (at least the general public). > ...with which I must agree. > > To start at random, those of us who have been brain-trained to accept > the modern major-minor scales have been hard-wired to certain > emotional effects. It's very difficult to untrain our ears to hear > the modes as Josquin, Francesco, Dowland and all the composers who > used them. They had certain emotional flavors that evolved from Dufay > to Josquin to Lasso to the Gaultiers to Rameau, etc. Very few of us > have the chance to hear a Phrygian or Lydian composition with the > same ears as it was meant to be heard. "Oooh, that's kind of minor, > isn't it?" > > And volume - we've been trained to accept music at volumes never > conceived of before (ok, outside the rare Brumel and multi-chorus > extraveganza). Today's choices of volume, tone colors, sustain, > rhythms, 'fixing it in post' - as we commonly accept them today - > would be completely foreign to the Old Ones. Can we unlearn these > terms in order to hear what might have been imagined when they saw or > wrote music on paper then? And the power to instantly change it: > Crank those Ramones up! ... till the phone rings! > > How do we unhear what we know is possible from Beethoven, Stravinsky, > Cage and Eno to hear the cutting modern edge of Kapsberger? There > were probably those who thought it was horrible and were aghast at > what music had become in the hands of these lutenist upstarts. Now > we're amused and impressed by his daring. How do we get that back? > (Maybe a whammy bar and holding the lute upside down! Graphite!) > Should we? > > And the occasion of music: Now we hear canned symphonies and "easy > listening" in the supermarket, buildings spaces, alarm clocks and > telephones in any grade of ability, volume, tone color and expectancy > of attention - for various purposes. And we accept it! This is > normal! These, indeed, are not the ears that heard the early music we > discuss here. Can we even compare whistling L'homme armee while > taking your pig to the market to having an iPhone with 10 gigs of > mp3s in the car on the way to Costco? > > We have access to the entire corpus of surviving music for any given > period (as well as what it had been and would evolve to) to play > from. And that's a lot more than many amateurs or pros had then. Then > you would have been at the mercy of what you had in your > notebook/memory or what the present performers wanted to play. The > restriction changes how you see the opportunity to hear it. > > And those niggling performance questions: should I wear tails (19th > century)? A tie and jacket (mid-20th century)? > Birkenstocks/Tevas/barefoot (last 30 years, California centric)? or > ... You-tube? > > A lot of this, of course, is carryover from HIP discussions but we > should remember that it's not just a _performance_ question but a > listener situation. It's the ears that Tobias brings up. > > For me, the ultimate creativity is to try and hear it in the way it > was purposed. I've got plenty of modern, thank you, even before I > consider modern stringing on a better/more modern instrument. It > takes a lot more 'work' to ditch the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries > than to work the "modern" into my lute music. No, I will never be > successful in eliminating this world (and the tinnitis-tinged ears > they've created) but I finally have a somewhat historical lute, a > handful of music and some rudimentary ideas to approximate what might > have been. I don't want to back down what few ladder steps I've > ascended. > > Now imagine getting an early edition of Don Quixote and slicing open > each page as you read it. > > My two groats, three buttons and a bit of lint. > > Sean > > ps. The subject line references Peg-Heads. I respect them but prefer > well-fitted pegs and a well-lubricated nut. The latter is often the > sticking point [ahem] in ease of tuning. > > > > > On Aug 4, 2014, at 1:54 PM, Tobiah wrote: > > On 08/04/2014 01:16 PM, David van Ooijen wrote: >> Jam the gears and dope the pegheads. ;-) Re extended/modern >> techniques on early instruments: When you see the Buddha on the >> road, kill him. (But it takes Buddha to do so.) Iaw, when you want >> to make your own school of lute playing, find your own voice, write >> your own music and generally are not interested in finding out >> about how to play Francesco, Dowland or Weiss, please go ahead. > > I'm interested in how they played, but I like what Jimmy Hendrix did > with Francis Scott Key at the same time. Maybe a little light chorus > effect will spice up a Francesco recording. I don't know, but I'm > willing to try it. I'd like to study all of the old methods of > course, perhaps to better know the soul of the music. So little was > put into the written music to tell us about tempo, strictness of > tempo, dynamic range, tone color variation, and general emotional > intention, that it almost supports the idea that things are open to > interpretation even if common practice at the time had an understood > narrow accepted practice regarding these things. Our ears are in > tune with a different set of practices now (at least the general > public). Perhaps if we looked up from anthropology and viewed the > old scribbles on parchment as a worthwhile resource for music for our > time, lute music might have a greater following. When I explain > that I play lute music on the guitar, I generally have to explain > what a lute is. > > I'm at work, so I apologize for the hurried, disorganized thoughts. > > > >> But if If you want to play Weiss et al, try and figure out how >> Weiss played. If Weiss would have had a guitar/guitar-lute/used >> another technique on his B-lute, played with nails, no-pinky, above >> the rose, whatever, he would have written different music. Same >> argument with 'if Bach would have a Steinway he would have loved >> it'. Sure he would have loved it, who knows? But he certainly would >> have written different music. The instrument you have, its >> shortcomings and strong point, and the way you play it, what kind >> of tone production you favour, will influence the music you write >> for it. This is not an argument about what way is the best, but >> about what your goal in playing lute is. No argument there. David - >> loves it all > >> ******************************* David van Ooijen >> [1]davidvanooi...