[LUTE] Re: The last word goes to Sting
On Sep 27, 2006, at 5:15 AM, Thomas Schall wrote: Except the quoted remark I would share everything Sting said in that interview. Possibly someone can translate it? http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/tr Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Single strung archlute !!!
Daniel Shoskes wrote: with Edin Karamazov sitting on lute and archlute. Is that why there are lots of nasty noises? Couldn't resist... To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Single strung archlute !!!
Dear Daniel and All, I think most people would agree with Bob Spencer's (1976!) article that there are two things called archlute. One is the Italian solo lute of the 17th century, typically 58/85cm with 14 courses (*all* double, according to surviving examples). The other is the continuo instrument, a converted lute with a theorbo neck and typically 67/140cm with 6 double strings on the fingerboard and 8 single basses. To me these are not interchangeable. The sound of the long single basses on the continuo lute is quite different from the shorter octaved basses on the little liuto attiorbato, and this is a serious problem when the bass and treble are widely separated and a hole appears in the middle of the music, a hole which is filled by the upper octaves of the basses on the small lute. I know Paul used to play a little lute with single basses but I don't know what the historical precedent for it is. The instruments made in Venice in the 1630s and 40s by Matteo Sellas and his workshop seem to me to epitomise this kind of lute and as far as I know they were all double strung throughout (and no overspun basses, of course). Best wishes, Martin Daniel Shoskes wrote: I am currently having an archlute built for me and at the LSA I asked Paul O'Dette for any advice on specifications, since he has an archlute by the same builder. Interestingly, POD suggested single stinging as an option. Now I don't know whether that recommendation was because of my personal circumstances (amateur player, won't travel with it so size not a big concern, used mostly for continuo and not solo (unless Sting asks me!)) or whether he considered this a reasonable option for anyone. In the end I opted for the more conventional 1x1, 2x5, 1x8 approach. DS To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Single strung archlute !!!
Could you mail me the profile you refer to? Who decided what the early music profile is? Were the lutenists of the 16th century trying to reproduce the music of the 13th? I don't think so. It seems to me they were using and modifying the instruments of the 13th century (lutes) to create something new. I'm sure there were people all along the way lamenting these developments and the loss of the 13th century profile. It seems to me every musician decides for himself/herself how much of what is known of early music performance practice to apply to the performance of this music in the 21st century. I do not wear period clothes when I perform. Am I violating the profile? I use an electronic tuner (sometimes). Am I violating the profile? I sometimes use a mic, etc., etc. I am not trying to bring the 16th or 17th century into the 21st. I think this music is timeless and has as much relevance to the 21st century as it had to the 16th. And that's what Sting's efforts prove. Sting, a thoroughly 21st century man, fell in love with the music of John Dowland and risked ridicule and rejection from his audience to express that love. That's how powerful and wonderful this music is. For me the music the thing not the historical period in which it arose. All the Best, Gary - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2006 3:32 AM Subject: [LUTE] Re: Single strung archlute !!! In einer eMail vom 26.09.2006 12:09:41 Westeurop=E4ische Normalzeit schreibt [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Early muisic movement? Is there a manifesto? Play it as you hear and feel and make it your own. I think you have proved my point that the early music movement has lost it's profile. best wishes Mark -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.405 / Virus Database: 268.12.9/457 - Release Date: 9/26/2006
[LUTE] Re: Karamazov sound
It is double strung, David. I saw it, played, and heard it. A __ From: LGS-Europe [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED], lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: Karamazov sound Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:39:48 +0200 Karamazov (note the spelling, and the Dostoyevsky allusion to help you remember it) is a strictly double-strung player. This too? http://www.alpha-prod.com/catal.asp?ct=97r=Brittenoct=23ttsc=Britten Don't get me wrong, I think it's beautiful in sound and very musically played, but is it double strung? Sounds reststroke on single strings to me. The info says Liuto Attiorbato, Nico van der Waals, 1996. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Single strung archlute !!!
