[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
It depends why you want to learn to read staff notation. One issue to consider is: who will you play with and what will you play. If you're going to play Chitarone and your friends play instruments that like sharp keys, as violins and flutes often do, you probably should learn to read notation on an A lute. If you're going to play with instruments that like flat keys, then learn on a G lute. Regards, Gordon -Original Message- From: angevin...@att.net [mailto:angevin...@att.net] Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2009 8:55 PM To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [LUTE] reading mensural notation Perhaps like many lute players, I started out playing lute strictly from tablature. While I'm fluent reading mensural notation for singing or other instruments, I've never mastered it with the lute. I feel this is a lack, and would like to fix it - except for how much work it is! Now I currently play both a tenor in G and an alto in A. I can think of reasons why it would be nice to be able to read mensural notation on each of them. But since the task at hand is already difficult (and hard to motivate practicing), I really need to pick either the G or the A and just learn that for now. Like most lute players, I played some (classical) guitar first, so really it would probably be slightly easier to learn the association from A lute to mensural notation. But perhaps the G is more generally useful in the long run. Any advice from the collected wisdom? Suzanne -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
Break it down into steps. Your mind is very adaptable to pattern recognition. Step 1: G clef. Practice G clef by playing renaissance part music, for example, Odhecaton. Playing this repertory will also tie in to lute music, so it is doubly helpful. You can also read through the Susato dance books, any renaissance part music will do. Josquin and Lasso are very good for style. The Morley duets make nice lute duets if you find a colleague who is interested in reading music. Step 2: Pattern recognition in clusters, G clef and Bass clef: Lute songs. Start in on lute songs. Use the Elizabethan Songbook--readily available on eBay--because there is no tablature. You must not have the Tab on the page. Start with Jack and Joan. There are only three or four chords in this piece, you can work through it in 20 minutes or so. The notes are grouped on the clefs, and this is what is needed to get to the next step. Also, you will pick up the voice part subconciously. Step 3: Two parts of three and four parts Using the music that you played through to learn one part, play the lowest two parts. Step 4: Chord recognition Taking both part music and simple scores, write in the chords. Step 5: Figured bass (big topic) Step 6: Larger scores Take the Handel Opera Rinaldo and fully figure the bass part. Step 7: Larger, complex scores: fully figure Rameau's Dardanus You could add an intermediate step for trio sonatas, however Opera is the fastest way to learn. If you cannot work with a teacher you can play along with a CD recording for the later steps. You can easily work through step 6 in two years, working slowly and carefully. The lute song step quickly trains your eye to accept more than one note at once--it is essential. dt At 03:52 PM 3/13/2009, you wrote: On Thu, Mar 12, 2009, angevin...@att.net said: While I'm fluent reading mensural notation for singing or other instruments, I've never mastered it with the lute. The ability to play at sight is a professional skill that some never aquire. It is valued, and orchestral practice recognizes that by providing pitch-transposed parts for certain instruments (eg, clarinet) so their players dont have to do the mental twists when changing instruments. Frankly, I began with Guitar as so many of us do, I also sang and played other instruments (winds), so the notation itself was easy; but reading for guitar, especially chords, was something I just found challenging, and that over more than a decade; not intensive effort, but enough to decide it wasnt going to happen for me. Tablature was much easier, and I was willing to do the transcriptions. Then I joined a COllegium Musicum, and discovered how hard it was to read even single-line staff at tempo. Many dropped notes followed. Thankfully it was enough for the director to whittle down the possibles into a semesters program; and also to decide on orchestrations. Plenty of time later to work out fingerings and get up to speed, time enough to get the pieces into my head where I could then play from rote and do some artful improv. You are not alone in finding this a challenge, I say pick one instrument and concentrate on it; consider what role you want to pursue in ensemble, then focus on that instrument for staff-notation reading skills. -- Dana Emery To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
Suzanne Learn to play from sight single melodies on both your lutes. That's easy enough, as your ears will soon guide your fingers. Choose the lute you use most to learn reading from 'piano notation' on bass and treble clef. I'd suggest you take your g'-lute for that, as much lute music transcribed into tablature is transcribed for a lute in g'. The English lute songs, for example, much music in the CNRS series, c. Furthermore, most lesson books on continuo and most written out examples will presume a lute in g'. Of course, you'll also find lute music transcribed for a'-lute, notably early Italian and German music, but you might want to save that for your next learning project. A good place to start, apart from the editions mentioned above, is the Fuzeau edition of '50 Renaissance Baroque Standards', edited by Pascale Boquet and Gérard Rebours. Nice melodies to play, bass lines added to practice those too, fun do-it-yourself-continuo and improvisation lessons. David -- *** David van Ooijen davidvanooi...@gmail.com www.davidvanooijen.nl *** To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
You can't go too wrong between G and A, however, G is more common in transcriptions (although there are books in A for sure, but it must be ten to one in G). dt To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
angevin...@att.net wrote: Perhaps like many lute players, I started out playing lute strictly from tablature. While I'm fluent reading mensural notation for singing or other instruments, I've never mastered it with the lute. I feel this is a lack, and would like to fix it - except for how much work it is! Now I currently play both a tenor in G and an alto in A. I can think of reasons why it would be nice to be able to read mensural notation on each of them. But since the task at hand is already difficult (and hard to motivate practicing), I really need to pick either the G or the A and just learn that for now. Like most lute players, I played some (classical) guitar first, so really it would probably be slightly easier to learn the association from A lute to mensural notation. But perhaps the G is more generally useful in the long run. Any advice from the collected wisdom? Suzanne -- Just to clarify: mensural notation as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.11/1997 - Release Date: 03/12/09 10:38:00
