Re: oldest viola picture
Normally people like you give away free bibles. How about a free viol? :-) Stephan Am 7 Dec 2004 um 22:16 hat Roger E. Blumberg geschrieben: - Original Message - From: rosinfiorini [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 5:20 PM Subject: oldest viola picture Here, this they say is the oldest painting where they portray viola (its from quatro cento towards end i think). Link: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Seiten/education/OldestVioladagamba .htm Hi rosinfiorini; Yes, I've seen that one. It's a late 1400's five stringer, Valencia Spain. Here is a page with lots of old viola bridges and they are pretty consistent. Looks like the second bridge on the Viti picture is merely the shadow of the actual bridge (since there is no lower horizontal bar on the old bridges). The shadow is exactly as the angle view of the typical ancient bridge as seen on this page: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Seiten/education/BridgesVdg.htm A shadow?. Sorry, I don't see what you're seeing. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg you're saying one of those bridge objects in the Viti is the shadow of the other? The other day i was at this luthier and he does a lot (mostly how he makes living) repares. On the counter was a viola da gamba. I played the thing as if it were a lute (i play renaissance lute). Believe me there was no need for a second bridge! It was delight to see this thing was tuned in a familiar way:) I'm glad you recognized that viol as family (familiar) when you played it ;') The scenario I was suggesting though, is reverse. Someone might have put a bowing bridge on an earlier plucked viola. Pluckers can pluck a viol, but bowers can not bow a dedicated plucked viola (not very sucessfully at least). They started out that way, using regular plucked flat fixed bridges to do their bowing, similar to modern classical guitar bridge. See this picture: http://www.thecipher.com/viol-guitar_ValenciaMadonnaCampiCmpr.jpg Note the kind of bridge the bowed viola has, same as a plucked one would have (flat, positioned way to the back, glued to the face, no separate tail ). Over time they evolved two separate dedicated and optimised designs, one for bowing and one for plucking (though, as you say, you _can_ pluck a viol). That bowed violists _can_ still pluck their instrument, they aren't deprived of that function, activity, and joy, speaks well for the argument overall. Again, there are many clues that something is not right in the Viti viol/viola, here's just a few: - the tail is too narrow for that bowing bridge (too narrow for 6 strings) - fretboard appears to be flat on the face of the instrument -- like a plucked viola - strings are hanging off the side if the fretboard left and right. It could be an old dedicated 4 sting bowed viola converted to 6 stringer, but even that's good to know because it helps identify a truer date for the instrument and it's overal design. It's pretty clear to me that Viti's and Raphael's viols are of different true ages, even though they were painted only 10 years apart. Thanks for the note. So are you thinking about getting a viol now? Did you get a chance to bow one? That's the needed convincing mechanism -- to experience feeling some long sustained bowed notes coming from your fingers compared to the fast decaying plucked ones, (and without having to learn a new instrument nor tuning). Plucked viola, like this one http://www.thecipher.com/viola-guitar-angels.jpg were lutes (for all intents and purposes), just an alternative body design and construction. And the bowed version of the viola, like this, http://www.thecipher.com/viol-guitar_Raphael_1514.jpg was just that, the bowed version, bowed lute -- the same thing essentially: same body, same frets, same tuning. No matter if you play viola shaped lute or bowl back lute, viols are your instrument -- the other half of your expressive and music making tool set. It shouldn't be either/or, it could and should be both. There are plenty of documented historical figures who were masters of both viol and lute, no surprise. When you see an old painting or etching of an Elizabethan contort, viols plus lute, every instrument in that picture is a lute. Some are bowed, some are plucked, some big, some small, some single course, some double. A guitar is a lute, it's the closer body-type relative of the viola/vuhuela-lute (rather than bowl-back lute). Viols did not come from bowl-back bodied lutes, they came from viola/vihuela bodied lutes. But they're still all the same machine. Viols are as much guitars as they are lutes, or as much lutes as they are guitars. The point is they are our other half. The belong to us. And lutes belong to viol players. We are one. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin
Re: oldest viola picture
