from:"R. Mattes"

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 09:52:18 + (GMT), Martyn Hodgson wrote



Thank's for this.

 I can't actually see that inverted  7 6 sequences dictate a non
 re-entrant tuning - the low tessitura one sometimes has is just part
 and parcel of the instrument. And I agree with the anonymous author of
 the Facebook article you mention who wote:

That would be Matthew Jones.

 ' in the second section of the example bars 3 and 4 show
 this. The 7 6 chain shown gets very low and dark, the 7 6 from 2nd to
 4th course would be v odd with a higher octave 2nd course.

Yes, that particular meassure would be odd. But that oddness _does_
exist in Bartolotti's solo music (as M. Jones points out in another
post). And this is an oddness that could easily be avoided by playing
the e on the fifth string, second fret. So this measure clearly is an
argument against the example being written for an non-reentrant
instrument. But the fist few are odd (no, they are actually gibberish).
And since there are examples for the first kind of oddness (i.e.
resolving to the wrong octave) I have yet to find one of the second kind
(i.e. inverting 73-63 to 24-35)

 [M. Jones continues ...]
 I  personally accept harmony below the bass with 2 reentrant strings
 as a pleasant sonority. the bass played with the thumb stretched out
 and the fingers v close to the bridge ameliorates the effect to me.


There is no such thing as harmony below bass. Please, get all out of
your Berkeley Jazz shoes, now. If you play a realization like the given
Bartolotti example on a reentrant instrument you simply create a new
bass voice (and a pretty bad on, in this case). The continuo bass is the
lowest voice - that's not a concept I invented, it's at the core of
what Banchieri calls 'basso seguente' (and probably one of the main
techniques that triggered the development of B.C. - at some point
organists realized that a basso sequente together with some hints (read:
numbers) would be enough to sketch down a composition, nad way easier to
produce than the intabulations they had to prepare to be able to play
colla parte).

[now Martin:]
 Further, when realising accompaniments I do think there's a modern
 tendency to be overly concerned about considerations of part writing
 and of ensuring a particular line doesn't jump the octave.

Is there? More than back then? The continuo methods I've read so far
(quite some, if I might say) that deal with dissonances at all (i.e.
those that go beyond the three sheet Idiot's guide to B.C.) all take
great care to keep the parts in order. Just as an example: look at
Muffat's treaties (IMHO one of the best to start with for an aspiring
lute player), when he describes chains of parallel 6th chords (trivial
if you play three voices - nasty if you want four) he takes great care
that the fourth voice in his four voice example is correct.
Actually, even the Bartolotti examples (sans the odd measures) is a
fine example of partwriting. And just to mention it: full playing
(i.e. more than four voices) is always a correct core plus some notes
doubled.

 A concern
 not always shared by early players: some of the few intabulated
 realisations  we have don't often seem too bothered about jumping
 around or being focused on maintaining the integrity of an upper
 line. For example passages in Kapsberger's 1612 'Libro Primo di
 Arie.'    As I see it, the theorbo is principally an instrument
 for producing a bass with, where possible, straightforward harmony to
 accompany others. A good example of this is Corradi's 1616 'Le
 Stravagaze' which generally exhibits simple block chords played
 with the bass with little or no independent contrapuntal lines.  

I am more than a little bit reluctant to compare accompainments for
Villanella type music with Bartolotti's refined continuo realizations. I
think we desperately need to try distinguish between different styles
(as the old ones did). Villanella style is know for it's (purpously!)
rustic counterpoint. The only dissonances in Corradi are the cadencial
4th and the passing 7th on the antepenultima. And those never violate
counterpoint.

BTW, I've probably said It before - I think it's very problematic to
simply read such sources as Kapsberger and Corradi as BC realizations.
There's a big chance that they where meant as _alternative_ ways to
accompain the music. Remember: While every BC is an accompainment, not
every accompainment is a BC.

 'Going up the neck' is necessary if one has a re-entrant tuning
 (single or double) and a high bass note which you wish to play at the
 notated octave together with some harmony (altho of course there's no
 prohibition on taking notes/sequences of notes an octave down).  For
 example, with a double re-entrant instrument in nominal A tuning: a d
 just above the bass clef must be taken on the fourth course (rather
 than the third) if one wishes to play some harmony above it (say a f#
 on the third or on the first course). With non re-entrant one could

[LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise

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



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[LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 07:41:43 -0800 (PST), Christopher Wilke wrote
 Ralf,

 On Tue, 2/25/14, R. Mattes r...@mh-freiburg.de wrote:

  There is no such thing as harmony below bass. Please, get
  all out of your Berkeley Jazz shoes, now.

 No, everyone keep your shoes on, please! In fact, 17th century
 players frequently utilized the option to play harmony below the
 bass by recognizing chord roots and inverting them as was
 practical. There are even examples of written out lute realizations
 in which every single chord has been voiced in root position(!),

But that is not harmony below the bass at all. That's just
substituting the bass note.

 which clearly shows that they understood the theoretical principles
 at work, even if they lacked a terminology to discuss them in
 today's lingo (i.e. Berkeley Jazz shoes). According to what we
 know of 17th century theory, players couldn't do this, but, well,
  um, they did. I noted one such instance from Castaldi in my last
 post.

Yes, but there is no mystery at all in that example - and no need to
refer to modern (read: Rameauistic) terminology. At that spot Castaldi
just susbstitutes a Clausula Cantizans with a *Clausula
Fundamentalis. As you see, they even had a name for it (and allready
Vincentino 1555 mentions the possibility to substitute one with
another). Any musician with only moderate training would know by heart
that a cantizans fa-mi-fa would go together with a fundamentalis
la-re-sol or ut-re-sol and that would fit to a tenorizans mi-re-ut or
fa-re-ut and fa-fa-ut and which of these patterns can be (re-)combined.

 I discuss many more in far greater depth in an article I wrote
 for the LSA which has very frustratingly been in publishing limbo
 for several years.

Too bad - I'd love to read it at some point. Can't you publish it
somewhere else (or publish it online)? I hate when valuable information
gets lost ...

 Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: making sure your message looks as you intended it -

On Tue, 25 Feb 2014 14:18:09 -0500 (EST), Wayne Cripps wrote
 Hi lute people -

   I recommend that when you compose a message to send to the
 lute list that you set the format to plain and avoid rich
 text and HTML.  This will keep you from using formatting
 options that won't get past the mail list robot un-mangled.

Thanks for pointing that out.

   The lute list robot converts every message to plain text because
 there was a time, not long ago in lute builders time, when many
 of the readers could not interpret the fancier HTML coding that
 would appear in their mailbox, and they complained loudly about
 it.

Unfortunately the bot _doesn't_ convert HTML messages.

 If it seems clear that now nobody is using a mail reader that
 doesn't understand HTML, I could start sending the mail on as
 HTML, which would allow people to use various fonts and colors
 in their messages.  This would not be trivial for me to do, and
 some small number of messages would still come through garbled,
 but it is a possibility, if everyone on the list wanted things
 to work that way.  I know a few people would be very excited
 to see HTML messages passed on in their original form, but I need
 to feel that everyone would prefer it.  So let me know, one way or
 the other.

Well, I myself would be bothered by HTML messages. Those messages are
mostly unreadable on some of my (not-so) smartphones (ridiculous long
lines that will refuse to reformat since the senders HTML mail editor
considers line length to be such an important part of the message that
it puts in hard line breaks ...).

But even more important: I disable HTML mode in all my mail software
since enabling HTML does not only open your mail up to all sorts of
nasty, rude, slimy usertracking (looking into your direction, LSA 8-)
but often also enables JavaScript as well (most Android mail readers)
and that's a _real_ security issue (note: I'm not implying that any lute
list member would actually send malicious code on purpose. But an
inocent cross-site script and your browser/mail client will happily
infect all your outgoing mail).

Please, no HTML.

 Cheers, RalfD

   Wayne

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--
R. Mattes -
Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de

[LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise

2014-02-24 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 24 Feb 2014 08:29:00 + (GMT), Martyn Hodgson wrote
I don't have this work either - I think...

@Monica: are you by any chance refering to
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.441553512620558.1073741827.253474818095096type=1
(Bartolotti continuo and solo similarities - from
https://www.facebook.com/Tiorba)?

BTW, there's an image of page 52. or me this example works _much_
better in a non-reentrant tuning (N.B: Ms. one has an error: the
second chor should read dfbflat). Why would Bartolotti start thist
example with horribly wrong conterpoint? In reentrant tuning the 7-6
would transmogrify into a perfect fifth (f c) resolving to a forth
(f bflat) [1]. To be followed by a chain of 2nd chords ... Yes, we all
know that a 7-6 chain can be inverted (double counterpoint) into a 2-3
chain but we also know this doesn't work with a third voice running a
third above the bass (since the fith between this voice and the 7th
would invert into a (false/wrong) forth. We know our counterpoint -
Bartolotti didn't? This all does not happen with a non-reentrant
tuning. The one problematic spot for a non-reentrant tuning is Ms.13 -
here the 7th (e natural, second string) would resolve into a 6th (d,
fifth string), a problem easily solveable by playing the resolution on
the third string. That spot makes much more sense in an reentrant
tuning (moving from an open string g in ms. 10 to same note fretted on
the second string, third fret ms. 11).

And I'm not quite sure what you mean in the page 6-7 example. But
doesn't the use of higher positions suggest a re-entrant (single
or double) tuning rather than the reverse, since it still allows
for some harmony to be played above the bass line?

No. Once you are an the highest string (string 3 for an reentrant
tuning) the strings above will actually be below. That's exactly
what would happen on page 52. Going up the neck is as common on a
archlute as it is on a theorbo.

Cheers, RalfD

[1] Yeah, that's why the called him ... without doubt the most
skillful upon the theorbo.

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[LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise

2014-02-24 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 24 Feb 2014 18:23:03 +0100, R. Mattes wrote


I hate to follow up my own posts.

 (f bflat) [1]. To be followed by a chain of 2nd chords ... Yes, we
 all know that a 7-6 chain can be inverted (double counterpoint) into
 a 2-3 chain but we also know this doesn't work with a third voice
 running a third above the bass (since the fith between this voice
 and the 7th would invert into a (false/wrong) forth.

Another consideration speaking against this wrong counterpoint: in
this type of 7-6 chain the top/solo voice often sings/plays the
dissonance. While doubling the top voice seems to be perfectly fine
for most 17th century BC treaties, the inverted version would put the
dissonance into the bass and we would end up with parallel octaves
between soloist and bass voice - which is definitely _not_ fine at
all.

Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: Bartolotti's continuo treatise

2014-02-23 Thread R. Mattes

On Sun, 23 Feb 2014 16:00:22 -, Monica Hall wrote
 Does anyone have a copy of Bartolotti's continuo treatise - Table
 pour apprendre a toucher le theorbe sur la basse continuo (1669).  I
 haven't been able to trace one online.

I don't think that treaties is online - not everything is ;-) But it's
published in the wounderfull Méthodes  Traités - Basse Continue
series, volume 1 by edition Fuseau which any self-respecting library
should hold.

 Someone queried with me this recent suggestion that the exercises
 are not intended for a theorbo with a double re-entrant tuning.  He
 gave me two specific examples ...

 Page 6-7 shows him playing the the dessus going up the neck and
 shifting to the 5th fret position, which would be very unnecessary
 having a no-reentrant tuning.

Why? If you play continuo you need at least two notes above the base,
so you need to stay on the third string. This is the same playing the
archlute. Actually, on a reentrant theorbo I'd stay on the forth
string even for basetti basses to keep the possibility to play a third
above the bass (or, in rare cases, to play he bass on the first string
and the third on the third string).

 Page 52 shows Bartolotti changing the
 voice leading down an octave, and than re-striking the dissonance
 and resolution in the new lower octave, which only makes sense on a
 double-reentrant instrument.

I need to check this with my copy.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Theorbo set up

2014-02-21 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 10:43:23 +0800, Shaun Ng wrote
 I use 6+8. To me it makes more sense to have F and G as diapasons
 because they are used more often.

Sorry, but I don't get this. What has the statistical distribution
of F (vs. F#) and G (vs. G#) to do with the question of whether
F (and maybe G) are on the the short or long jeux?

 It is probably worth mentioning that Campion, a late baroque source,
 gives us the historical solution for the lack of a G#: play it up
 the octave. He doesn't prefer this to the 'Maltot style' though. But,
  as far as I know, 6+8 was most commonly used as suggested by other
 (earlier) French treatises and the solo repertoire.

Which other treaty talks about such things (i.e. 6+8 vs. 7+7 vs. 8+6)?
And how would you deduce from a solo piece whether the 7th string is still
on the fingerboard?

 One could argue that Maltot's tuning is the result of the change of
 musical style that France underwent because of the rise of the
 Italian style in France. This is seen in the French cantatas of his
 colleagues, such as Clerambault, Bernier, which Campion refers to in
 his Addition.

I fail to see what specific stylistic changes would require the
possibility to finger G# and F#. Probably the most common reason for
needing both the fa and the mi variant of a note is when that note the
forth of the tone - you need the mi (raised) version to modulate [1]
to the fifth of the tone by means of a 65 chord on the mi and you need
the fa (low) version for the expected 42 chord on the forth position.

To me it seems more likely that by the time of Malot (which must be
 _before_ 1730!) overspun strings made it possible to have a
 convincing G string on the fingerboard.


 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

[1] in the modern meaning.



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[LUTE] Re: Baroque Lute Fingering (Vallet)

2014-02-16 Thread R. Mattes

On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 12:15:23 +0100, adS wrote
 Dear lute-netters,

 has anybody out there read this article?

Only after you posted this link - thanks for doing so.

 http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1112context=ppr

 I wonder what others think about it.

Hmm - in what context was this published? I'd hate to be
to critical with some poor student's homework.

There are quite a lot of rather problematic statements in this article
and the kind of colloquial writing style introduces quite some
imprecision. I.E. Although not as commonly studied by scholars today
as are fingerings in [...] violin music  Really? Somehow I seem
to have missed the abundance of studies on 17th century violin
fingerings.

After reading twice through the article the final conclusion it's
still not obvious to me. That early baroque articulation is short?
Isn't that pretty much well-established from keyboard fingerings already?

Looking at the author's example I cannot but wonder whether she plays
lute herself. Using the same finger for two consecutive notes does
produce a (slight) separation on keyboard instruments, but on lutes
this might be rendered as a glide which can produce a rather smooth
connection between the two notes. A lot of the examples assume that
such glides are breaks. N.B.: I'm not claiming that theses places
where played legato, I just think that there is no technical
reason/evidence for it. Would any lute player agree that the half-tone
downward glide in example Seven, mss. 21-22 create a noticeable
separation between c and b? Playing through the example even that
change from mss. 25-26 (third finger on forth fret, fifth string ,
than forth finger on third fret, second string) that looks so much
like a break on paper sound extremely smooth - the right hand thumb
just passes through from the fifth to the _open_ fourth string while
the _open_ first string rings on. I think it would be actually rather
technically demanding to play an audible break at that place (and it
would involve _right_ hand articulation).