Here is some more press stuff from the promotion tour for his Dowland Album. he is realy going for the whole sting saves the universe thing.. It will be a rough ride. Hold onto your wig. RT Sorry to dissapoint but I don't wear a wig, that would be more the archlute period :) best wishes Mark -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Karamazov sound
I guess we can trust Ariel on this topic Paolo It is double strung, David. I saw it, played, and heard it. A __ From: LGS-Europe [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED], lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] Re: Karamazov sound Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:39:48 +0200 Karamazov (note the spelling, and the Dostoyevsky allusion to help you remember it) is a strictly double-strung player. This too? http://www.alpha-prod.com/catal.asp?ct=97r=Brittenoct=23ttsc=Britten Don't get me wrong, I think it's beautiful in sound and very musically played, but is it double strung? Sounds reststroke on single strings to me. The info says Liuto Attiorbato, Nico van der Waals, 1996. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- Mutui a tassi scontati da 30 banche. Richiedi online e risparmia...Servizio gratuito. http://click.libero.it/mutuionline9
[LUTE] Re: the Sting-effect
Dear List: Issues of musical style aside, Dowland, as performed by Sting does indeed exist within a popular music system, by both its economic and transmission factors. As stated in the article ³Economic and Transmission Factors as Essential Elements in the Definition of Folk, Art, and Pop Music² by Gregory D. Booth and Terry Lee Kuhn (Musical Quarterly 1990, vol. 74(3): 411-438), popular music systems work within a system of indirect patronage. Art music, on the other hand, works within a system of direct patronage. When music originally created under a patronage system (much of the music before Beethoven) is later produced and disseminated under a system of indirect patronage (Any classical recording available through Amazon or Virgin records, for example), the music falls under the domain of popular music, despite its art music origins. So, David's pupil is correct to believe that this is pop music, as is Roger Norrington's recordings of Beethoven and the lot. Jorge Torres On 9/27/06 3:29 AM, LGS-Europe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Yesterday music school: guitar pupil of 14 years old. Started on the lute at the age of 7, switched to guitar some 2 years ago. Mainly interested in pop. Read the Sting-plays-lute, Sting-says-pop-is-dead and Dowland-will-save-pop stories on the net. My pupil thinks it's all very cool but considers the Dowland-by-Sting as pop. He might want to play some Dowland again because of this, perhaps pick up his lute, even? David David van Ooijen [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.davidvanooijen.nl To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: the Sting-effect
In einer eMail vom 27.09.2006 15:24:25 Westeurop=E4ische Normalzeit schreibt [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Dear List: Issues of musical style aside, Dowland, as performed by Sting does indeed exist within a popular music system, by both its economic and transmission factors. As stated in the article =B3Economic and Transmission Factors as Essential Elements in the Definition of Folk, Art, and Pop Music=B2 by Gregory D. Booth and Terry Lee Kuhn (Musical Quarterly 1990, vol. 74(3): 411-438), popular music systems work within a system of indirect patronage. Art music, on the other hand, works within a system of direct patronage. When music originally created under a patronage system (much of the music before Beethoven) is later produced and disseminated under a system of indirect patronage (Any classical recording available through Amazon or Virgin records, for example), the music falls under the domain of popular music, despite its art music origins. So, David's pupil is correct to believe that this is pop music, as is Roger Norrington's recordings of Beethoven and the lot. Jorge Torres I work part -ime in a record store and was sadly in my lunch break when the Polygram sales rep came to visit us with a copy of the new Sting CD. I would like to have heard it in all in it's sonic glory, I hope truly that it sounds much better then the amazon excerpts. But my colleague who ordered the CD from the Sales Rep asked him how many he should take. He answered don't take many it won't sell it's a classical CD. Sorry but the sales rep hadn't read that book. Reality is often much more complex and more dirty than academics view it. best wishes Mark -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Sting Interview