- Original Message - From: Stephan Olbertz [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 1:38 AM Subject: Re: oldest viola picture Normally people like you give away free bibles. How about a free viol? :-) Stephan Am 7 Dec 2004 um 22:16 hat Roger E. Blumberg geschrieben: If it was in my power to do so, I would ;') Preaching is the best I can do for now. You'll have to pray to St. Celilia to put the word in Santa's ear. ;') Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: oldest viola picture (puerto rican cuatro)
Plucked viola, like this one http://www.thecipher.com/viola-guitar-angels.jpg were lutes (for all intents and purposes), just an alternative body design and construction. there are some bright sparks on the list who would argue that violas, like the one pictured in the above address, cease to be violas altogether when constructed in the new world. they, like their frightfully common associate, the vihuela de mano, become entirely different instruments; new name ... everything ... amazing, really. - bill = and thus i made...a small vihuela from the shell of a creepy crawly... - Don Gonzalo de Guerrero (1512), Historias de la Conquista del Mayab by Fra Joseph of San Buenaventura. go to: http://www.charango.cl/paginas/quieninvento.htm ___ Moving house? Beach bar in Thailand? New Wardrobe? Win £10k with Yahoo! Mail to make your dream a reality. Get Yahoo! Mail www.yahoo.co.uk/10k To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: oldest viola picture (puerto rican cuatro)
- Original Message - From: bill kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Stephan Olbertz [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 3:24 AM Subject: Re: oldest viola picture (puerto rican cuatro) Plucked viola, like this one http://www.thecipher.com/viola-guitar-angels.jpg were lutes (for all intents and purposes), just an alternative body design and construction. there are some bright sparks on the list who would argue that violas, like the one pictured in the above address, cease to be violas altogether when constructed in the new world. they, like their frightfully common associate, the vihuela de mano, become entirely different instruments; new name ... everything ... amazing, really. ya, it is. Last night I was looking again at Puerto Rican and Cuban Tres and Cuatro [cuatros are now actually 5 course, they simply retained their earlier name as they grew]. Cuatros are in straight 4ths. Tres' are 4-3 (GCE). Hispaniola, where columbus landed (and he named) is now called Haitti/Domincan Republic. Hispaniola lays dead center of Cuba and Puerto Rico. http://bbfi-northamerica.org/Lane/hispaniola.htm Then there's all the Mexican and South American regional variants. Then from Argentinian cowboys imported to Hawaii in the mid 1800's we get Ukulele's. ;') Lutes and guitars rule -- and always have ;') Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: oldest viola picture (puerto rican cuatro)
Hispaniola, where columbus landed (and he named) is now called Haitti/Domincan Republic. Actually Hispaniola the island is still called that, despite being divided into 2 aforementioned countries. RT To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: oldest viola picture (puerto rican cuatro)
- Original Message - From: Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 4:29 AM Subject: Re: oldest viola picture (puerto rican cuatro) Hispaniola, where columbus landed (and he named) is now called Haitti/Domincan Republic. Actually Hispaniola the island is still called that, despite being divided into 2 aforementioned countries. RT noted (and good morning Roman) Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: oldest viola picture (puerto rican cuatro)
with that in mind, why not divide the two instruments down the middle and call them something like violatro and vihuelango respectively, depending on which side of the atlantic you're on? i feel a dissertation coming on ... --- Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hispaniola, where columbus landed (and he named) is now called Haitti/Domincan Republic. Actually Hispaniola the island is still called that, despite being divided into 2 aforementioned countries. RT To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html = and thus i made...a small vihuela from the shell of a creepy crawly... - Don Gonzalo de Guerrero (1512), Historias de la Conquista del Mayab by Fra Joseph of San Buenaventura. go to: http://www.charango.cl/paginas/quieninvento.htm ___ ALL-NEW Yahoo! Messenger - all new features - even more fun! http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
Re: oldest viola picture