@gmail.com [2]www.davidvanooijen.nl >> ******************************* On 4 August 2014 20:56, Dan Winheld >> <[3]dwinh...@lmi.net> wrote: >> >> I hate them on my own instrument because it came with them & I'm >> stuck with them. Dan Larson installed them. It was a prototype; >> not a built-to-order instrument, and I was damned lucky to get it. >> Everything south of the pegbox is the best Renaissance lute I've >> ever played or owned- but those abominable, Satanic Frankenpeg >> things slip a lot & need to be jammed in with great force to hold >> (while taking care not tear off the pegbox). Since this first lute >> was built, the pegs themselves- as well as Dan's skill at >> installing- them have improved exponentially. I would not consider >> getting an Orpharion or Bandora without them, but I still wouldn't >> order them for any kind of lute. A I have a couple of the guitar >> cranky things, they do work on the lute pegs as well as on my >> guitars tuners, but it's still much, much more troublesome to >> change a string compared popping out a regular peg. Not a big deal >> except for the 1st course, even synthetics are the ones that go the >> most frequently. I may change over just that one peg to a >> traditional, real peg if I can get someone to redo the holes to >> accommodate a normal peg. Dan >> >> On 8/4/2014 11:06 AM, Tobiah wrote: >> >> On 08/04/2014 10:56 AM, Dan Winheld wrote: >> >> I only hate them on my own instrument. On all the others I've >> tried, including one of my Baroque lute student's new Larson >> Burkholtzer copy, I grudgingly admit that they are fabulous. Until >> you have to change a string. :-D >> >> Right. A I have a little crank designed to help with changing >> strings on a guitar. A You slide it over the little tuning handle >> and crank away. A It goes pretty quickly. A Are you saying you >> hate them on your own instrument and so you don't install them, or >> that you have them and hate them, but only on your instrument? >> >> On 8/4/2014 10:44 AM, Edward Martin wrote: >> >> aYes, Nancy is correct. A I do use pegheds on my 11-course baroque >> lute, and my vihuela as well. A They are absolutely marvelous, a >> new revelation in tuning. A One can tune easily, more accurately >> than before, and much quicker. A a On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:25 PM, >> Nancy Carlin <[1][4]na...@nancycarlinassociates.com> wrote: About >> the pegs - guitar tuning pegs would be so heavy that the >> instruments would be listing toward the left in our laps. >> Fortunately the Peghead people have pegs that works well on lutes, >> vihuelas and orpharions. [2][5]http://www.pegheds.com/ I have peg >> heads on one of my orpharions and love them. They look like >> regular lute pegs and the tuning is a dream. A They are especially >> nice with my wire strings - now I spend more time playing and less >> time tuning. A The tiny gears inside the peg are configured so that >> you turn the peg something like 3 times more than a wooden peg. >> There are a couple of other people with Pegheads on the luts list - >> Dan Winheld is not a fan of them, but Ed Martin has them on a >> baroque lute and he likes them. I sometimes get a sense however >> that there is some taboo in searching out new adaptations of lute >> music or lutes themselves. A I've long lamented the apparent >> resistance of using modern tuning machines on a lute for example. A >> Had they been available at the time, I'm rather certain that the >> old masters would have joyously adopted them. A I guess it's like >> asking what Bach would have done if he had a pedal. I'm more >> interested in what I will do now that I have one. Tobiah To get on >> or off this list see list information at >> [3][6]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- >> Nancy Carlin Administrator THE LUTE SOCIETY OF AMERICA >> [4][7]http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org PO Box 6499 Concord, CA >> 94524 USA [5]925 / 686-5800 [6][8]www.groundsanddivisions.info >> [7][9]www.nancycarlinassociates.com -- References 1. >> mailto:[10]na...@nancycarlinassociates.com 2. >> [11]http://www.pegheds.com/ 3. >> [12]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 4. >> [13]http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org/ 5. tel:925%20%2F%20686-5800 >> 6. [14]http://www.groundsanddivisions.info/ 7. >> [15]http://www.nancycarlinassociates.com/ >> >> -- >> >> References >> >> 1. mailto:davidvanooi...@gmail.com 2. >> http://www.davidvanooijen.nl/ 3. mailto:dwinh...@lmi.net 4. >> mailto:na...@nancycarlinassociates.com 5. http://www.pegheds.com/ >> 6. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 7. >> http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org/ 8. >> http://www.groundsanddivisions.info/ 9. >> http://www.nancycarlinassociates.com/ 10. >> mailto:na...@nancycarlinassociates.com 11. http://www.pegheds.com/ >> 12. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 13. >> http://LuteSocietyofAmerica.org/ 14. >> http://www.groundsanddivisions.info/ 15. >> http://www.nancycarlinassociates.com/ >> > > > > > --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