Hi, it seems some of you have the opinion that my views are in the direction HIP Police and that Sting is just doing his won thing without any claims to HIP. Well have a read of this and it seems he has out Hipped me... Here are some quotes from the Stern interview Hipper than HIP --- I have heard countertenors, Sopranos and Altos interpret his (Dowlands) songs, but I believe that my interpretation is much closer to to shakespeares time as them, as I sing with a normal voice. STING Everything that I sing is exactly has he wrote down with his ink STING THE NORMAL VOICE As crazy as it sounds the big step forward in the rock music was the use of microphones which means we can sing again with normal voices STING So in the end here we have it he believes that what he is doing is closer than any other singer he has ever heard. It is not just only he owm interpretation it is in his view the closest. He also has this concept of normal voice, this is quite ridiculous, every voice is a product of the culture that it lives in. Here is a question I would like to ask him. The singer who would sing Dowland with a normal voice would also have sung contrapuntal madrigals. I would like to hear 5 of these normal voices singing a 5 voice madrigal by Marenzio, live and without the overdubs he uses on his CD. This concept of a normal voice is weirder than anything the early music world has ever dreamt up. One thing which I find interesting is why sting is not interested in Broadside Ballads, which have in some ways have more in common with pop music. COMPLEX MUSIC Dowlands music is complex I believe that more complexity in rock music would do it a lot of good recently I heard Debussy's music, so refined so complex... there is a part of the brain that yearns for complex musical structures STING It all sounds a bit juvenile, a pop musician who has a bad conscience for playing pop music and now has to prove that he listens and plays complex music. What he says about rock music and complexity shows that apart from not being exactly immersed in renaissance culture he doesn't even know what is happening in the 21st century. Strange that 2 leading rock magazines have the headline Prog is the new Punk. There are a number of bands in particular The Mars Volta that are combining the energy of alternative rock and punk with the complexity and arty quality of 70's rock bands such as Yes or genesis. Funilly enough in one interview they said they loved everything Yes did until they started sounding like the Police with Owner of a lonely heart. Ironic, that the singer of the police is now saying rock is dying. BIG IN AMERICA -- Maybe some of you guys in America can tell me when the first performances of Dowland were because Sting says... In the whole of america his songs were hits, even in America Now call me an idiot Sgt Early music Police, but in Dowlands lifetime was it possible to have a hit with the population of America? Revolution - He also says that rock music in not revolutionary but that Stravinsky was. Didn't he write Fighting in the neo-classical streets? FAZIT I have no problem with sting making a I like Dowland and I will play it just how I like CD. Good luck to him. But when he starts claiming some sort of normality for his voice and proclaiming modern pop culture is over, and that he believes he has the answer to authenticity, while at the same time seeing the early music world as too interlectual (too complex ?) one has to ask if it is his own frustration. A bit like Dowland being frustrated by the younger generation ignoring him, I think one passage that will have a great deal of meaning for Sting in the spoken passages. If this is the case it would be sad if frustration were the voice that gets the most attention for early music in the mainstream press these days. I think in the end this CD is not worth all the fuss that we have and especially I have given it, but the questions it has brought up about the position of early music now, are fascinating. All the best Mark -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Sting Interview
All this invective against Sting is embassassing: it makes us in the lute world all look like idiots! Tell you what, Mark: let's imagine a mainstream music magazine article that lined up your comments alongside Sting's. Whose comments do you think would get loud, derisive laughter? And who do you think is going to have the last laugh? By singing in a normal voice Sting is saying that he does not care for the operatic catterwauling which, as you well know, Mark, is totally IN-appropriate to Dowland's lute songs. He's right, a normal voice, and not an operatically-trained one, is what is needed to sing Elizabethan lute songs and madrigals. If you don't know that, then you know nothing about 16th-century singing whatsoever, Mark. The first performance I ever heard of a Dowland lute song was in America, where his songs were, and still are, big hits on the renaissance top forty. Sorry if you're not familiar with that phrase. Obviously Sting is not referring to 16th-century America! It's not difficult to discern Sting's meaning here; it's completely clear and obvious. His remarks are not made in academically perfect English, but who cares? Dry-as-dust perfection is totally irrelevant, and worse, it's BORING. Personally, I'm sick of spending money on listening to the world's great musicians who more often than not turn out to be concert-hall hacks who spent so long in conservatory trying to be the perfect student that they can't make real music any more. I welcome someone like Sting from the other end of the spectrum. DR [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.rastallmusic.com On Sep 27, 2006, at 2:43 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi, it seems some of you have the opinion that my views are in the direction HIP Police and that Sting is just doing his won thing without any claims to HIP. Well have a read of this and it seems he has out Hipped me... Here are some quotes from the Stern interview Hipper than HIP --- I have heard countertenors, Sopranos and Altos interpret his (Dowlands) songs, but I believe that my interpretation is much