- Original Message - From: Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 10:16 PM Subject: Re: oldest viola picture Plucked viola, like this one http://www.thecipher.com/viola-guitar-angels.jpg were lutes (for all intents and purposes), just an alternative body design and construction. And the bowed version of the viola, like this, http://www.thecipher.com/viol-guitar_Raphael_1514.jpg was just that, the bowed version, bowed lute -- the same thing essentially: same body, same frets, same tuning. No matter if you play viola shaped lute or bowl back lute, viols are your instrument . . . Here's and interesting plate from Sebastian Virdung's 1511 treatise http://www.thecipher.com/LuteViolGuitarFamily_SVirdung1511.jpg Note that the viola shown (Geigen, German) has no bowing bridge, has as many strings as a bowl-back lute, has lute style bridge. Pretty much everything about the lute and viola shown there identical -- excepting body shape. The shape of the Geigen, in 1511, is essentially that of a viola sine arculo of Italy and Spain in the same time period. Oddly, there is a bow! next to a machine that looks like it's meant to be plucked. I believe this is a two-in-one illustration, space saving, reminding that there were two versions of the viola/Geigen, one plucked, one bowed, and also reminding of the relationships involved. Everyone alive then probably knew the implied (too obviouse to mention then) meanings, correlations, relationships. The drawing is making it clear that viols are a type of lute that is bowed. And that type, is the viola/vihuela lute. anyhoo, just thought I'd send it. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Re: oldest viola picture
A shadow?. Sorry, I don't see what you're seeing. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg you're saying one of those bridge objects in the Viti is the shadow of the other? I'm glad you recognized that viol as family (familiar) when you played it ;') The scenario I was suggesting though, is reverse. Someone might have put a bowing bridge on an earlier plucked viola. Pluckers can pluck a viol, but bowers can not bow a dedicated plucked viola (not very sucessfully at least This instrument was not too big-a little bigger than a guitar--the nice thing was that the fingerboard was not much curved and the frets too:) In the same shop there was a very little viola (and kind of tick--seen sidewise) sise of a violin but it was under glass in a cabinet. The bridge of the one i looked at was as something like a small contrabass bridge--two distinctlty higher feet and then kind of like fiddle bridge. I for sure would have liked to test bowing but this thing was there waiting for its owner (who must have the bow). The repared the linearity of the fingerboard which had the defect of some deeper palces that make part of fret sink. I only wonder, is it not a little limiting to play things on the viol when oyu cannot bow strings simultaneously that are not neighboring? cheers R -- Faites un voeu et puis Voila ! www.voila.fr -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Re: Re: oldest viola picture
A shadow?. Sorry, I don't see what you're seeing. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg you're saying one of those bridge objects in the Viti is the shadow of the other? * * Actually, i forgto the Viti pictur a little and now that i see it again i wouldn't say that there is non of a horizontal bar on the bridge (has it been a single bridge). The empty space under it looks like the shadows of the bridges in the pictures i posted yesterday, may thats why i mixed it somehow. If it is two bridges though there will be a conflict with the height of the fingerboard. The pic is weird indeed (the width you talk about). It looks to me like a single bridge whos vertacal bars are eaten by the bad quality of the image and of image compression..who knows.. -- Faites un voeu et puis Voila ! www.voila.fr -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Re: oldest viola picture
- Original Message - From: rosinfiorini [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 3:52 PM Subject: Re: Re: oldest viola picture I for sure would have liked to test bowing but this thing was there waiting for its owner (who must have the bow). The repared the linearity of the fingerboard which had the defect of some deeper palces that make part of fret sink. I only wonder, is it not a little limiting to play things on the viol when oyu cannot bow strings simultaneously that are not neighboring? cheers R ah! but you _can_ bow chords, and they _did_ bow chords. The radius of a 6 string viol's bridge is much less than on a violin, but/and the bow hair is also looser than on a violin. The bow hold is different than violin, it's palm up and you can actually control the tension of the bow hair with your fingers. You can most certainly bow three adjacent strings: any triad in any inversion, any sus chord, any 7th chord with dropped 5th (makes three tones on three adjacent strings), any power 5th or 4th (trine). You can also