Example Eight raises another important question: to use fingering as an
indication for a conscious choice of articulation the author would need to
show that Vallet did choose the most fitting fingering from a selection of
possible fingerings. But how else would you finger the last chord of
mss. 25? As for the cadencial ornament in mss. 26 - I'd probably start that
trill on the f, using the 4. finger already on that note, so there would be
plenty of time to bring the 2. finger up on the e. (BTW: the fact that the
author writes about a trill on e-flat seems to be another strong indication
that the study was not created in close proximity to a lute-like instrument :-)

Example Ten: again - the claimed break in the bass voice would happen
on a keyboard, but on a lute those rising fourths will sound perfectly legato
(unless the performer _chooses_ to not play them legato!) and the vertical
lines in the tablature even require a rather legato playing. Actually, any
other fingering would create a rather annoying ringing forth in the bass.

The conclusion (read: the last short paragraph of the article):
 Vallet's system of interpretive fingerings is remarkably simple,
 while being clear and precise If there is such a system, the author
 has taken great care to hide it from us - which is too bad since we
 can't verify that it is simple, clear and precise. The examples provide
 look more like a catch-of-the-day collection. I would have expected
 alternative fingerings for all these examples that would haven shown that
 Vallet actually selected the one that fit best into his system.

Some things I think should have been mentioned but haven't: I find
example Four rather interesting: I'd expect a break after the dotted
c' in mss. 51, i.e. short c' with 4, than bflat with 4, than a with 2
finger (read: I'd expect the dotted note to be played short while
Vallet's choice of fingering makes it possible to play the dotted note
full length. The shift the author marks can actually be played rather
smooth.

Example Five: what about the first chord in this example? How would you
play the ornament on the high b flat? And doesn't the tablature require
the barre to be held until the end of the bar? Given the ornament on
a flat mss. 30, first beat (pull from above, b flat with 4th finger) that
break can actually be played rather smooth.

N.B: to be said again - I'm a big fan of short notes, I really think that
a lot of lute music is played way to legato, ignoring pretty much all the
historic evidence (but that's nothing new to the lute world, isn't it? :-)
I just think that the methodological approach of this article is false. It
starts with the premise that Vallet choose a bondage-and-discipline approach:
i.e. I'll use this fingering so you _have_ to articulate short [1].
But that's an approach only needed when players would play legato otherwise.
If we assume that articulation was more or less the same

[LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1

2014-02-03 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:42:16 -0500, Roman Turovsky wrote
 No one knows.
 The only thing known is that the combination of consonants TRB
 is absent in all European languages, except for the Slavic ones.

Where did you get this from? Just because I was drinking one while
your mail came in: Teber (also: Träber, Trester) [1]. An acloholic beverage
distilled from the leftover grapes after the juces have been pressed
out (it's more famous under it's italian name: Grappa).

Then I was thinking that you probably meant the combination of
Tsome vowel(s)RB - but even for that  there is lat. turbare (I guess
you won't accept my neighbours Audi-Turbo ... :-)

Cheers, Ralf Mattes

[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treber

 In Ukrainian TORBA means a sack, and TORBYNA means, well, a smaller sack.
 RT



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[LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1

 and possibly historical instrument designs are
 resurfacing, owing to these same market forces. dt  
__
  From: Martyn Hodgson [1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
  To: David Tayler [2]vidan...@sbcglobal.net; lute
[3]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2014 1:39 AM
  Subject: Re: [LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1
  You write that
'The terms arciliuto and tiorba are high-degree
interchangeable.'
What's your evidence for this? The two instruments were tuned
 in different ways: theorboes having  re-entrant tuning - single
  re-entrant if small enough or double reentrant if large;
 whereas archlutes retained the highest course at the upper
 octave. Or are you suggesting the occasional possibility that a
 writer may   have used the word archlute in a generic sense:
 implying any lute   instrument with extended basses? MH
  __
From: David Tayler [4]vidan...@sbcglobal.net To: lute
[5]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Friday, 24 January 2014, 19:14
  Subject: [LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1
The terms arciliuto and tiorba are high-degree interchangeable.
That is, they are not low or medium, and they are also not
completely
interchangeable (since they are sometimes used together). One
 could   argue that they are medium instead of high, but it
 would be   difficult to show this based on the sources.
  The correlation is the inverse of the degree, so in other words it
  is   possible that the difference in terms may mean something,
  but of   a   low order of probability.   Because of the
 degree order, it isn't really possible to assign   uses in
 a general way, only in specific cases. For every case, there will
  be an   exception. There are certainly some interesting
 specific cases. So   either what we call the theorbo or the
 archlute could be used to play   just the single notes of a
 bass part, or chords, or continuo, or   any of   a million
 shades in between, as well as the instruments of the lute
  family that we do not normally include in our modern designation of
   archlute and theorbo--that is, instruments without modern labels.
However, in these specific cases, like obbligato parts, there
 is no   reason to believe that there was one type of archlute,
 so then you get   into label variations. The variations are
 also the inverse of   correlation--that is, to make a conclusion
 about how an instrument was   used, you would have to
 reconcile the variants.   There are a few pieces where you can
 make a correlation based on range,   but these would have to
 be fully written out obbligato parts, not bass   parts, and
 even these could well be played on other instruments.   If you
 look at list label-sets, like encyclopedias or books of
  measurements, each instrument is assigned a label; however, there
 is no   other way to make a list, so there is no reason to
 believe that the   label applied reflected common practice-
 -which explains why the   different label-lists use different
 labels. You can't have a list   composed of duplicates. This
 explains why the lists exist, and also   explains why the lists
 are different.   20th and 21st century mindsets require a label
 for every   instrument;   however, the renaissance and baroque
 mindsets required a small   number   of labels for a large
 number of instruments.   By applying the small number of labels
 categorically, the effect is   simply to exclude the larger
 number of instruments from the general   discussion. For example
 the chitarrone has disappeared, because its   label was changed.
 Same is true for the viola.   To exist in the renaissance and
 baroque mindset, one must learn to   think in the
 instrumentarium of a small number of terms and a large   number
 of instruments. And within these terms, family has priority, So
  lute or flute or viola first refers to a family of
  instruments,   and terms like archlute have a familial
 tendency. Erase that, and   the   interconnections disappear.
That's why we have fewer lute types today than in the past, as
 well as   fewer instrument types, with the exception of
 sideways marketing,   where an instrument is rediscovered or
 elevated for marketing purposes   in a crowded subfield.
 Marketing definitely creates more labels.   dt

__
From: Gary R. Boye [1][6]boy...@appstate.edu
To: jean-michel Catherinot [2][7]jeanmichel.catheri...@yahoo.com;
  Martyn
Hodgson [3][8]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk; R. Mattes
  [4][9]r

[LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1

On Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:56:46 +0100, Markus Lutz wrote
 This quote is part of a letter, and I think most letters show a very
 personal point of view.

Yes, this is important to point out.

 Also Weiss clearly states that he gives his opinion.
 He doesn't want to be descriptive or prescriptive at all beyond the
 fact that he describes his playing and opinion on the lute!

 BTW - this letter is part of the controversy between Mattheson and
 Baron, and Mattheson gives this excerpt in his Lautenmemorial,
 which was a sort of swan song of the lute.

 Weiss obviously - in this letter and in composing - prefered the
 13course baroque lute (1723). It is his opinion, that this
 instrument fits best galant music.

And this is probably the most important fact to keep in mind:
Weiss writes about the problems of using the traditional instruments
for galant style (and let's keep in mind: the galant style doesn't
replace the older style - it coexists with it for quite some time).
It might be interesting to study _why_ theorbo/archlute aren't capable
to play galant music (I have my theories but the unfortunately margins of
this email are too small to elaborate ...;-)

 He also states that he plays a
 sort of adjusted lute instrument in orchestra and church. Most
 probably this was a d minor German theorbo, without the highest
 string (but this is an assumption only, that is strengthened by
 Baron).

And this might be his personal prefence an instrumentalist being
very eloquent on the baroque lute.

 He criticises that theorbos often - he even says ordinarily -
  are played with nails and therefore have a coarse, harsh sound
 (also primarily his opinion!).

Hmm, that's not what he writes - he writes that it sounds harch/coarse
in close proximity. The same can be said of a tuba ;-)

 The most interesting facts in this letter are (in my humble opinion):
 - Weiss had an adjusted lute for orchestra and church
 - the fact, that theorbos and archiluths also had been played with
 nails
 (if this was done ordinaryly, as Weiss says, I don't want to judge,
  but it seems to have been happening quite more often than we think
 today)

Why would that be interesting? Doesn't he state what a lot of sources
show?

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1

On Tue, 28 Jan 2014 11:35:20 + (GMT), Martyn Hodgson wrote

 Have a look at:

This is either a non-answer (how utterly Zen) or pretty close to an
(ad hominem) insult.

 a) the early sources (Bob Spencer's famous paper still represents a good
summary http://www.vanedwards.co.uk/spencer/html/index.html );

Do you really imply that I haven't read this article? This article was
valuable at it's time but of course shows also the goals of historical
organology at that time, i.e. to classify and to create a (hopefully)
one-to-one mapping between terminology and morphology of instruments.
But, o.k., since you threw it in: just out of curiosity, did you
recently read that article? Let's start with page 408:

Defining the differences between the chitarrone, theorbo and archlute
 has always been difficult. Mersenne (1637) was confused, and few
 readers of his book on instruments seem to have noticed that he
 renamed his theorbe, arciliuto.

And, shortly after that on the same page, about the chitarrone:

Note that he says nothing about long un-stopped bass strings, which
 Piccinini says he invented for the arciliuto in 1594. I suggest that
 before 1594 the chitarrone may have been exactly what Piccinini says:
 bass lutes restrung at higher pitch with the top two courses lowered
 an octave, but without very long contrabassi.

So, here we see that in the early 17 century, features 1  2 seem to
define a chitarrone (later to be called tiorba). Presence of feature 4
defines the archlute. As we already see, these feature sets are
disjunct, so an instrument with all three features might be given both
names, depending on who refered to it and where. This is not at all
problematic (at least for the speaker back then) as long as no
conflict arises. So, in France in the mid of the 17th century a
long-necked lute in vielle tone was called theorbe, the short-necked
instrument being called lute. Only when instruments in the new
(read: reentrant) tuning became more prominent (because of the italian
players? Bartolotti?) there was a need for terminological adaptions.

Reading Spencer's comments on Praetorius: the Testudo Theorbata
(pressumably a liuto attiorbato, an instrument Piccinini prefers to
call archiliuto) might easily be called a theorba by a german speaker ...


 b) tablatures identified for the two instruments and the tuning required


So why don't you comment on the tow tablature examples I explicitly mentioned?

Also: by looking at tablatures we might be looking at the wrong sources. Most
of the music pulished explicitly for tiorba is published in common music 
notation,
_not_ in tablature (maybe because there was no common tuning/pitch level a
publisher
could expect. For this see also the story of the Huygens music print).

Regarding the qualtiy of the Spencer article: read the Weiss letter and read
Spencer's
interpretation. I also think that he fell into the old Germany trapp: you
just can't
talk about theorbo in Germany. You need to at least distingush between the
austrian
parts (where the theorbo most likely was introduced early on by the italian
musicians
in the royal chapel and not ... from France, along with the French lute.).

Cheers, Ralf Mattes

 MH




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[LUTE] Re: archlute/theorbo in Corelli's Op. 1

On Tue, 28 Jan 2014 17:10:18 + (GMT), Martyn Hodgson wrote


 I'm sorry you find Bob Spencer's paper so very poor.

No need to be sorry, esp. since I don't find Spencer's paper very poor
(where did I write
that?). I only tied to say that it a) shows it's age b) seems to be an
overview-type of
publication and hence tends to over-generalize c) seems to often prove my
points more than yours.

 My point about the tablatures (rather than staff notation) is that
 it is with these that we find an unequivocal indication of the
 tuning required for a particular named instrument.

And my point is that a lot of the tablatures I kow of and played
are much less unequivocal in indicating the required tuning - just
as an example there seem to be some rather equivocal places in the
Pittoni on my music stand ...

 I'm not aware of
 any tablature sources which require, for example, a re-entrant
 tuning for an archlute (or various cognates). Do you?

No, but there are hardly any archlute tablatures from the Corelli
time I know of. Please provide some - I'm really interested in this
topic.
And of course there is the case of inverse reentrantness (read:
excessive use of octave stringing) in the recently mentioned
Basso Continuo/Partimento manuscipt from Rome.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Was archlute/theorbo- Historic vs. Modern gut?

On Tue, 28 Jan 2014 09:36:47 -0800, Dan Winheld wrote
 Chris-

 Modern gut,since its characteristics are quiet different from
 historical gut, does not provide an empirically reliable metric to
 determine pitch or tuning based upon string length.

 This bit I find very interesting. Except for the vexed problem of
 gut bass strings, with their how-low-can-you-go variables,  I had
 been led to believe (by modern gut string specialists- Mimmo Peruffo
 et al) that at least in terms of strength/breaking point, that Gut
 is gut and the inherent strength is determined at the cellular
 level; and by just employing the basic processing procedures for a
 low-twist 1st course string one will find out almost the exact, real
 world- both present-day and historic- absolute high pitch limit of
 an instrument based on string length.

 If this is something that is still in dispute I'd love to know more-
 as I am always second-guessing my ideal pitch levels anyway.

I can't speak for Chris, but for me the breaking index is much less
important than the strings flexibility. If you take a close look at
old paintings, the strings at the pegbox look way more flexible
(almost string-like) then any modern gut I have seen. Also, they
smoothness of the knots at the bridge (esp. those thick bass strings)
is very different from today's gut.

When working on a historic right hand possition (meaning: little
finger behind or on top of the bridge) it feels as if the string at
this point is too stiff/inflexible. A tiny shift toward the rose makes
playing convincing. So - a slighly more flexible gut would be
desirable.

 Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: Manuscript ID confusion

2014-01-27 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 27 Jan 2014 16:42:57 -0500 (EST), theoj89294 wrote
 I am not a musicologist, so please forgive my ignorance.

Don't worry!

 But I am
 confused, sometimes manuscripts are identified by notations such as,
 e.g. RM 4137 olim Mf 2004 and sometimes as, e.g. A-Wn MusHS
 17706 - which makes a lot more sense to me, because I realize this
 gives the country, and library location.

The first one looks like a RISM-Entry. This international institution
tries to catalog sources (and publish printed catalogs).
As you observed the first part denotes the country, the second part
a library (the library sigla are given by the national institution)
and the last part denotes the source itself.
But no all manuscipts are cataloged by RISM and some literature predates
the RISM efforts, so you often find the callmarks of the local library.
Sometimes a source even has more than one local callmark (some libraries
have more than one catalog, or the manuscript got moved) and sometimes
sources move from one library to another (Danzig-Berlin/Berlin-Moscow etc.)

 Are the two methods of
 identifying manuscripts mutually exclusive? Or does each manuscript
 have an identifier of each type? If there a source to translate one
 ID to the other? Thanks for any explanation-

There should be - but if find 
http://opac.rism.info/index.php?id=6no_cache=1L=1
pretty much useless (Rant: someone probably wasted a lot of money fot this
crappy, useless piece of software).

Of course, you can just visit your local library and consult the printed
RISM catalog.

 HTH Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Corelli sonata for violin and lute

2014-01-23 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 23 Jan 2014 09:30:45 -0500, Gary R. Boye wrote
 Dear Jean-Michel,

 According to the citations I have collected
 (http://applications.library.appstate.edu/music/lute/continuo.html),
 many of the Italian editions of Corelli's Op. 1 call for the tiorba:

I think Jean-Michel was refering to/correcting my post (where I accidentally
switched theorbo and archlute). The first editions (presumably under Corelli's
direct supervision) of both Op. 1  3 mention archlute.