closer to to shakespeares time as them, as I sing with a normal voice. STING Everything that I sing is exactly has he wrote down with his ink STING THE NORMAL VOICE As crazy as it sounds the big step forward in the rock music was the use of microphones which means we can sing again with normal voices STING So in the end here we have it he believes that what he is doing is closer than any other singer he has ever heard. It is not just only he owm interpretation it is in his view the closest. He also has this concept of normal voice, this is quite ridiculous, every voice is a product of the culture that it lives in. Here is a question I would like to ask him. The singer who would sing Dowland with a normal voice would also have sung contrapuntal madrigals. I would like to hear 5 of these normal voices singing a 5 voice madrigal by Marenzio, live and without the overdubs he uses on his CD. This concept of a normal voice is weirder than anything the early music world has ever dreamt up. One thing which I find interesting is why sting is not interested in Broadside Ballads, which have in some ways have more in common with pop music. COMPLEX MUSIC Dowlands music is complex I believe that more complexity in rock music would do it a lot of good recently I heard Debussy's music, so refined so complex... there is a part of the brain that yearns for complex musical structures STING It all sounds a bit juvenile, a pop musician who has a bad conscience for playing pop music and now has to prove that he listens and plays complex music. What he says about rock music and complexity shows that apart from not being exactly immersed in renaissance culture he doesn't even know what is happening in the 21st century. Strange that 2 leading rock magazines have the headline Prog is the new Punk. There are a number of bands in particular The Mars Volta that are combining the energy of alternative rock and punk with the complexity and arty quality of 70's rock bands such as Yes or genesis. Funilly enough in one interview they said they loved everything Yes did until they started sounding like the Police with Owner of a lonely heart. Ironic, that the singer of the police is now saying rock is dying. BIG IN AMERICA -- Maybe some of you guys in America can tell me when the first performances of Dowland were because Sting says... In the whole of america his songs were hits, even in America Now call me an idiot Sgt Early music Police, but in Dowlands lifetime was it possible to have a hit with the population of America? Revolution - He also says that rock music in not revolutionary but that Stravinsky was. Didn't
[LUTE] Re: Karamazov sound
It is double strung, David. I saw it, played, and heard it. Such a smooth and silken sound he makes on it! Well-done. How come the Dowalnds sounds so ty? Must be the MP3 then. David To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Sting Interview
David Rastall wrote: By singing in a normal voice Sting is saying that he does not care for the operatic catterwauling which, as you well know, Mark, is totally IN-appropriate to Dowland's lute songs. Caterwauling operatic countertenors? To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Sting Interview
On Sep 27, 2006, at 6:38 PM, Howard Posner wrote: David Rastall wrote: By singing in a normal voice Sting is saying that he does not care for the operatic catterwauling which, as you well know, Mark, is totally IN-appropriate to Dowland's lute songs. Caterwauling operatic countertenors? Well, I've been around counters long enough, and sung in countertenor sections, to know that they do occasionally caterwaul. For that matter, I would say that any operatic sound is inappropriate for lute songs simply because it's too much noise. DR [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.rastallmusic.com -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: Sting Interview
In einer eMail vom 27.09.2006 23:37:30 Westeurop=E4ische Normalzeit schreibt [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Tell you what, Mark: let's imagine a mainstream music magazine article that lined up your comments alongside Sting's. Whose comments do you think would get loud, derisive laughter? And who do you think is going to have the last laugh? Maybe they would have the last laugh, but keeping up appearences is not what I am interested in. Also the mainstream press is not the benchmark for my musical taste or opinion. Dry-as-dust perfection is totally-irrelevant, and worse, it's BORING. The funny thing is that is how I see Sting's rock music. So maybe that is why I am so shocked I did not expect such amateur recording by him. Don't forget the amateur comes not from me but the mainstream Amazon site. I am also the last to recommend wobbly vibrato, but you already know that if you have read my previous mails. In the end this is an internet forum and what I have said is often meant with a smile and with the spirit of exploration. But if you are worried about what the mainstream world thinks, don't worry the Sting PR machine is much louder than my little squeaking. I am sure you won't be assaulted by Sting fans on the street. Just one thing, does anyone else think that Stings comments mean that he is just doing his own thing or is he claiming to have the answer ? As I said I have an inquisite soul, sometimes moving outside of the mainstream. best wishes Mark -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