[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
-- Original message from Stuart Walsh s.wa...@ntlworld.com: -- angevin...@att.net wrote: Perhaps like many lute players, I started out playing lute strictly from tablature. While I'm fluent reading mensural notation for singing or other instruments, I've never mastered it with the lute. I feel this is a lack, and would like to fix it - except for how much work it is! Now I currently play both a tenor in G and an alto in A. I can think of reasons why it would be nice to be able to read mensural notation on each of them. But since the task at hand is already difficult (and hard to motivate practicing), I really need to pick either the G or the A and just learn that for now. Like most lute players, I played some (classical) guitar first, so really it would probably be slightly easier to learn the association from A lute to mensural notation. But perhaps the G is more generally useful in the long run. Any advice from the collected wisdom? Suzanne -- Just to clarify: mensural notation as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation Stuart No, I mean plain old modern staff notation. Not the esoteric, specialized stuff of early Western music. Mensural, as is Add mensural staff of Fronimo. Sorry if the use of the not-quite-exact term was confusing. I'm just meaning to contrast tablature with staff notation. Suzanne To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 6:20 PM, angevin...@att.net wrote: No, I mean plain old modern staff notation. Not the esoteric, specialized stuff of early Western music. Mensural, as is Add mensural staff of Fronimo. Sorry if the use of the not-quite-exact term was confusing. I'm just meaning to contrast tablature with staff notation. Suzanne Awww. that spoils all the fun. OK, basically, you're going to read one of two clefs with lutes in G or A (which we could call tenor lute and alto lute, if you want): treble clef and alto clef. If the treble clef is transposed-treble (i.e., has the 8 underneath the clef sign), then an interesting thing happens: A in the alto clef (second line up) is G in the transposed treble clef. So, if you learn the treble clef using the A lute, you can read the alto clef by changing lutes. You have to be aware of some niceties. Mostly, you have to be aware that, if you are playing in C in transposed treble on the G lute, all the notes on lines and spaces are natural, but if you are playing the A lute on the alto clef with music written in C, you'll be three sharps up on the other parts. Think of it this way: if you start with G lute on the second line of the transposed treble and play three notes, G A B, you are playing a whole tone and a whole tone up. If you start with the same note on the same line (concert A in this case) in alto clef on the A lute, you'll put your finger in the same place as you would have on the G lute in Transposed treble. The next note up, concert B (looking like an A), will be whole tone up. But the next note would be concert C natural with no sharps or flats in the signature, and you will want to play it as a concert C# because it will look to you like a B. So to adjust, you'll have to add three flats. If the key signature has sharps, each sharp nullifies a flat. If it has flats, you just add them. So if the original signature has one sharp, you'll have to play alto clef with the A lute and use a signature with two flats, but other than that trick, you can read the notes as if you were reading transposed treble on the G lute! So I'd start reading transposed treble clef on the G lute, and after I was comfortable with that, start reading alto clef parts on the A lute with the signature gimmick. Only I wouldn't. I, personally, have always found it more convenient (and less confusing) to just learn each instrument as its own entity, and then learn to read each clef on it anew. It's a facility I have, but probably isn't shared by many others (judging from the amount of work that goes into coming up with ways of circumventing it, like the above.) ray To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[LUTE] Re: reading mensural notation
angevin...@att.net wrote: Perhaps like many lute players, I started out playing lute strictly from tablature. While I'm fluent reading mensural notation for singing or other instruments, I've never mastered it with the lute. I feel this is a lack, and would like to fix it - except for how much work it is! Now I currently play both a tenor in G and an alto in A. I can think of reasons why it would be nice to be able to read mensural notation on each of them. But since the task at hand is already difficult (and hard to motivate practicing), I really need to pick either the G or the A and just learn that for now. Like most lute players, I played some (classical) guitar first, so really it would probably be slightly easier to learn the association from A lute to mensural notation. But perhaps the G is more generally useful in the long run. Any advice from the collected wisdom? Suzanne -- Just to clarify: mensural notation as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation Stuart No, I mean plain old modern staff notation. Not the esoteric, specialized stuff of early Western music. Mensural, as is Add mensural staff of Fronimo. Sorry if the use of the not-quite-exact term was confusing. I'm just meaning to contrast tablature with staff notation. Suzanne Sorry to raise another question - but do you want to read lute music - solos, song accompaniments, duet parts - that were originally in tablature, but in ordinary music notation? Perhaps so you can really see the implied voice-leading? That's a very noble enterprise - which many people would baulk at because it is both difficult and a bit superfluous if you can play the tablature well enough. Or do you want to do what some keyboard players can do, and look at a score (e.g. in 3 or 4 parts) and play it at sight on the lute? Or again, do you want to read the lower part (probably in the bass clef) and do a sort of continuo? Also very noble enterprises and I'd think really quite difficult. Or do you want to play single lines? I don't think that's too difficult at all. Of course, the question is why you would want to play single lines. (I want to play single lines because I want to play pre-16th century music - but in ordinary modern musical notation, not mensural!). I don't think it matters whether you play a lute in A or G, if you want to single lines. But you need to play in the treble clef, the treble clef an octave down and the bass clef. Playing single lines, in much Renaissance music is really not too difficult. I also like to play other instruments than the lute that have specific tunings (different from the lute) and the music written for the instrument is not in tablature. It's mostly amateur music and in a small number of keys. Playing from music notation in different tunings on different instruments is not a big deal (as long as the music is not too difficult). Stuart To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.11/1997 - Release Date: 03/12/09 10:38:00