 On 1/23/2014 4:36 AM, jean-michel Catherinot wrote:
  not theorbo, but arcileuto as in many publication at the time (including
  for instance Mascitti, Haym...). Arcileuto is namely mentionned in the
  first edtions of op. 1 ( Rome: Gio. Angelo Mutij, 1681) and 3 (Rome:
  Gio. Giacomo Komarek, 1689), well in Roma. I've never seen the theorbo
  mentionned in Corelli.

Well, some of the non-roman editions do mention 'tiorba'. And if i recall
correctly
from the recent Corelli symposium in Basel some of these editions might be
pretty close to Corelli.

Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Say love and Queen Elizabeth

2014-01-23 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 23 Jan 2014 21:30:16 -, Stewart McCoy wrote
 ...
Catherine de' Medici was a Medici, so her son, the Duc d'Alencon,
 was   the son of a Medici.

Family lines run on the _male_ side. And people back then where way more
picky about that ... ;-)

 [...]
 As with Now,
 oh now, it's not   just the melody notes which are the same; it's
 the bass and harmony   which are the same too.

Oh dear, that's what happens if you use the wrong tool to analyze.
I wouldn't call five stepwise notes downward an melody. Otherwise
you might claim that Dowland quotes the end of La Spagna.
And what you call bass and harmony is just the result of a simple
technique to create polyphony, going (at least) all thew way back to
the improvisatory practise of the 15th century. That 5-3-5-3 consecutive
is probably the most popular Satzmodell from the end of the 15th century
to the middle of the 17th. In it's most common form (under 4 descending notes,
la, sol, fa, mi) it's called Romanesca - if you exdend it and go up again
you end up with something often called Pachelbel-Sequence. Do yourself
a favour and search for Pachelbel Rant on YouTube - it's worth it.
I hope you don't want to claim that all those songs are references to
Frau Grossherzogin. Another famous use of 5-3 (this times going up) is the
second half of Belle, qui tiens ma vie - the first part using the _other_
standard modell - 8-3-8-3.

Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Corelli sonata for violin and lute

2014-01-22 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 22 Jan 2014 07:56:16 -0500, Gary R. Boye wrote

 
 There are over 30 examples (with many reprints) where plucked 
 strings are specifically mentioned as a possibility in Corelli's 
 works . . .

Hmm, that pretty much boils down to Op. 1 and Op. 3 ... doesn't it?
And those are tro sonatas where the _theorbo_ can substitute for the
violone part (IIRC none of the prints mentioning archlute are from Rome).


Cheers, RalfD




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[LUTE] Re: Question on String Tension

2013-12-18 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 05:11:40 -0500, alexander wrote

 there is a possibility of improving your situation. First you have
 to make sure you know which way the string is twisted (clockwise or
 counter). A strong magnifying glass might be of help. Next you need
 to get one end of the string free, either the bridge end or the peg end.
 Firmly holding the string, give it one or two turns in the direction
 of the twist. Twist as much as possible without a distortion to the
 shape of the string. Do not let the string to bulk on itself. Fix
 the end of the string back where it belongs and raise the pitch. Of
 course make sure the string does not untwist, and keep it somewhat
 taut while holding.

 This simple technique might be enough to increase the string's
 elasticity and make it more agreeable to finger pressure. There is
 no difficulty to this, just some amount of common sense, and never
 turn against the string's twist, as if the string is not glued well
 together, it could be damaged. You could practice on a piece of fret
 gut, to get a feel to it. Some strings can take quite a bit of twist
 and actually be improved by this.

Hello Alexander,

sorry, but I want to ask: did you ever try this out yourself and
did it really work? Even if you really manage to fix the string
after twisting so that it doesn't immediatly untwist twisting in
such a way would cause the mass of the string to be unevenly distributed
over it's length (because the string will be mostly twisted in the
middle - take a rubberband, twist it and watch where the twisting
happens ;-) And that will create a false string.
Gut strings are twisted during assembly, while they are wet, not
afterwards, when dried.

@david: what exactly do you mean when you write sensitve?
Does the string change pitch when you use more than minimal force
to finger it? Yes, that's typical for low tension strings (as well
as for metal strings ...) You need to spend a substantial amount
of time pracising playing at low tension. Dificult to get in tune -
hmm, low tension should result in easier tuning because you need more
turning of the peg to get the same amount of pitch change compared to
a high-tension string. As a matter of fact, shortly before the breaking
point of a string, tiny changes at the peg will result in dramatic pitch
changes - that's actually how you now that you are approaching the
breaking point (without breaking the string).

Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Articles Needed

2013-11-26 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 26 Nov 2013 15:29:41 -0500, Graham Freeman wrote
 All,
 There's no need for this silliness, and I have no idea why Sean seems
 to be turning this into a matter of ethics, despite not having
 read my   message thoroughly.

Well, I can't speak for Sean, but I myself also must have
misread you original request. Your Also, I'd really like a scan ...
pretty much sounded like you are _not_ in the posession of that
book ...
So, please, try to stay polite.

Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Scales for ear training.

2013-11-25 Thread R. Mattes

On Sun, 24 Nov 2013 20:03:33 -0600 (CST), Herbert Ward wrote
 I contemplate writing an ear-training computer
 program.  It would select random pitches from
 a scale and pair them with random note values
 to create a melody, which the trainee would
 listen to and try to reproduce (by voice or
 instrument).  The trainee could ask the program
 to replay the melody as needed.

But why? If this is really meant to be a training aid for
lutenists you'd want to train contextual listening.
Methods like novius modus which train non-contextual
listening are meant for musicians that perform music
with no (detectable) melodic grammar (and even then,
novus modus doen't use random pitches, it uses sequences
that try to fool our traditionally-trained expectations)
We train our ears/brain for a purpose - to better understand/perform
some music. Generating melodies in a specific mode/melodic style
and with correct rhythmic patterns isn't that hard (Markov to the
rescue).

 I have no expectation that the melodies
 will usually musical.  But, leaving that
 question aside, my question is this:

 For a typical lutenist involved in the Renaissance
 and Barqoue repertoire, what scales would be
 most useful?  Some possibilities would be:
   major
   natural minor
   harmonic minor
   melodic minor
   dorian
   mixolydian
   
See - this doesn't work at all. The mode of a melody
is determined by certain melodic pattern, places where
the melody rests, notes or progressions to avoid c.
Is a e d b d' c f dorian or phrygian ? ;-)

 Also, if you're interested in using such a program,
 let me know what type of computer you use (Windows,
 Macintosh, or Linux).  If more than a few people respond,
 I'll make certain accomodations during the programming.

Linux. But why reinvent the wheel? There's already a pretty
good free nad open-source ear training program [http://www.solfege.org/]
that does way more than what you plan for your program. And one can
easily write new exercises or even program (in Python IIRC) new types
of exercies [1]. Why not have a look at that program and spend your
time writing more early-music training sets.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

[1] I once started writing a Basso-Continuo training set, i.e.
things like Name that cadence (Per gradim/per saltus/simplex/longa/
doppia/composta c.). A friend of mine used it to prepare for
entry exams and apparently did pretty well.



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[LUTE] Re: Zoom H1

2013-11-07 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:11:56 -0800 (PST), David Tayler wrote
 The H2N (not the H2) has many features that are not available on the
 H2, and has five microphones.

But what for? The H2/H2Ns capsule setup is designed to caputure
environment sound. That's fine if your goal is a live podcast, you
are a journalist etc.
In my recordings I'm usually very glad to _not_ capture all that
coughing, feet shuffling, whispering etc. from the audience.
If you really want to capture an audiophile rendering of the room
you play in you need a much more elaborate micing.

 No point in buying the H1 unless you
 want something more compact.

Price? Compactness?
The H1 is an impressive practising aid (and that's what the OP
was looking for). While practising at home, I usually have my
Zoom (H4, the H1 wasn't arround when I bought mine) connected to
my Netbook as an audio input. It's much easier to do fast playback
with DAW software and I can control recording with my keyboard
(or from my smartphone on the musicstand).

  None of the Zoom products will sound as
 good as a pair of decent microphones, but the H2N is small, easy,
  compact and has a bunch of mics. dt

What comparisons did you do? (please, no forum folklore).
I compared my Zoom inbuild mics (same capsules as the H1/H2) with
some external mics both connected to the H4 (this is one of the
main benefits of the H4, you can connect external phantom-powered
mics) and to an M-Audio Microtec. My results: the difference for
_usual_ usecases (i.e. no CD/DVD Production) are pretty neglectible.
Or: the Zoom capsules are rather impressive. The week part of all
Zooms is the A/D converter, which is a bit noisy compared to the
ones used in the M-Audio Mircotec or the Tascam handheld recorders.

For recoding rehearsals, practising sessions or the occasional
concert recording I'd go with the H1.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes


 - Original Message -
 From: Stuart McLuckie stuart.mcluc...@blueyonder.co.uk
 To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Cc:
 Sent: Sunday, October 20, 2013 9:39 AM
 Subject: [LUTE] Zoom H1

 I want a recorder to improve my playing and it seems that the Zoom H1
 would fit the bill. However, the Zoom H2 seems to be the favourite home
 recorder on this list. Does the H2 have any significant advantage
 over the H1?

 Cheers - Stuart McLuckie

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[LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments

On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 16:13:28 -0400, Gary R. Boye wrote
 Monica:
 
 Interesting; but wouldn't that throw off the fretting (i.e., the 
 frets would be placed for the wrong overall length of the string)? 

I was this myself.

 It would sound awful up the neck, unless you began moving all of the 
 frets around . . .

You'd need to move the frets towards the nut, and that's the worst
direction to move them ...

Putting a second nut at the first or second fret sounds more
likely.

 Cheers, RalfD
 
 Gary
 
 Dr. Gary R. Boye
 Professor and Music Librarian
 Appalachian State University
 
 On 9/25/2013 3:54 PM, Monica Hall wrote:
  Yes - now I recall that someone called Frederick Cook wrote quite a few
  articles about the vihuela in the 1970s including one The capo tasto of
  the vihuela.  His suggestion was that the panezuela was  some kind of
  wooden device.  He says the word is derived from the verb panear which
  means to run along side.  But he thinks it was placed alongside the
  bridge rather than the nut  and has even included a drawing of how he
  thinks it worked. Pontezuela is  more likely to refer to the bridge
  than the nut.
 
  The article was in the periodical Guitar and Lute, no. 8, Jamuary 1979.
  I have never  discovered what other people thought of his suggestion.
 
  Monica
 
 
  - Original Message - From: Dan Winheld dwinh...@lmi.net
  To: Lutelist lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, September 25, 2013 8:34 PM
  Subject: [LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments
 
 
  Monica, Stephen, et al-
 
  I also remember the English (tenative?) translation of the Bermudo
  panezuelo- seems like it would have to be some sort of
  movable/removable nut, stopping the strings from below as opposed to
  our modern capos; which presumably would not have worked too well
  without being subjected to very fussy construction details, when you
  consider the difficulty of such a device- it would have to stop the
  thickest gut basses along with their octave strings with equal firmness.
 
  And then, with multi course lutes  cambered fingerboards it would
  become truly not worth the effort. And, inasmuch as pitch was so
  fluid, unstandard, and musicians- esp. the more highly
  trained/educated- could no doubt transpose more skillfully than most
  of us can these days, the capo might not even have been a passing
  thought.
 
  This panazuelo as a nut business seems more likely (if I'm not
  completely off the wall here) in view of the general opinion that open
  string sound was the more highly esteemed instrument sound, vs.
  fingered notes- indeed, one of the vihuelists considered it the best
  you can get from the instrument, almost seeming to regard frets and
  fingered notes as a necessary evil. Certainly any capo device would be
  regarded as something that would choke the very essence of
  lute/vihuela sound. Polar opposite to Jazz electric guitarists, who
  seemed to me to avoid open strings as much as possible.
 
  Dan
 
  On 9/25/2013 11:56 AM, Monica Hall wrote:
  There is a passage in Bermudo which seems to refer to the use of some
  sort of device to raise the strings of the vihuela a semitone or a
  tone. It is in Book 2, Chapter 36 f.30.   It is referred to as a
  panezuelo which literally seems to mean a handkerchief but there is
  some doubt as to whether this is really what it means. He says that
  experienced players place this under the strings close to the nut
  (pontezuela) and this rasies the pitch of the strings.
 
  Maybe someone more of an expert on Bermudo can elucidate.
 
  Monica
 
 
 
 
 
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[LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments

 to the use of some
  sort of device to raise the strings of the vihuela a semitone or a
  tone. It is in Book 2, Chapter 36 f.30.   It is referred to as a
  panezuelo which literally seems to mean a handkerchief but there is
  some doubt as to whether this is really what it means. He says that
  experienced players place this under the strings close to the nut
  (pontezuela) and this rasies the pitch of the strings.
 
  Maybe someone more of an expert on Bermudo can elucidate.
 
  Monica
 
 
 
 
 
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[LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments

On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 17:43:10 -0400, Geoff Gaherty wrote
 On 25/09/13 3:34 PM, Dan Winheld wrote:
  Polar opposite to Jazz electric guitarists, who seemed to me to avoid
  open strings as much as possible.

 The same is true of gamba players, who avoid open strings because of
 their different tone.

Is this a (documented) historic practise? Or something taken over
from Cello playing? I always thought this (avoidance of open strings) was
a result of the change to metal strings during the first decades of the
20th century. I can't find any indication of open string avoidance in
Hume or the late German Gamba tablatures (thats the tab stuff I've at
hand right now)

Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments

On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 23:50:01 +0200, David van Ooijen wrote
 On 25 September 2013 23:43, Geoff Gaherty [1]ge...@gaherty.ca wrote:

  On 25/09/13 3:34 PM, Dan Winheld wrote:

  Polar opposite to Jazz electric guitarists, who seemed to me to
  avoid
  open strings as much as possible.

Joe Pass in one of his video lessons gives the advice to avoid
 keys   with too many many open strings: all those droning (bass)
 strings will   make the audience sleepy.   David

Yes, I always try to avid open bass strings ... esp. on theorbo.

Sorry, couldn't resist ;-)

 Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: Capo use on early instruments

On Wed, 25 Sep 2013 19:54:38 -0400, Geoff Gaherty wrote
 On 25/09/13 7:20 PM, R. Mattes wrote:
  Yes, I always try to avid open bass strings ... esp. on theorbo.
 
  Sorry, couldn't resist;-)

 That's the difference between a bowed string and a plucked string.

Well, that was partly my question: is there any evidence for the avoidance
of open strings on bowed instruments from the Renaissance or Baroque period?

Somehow the craze for d'amore instruments seems to indicate the oposite.

Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: lute/guitar/other tablature editor

2013-08-31 Thread R. Mattes

On Sat, 31 Aug 2013 17:01:23 -0500, Joshua E. Horn wrote
 Did not think of that,
 
 The extension is being changed to *.jtab,

Which would collide with JTab (http://jtab.tardate.com/) ;-)

Cheers, Ralf Mattes




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[LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness

2013-08-07 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 7 Aug 2013 10:50:34 +0100 (BST), William Samson wrote
 I wonder how many early music 'acts' have an agent or a manager?

Probably very few.

 For a   percentage of income, these people can take a lot of the
 burden of   marketing and negotiation from the shoulders of the musicians
themselves.

The amount of marketing/negotiation time been taken away by the agent
is directly proportion to your income :-) 15-18% (then maximum allowed
over here) of your concert fee usually does not pay for several hours
of work. Hence most serious agents will only work for well-established
artists whose concert fee is high enough to feed them as well. Iff you
happen to be in this (price-)league then your time is probably the
limiting factor (read: can I play a concert or do I have to do
marketing/paper work) - but that only works if your playing in that
time earns you more than what your agent needs for his/her service
(but then you most like aren't reading this posts).

Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness

2013-08-07 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 7 Aug 2013 11:23:07 +, Ron Andrico wrote
   Briefly, playing for free
 (or worse, paying to play) doesn't really do   any lasting good.  It
 only makes the potential audience think that your   music should be
 free.  We only play for free for children and for   worthy causes
 aimed at people who are more disadvantaged than us.

Yes, I just wanted to send the same remarks.
Ask yourself a simple question: Am I professional?
Which professional of any other profession would work for free?
The plumber who repaired all bathrooms in town for free so
people will pay him when they need a plumber ... oh, wait.

I'm shocked at what stupid marketing tricks people believe in.
Please, remember - marketing techniques do not scale (down). What might
be a brilliant campaign for a large company will not work out for
the small business. Keep in mind: large companies usually don't need
to _create_ a market, their campaigns usually fight for market share.
It's not: can we sell Bonzos to the public, it's about: Will the
public buy our Bonzos or the ones from our competitor.
A concert you play for free is a concert you will not play for fee ;-)

Sometimes your market will be small, no matter what you do
(outdoor pools in Greenland come to mind) - let's face it,
playing sophisticated, rather intellectual lute music isn't
for everyone.

 Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness

2013-08-07 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 07 Aug 2013 10:42:08 -0400, r.turov...@gmail.com wrote
 H.
 Does this mean that I made a strategic mistake 20 years ago by never
 charging a penny for my wares?

Sorry, I don't understand your mail. What _are_ your wares?
Are you saying that you make money with your wares now because
you gave them away for free 20 years ago?

 Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness

2013-08-06 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 11:56:49 -0700, Nancy Carlin wrote
 As some of you know I spent 35 years as an agent for musicians,
  between my 2 stints with the LSA - a lot of this time was working
 on building careers and salability for folk and Celtic musicians. I
 see a few things missing that other genres of music have used to
 grab toe holds in the ladder toward success (or just keeping the
 heads above water).

 - web pages. This is the first place where potential employers
 (concert promoters etc.) look to find contact information. There are
 more than a few names in the lute world who do not have their own
 web sites. When you Google them all you get is links to buy their
 CDs. - email lists.

Here I have to strongly object. I think that web-pages are totally
over-rated (and I _do_ have some experience with the World Wide
Web). Of all the musicians I know, only one, once, got a concert
because of his web page. Maybe it's totally different in the states
but the idea that a concert organizer googles for a Lute player
(or any other kind of musician) is absurd. You get concerts because
you _know_ people (and contact them at least twice a year!). You
build up networks - invite other musicians to concert series you
organize and hopefuly you get invited back (oh, and you need to
have at least a small concert series :-)

The problem of most organizers/comitees is not having to few
groups to play (and hence having to find some) - it's more often
having too many 

 I have yet to see a paper out at a lute concert
 where the players is collecting emails for his own mailing list.
 Concert promoters have a hard time getting audiences out and need
 all the help they can get. Musicians who help them fill the seats
 get booked. - the lute world seems to be made up of players of all
 levels, but completely empty of people who are just fans.

Yes, that's sadly a phenomen the lute world shares with the
guitar world. Player-only-audiences. I think it correlates with
the fact that guitar-/lute players often _only_ listen to
Lute/Guitar music (have a look at your lute/guitar player friends
CD shelves). I prefer to dwell in the early music world where ensembles
do have fan audiences.

 Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: general public Lute awareness

2013-08-06 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 13:22:47 -0700, Nancy Carlin wrote
 Actually it's a combination of things. Some of them are balancing so
 many balls in the air that they don't have time to step back and
 figure out a 3 year plan for their careers.  It was pretty well
 known that there are no (few?) lute players out there earning all
 their income from performing (rather than teaching).

Yes, but the market _is_ extremly small. How many solo Violinists/
Piano Players/Solo Trumpeters you now that ear their living from
solo playing? ;-)
Do what the olds did - play ensemble. That solo lute stuff was never
meant for the concert hall. It's either amateur music (nothing against
Kemps Gig - but not in front of 200 listeners) or was played for
really small, extremly wealthy audiences.

Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: The golden rose

2013-06-23 Thread R. Mattes

On Sun, 23 Jun 2013 09:17:31 +0200, Anthony Hind wrote
 I suppose, Leonard, if any effect, it would be more like loading, so
 possibly more damping than brightening. Although, it would probably
 be too thin to make an audible difference. Just my intuition.
 Regards Anthony

While the mass of the gold is neglectable, depending on the
gilding technique used, the application of a mixture of
hide glue, plaster and chalk used in traditional gilding
might stiffen the rose. But that depends on whether the
roses where polished or not.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Aquila Nylgut Problems

2013-06-13 Thread R. Mattes


Dear collected lute list wisdom,

I just tried to switch my (late) medieval lute from 
all gut to all nylgut, everything fine, except: the top
strings (63cm / g' @ 440 Hz - using 0.42mm) can't be put up to full tension.
Both strings imediately break directly at the bridge. Strangely
the aren't even close to their breaking point (at least they still
feel quite elsatic). Bridge design can't be the problem - the 
bridge is rather soft and well worn out (and I never had a broken
top at the bridge, even in much thinner gut).
Is this a known problem. Did I get samples from a bad batch?

TIA Ralf Mattes

P.S.: off course this always happens the day before an important
rehearsal ...

--
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Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de



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[LUTE] Re: Lute bass strings - was Re: Are Pistoys prone to rot according to Mace?

2012-11-30 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:24:39 +1100, Shaun Ng wrote
 Well, wouldn't this mean that every time we see a painting of an 
 instrument with strings, we would have to consider one more 
 stringing option, instead of just gut or wound? 

Yes, as long as we ignore all no-iconographic sources of information
about instrument strings - and ther are quite some ... (just read
up the posts about strings in this mailing list).

 It says something 
 quite important, that metal strings on instruments existed.

Dohh. Big news ;-)

 Now, in 
 the light of this, interpretation of later sources concerning wound 
 strings changes. Hundreds of years of different metals, and now we 
 hear about silver on gut from a private correspondence (Goretzky)
  and an advertisement (Playford), which may have not appeared in 
 Playford's book had an entry not been made; it doesn't appear in 
 later editions of Playford reprinted into the 18th century. It 
 doesn't appear in Mace either, I think. Sounds to me like 
 indifference to new technology, but is it really completely new 
 considering metals have been around for such a long time?

Yes, and sand, gold, silver and lead have been known since the times
of the pharaos - can we therefore assume that the new testament was
written on a tablet computer?
Hint: sometimes it takes more than the right ingredients to make a
great cake.

 HTH Ralf Mattes






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[LUTE] Re: Lute bass strings - was Re: Are Pistoys prone to rot according to Mace?

2012-11-29 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:04:48 +0100, Markus Lutz wrote
 Hi Shaun, Hi Martyn,
 unfortunately I cannot say too much on this topic, at least for the 
 17th century.
 
 [...] 
 Another important source, though late, on all topics of life is 
 Krünitz, Oeconomische Encyclopädie. Probably it also depends on the 
 encyclopedy of Diderot and on other encyclopedys, for sure at least 
 some things will have been copied.
 
 It has 242 volumes and describes many things very detailed.
 He has big articles on the lute and on strings
 
 Krünitz,
 Artikel Laute (lute, vol. 66, p. 380ff, 1795)

But this is rather late as a source for information on 17th century
lute practice (or even for the first half of the 18th century).
There have been two changes in lute building during that time:
first, the extension of the bass range by adding a second pegbox
(swank neck lutes) and then the change to bass rider style lutes
during the 18th century (the later could well be a in response
to a wider availability of overspun bass strings).
 
 [...]
 
 Artikel Saiten (strings, Vol. 130, p.  1822)
 Man färbt die Saiten auch blau und roth; blau, indem man sie durch 
 eine kalte Brühe von Lackmus mit Potasche, roth, indem man sie durch 
 den Auszug der türkischen Schminklappen und Potasche durchzieht. 
 Sowohl die gefärbten, als die weißen Saiten werden nachher 
 geschleimt, weil der Schleim den Ton stumpf macht. Die blaugefärbten 
 Saiten nehmen im Schwefeln eine rothe Farbe an.
 
 (Here he describes in detail how strings are made, the short part 
 tells how the strings had been colored blue with litmus and potash,
  and red with turkish paint cloth (?Schminklappen?) and potash).

Schminklappen are coloured/dyed pieces of cloth that were used to give
to give the skin a redish teint. The cloth (or paper - Schmikpaier) was
made wet (humid) and rubbed over the face.
Turkish might give a hint at the colour used: probaly turkish Krapplack
(Rubia tinctorum, eng. dyer's madder), a widely used colour until the
19th century.
 
 Krünitz is very late, but he sums up everything from the 16th to the 
 18th century. In his article on the lute he mentions beside others 
 Besard, Baron, Weiss etc.

Yes, so utterly unuseable as a source for when things fist show up ;-)
 

Cheers, Ralf Mattes

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Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de



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[LUTE] Re: Long live the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

2012-11-19 Thread R. Mattes

On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 18:24:47 -0500, Leonard Williams wrote
 Nice library!  But I'm having a little trouble downloading anything. 
  I follow the directions and nothing happens.  Tried Safari and 
 Opera.  Any clues?

First, you need to enable JavaScript. Then, click the fifth icon 
on the toolbar (the one with the small downward-pointing arrow next
to the magnifying glass). On the following page (PDF-Download) you
need to check the Ja button and type the four-digit number (Schlüssel)
into the text field next to it, then click Weiter.
NOTA BENE: doing that you agree to the BSB licence agreement which
grants you rights to use the downloaded file _exclusively_ for private
use and/or scientific research (there's more vorbose legalese on the
first pages of the download). Note that this does _not_ mention public
performance at all, nor foes it permit putting the file online or passing
to others 

HTH Ralf Mattes
  
 Thanks,
 Leonard Williams
 
 On 11/18/12 2:39 PM, WALSH STUART s.wa...@ntlworld.com wrote:
 
Great link:lots of lute music publications. All (I think) mid 16th
century including:  Rotta, Vindella (never heard of him!), Francesco,
lots of Leroy and Morlaye, Belin, Bakfark and Albert.
Downloadable as pdfs.
Someone noted recently that many sixteenth century lute composers are
neglected these days. You can see why - the music is not easy.
Stuart
 
On 18 November 2012 18:52, adS [1]rainer.aus-dem-spr...@gmx.de wrote:
 
  [2]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071964-0
  [3]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071965-5
  [4]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071963-5
  [5]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071962-9
  [6]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072004-0
  [7]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072005-6
  [8]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077418-2
  [9]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072006-1
  [10]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072007-6
  [11]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077419-3
  [12]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077420-5
  [13]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077412-0
  [14]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077413-6
  [15]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077414-1
  [16]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072008-2
  [17]http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00031267-3
  Probably more
  Rainer adS
  To get on or off this list see list information at
  [18]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
 
--
 
 References
 
1. mailto:rainer.aus-dem-spr...@gmx.de
2. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071964-0
3. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071965-5
4. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071963-5
5. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00071962-9
6. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072004-0
7. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072005-6
8. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077418-2
9. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072006-1
   10. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072007-6
   11. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077419-3
   12. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077420-5
   13. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077412-0
   14. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077413-6
   15. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00077414-1
   16. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00072008-2
   17. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:12-bsb00031267-3
   18. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
 


--
R. Mattes -
Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de

[LUTE] Re: Keyboard M-Key

2012-11-13 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:04:47 +0100, Wim Loos wrote
 Dear all,
Here is a somewhat strange question on this forum. I''m going to sing
in a choir. For my rehearsal at home I bought on the internet a
keyboard, CME type M-Key.
The keyboard has an USB connexxion. On my computer Win7 is 
 installed. I   downloaded several drivers, I still cannot get any 
 sound from that   keyboard. The keyboard is recognized by the system 
 and the computer   tells me that all setting are OK.   Does anybody 
 know how to solve this problem.  

You only bought a keyboard: that's like buying only the keyboard of
a piano. That USB cable is used to send MIDI data to your computer
which can be used to drive a MIDI (software) synthesizer or sample player
running. So, you need to get one of these - there should be freeware/open
source applications for windows (sorry, I'm using Linux exclusively).
I _think_ qsynth (sample player) is available for Windows as well
(http://qsynth.sourceforge.net/qsynth-index.html). You also will need
a SoundFont (sampled sounds) to be used with qsynth or other sample
players. For early music you might want to google for Blanchet1720-440.sf2
which is a pretty nice Harpsichord soundfont. The MIDI Yoke program might
be handy as well (IIRC it does a pretty good job connecting different MIDI
applictions)
If you need a piano sound the (commercial) PianoTeq seems like a nice
app (I really like their 18th century fortepiano models). This is neither
a sample player nor a syntesizer, the sounds a generated according to a
mathematical model of the instrument.

 HTH Ralf Mattes



 
 Best regards,   Wim Loos
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[LUTE] Re: Chitarrone

2012-10-17 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:57:06 +0100, Monica Hall wrote
 I think you are confusing the issue here.  There is no such thing as 
 an lute-shaped guitar.   What Meucci is saying that the term 
 chitarra in early (15th -16th century) Italian sources refers to 
 an instrument of the lute family not to a figure-of-eight shaped instrument.

I shure hope this is what Meucci meant.

 The meaning of words changes with the passage of time.

Even worse: there's no definite meaning atached to 'chitarra' during
that period. Unfortunately, at the end of the 15th century some theorists
decided to switch from the well-established medieval latin terms to some
fancy anticisizing terms. So we end up with chitarra in Tinctoris and Gafrius.

Chitarra could mean: Lute, small Lute/gittern, Harp and at some point also
the instrument we now call Renaissance Guitar.
So - a Chitarrone is a large stringed instrument. Not very helpful :-)
 
 Cheers, RalfD  

 Monica
 
 - Original Message - 
 From: r.turov...@gmail.com
 To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
 Cc: Bruno Correia bruno.l...@gmail.com; Lutelist 
 lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 12:21 PM
 Subject: [LUTE] Re: Chitarrone
 
  The argument is that chitarrone is the bass variety of Italian lute-shaped 
  guitar, that later was theorboed, and eventually conflated
  with theorbo.
  And this makes perfect sense.
  RT
 
 
 
 
 
  On 10/17/2012 4:04 AM, Monica Hall wrote:
  In a nutshell what Meucci has argued is that the term chitarra is 
  derived from the Greek term kithara which refers to any plucked 
  stringed instrument.   In early Italian sources chitarra refers to a 
  small member of the lute family not to the figure of 8 shaped guitar.
 
  The guitar was almost unknown in Italy until the early 17th century and 
  is almost invariably known as the chitarra spagnola to distinguish it 
  from the chitarra italiana.
 
  The chitarrone is a large lute - not a large guitar.   The 
  inter-relationship between the chitarrone and the Spanish guitar in the 
  early song repertoire is a complex one but it does seem that the chordal 
  style of playing associated with the guitar did have some influence on 
  lute accompaniments.
 
  I am afraid Groves is not a very reliable source of information for a lot 
  of lute/guitar related topics.
 
  Best
 
  Monica
 
 
  - Original Message - From: Bruno Correia bruno.l...@gmail.com
  To: List LUTELIST lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2012 2:11 AM
  Subject: [LUTE] Chitarrone
 
 
The Grove Dictionaire says about the chitarrone:
 
 
 
The type of lute denoted by this humanist, classicizing term
(chitarrone means, literally, a large kithara) was associated
particularly with Jacopo Peri, Giulio Caccini and the other early
writers of monody from the 1590s until about 1630.
 
Has anybody challenged this etymology? Wouldn't be safe to say it
simply derived from the chitarra (guitar)? Is was developed in the
first place to acompany, playing chordally from a contino line, just 
  as
the 5 course guitar would do, though without the struming technique.
The solo repertoire that came later looks very close to the guitar
writing: chords a little counterpoint, arpeggios, slurs, campanellas
efect e so on...
 
 
 
 
--
 
Bruno Correia
 
 
 
Pesquisador autonomo da pratica e interpretac,ao
 
historicamente informada no alaude e teorba.
 
Doutor em Praticas Interpretativas pela
 
Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
 
--
 
 
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  http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
 
 
 
 


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r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de

[LUTE] Re: Anything lute related in Berlin?

2012-10-08 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 13:24:20 +0200, Luca Manassero wrote
 Dear List,
I will spend a week in Berlin to attend various meetings. I 
 am sure   I'll be able to reserve a bit of time for anything lute-related.
Is there any original instrument to see and/or any interesting concert
going on this week?
Thank you in advance for your help,
Luca

Allways worth a trip: the music instrument museeum (walking distance
from Potsdamer Platz). Their display is, hmm, questionable but they do own
some pretty impressive instruments - not only lutes (Tilke for example)
but also some quite impressive early Harpsichords and a remarkable set
of renaissance woodwinds. There are also some lute realted paintings in
several museums all over town ... if you are into early painting/sculpture
those are definitely worth a vist.

 HTH RalfD

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[LUTE] Re: Tuner

2012-09-03 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 3 Sep 2012 09:22:11 -0400, William Brohinsky wrote
 I have one. I have had it for a few years. For piano tuning, it is 
 not a choice.
 
 For just about everything else, it is wonderful.
 

Please correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't this tuner out of stock
since _years_?

--
R. Mattes -
Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de



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[LUTE] Re: YouTube going too far?

2012-07-05 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 4 Jul 2012 23:46:48 +0200, David van Ooijen wrote

 
 Is this too far, or what?

I think they try to be on the save side. They are doing something that's 
pretty close to a filesharing platform - remember what happened over in 
New with Tim Schmitz of Megaupload? 
Don't blame YouTube, blame the institutions that claim to hold copy rights.
 
 Reminds me of the story that you cannot get a copy from the ms in
 library because Minkoff printed the ms (clenaed up version ...) even
 though the Minkoff print is out of print and will never be in print
 again. What's next? For me this is already too far and there is no
 next ...

That's hardly campoarable - the Library probably did make a deal with
Minkoff (for the problems of _not_ making such deals with the lilbrary
read this mailing list ...;-) 
But this deal also has a positive side: since the Minkoff edition is out
of print since more than two years now it's perfectly legal (over here in
ol' Germany at least) to make copies of the book (IANAL, only citing a
publication by BitCom, a rather pro-copyright organisation).

 Cheers, RalfD
 

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[BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Minkoff contact

2012-05-16 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 16 May 2012 08:31:38 -0400, Roman Turovsky wrote
 Minkoff's images cannot claim to be cleaned up, considering their quality.
 And photographic reproduction is PD, only EDITORIAL CONTENT is 
 copyrightable.
 RT

This is partly right and partly wrong - but first let's be
clear about what we talk here: the rights on the composition
(which most likely ended centuries ago :-) or the right of
the _image_ of the original work. Those remain with the owner
of that artefact (and are independent from the musical rights).
And then there are the photographer's rights ...
Yes, _iff_ the manuscript (image rights) is public domain then
it's pretty easy ro distribute copies/facsimiles of the artefact
(manuscript/print/scribble etc.). But - most libraries will not 
release their content into public domain. As far as I can tell,
every time I ordered microfilms/images I needed to sign papers that
explicitly forbid further distribution. I had to sign similar 
agreements working with the microfilm collections of several 
libraries/institutions (Basel Musikwissenschaft  University Library,
London - BL etc.)

In case of Minkoff's publications the OP will most likely violate
some libraries rights on the images [1].

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

[1] Unfortunately, Minkoff publications care misleading copyright
claims ...
[2] IANAL
 
 - Original Message - 
 From: Jorge Torres torr...@lafayette.edu
 To: Roman Turovsky r.turov...@verizon.net
 Cc: ro...@rolfhamre.com; lute@cs.dartmouth.edu; 
 baroque-l...@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 8:23 AM
 Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Minkoff contact
 
  All,
 
  Robin's findings are correct.  While the item is in the PD, the edited, 
  cleaned up images (which is what Minkoff provides) are not and require 
  permission (even in the US) from the claimant, who may or may not be 
  Minkoff.  If one has access to a microfilm of a PD manuscript from a 
  library, then no permission is required.  The latter is indeed in the PD. 
  Nevertheless, it is always polite for scholars to ask for permission and 
  acknowledge the library with the original.
 
  Jorge Torres
 
  On May 16, 2012, at 7:50 AM, Roman Turovsky wrote:
 
  Not in the US. The image remains PD here.
  RT
 
 
  Thank you for your reply,
  I asked the copyright office at Oxford University Press about a  similar 
  situation and they informed me that when the manuscript is  public 
  domain, the person/company that took the photographs of the  manuscript 
  have the copyright of those images and following I have to  ask the 
  photographer's permission (if there are no publisher to  contact).
  tricky... ;)
  Best
  Robin
  Siterer Roman Turovsky r.turov...@verizon.net:
  My understanding is that a facsimile of a public domain music cannot 
  be copyrighted.
  (only editorial content can), so you don't need anyone's permission.
  RT
 
 
  - Original Message - From: ro...@rolfhamre.com
  To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu; baroque-l...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, May 16, 2012 4:04 AM
  Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Minkoff contact
 
 
 
  Dear list.
 
  Does anyone know where to get permission to reprint tablatures from 
  Minkoff Reprint, as Sylvie Minkoff has sadly past away?
 
  Best
  Robin Rolfhamre
 
 
 
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  http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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[LUTE] Re: 4022, 40588

2012-04-05 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:50:35 +0300, Arto Wikla wrote
 Is it possible to get all of the 4022 as one pdf?

Yes, you need to allow JavaScript (darn, whatfor?).
Then click on 'Werkzeugkasten' (toolbox) and then click
the pdf icon. But it's 500Mb download (doing it myself right now ;-)

HTH Ralf Mattes

  Most interesting 
 ms.!  I tried to find a link for downloading it all, but could not 
 find... Perhaps my language problem?
 
 Arto
 
 On 06/04/12 00:29, theoj89...@aol.com wrote:
  Is there any scholarly description of, discussion of, or list of tunes in
the Staatsbibliothek - Berlin, Ms 4022. On first glance, it looks interesting. 
trj
 
 
 
  -Original Message-
  From: Rainerrads.bera_g...@t-online.de
  To: Lute netlute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Wed, Apr 4, 2012 1:57 pm
  Subject: [LUTE] 4022, 40588
 
 
  Go to http://digital.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/dms/suche/
 
  and search for
 
  Lautentabulatur
 
  Rainer
 
 
 
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[LUTE] Re: Castaldi puzzle

2012-02-22 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 13:52:26 +0100, R. Mattes wrote

 
 Donata's article I linked to does mention it (footnote 15. page 389/page
 19 of the article) - Paris. Too bad, but kind of typical for their 
 editorial process. And their repoduction technique (photocopy on
 steroids) often makes things worse then in the original.
 
  Does anybody know what original SPES 
  uses?

Modena (Footnote 14 of Francesca Torelli's introduction in
the SPES facsimile) - also clear from the ordering of pages
you posted in your inital mail and the table in Donata's article.

 Cheers, RalfD

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[LUTE] Re: Rubber mat

2012-02-22 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:53:01 -0500, Leah Baranov wrote
 Any  99cent store or hardware/kitchen place sells inexpensive 
 rolls of   rubberized shelf liners in a variety of colors including black.
Leah

I'd be rather cautious with those - someif not most of the soft and
sticky plastic materials contain substantial amounts of softening agents
that might damage the varnish of your instrument.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Castaldi puzzle

2012-02-21 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:52:15 +0100, David van Ooijen wrote
   the Paris copy.18 The Modena copy is in excellent condition and
  contains corrections and alterations that appear to be in Castaldi's
  own hand; neither of the other two copies has these markings.

 Now, given this information, which original would _you_ choose? 
 Andguess which one Minkoff used :-/   
 
It doesn't say, do you know? 

Donata's article I linked to does mention it (footnote 15. page 389/page
19 of the article) - Paris. Too bad, but kind of typical for their 
editorial process. And their repoduction technique (photocopy on
steroids) often makes things worse then in the original.  

 Does anybody know what original SPES 
 uses?

Strangely, my copy of the SPES seems to have disapeared ... But I _think_
they used London. But don't sue me on that.


 Cheers, RalfD

David
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[LUTE] Re: Castaldi puzzle

2012-02-20 Thread R. Mattes

On Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:42:37 +0100, David van Ooijen wrote

 This is not about Minkoff bashing, SPES has it equally wrong as has
 Castaldi himself, but clearing up what happened here. 

No, this is not meant to be bashing, that was a serious complaint
about bad editing practise. Picking the best original for the
reproduction I soneting I would expect - or, at least, an editorial
comment mentioning the fact that the existing copies differ. For that
price I'd even expect facsimiles of those pages that aren't present
in the chosen copy (maybe a little rationale on the choice of original
as well ? :-)

 You said two
 different originals were used by SPES and Minkoff. But did these two
 originals have different page numbers? Comparing the two facsmiles,
 they looked the same to me.

Yes, but the quality of the SPES original seems to be much better.
Since Castaldi seems to haven been personally involved in the 
engraving/printing process it's possible that he inserted/rearranged
the plates during a second printing.

  Does someone have the AR-edition at hand
 to check the preface to see what David Dolata has to say?

It's in our library, but I might be too bussy to check this week.
 
 Cheers, RalfD


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[LUTE] Re: Castaldi puzzle

2012-02-20 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:31:24 +0100, R. Mattes wrote
 On Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:42:37 +0100, David van Ooijen wrote
 
   Does someone have the AR-edition at hand
  to check the preface to see what David Dolata has to say?
 
 It's in our library, but I might be too bussy to check this week.


Ah, actually no need for the library trip - here's a short quote
from David Dolata's Article on Castaldi as an engraver [1][2]:

  The pages of the three known Capricci copies conserved at the
  Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris,15 the Fondo Pagliaroli in the private
  Biblioteca Forni in Modena,16 and in a private collection in London,
  all measure 20 cm x 30.5 cm with a printed area of 17.5 cm x 24.5 cm.
  Each copy has a slightly different ordering of the introductory
  material and three of the theorbo solos. These variants are listed in
  table 1. The London and Modena copies are considerably more legible
  and better preserved than the Paris exemplar, which is smudged or
  blurred in several places. In the Paris copy p.72 is misaligned,17 but
  in the other two is perfect. Castaldi's Dedication to the Youth of
  Genoa (appendix) appears in the Modena and London copies, but not in
  the Paris copy.18 The Modena copy is in excellent condition and
  contains corrections and alterations that appear to be in Castaldi's
  own hand; neither of the other two copies has these markings.

Now, given this information, which original would _you_ choose? And
guess which one Minkoff used :-/

Cheers, RalfD

[1] Visual and poetic allegory in Bellerofonte Castaldi's
extraordinary Capricci a due stromenti David Dolata, 
Early Music 2005 33(3):371-392; doi:10.1093/em/cah099 
[2]
http://em.oxfordjournals.org/content/33/3/371.full?ijkey=sveZYJ1Kj10xFaHkeytype=ref
 



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[LUTE] Re: Castaldi puzzle

2012-02-18 Thread R. Mattes

On Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:27:37 +0100, David van Ooijen wrote
 Castaldi 1622
 I have the Minkoff facsimile. My pupil bought the SPES. Good for him,
 it probably was half or less the price of Minkoff (and has bigger
 print).

Unlucky you! I fear once again Mdm. Minkoff messed it up (I have a -
rather expensive - collection of nobody can be THAT stupid in
publishing from Minkoff on my bookshelf. Lukily I got the SPES version
of Castaldi. IIRC the into to the (rather good) A-R Edition of Castaldi's
works by  David Dolata explains what happend (I think it's partly due to
the fact that the two facsimile prints use different originals but I might
be wrong here ...).

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

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[LUTE] Re: korg lca-120

2012-02-10 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:49:17 -0800 (PST), hera caius wrote
 On Thomann:
OT120 - 91 euro
LCA120 - 30 euro
It means it is 3x cheaper.
Obviously the OT120 has much more features.

Is that so? From the description on Korg's website it didn't sound
at all like it. Does the OT have custom programmable tempraments?
Does it have the follow/playback feature (i.e. you don't need to
manualy change the playback pitch). Focus in? 
The only plus I could find for the OT was it's slightly larger range
of base pitch, but with a custom programmed temprament that shouldn't
be too big a problem.
 
I use OT120 from 2007 and it was perfect for all situations and 
 all   instruments including Harpsichord, Positif Organ, Viola da 
 Gamba,   Violin, Baroque flute and all my lutes and guitars.It also 
 has line in   and out for more electric and amplified signal. 

But the LCA also has Mic in Headphone/Speaker out. Or are you talking
about a real line-in?

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

   But 
 hey, that's my opinion...   Good luck,   Caius
--- On Thu, 2/9/12, Jaroslaw Lipski jaroslawlip...@wp.pl wrote:
 
  From: Jaroslaw Lipski jaroslawlip...@wp.pl
  Subject: [LUTE] korg lca-120
  To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Date: Thursday, February 9, 2012, 5:40 PM
 
Anyone using Korg LCA-120? I just wonder if the difference 
 between this   model and OT-120 is worth paying almost twice as much 
 money. My first   impression is that what is unique for OT-120 is 
 Sound back mode and   eight presets for historical temperaments, 
 however one can programme   his own presets in LCA-120, so in this 
 respect the difference doesn't   seem to be huge. On the other hand 
 LCA-120 is very handy, flat and has   a big LCD which is very good 
 for a concert situation.   Any thoughts?   All best   Jaroslaw   To 
 get on or off this list see list information at  
  [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
 
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[LUTE] Re: tuning fork at 433Hz?

2012-01-10 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 10 Jan 2012 12:21:18 -0800 (PST), Christopher Wilke wrote
 Howard,
 
 --- On Tue, 1/10/12, howard posner howardpos...@ca.rr.com wrote:
    
  Have you read Rimsky-Korsakov's Principles of
  Orchestration?  It comes from precisely this
  period.  (You can find English versions online)
 
 
 I've read portions of it, but it's quite a large document to browse 
 through.  Relevant to the topic of this discussion: What does he 
 have to say about the relative merits and defects of gut vs. steel 
 strings during the period of transition?

He died in 1908 - that's pretty much before the general shift to
metal strings on bowed instruments. 



Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: costello

2011-12-31 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:54:23 -0500, benny wrote
 Hi, everyone - does anyone have a modern edition of Dario Costello's 

Is this Frank Costello's (the famous ganster) little brother?
Or did you mean Elvis Costello? ;-)
If you're looking for Dario Castello's music - have a look at IMSLP
(http://imslp.org/), IIRC most of his stuff is online. But isn't the
second sonata for _two_ soprano voices?

 HTH Ralf Mattes

 Seconda Sonata for Sopran solo they'd be willing to send me as a  
 pdf? It's for a house concert. Cheers, Benjamin Stein
 
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[LUTE] Re: More...

2011-12-29 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 04:31:32 +, Ron Andrico wrote
 We've   all learned a great deal 
 from their work but the thing that gives me   that tingling 
 sensation of nostalgia is the thought of the buckets of   money 
 apparently offered up by record labels, academic institutions,   and 
 even governments to make these records.  If there is anyone still  
  financing recordings, I'd love to hear from them.   

I'm not shure about those buckets of money but at least back in the
90th I was involved in some recodings of Ferarra Ensemble (Crawford
Young et al.). Those where mainly financed by WDR (Westdeutscher
Rundfunk) - the recorded material was used to do some mini-series on
the subject. The CD was pretty much a welcomed side-product. IIRC a
lot of the Harmonia Mundi/Arcana records where produced that way.
Klaus Neumann, WDR's Art Director back then, was probably one of the
most important promoters for early music (esp. medieval music) in
Europe. And of course there's still the Documenta series of the
Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with more than 70 productions.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

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[BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: A=392

2011-12-01 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:26:57 -0800, Nancy Carlin wrote
 One of the things that is really intersting about John Wilson is that
he wrote a series of fantasties in all (many?) keys.

In all keys, IIRC. And also some warmup exercises as well.

 These re for English theorbo with the first string down an octave. I
 think Paul O'Dette recorded a few of them on a CD he made with
 Ellen Hargis.

Really nice music., imho. Since he rarely uses the first string at all, it's
even playable on an archlute. Some pieces can be played on a theorbo as well,
the notes on the second string can be easily moved to the third string.
 
Cheers, Ralf Mattes


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[LUTE] Re: Something old and something new - Conrad Paumann and Gilbert Isbin

2011-11-26 Thread R. Mattes

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 22:26:34 +, Stuart Walsh wrote
 Paumann's 'Ich beger nit mer'  from the Buxheimer Orgerlbuch. 
 Paumann played the lute (and perhaps, fingerstyle) as well as the 
 organ and - maybe - he played it in a similar way on both 
 instruments.  It fits a G lute well and only need five courses.
 
 Online German translators don't recognise 'beger',  'nit' nor 'mer' 
 as German so I don't have a clue what the title means.

No translators for Frühneuhochdeutsch so far, I'm affraid ;-)
'beger' would be spelled 'begehren' in modern German, meaning
'to wish', 'to long for', 'to ask for', 'to crave' etc.
'nit' is modern German 'nicht' (english 'not'), and 'mer'
would be spelled 'mehr' (engl. 'more'). So this could mean
'I don't ask for more [than ...]' or 'I stopped longing for [...]'
If you happen to use the Wallner Edition: big warning - she often
has no clue about the titles (wasn't able to correctly read the titles,
i.e. she always missread 'w' as 'lb').

 HTH Ralf Mattes
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HInorS2jmIk
 
 Gilbert Isbin's 'Recall', (August? 2011)
 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKJxE7mTkmg
 
 Stuart
 
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[LUTE] Re: Something old and something new - Conrad Paumann and Gilbert Isbin

2011-11-26 Thread R. Mattes

On Sat, 26 Nov 2011 23:07:13 -, Stewart McCoy wrote
 Dear Stuart,
 
 I think Ich beger nit mer would be Ich begiere nicht mehr in modern
 German, meaning I long no more.

Just for the records: there's no such word as begieren - modern german
verb is begehren (#8599; mhd. 'gêren').

 Cheers, RalfD





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[LUTE] Re: Buzzing [was Gut strings]

2011-11-21 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:08:58 -0500, Garry Warber wrote
 I second William.  I hesitate to jump in on these mysteries, but in 
 my makers years I actually never saw a loose-brace caused buzz...  

Strange - I had three instruments with braces comming of, all of them
had a noticeable buzz who only showed up at certain pitch levels and
in certain weather (or, more precise) humidity conditions. Same happend
to some of my friends' instruments.
 
 Most were from some bridge problem, and as I was a classic guitar 
 guy, mainly ill-fitting bridge bones. 

And you really want to compare guitar bracing with lute bracing? I 
_never_ saw a loose guitar brace (I assume we talk about modern guitar
here, no bridge bones on real ones ;-) 

My failsafe test for looses braces: take a tuning fork (preferably a 
heavier one, like a low C fork), strike it, put the end on the sound
board and run it along the center and the sides of the top.

 Cheers, RalfD

 If you have one of those 
 reverse-funnel rosettes it would make me suspect there.  If it is a 
 carved lute rose, then a split or splinter there.  Buzzing can be a 
 real mystery to find! Garry
 
 Sent: Monday, November 21, 2011 11:06 AM
 To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Subject: [LUTE] Re: Buzzing [was Gut strings]
 
Hi Monica,
 
A couple of things you might check (though you may well have done 
 so   already) - Loose string ends at the peghead or the bridge - 
 these   could shift around with humidity changes.  Don't want to 
 worry you, but   I had some intractible buzzing on one of my lutes 
 that eventually   resolved itself when the bridge flew off.  
 Fortunately it came off   cleanly and was easily fixed.  Anyway - No 
 harm in looking closely at   the lower edge of the bridge to see if 
 there's any sign of it wanting   to part company with the 
 soundboard.  It's best to eliminate the easy   things before 
 undertaking more complicated investigations.
 
Not a guitar person myself, particularly, but I'd have thought 
 that   these fancy rosettes are a place where buzzing might be 
 located too -   some little bit of parchment waggling like a tuning 
 fork maybe?  Again,   that could be influenced by humidity.  Then 
 again there are the inlays
 
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[LUTE] Re: Gut strings

2011-11-18 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:11:01 -, Monica Hall wrote
 
 That must be why it develops a buzz in the summer which always 
 disappears come September when the wasps swarm in this part of the world.

If that's really the case you should consult an instrument maker. Such
buzzes are a clear symptom og a bar comming off (or, less likely, a
bar with a split). Changes in humidity open or close the gap but the
structual instability doesn't go away. At some point the bar might
come off completely, and that makes repair more difficult (and
probably more expesive)

Cheers, Ralf Mattes
  
 Monica
 
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[LUTE] Re: Gut Strings

2011-11-16 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:08:14 +0100, Luca Manassero wrote
 Dear List,
as Mimmo explains in a video (unfortunately in Italian) on his
facebook page, the original beef gut regulation in EU was due to fear
of the so-called mad cow disease transmission.

Excuse my ignorance, but since when are gut strings made out of
beef gut? I always assumed that Aquilla's gut strings are made from
sheep gut.


Cheers, Ralf Mattes

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[LUTE] Re: Besard duets once more

2011-08-17 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:53:30 +, Ron Andrico wrote
 Hello Monica:
Besard's 1617 book was rather inelegantly engraved.  He may have used
the services of a chimpanzee, which explains a great deal.
Ron Andrico

Sorry, and I might be completely off here, but IIRC Besard 1617 was
neither engraved nor typeset - it's a woodcut.  But I think that only
partially explains the problems in that print.  While there are a lot
of errors that can be explained by the impossibility to correct errors
(letters being on the wrong line etc.) there are a _lot_ of errors
that can't be explained by this, like the ensemble parts not matching
harmonically or having non-matching length.

 As far as the music is concerned it seems Besard was   not   
 a professional musician.

Whatever professional musician means in that time.  I think we need
to be very careful with such statements - ur inability the
read/interpret the original text might be just that: _our_
inanbility. May I mention the fact that Robert Dowland found Besard
worthy (and professional) enough to translate his lute instructions?

Cheers, Ralf Mattes

16 Aug 2011 16:42:40 +0100
 To: davidvanooi...@gmail.com
 CC: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
 From: mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
 Subject: [LUTE] Re: Besard duets once more

 I know how to fix it:
  rewrite it, and some of you send me their fixes when I last asked
  about Besard last year (was it?). But looking at the music, 
 it begs the question: why? Why so many errors and/or poor 
 writing, why   bother to publish it? Is there a theory out 
 there, someone?   I am not very familiar with this particular 
 source but it doesn't   surpriseme that it is apparently a 
 mess. I can think of a number of baroque   guitartablatures 
 which are pretty useless. Have you ever looked at Pesori?.And 
 then there is Dalza.Have you read Martin shepherd's article 
 Was Dalza really weird?   There are fairly obvious practical 
 reasons why there might be a large   numberofprinting 
 errors. As far as the music is concerned it seems Besard was   not   
  a professional musician. A bad case of vanity publishing. Is the book
 engraved or printed from type?

 Monica

 
  --
  ***
  David van Ooijen
  davidvanooi...@gmail.com
  www.davidvanooijen.nl
  ***
 
 
 
  To get on or off this list see list information at
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R. Mattes -
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r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de

[LUTE] Re: Besard duets once more

2011-08-17 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:26:53 +, Ron Andrico wrote
 Hello Ralf:
Besard's 1617 print is the result of engraving - the medium of 
 wood or   copper or whatever matters less than the distinction of 
 typeset with   moveable type versus engraved plates. 

No, sorry. Please let's be a little less nonchalant. 
That print is a woodcut (block print) - as a matter of, fact, one of
the last books produced in this by that time outdated technology.
The drawing is _not_ engraved into a plate, the non-printing part is 
removed, and that has implications in regard of correctability: while
in an engraving a certain (albeit small) amount of crrections can be 
done, in woodcuts material cut away can't be put back. But, as I wrote
in my last mail, there's a substatial amount of errors that _can't_ be
explained by the don-quichotesque printing medium. Those are the hard
to explain but interesting ones.
 
  As to whether 
 Besard was a   professional musician, I think not and he probably 
 would have been   insulted had anyone referred to him as such.  He 
 was a gentleman and a   scholar; his expertise in the field of music 
 for the lute was just one   facet of the sum total of his learning 
 and the image he projected.  

On and off, during his lifetime he was teaching the lute. His (pratcial)
lute instructions are used by Dowland and copied by Hainhoffer (personal
friend of Besard, btw.). He probably studied with Laurenzini of Rome, one
of the most famous artist of his time. Attributing the errors in the 1617
print to Besard's unprofessionalism seems strange to me. 

 

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: tablature software programs

2011-08-16 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 12:59:26 -0700, Alain wrote
Hi Denys,
It is indeed the project I was thinking of. Unfortunately, I still
cannot find the XML specification on the WEB site though (after
cursory browsing). If it is somewhere, I'd really like to take a
look at it.

I might be able to help with a vew references here:

- Crawford, T.: Applications Involving Tablatures:
TabCode for Lute Repertories.
Computing in Musicology 7 (1991) 5759

- Wiering, F. Crawford, T.:
Creating an XML Vocabulary for Encoding Lute Music

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.99.3337rep=rep1type=pdf

- David Lewis, Tim Crawford and Michael Gale:
An Electronic Corpus of Lute Music (ECOLM):
Technological challenges and musicological possibilities

http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/cim04/CIM04_paper_pdf/Lewis_Crwaford_CIM04_proceedings.pdf

- Christophe Rhodes and David Lewis:
An editor for lute tablature

http://www.uni-graz.at/richard.parncutt/cim04/CIM04_paper_pdf/Lewis_Crwaford_CIM04_proceedings.pdf
(This is a TabCode editor written in Common Lisp - my editor of choice
recently)

Interestingly enough, Tim's TabCode format is the
inspiration for the tab format I have used to export Django files to
a Braille compatible printer. Another advantage of XML is that it
can be rewritten using XSL into a large variety of other formats,
including by people who have no access to the original code. Alain

I have to aconfess that I'm not too enthusiastic about XML as a storage
format for (lute) tablature. If there's interest I might be able to elaborate
a bit (need to do some practising now) ...

Cheers, RalfD

On 8/15/2011 12:41 PM, Denys Stephens wrote:
Dear Alain,
It's good to know that you are giving such careful thought
to the longevity of our electronic tablature files. Your
reference in your e-mail:

'there existed already a project for a tablature specific XML schema,
based on MusicXML, lead by a famous lute scholar in England'

must surely refer to Tim Crawford's work - see:

http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas01tc/web/

Best wishes,

Denys

-Original Message-
From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf
Of Alain
Sent: 15 August 2011 19:00
To: R. Mattes
Cc: Eugene Kurenko; David Smith; Monica Hall; SCOTT ZEIDEL; Lutelist
Subject: [LUTE] Re: tablature software programs

Hi all,
Ralf raises a very important point (see his quote below). Transcribing
music is a very time intensive, highly skilled job and software can be
fickle... However, if I may consider myself one of the creative
people, I want to point out that preserving the life of the documents
even beyond the lifetime of our software is indeed a great concern to
us. This is the reason why I implemented in Django a function to export
music to the MusicXML format. This is one of the arcane functions in
Django that 99% of people will happily pass by but it does provide some
significant protection against the evil situation described by Ralf. It
does this in two ways: both Django and Fronimo file formats are binary
formats that are extremely fragile. One byte off, and you may lose
hundreds of pieces if they are all contained within a single document...
Quite at the opposite, and similar to Wayne's tab format, XML files are
text files that can be opened with any normal text editor as well as
very sophisticated dedicated softwares. Additionally, MusicXML files
can be read and interpreted by many software packages for a wide variety
of purposes. So, this is at least one provision to insure that your work
may not be lost in the near or far future.
However, it must be noted that the MusicXML format is not extremely
friendly to music in tablature format... I am not sure it makes any
provision for alfabeto notation, or rhythm flags on the tablature staff,
and other Baroque guitar features. Diapasons are also a problem. I
contacted the person in charge of the MusicXML project some years ago to
ask for the addition of tablature specific features (diapasons, glyphs,
alfabeto, etc.) to their XML schema. The response was that essentially
tablature was an inferior form of musical notation and that there
existed already a project for a tablature specific XML schema, based on
MusicXML, lead by a famous lute scholar in England. If anyone has any
news of that project, please let me know.
I would not be writing at such lengths about this issue if I had not
spent the weekend rewriting all the XML related code in Django... I will
probably come up at some point with my own XML schema for tablature, but
it would be better to have some community involvement. It would also be
better if I had unlimited time and resources which is unfortunately not
the case.
Anyways, this is all in preparation for a coming release of Django, that
also includes an important functionality to stamp

[LUTE] Re: tablature software programs

2011-08-15 Thread R. Mattes

On Mon, 15 Aug 2011 09:11:40 +0300, Eugene Kurenko wrote
 I use Beier tab:
 
[1]http://www.musico.it/lute_software/beiertab.htm

But does it fit the OP's needs? Remember: 
  From: SCOTT ZEIDEL [7]swzei...@gmail.com
  Does anyone know any music software programs that 
  can do   mixed tablature for Baroque guitar?  

From the feature list on the website and my admitedly small
tests it doesn't seem so. And reading the website blurb:

 This is a Work-In-Progress. In other words, its not finished yet.

I wouldn't expect.

it's free

Kind of. The version you can download will stop working at some point
in the future. Now, there might be a new version available and that
might be free as well, but I couldn't find any statement about that on
the Paul Beier's webpage. If you enter a substantial amount of
tabulature into this program you might end up with waisting a lot of
time. That's a price you do have to pay. BTW, please don't miss-read
this as a critisim of Mr. Beier's work. I just have met enough people
whose own creative work got locked into proprietary software/hardware.
Compositions written in enormously expensive notation software, stored
on (back then) state-of-the-art disks (Magneto-optics anyone? SCSI
SyQuest drives?). All of that by now not more than a impressive
digital graveyard (now, I do own a fair collection of rather old
hardware, but even that starts to fail). I wish creative people would
consider such mundane considerations a bit more: what happens if the
author of some software looses interest in the application? Will this
software run on newer versions of the operating system
(DOS/Win3.1/Win2000, you remember?). Will it run on newer hardware (Mac
users, remember PowerPC). 
 
 Sorry, just some random rant on a rainy day

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

Eugene
2011/8/15 David Smith [2]d...@dolcesfogato.com
 
  Another option might be Fronimo. You can find a demo copy at
  [3]http://www.theaterofmusic.com/fronimo/index.html.
  David
  -Original Message-
  From: [4]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  [mailto:[5]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf
  Of Monica Hall
  Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2011 2:05 PM
  To: SCOTT ZEIDEL
  Cc: Lutelist
  Subject: [LUTE] Re: tablature software programs
 
Django will up to a point although it is not perfect.   It will 
 put   alfabeto   letters on the tablature stave although it wont do 
 + or .   I use X   for the   former and write the latter out in 
 tab.   You will find the details at   [6]www.musickshandmade.com   Monica
- Original Message -
From: SCOTT ZEIDEL [7]swzei...@gmail.com
To: lute [8]lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2011 9:14 PM
Subject: [LUTE] tablature software programs
I am new to this list, so I apologize if this has been covered many
times
in the past. Does anyone know any music software programs that 
 can do   mixed   tablature for Baroque guitar? Is anything 
 available? I use Finale, but   so   far my only solution is to add 
 alfabeto as text; there has to be a   better   way.   Thank 
 you,Scott Zeidel To get on or off this list see 
 list information at   
[9]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
 
--
 
 References
 
1. http://www.musico.it/lute_software/beiertab.htm
2. mailto:d...@dolcesfogato.com
3. http://www.theaterofmusic.com/fronimo/index.html
4. mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
5. mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
6. http://www.musickshandmade.com/
7. mailto:swzei...@gmail.com
8. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
9. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html


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Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de



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[LUTE] Re: Lute Strings for theorbo

2011-08-12 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:41:04 +0200, Andreas Schlegel wrote

  Did De Visee write that part about the tenth fret? That would be
  strange since that would shurely be a 'd la sol' (note: no re here!).
  Otherwise high might refer to the guitar's lowest note, d (open
  forth course), but that wouldn't be high D la re but a D sol re.
  Very strange ...
 
 J'ay esté obligé de transposer les pieces de musique acause de 
  l'estendüe de la Guitare qui va jusques an D. la. re. en haut, il ne 
  faut pas oublier une octave a la quatrième corde, elle y est tres 
 necessaire.

Thank's for the quote - from wich print is this? (sorry, I'm away from
my disk with faksimiles).

Not that would make Robert's intentions much clearer. Leaving out a
sol from the pitch name is possible (since it's redundant except,
every d la is a d sol by nature (but not the other way round)),
but the re pretty much excludes the high d' (unless Visee thinks of
the guitar as a transposing instrument).  And the comment about the
neccessary bourdon on the d chourse seem to continue the remark about
the guitar's limitation in the lowe range.

And one could read the need for guitar and score versions at the same
pitch from this paragraph.

Cheers, Ralf Mattes




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[LUTE] Re: Lute Strings for theorbo

2011-08-12 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:19:58 +0200, Mathias Rösel wrote
  Paris Ms. Fonds Conservatoire National Rés. 1106 has another marking on
 it's
  front page: R 1575 (41035)
  
  David - one down, one to go
 
 Thank you, David! I only have the xeroxes. The other one possibly is 
 Paris BN Vm7-6265. 86 pages, many concordances with Saizenay, some 
 of them deviating, two concordances with R 1575 (Rés. 1106). Two 
 courantes for the baroque lute on the last two pages (La belle 
 homicide by Gaultier, and one by Dubut par. Barbe p. 43). and the D-
 major section was wrongly inserted before the ms. was page-numbered, 
 now dividing an allemande by LeMoine (p. 46-7 and p. 57). Perhaps 
 these data will do to identify the manuscript?

So, now that we seem to have traced down what manuscripts you are
refering to, would you mind to elaborate a bit about

 Paris BN 1575 and BN 25391 are two theorbo mss. that abound with
 music by de Visee. Some concordances with Saizenay, but both mss.
 seem to be much earlier than 1699 and earlier than 1680, I'd say.
 
the reference at http://www.library.appstate.edu/music/lute/C18/1700.html
gives the following:

 F:Pn Ms. Rés. Vm7 6265 [c1700]
[RISM B/VII p. 265; SMT I p. 152]
* 11-course in French tablature
* 14-course theorbo in French tablature

 F:Pn Ms. Rés. 1106 [1725-1730]
[RISM B/VII p. 271; SMT I p. 82]
* 14-course theorbo in French tablature

 
now, that's 20-50 years of your dating (and that of the earliest
De Visee guitar publication).

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

--
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Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de



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[BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Lute Strings for theorbo

2011-08-11 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 09:28:30 -0700 (PDT), Christopher Wilke wrote
 Howard,
 
 --- On Thu, 8/11/11, howard posner howardpos...@ca.rr.com wrote:
  
  BTW, I recently saw Toy Story 3 with my family, and
  heartily recommend it.
  --
 
 I too saw Toy Story 3 and enjoyed it.  There were no theorbos in 
 the movie, but if there were, only a fool would disagree that they 
 would certainly have had only the top string reentrant or been 
 pitched in D. ;-)

Not even a toy theorbo (i.e. string length  80 cm)?

 Cheers RalfD

 Chris
 
 Christopher Wilke
 Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
 www.christopherwilke.com
 
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[LUTE] Re: Lute Strings for theorbo

2011-08-11 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 05:49:33 -0700 (PDT), Christopher Wilke wrote
 Mathias,
 
 --- On Thu, 8/11/11, Mathias Rösel mathias.roe...@t-online.de
 wrote:
 
  The theorbo pieces of de Visée's publication en
  musique stand a 4th
  higher than the correspondent tablature versions.
 
 
 Can the transposition of a 4th en musique be because
 deVisee was using his guitar pieces as his reference
 point?  Most of the solo theorbo pieces that also exist
 in guitar versions are pitched down a 4th from the
 guitar.  This makes sense since the guitar with
 re-entrant 5th course will have the 4th course as its lowest
 pitch, so as to be really in d.

And, IIRC, de Visée's 'en musique' is in no way connected to the
Theorbo - it's printed published as an apendix to his printed _guitar_
works. And even there there seems to be no indication that the music
is meant to be performed together with the guitar.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes
 


 Chris
 
 Christopher Wilke
 Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
 www.christopherwilke.com
 
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[LUTE] Re: Lute Strings for theorbo

2011-08-11 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:28:40 +0200, Mathias Rösel wrote
 
 I was speaking of the Pieces de Theorbe et de Luth, Mises en Partition
 Dessus et Basse, 1716 (facsimile Madrid, 1983). The guitar is not
 mentioned. 

I was speaking of the two printed guitar books from 1682 and 1686. No
theorbo mentioned in those.

 One might take this to suggest that de Visée himself 
 viewed the pieces as theorbo and lute music.

Not in 1680-something :-)
 
 In his 1983 preface, Juan Marcos remarked that many of these pieces 
 had, years before, an edition of its guitar versions (sic!). 
 However, that it was impossible to know for what instruments were 
 they originaly conceived
 (sic!). I for one cannot see good reasons why one should claim that 
 what de Visee called music for the theorbo and the lute, in fact is 
 guitar music (that must have been rewritten for the theorbo and the 
 lute).

Nobody here made such a claim. Just that these pieces in score where
published in the context of a guitar publication ca. 30 year before the
where published as theorbo pieces.

 As a matter of fact, pieces by de Visee that exist in versions for 
 the theorbo, the lute, the guitar and / or in score (en partition),
  have in common that versions of a piece for lute, guitar and / or 
 in score share the same key, whereas the respective theorbo version 
 is a 4th lower.

Maybe because they would be unplayable at the high pitch on a theorbo?
Given that the keys of pieces are clearly given in manuscripts I think 
there's little to argue about. 

 IMO it is safe to say about the 1716 score edition, that if pieces 
 exists in versions for the theorbo as well as other versions, the 
 theorbo version is original, nevertheless.

I think that's a claim hard to be proven. The earliest sources are for
guitar. I tend to take these pieces as music published for a wide
range of instruments (those most popular at the time: guitar,
harpsichord, violin/flute/recorder with BC or lute / theorbo). It
seems futile to claim that they are originally for one instrument
with the other versions being mere Bearbeitungen/arrangements.  I
don't think we need to assume equal pitch for the different scorings
since there seems to be no indication that these are meant to be used
together. There's also astonishing little evidence for Theorbos in D 
from french sources.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

 Mathias
 
   The theorbo pieces of de Visée's publication en musique stand a 4th
   higher than the correspondent tablature versions.
 
  Can the transposition of a 4th en musique be because
  de Visee was using his guitar pieces as his reference
  point?  Most of the solo theorbo pieces that also exist
  in guitar versions are pitched down a 4th from the
  guitar.  This makes sense since the guitar with
  re-entrant 5th course will have the 4th course as its lowest
  pitch, so as to be really in d.
  
  Chris
  
  Christopher Wilke
  Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
  www.christopherwilke.com
  
  
  
  
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[LUTE] Re: tuners

2011-08-06 Thread R. Mattes

On Sat, 6 Aug 2011 17:02:07 -0400, William Brohinsky wrote
 lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
 
 On Fri, Aug 5, 2011 at 6:16 AM, Garry Warber 
 garrywar...@hughes.net wrote:
    Anyone know of an electronic tuner that calibrates to a=392?
 
 I have a turbotuner (http://www.turbo-tuner.com/pages/features.htm).
 A4 can be set anywhere between 220hz and 880hz. You can put your own
 temperaments into it, set up open tunings for any instrument you
 please. I have tunings for my viols (including the 7-string) and when
 I was playing the theorboed LSO at Uconn set two presets, one for the
 lute open strings, and another for the diapasons. It responds well to
 lute strings when left on the floor, unless everyone else is playing.
 Then, any small electret mic (like you can get at radio shack, if 
 they haven't gone totally decadent again) with a 1/4 plug or 
 adapter held near the lute top does a pretty good job of discriminating.

Yes, an awfully nice tuner - but unfortunately the ST-122 is Out of stock
until further notice for at least a year now. Too bad.

 Cheers, RalfD

 ray
 
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[LUTE] Re: tuners

2011-08-05 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 21:07:38 +0900, T.Kakinami wrote
 If you are iPhone or iPad user, Cleartune - Chromatic Tuner is available.
 This application allows you to set A = 392Hz.

Or any Android system. The price of a cheaper Android system plus ClearTune
might be cheaper than a fancy traditional tuner box.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

 http://kakitoshilute.blogspot.com/2011/08/cleartune-chromatic-tuner.html
 http://www.bitcount.com/cleartune/features.html
 
 *
   Toshiaki Kakinami
   E-mail :  tk...@orchid.plala.or.jp
   Blog   : http://kakitoshilute.blogspot.com
 *
 
 -Original Message-
 From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] 
 On Behalf Of Garry Warber Sent: Friday, August 05, 2011 7:16 PM To:
lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Subject: [LUTE] tuners
 
Anyone know of an electronic tuner that calibrates to a=392?  My KORG
does a=415, but only drops to 410...  I have found a couple that allow
you to calibrate some flats, which the vendor says would do the 
 same   thing, but one that calibrates to 392 would ease my suspicions.
 
Garry
 
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[LUTE] Re: tuner re's

2011-08-05 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 5 Aug 2011 09:22:13 -0400, Garry Warber wrote
 Thank you all...  I only discovered electronic-tuner handiness 
 from my   grandson when he used his app on his I-phone last month. 
  I personally   do not have a cell phone, by choice.

But you can use the 'cell phone' just as an excellent digital tuner.
And with Android systems in the range of 90$ plus 4$ for ClearTune you're
still at appr. half the price of a Violab tuner.
  
So, if I'm getting this, any 440 tuner would  work by tuning every
course a full step low, then do a mind trick of telling 
 yourself it's   regular lute tuning?  For example my lute would 
 become, low to high, C,   E-flat, F,B-flat, E-flat, G, C, F, which I 
 would then convince myself   it's still D, F, G, C, F, A, D, G in 
 a=392?  Wow...  Perhaps just   staying at a=415 is just fine...

Kind of: 392 (well, 391.9...) is one tempered whole step below 440.
But I find it anoying to transpose while tuning. And that -only_ works 
for equal temprament. In pythagorean the whole step below 440 is at 384 etc.

HTH Ralf Mattes

Garry
 
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[BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Continuo duets for two continuo instruments?

2011-06-19 Thread R. Mattes

On Sun, 19 Jun 2011 23:53:54 +0300, wikla wrote
 Dear (continuo-)lutenists,
 
 there are (at least) two examples of duets for two continuo 
 instruments - only the numbered bass line written - but meant to be 
 played as otherwise all improvised duet. The one I remembered and 
 also found in the Net, is by
 G. Strozzi, see 
http://www.continuo.ca/files/Strozzi%20-%20Sonata%20di%20basso%20solo.pdf
 
 There is at least one other similiar case - got also it nearly 20 
 years ago from S. Stubbs (if memory serves...). And it also is in my 
 bookshelf, I know that, but I cannot find it... Anyone has any idea?

Hmm, I don't know about Continuo Duet - but there are the of course the 
partimento duets by Pasquini, maybe you think of these?
 
 Next month in a music course I might have possibility to play with a
 professional baroque harpist, and this kind of improvisation stuff 
 could be most enjoyable! And I've done these two in a course in 
 Bremen in the beginning on 90's...

I'll use the Pasquini ones in a course next weekend :-)

HTH RalfD
 

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[LUTE] Re: German tablature

2011-03-09 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:06:09 +0100, Mathias Roesel wrote
 *waves hand*

*waves hands too*

Actually, once used to it it's a pretty neat shorthand notation. I sometimes
use it it sketch fingerings/chord shapes for continuo playing ...

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

 Mat
 
  -Ursprüngliche Nachricht-
  Von: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] Im
  Auftrag von Rob MacKillop
  Gesendet: Dienstag, 8. März 2011 17:55
  An: howard posner
  Cc: Lute List
  Betreff: [LUTE] Re: German tablature
  
 Exactly.
  
 Well, it's fun to do, and it is always nice to work from facsimiles.
 But yes, I could do it a hundred times faster in French tab. It has
 always been a no-go area for me, or even no-reason-to-go, but I'm
 taking an interest in early German lute music, and it seemed the
 respectful thing to do, and not without interest.
  
 Anyone here fluent in it?
  
 Rob
  
 --
  
  
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[LUTE] Re: 7-course lute by Martin Haycock for sale

2011-03-09 Thread R. Mattes

On Wed, 9 Mar 2011 15:10:11 +0100, Alfonso Marin wrote

 Selling price: [WINDOWS-1252?]4400
 
 Here you can watch some pictures:
 
 http://www.lutevoice.com/Haycock/

And you may wonder why you can't see any pictures on this web page ...
Yet another page that needs activated Java Script to display images. Oh my.

BTW, owning another copy of the Gerle - I wouldn't really call that
instrument a copy. The original has 6 chourse, a _very_ narrow
neck/fingerboard and the body isn't nearly as roundish as the copy's.

But it does look like a fine instrument.

Cheers, Ralf Mattes
 



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[LUTE] Re: Holbein painting - bray harp

2011-02-10 Thread R. Mattes

On Thu, 10 Feb 2011 09:46:47 +, Martin Shepherd wrote
 Dear Anthony and All,
 
 This is a great mystery.  I can see no possible interpretation of 
 Capirola's remarks other than the one you suggest - BUT I have tried 
 it, and it doesn't work!  You can make some notes buzz some of the 
 time, but I cannot see how you could possibly set it up so that all 
 notes buzzed, and to roughly the same extent.  If you really want a 
 buzzing effect, the obvious way to do it is to thread something 
 between the strings just in front of the bridge.
 
 Has anyone else tried it?

Yes, Crawford Young did extensive research  experiments on this
topic. IIRC the double-fret method didn't yield any convincing result, but
you might want to contact Crawford to get all the details.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes


  
 Best wishes,
 
 Martin
 
 On 09/02/2011 13:31, Anthony Hind wrote:
  I find interesting your idea (which I recognize is just a passing 
  suggestion,
  and not a theory) that this lute might have been set-up for a Capriola
Bray-harp
  effect, by setting the string height and the frets in such a way as to
  intensionly cause the strings to buzz on the equal frets. It would be
  interesting to experiment such a set-up, to see what happens.
 
 
 
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Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de

[LUTE] Re: BAROQUE LUTE FOR SALE

2010-12-21 Thread R. Mattes

On Tue, 21 Dec 2010 02:19:23 -0800 (PST), Anton Birula wrote
 --- On Mon, 12/20/10, Anton Birula image...@yahoo.com wrote:
 
  From: Anton Birula image...@yahoo.com
  Subject: [LUTE] Re: BAROQUE LUTE FOR SALE
  To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Date: Monday, December 20, 2010, 1:37 PM
  
   Baroque lute by Martin de Witte 1998
   14 course instrument with extra low G string (for
  Bach) 
   Dutch Head type 
   Basic string length 68 cm
   Price 3700 EUR

What's the point of flooding the lute mailing lists with this
add? Ever heard of spam? 

 Ralf Mattes



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[LUTE] Re: Resources

2010-10-22 Thread R. Mattes

On Fri, 22 Oct 2010 15:30:18 +0100, Peter Martin wrote
 Thanks for this lead!
 
I've just downloaded Laute und Lautenmusik.
 
on page 17, taking an example from Neusidler, he suggests that an
quarter note C followed by eighth notes C and D should be interpreted
as a dotted quarter note C followed by an eighth note D.  This is 
 on   the grounds that Neusidler hardly ever writes dotted notes. 
  It's sort   of plausible, but is it right?
 

I would never play out those repeated notes. Neusidler's and the other
early german lute sources rhythmic notation is much closer to the
rhythmic notation of lower voices in early german organ
tablature. Dotting (i.e. punctus additionis) is a concept from
mensural notation, hardly applicable to tablature. Playing those
repeated notes in intabulations of such polyphonic gems as 'Cecus non
judicat ..' from Alexander sound ridiculous to me.
Bur some well-known experts seem to dissagree :-)

 Cheers, RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: In My Life Copyright Issue What is Copyright Infringement?

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:41:51 +0200, wolfgang wiehe wrote
 what´s about singing this song on a public place (toilette)?
 is this copyright infringement?
 ;-)

Oh, so funny! Not. 
Yes, unless you do it for yourself alone. Yes, IMHO copyright law is in
utterly insane. Have a look at 
 
 http://www.unhappybirthday.com/

or the wikipedia article about that song. But the sad fact is: peolpe had
to pay after performing this song in public.
BTW, it's not Yoko collecting the fees, it's most likely some copyright fee
collection agency like the ascap or GEMA for you in Germany.
If you ever had an encounter with GEMA's collecting department you know what
to expect.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes

 
  Original-Nachricht 
  Datum: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:36:46 +0200
  Von: anthony.chalkley anthony.chalk...@orange.fr
  An: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Betreff: [LUTE] Re: In My Life Copyright Issue What is Copyright 
  Infringement?
 
  Shouldn't worry too much Tom. Yoko didn't even know Lennon would have been
  70 this year - can't imagine she knows any of the songs she didn't howl 
  on
  
  
  - Original Message - 
  From: Guitar  Lute guitarandl...@earthlink.net
  To: t...@heartistrymusic.com
  Cc: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 1:27 PM
  Subject: [LUTE] Re: In My Life Copyright Issue What is Copyright 
  Infringement?
  
  
  
   Hi Tom,
  
   Just to help you out here since apparantly you have your idea of what
   copyright law is, here is a link and a quote from the US copyright
   office.
  
   What is copyright infringement?
  
   As a general matter, copyright infringement occurs when a copyrighted
   work is reproduced, distributed, performed, publicly displayed, or
   made into a derivative work without the permission of the copyright
   owner.
  
   See it yourself,
  
   http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html
  
   Allan
  
  
  
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   http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
   
  
  
  
 


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R. Mattes -- Systemeinheitsstreichler
Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de

[LUTE] Re: In My Life Copyright Issue What is Copyright Infringement?

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 08:22:17 -0400, Mayes, Joseph wrote
 What occurs to me in all of this is just how far from the spirit of 
 the law, the letter of the law has gone.

Yes, but unfortunately we have to live with that. 

 The Humble rockers who 
 wrote the beautiful song are way out of it - We're now talking about 
 the enrichment of suits and bean-counters.


Oh, c'mme on! That `humble rocker' got a shxxtload of money for
selling those copyrights. And IIRC I an TV interview some close friend
of John Lennon claimed that he was actually rather keen of being
wealthy - I think shopping maniac was the term he used :-)
  
 There seems to be a 
 misalignment of the universe when the guy delivering the ink 
 cartridge to write the contract makes more than the composer.

So, us Robin Hoods of modern times commit copyright infringement to
take revenge for those horrible crimes: take from the rich (media
industry), give to the poor (composer/performer). Wait, we don't do
the second, somehow the booty stays with us.


 Cheers,  RalfD

 There should be a way to protect the rights of artists - not middle-men.
 



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[LUTE] Re: In My Life Copyright Issue What is Copyright Infringement?

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:31:17 +0200, Thomas Schall wrote
 I guess this would count as performance and clearly is an 
 infringement of copyright law. IMHO copyright (in the US) has very 
 good intensions but it's a law that is hard to follow and is 
 contradictional to common sense and habits. I'm lucky not to live in 
 the US but in switzerland with a more liberal 
 (and practical) understanding of copyright. An arrangement as Tom 
 did would count as fair use 
 (http://www.copyright.ch/?sub_id=47leng=0), 

Even that's debatable. Fair use (which is not the term used in the
swiss law) only applies to works you got from the copyright holder. So
I you buy an edition/recording from the copyright holder you can
create fair use-copies. You already paid for that use, so to speak.

Cheers, RalfD
 



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[LUTE] Re: Interesting Story about Copyright

On Thu, 21 Oct 2010 07:22:46 -0700 (PDT), mc41mc wrote
 I refused to read this, as there were .gif  images on the page. 
  As I'm   sure you are aware, the .gif format is proprietary, and I 
 see no   evidence that the proper licencing fees have been paid to Unisys.

Nonsense! The GIF format is not and never was proprietary. The gif
format specification was released by CompuServe as a free and open
specification in 1987.  As a CompuServe spokesperson put it Recent
discussions of GIF taxes and fees are totally without merit. For
people who view GIF images, who keep GIF images on servers, or who are
creating GIF images for distribution, the recent licensing discussions
have no effect on their activities.

You are confusing this with the copyright on the LZW compression
algorhythm that gif uses. But fear not: that patent ran out in June
2004. 

 RalfD



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[LUTE] Re: Toccata

On Tue, 19 Oct 2010 20:39:10 -0700, howard posner wrote
 Some of the posters are seem unaware that Kapsberger's Third Book 
 was found a few years ago.  Diego Cantalupi not only recorded it,
  but included a pdf facsimile of the book on the CD.  Any theorbo 
 player who doesn't have it already should start dropping hints with 
 loved ones for the next gift-giving occasion: Kapsberger: Libro 
 Terzo dIntavolatura di Chitarrone

I guess _you_ are unaware of the fine facsimile edition of
said work :-)


  Libro Terzo D'Intavolatura Di Chitarrone
  Introduzione di / Introduction by
  Franco Pavan

  Arnaldo Forni Editore 2009

Not only a good facsimile but also a well written introduction
and study of the print.
Relevant to this thread's starting point:
There's a small introduction by Kapsberger explaining the notation
used (trillo signs et al.) as well as some examples of propper arpegiation.
If i read correctly they all are sounding bottom to top or reversed.
More interesting: Kapsberger writes that whenever there a more than
three notes without an arpeggiation sign the first note (bass in all
his examples) has to be played with the thumb _on_ the beat, the other
(three) afterwards. I take this as a rather strong evidence for
using only p,i and m on the chitarrone.

Cheers, Ralf Mattes


--
R. Mattes -- Systemeinheitsstreichler
Hochschule fuer Musik Freiburg
r...@inm.mh-freiburg.de



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[LUTE] Re: Munich 1522

On Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:21:07 +0100, Peter Martin wrote
 What a lovely little book.
 
Is it reasonable to conclude that -
 
a) the tuning table on pdf page 28 suggests 'normal' tuning 
 rather than   re-entrant?

Looks very much like it (I assume pdf page 28 equals image_27).
Even stronger evidence: Fol. 8v (the page just before that page).
Faint writing, but clearly a violin clef with the guitar's tuning.
Below that, a tablature fragment with pitch names in front of
the lines(top to bottom): A D g h e
Now that's a clear source ...

Only question: why is that verso page so faint - at a first glance
it seemed that these faint pages where empty pages where the writing
on the verso page shined through, but not for this page.
  
b) the set of I-IV-V-I passachaglias at the beginning in lots of
different keys (found in many guitar books, incidentally) suggests
equal temperament?

Or something close to equal temperament. But this isn't big news,
 semi-equal tempraments rather being the expected.

 Cheers, Ralf Mattes
 
P
 
On 20 October 2010 08:30, G. Crona [1]kalei...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Anon. Ms. ca.1660 belonging to Adelaida di Savoya (see back)
  Electress of Bavaria. Italian mixed tablature and alfabeto. 50
  guitar solos and Italian songs. RISM B/VII, 222-3
  G.
  - Original Message - From: David van Ooijen
  [2]davidvanooi...@gmail.com
  To: G. Crona [3]kalei...@gmail.com
  Cc: Lute net [4]l...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 9:10 AM
 
Subject: [LUTE] Re: Munich 1522
 
  On 20 October 2010 09:04, G. Crona [5]kalei...@gmail.com wrote:
 
  Upper right corner David! PDF-download.  Ja  weiter or english
  option even
  :)
 
  Danke! 14Mb only.
  David
  --
  ***
  David van Ooijen
  [6]davidvanooi...@gmail.com
  [7]www.davidvanooijen.nl
  ***
 
--
Peter Martin
24 The Mount St Georges
Second Avenue
Newcastle under Lyme
ST5 8RB
tel: 0044 (0)1782 662089
mob: 0044 (0)7971 232614
[8]peter.l...@gmail.com
 
--
 
 References
 
1. mailto:kalei...@gmail.com
2. mailto:davidvanooi...@gmail.com
3. mailto:kalei...@gmail.com
4. mailto:lute@cs.dartmouth.edu
5. mailto:kalei...@gmail.com
6. mailto:davidvanooi...@gmail.com
7. http://www.davidvanooijen.nl/
8. mailto:peter.l...@gmail.com
 
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[LUTE] Re: Munich 1522

On Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:14:46 +0100, Peter Martin wrote
 Interesting.  But I wonder whether this, and the transcription 
 into   staff notation of chords A and B on the Accordatura page, are 
 a later   pencilled addition by someone (probably a non-guitarist) 
 trying to   interpret the tablature?

Very likely - esp. looking at the shape of the note names
and the (for the time of the manuscript) rather unusual octav
transposing violin clef with ledger lines.
But still - the accordatura clearly states octaves between 3 on the
second string and the open 4th as well as 2 on the third and open
fifth.

 Cheers, RalfD





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[LUTE] Re: Toccata

On Wed, 20 Oct 2010 06:02:17 -0700 (PDT), Christopher Wilke wrote
 The confusion arises from the fact that HK is always using the same 
 examples in his prefaces.  The 4-note arp. is always demonstrated p-
 i-m-i, but illustrated on strings that result in low to high.  So, 
 what if the arp. needs to happen on strings other than those in the 
 preface?  Does HK want us to use the same pattern or break the chord 
 with some other right hand pattern so as to achieve the same type of 
 note order?  Picininni doesn't help: his examples are almost 
 identical to Kapsperger's.  I tend to think, keep the pattern, but 
 that's just a guess.
 
 There are two examples in which Kapsperger deviates from p-i-m-i.  
 The six note arp. is played p-p-p-i-m-i on strings 6-5-4-2-1-3.  
 With re-entrant tuning, this results in the notes proceeding bass-
 ten-alto-ten-alto-sop.  (To add to the confusion, in Libro IV it 
 says to play it p-p-p-m-(i)-m!)  More interestingly, HK's advice for 
 the 3-note arp. is to start on the TOP note and descend to the bass: 
 i-m-p.

I think we should be careful in separating two issues here:

[1] Fingering (i.e. what fingers to use to play certain notes.

[2] Note layout - i.e. in what sequence to play the notes of
an arpeggiated chord.

[1] At least for the early Chitarrone repertoir it seems pretty clear
to me that there's no documented use of the ring finger.  IIRC that's
pretty much in concordance with right hand fingering for the lute.
Also, when playing close to the bridge (which seems to have been the
most common place) using more the two fingers besides the thumb is
difficult since there is a noticeable difference in the sound quality
between the first and the third finger.

[2] Yes, il tedesco leaves out important informantion - but i wouldn't
call that 'confusing' (the information he gives isn't contradicting in
itself), it's just not enough. At least so it seems. We do have
examples for string combinations 4-321, 5-321 and 654321 (i guess
6-321 would be similar to the other bass+top three strings). All
combinations with the top three notes on 543 are uninteresting since
there's no inversion happening.  That leaves us with missing examples
for the combinations 6-432 and 5432. But that's a combination that
hardly ever used in the third book (I'd have do dig to find my
microfilm copies of the other books to broaden that observation).
There _are_ places I'd be curious to get more information from
Kapsberger.  There are some chords where the pattern he mentions
produce non-bottom-to-top voicings, for example the final e major
chord in Toccata no. 2 or some places in the toccata arpeggiata.
Those are the interesting spots.

 Cheers, RalfD

 



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[LUTE] Re: Toccata