rake across all six in a deliberate slower arc. You can arpeggiate, _and_ you can pluck! Although they did and you can bow chords they were most often played in parts, like a string quartet. Viol consorts _were_ the first string quartets, a full 250 years befor Haydn ;'). Bowed guitars layed the foundation of European bowed string music. Go out and buy everything you can by the Fretwork viol consort, Paolo Pandolfo, and Jordi Savall. You'll hear everything from intricate part music, to chords bowed on a single viol, to viruose solo viol playing. Everything from church-like compositions to jigs and other dances. Viol consorts were the dance band of the arostocracy at least. All of the lute dances were played on lutes _and_ viols. Again, Elizabethan paintings prove it if nothing else. Not to fear. You will not be loosing out in the bargain ;') Besides, you can still pick up your dedicated plucked lute any time you want (and they did). You'll have more, of everything, not less. More tools, more expresive and creative potential, more music. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Re: oldest viola picture
- Original Message - From: Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 7:47 PM Subject: Re: Re: oldest viola picture Viol consorts were the dance band of the arostocracy at least. All of the lute dances were played on lutes _and_ viols. Again, Elizabethan paintings prove it if nothing else. here's two such pictures: http://www.thecipher.com/viol-lute-dance_Eng16th.jpg http://www.thecipher.com/viol-lute-dance_Eng16th2.jpg Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: Re: oldest viola picture
- Original Message - From: Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2004 7:47 PM Subject: Re: Re: oldest viola picture ah! but you _can_ bow chords, and they _did_ bow chords. The radius of a 6 string viol's bridge is much less than on a violin, but/and the bow hair is also looser than on a violin. The bow hold is different than violin, it's palm up and you can actually control the tension of the bow hair with your fingers. You can most certainly bow three adjacent strings: any triad in any inversion, any sus chord, any 7th chord with dropped 5th (makes three tones on three adjacent strings), any power 5th or 4th (trine). You can also rake across all six in a deliberate slower arc. You can arpeggiate, _and_ you can pluck! besides, judiciously inserted bowed double-stops, harmonic intervals, are very often all the chord required. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
oldest viola picture
Here, this they say is the oldest painting where they portray viola (its from quatro cento towards end i think). Link: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Seiten/education/OldestVioladagamba.htm Here is a page with lots of old viola bridges and they are pretty consistent. Looks like the second bridge on the Viti picture is merely the shadow of the actual bridge (since there is no lower horizontal bar on the old bridges). The shadow is exactly as the angle view of the typical ancient bridge as seen on this page: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Seiten/education/BridgesVdg.htm The other day i was at this luthier and he does a lot (mostly how he makes living) repares. On the counter was a viola da gamba. I played the thing as if it were a lute (i play renaissance lute). Believe me there was no need for a second bridge! It was delight to see this thing was tuned in a famigliar way:) -- Faites un voeu et puis Voila ! www.voila.fr -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: oldest viola picture
- Original Message - From: rosinfiorini [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 5:20 PM Subject: oldest viola picture Here, this they say is the oldest painting where they portray viola (its from quatro cento towards end i think). Link: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Seiten/education/OldestVioladagamba.htm Hi rosinfiorini; Yes, I've seen that one. It's a late 1400's five stringer, Valencia Spain. Here is a page with lots of old viola bridges and they are pretty consistent. Looks like the second bridge on the Viti picture is merely the shadow of the actual bridge (since there is no lower horizontal bar on the old bridges). The shadow is exactly as the angle view of the typical ancient bridge as seen on this page: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Seiten/education/BridgesVdg.htm A shadow?. Sorry, I don't see what you're seeing. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg you're saying one of those bridge objects in the Viti is the shadow of the other? The other day i was at this luthier and he does a lot (mostly how he makes living) repares. On the counter was a viola da gamba. I played the thing as if it were a lute (i play renaissance lute). Believe me there was no need for a second bridge! It was delight to see this thing was tuned in a familiar way:) I'm glad you recognized that viol as family (familiar) when you played it ;') The scenario I was suggesting though, is reverse. Someone might have put a bowing bridge on an earlier plucked viola. Pluckers can pluck a viol, but bowers can not bow a dedicated plucked viola (not very sucessfully at least). They started out that way, using regular plucked flat fixed bridges to do their bowing, similar to modern classical guitar bridge. See this picture: http://www.thecipher.com/viol-guitar_ValenciaMadonnaCampiCmpr.jpg Note the kind of bridge the bowed viola has, same as a plucked one would have (flat, positioned way to the back, glued to the face, no separate tail ). Over time they evolved two separate dedicated and optimised designs, one for bowing and one for plucking (though, as you say, you _can_ pluck a viol). That bowed violists _can_ still pluck their instrument, they aren't deprived of that function, activity, and joy, speaks well for the argument overall. Again, there are many clues that something is not right in the Viti viol/viola, here's just a few: - the tail is too narrow for that bowing bridge (too narrow for 6 strings) - fretboard appears to be flat on the face of the instrument -- like a plucked viola - strings are hanging off the side if the fretboard left and right. It could be an old dedicated 4 sting bowed viola converted to 6 stringer, but even that's good to know because it helps identify a truer date for the instrument and it's overal design. It's pretty clear to me that Viti's and Raphael's viols are of different true ages, even though they were painted only 10 years apart. Thanks for the note. So are you thinking about getting a viol now? Did you get a chance to bow one? That's the needed convincing mechanism -- to experience feeling some long sustained bowed notes coming from your fingers compared to the fast decaying plucked ones, (and without having to learn a new instrument nor tuning). Plucked viola, like this one http://www.thecipher.com/viola-guitar-angels.jpg were lutes (for all intents and purposes), just an alternative body design and construction. And the bowed version of the viola, like this, http://www.thecipher.com/viol-guitar_Raphael_1514.jpg was just that, the bowed version, bowed lute -- the same thing essentially: same body, same frets, same tuning. No matter if you play viola shaped lute or bowl back lute, viols are your instrument -- the other half of your expressive and music making tool set. It shouldn't be either/or, it could and should be both. There are plenty of documented historical figures who were masters of both viol and lute, no surprise. When you see an old painting or etching of an Elizabethan contort, viols plus lute, every instrument in that picture is a lute. Some are bowed, some are plucked, some big, some small, some single course, some double. A guitar is a lute, it's the closer body-type relative of the viola/vuhuela-lute (rather than bowl-back lute). Viols did not come from bowl-back bodied lutes, they came from viola/vihuela bodied lutes. But they're still all the same machine. Viols are as much guitars as they are lutes, or as much lutes as they are guitars. The point is they are our other half. The belong to us. And lutes belong to viol players. We are one. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: also Viola picture
- Original Message - From: Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 10:28 PM Subject: Re: also Viola picture Hi Rosinfiorini; let me just clearify that the problem with the bridge in general, and the way you've connected those dots, is that this artist _knows_ how to draw good perspective. If you look at the right side edge of the viol's face, as it drops down the side of instrument, all the well exicuted perspective and geometry of those boxy edges and sides of the middle waist bout, you can see how true this is. Now if you go back the the bridge, if it were all one connected piece, it's perspective (in relation to all other prespective on the viol) would be way off -- the work of a talented 5 year old perhaps, but not Viti. That rendering would not pass muster, would never get out the door (or on the wall) with Viti's name and reputation attached to it, I believe. So, if for no other reason, that's why I'm not ready to accept that we're looking at one connected piece of bridgework. In your minds eye, imagine standing a boxed deck of cards or cigarette pack upright on it's long narrow edge on top of the face of that instrument, perpendicular to the face of the viola. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg can you see the kind of perspective it would create, and the kind of perspective Viti would have seen? He sees the correct perspective just 2 or 3 inches away at the right side of the instrument, so why can't he see it for the bridge? Thanks Roger just another bit of detail to add to the mix (I don't know here else to tack it, so I'll put it here); regarding the likelihood of the Viti viola having originally been a 4 or 5 stringed machine, and that it better defaults to a plucked viola as well (and no kind of even 5 string bowed viol), see the width of the tail piece, and the exteme paths and angles the strings need to take to reach the 1st and 6th slots of the bridge, and then they head in the sharp opposite direction after the bridge to meet the nut slots. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg Under tension those strings will want to walk up the bridge to rest closer to center, closer to a straight line path -- tail to nut. They'll jump their bridge slots guaranteed. Now compare the width of a true real dedicated and better developed/refined 6 string gamba as again seen in the 1502 fresco grouping. I'll isolate one instrument. http://www.thecipher.com/AngelConsort1503single.jpg See the wide width of the tail behind the bridge, and the better string path that would create? Some of that greater width is shadow I think, but it's still much wider than on the Viti viola, wide enough for six strings to fit comfortably, and the string path is much straighter from tail to bridge, pretty much a straight line. even the tail-width of this true dedicated bowed 5 stringer is wider than the Viti tail. http://www.thecipher.com/oldestGamba-40p.jpg The Viti tail and neck width _are_ in good proportion to each other, the plucking bridge (if it is) is also in good proportion to tail width and neck width. But neither that bowing bridge's width, nor 6 strings, are proportional for that instrument. I think maybe we are getting closer to unraveling this. Roger Here's an interesting comparison: Viti's 1505 viol http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg Raphael's viol of 1514 http://www.thecipher.com/viol-guitar_Raphael_1514.jpg (again, Raphael was one of Viti's students.) Compare the look and feel, scale and proportions, design refinement, technologies, etc between these two instruments. Raphael's is the real deal and state of the art. Viti's is of an older pattern (and a later-day conversion I still believe). (And I dare any guitarist in the world to not recognize his own instrument when he sees it -- there in Raphael's painting ;') The viol Raphael painted is a stunning peice of work. You can even see that the end of the fretboard is up off the deck The edge bindings all around the body are a nice little surprise to. It's nice to see just how deep-bodied those instruments really were. You can also see the greater depth in the Borgia Apt viola, but Raphael's is up close and unmistakeable. http://www.thecipher.com/violasineacrulo_Borgia1493bw.jpg The bridge is still attached to Raphael's viol (must be glued down) . It looks like it belongs there, it's fit, scale, position on the face, look right. In all, it's still higher, and the neck/fretboard is still narrower than I might have expected, but I believe this one. The fretboard evelation on this one does help justify the bridge height though. Notice how thin and narrow the foot of this bridge is, and how high the center cut-out is. I don't see either of those things
Re: also Viola picture
- Original Message - From: rosinfiorini [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 7:59 PM Subject: also Viola picture actually, i made the image paler and enlarges and it becomes apparent that it is simply the way the bridge is drawn (its shadow) that looks like a dark stripe. I'm not very good at drawing with the mouse, but here i enlarged the image and drew the way the bridge actually is shaped (IMHO).. it's here: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/raydimitry/imagini/Viola].jpg :) but then, it might be a _broken_ bridge, in two pieces, and perhaps even a bridge from a larger instrument, because even the remaining piece being used currently is raising the strings too high and too wide. Maybe the bridge is from a larger, later, dedicated (and 6 stringed) bowed viola and the only way to make it fit is to break off the top half, use it, save the broke bit where we see it stored now? If you were to stack those two bits on top of each other I think the action would then be outrageously high. If you stood the broken base up and placed the bowing edge back on top of it, that might narrow the percieved string spacing as it approaches the neck and on towards the nut, though. I 'm still thinking this is a conversion chop-job of some kind. Probably an older 5 string plucked viola repurposed as a 6 string gamba. The fretboard looks flat-on-the-deck, and that diamond rosette detail at the foot of the fretboard is seen in a narrow band of time on 5 course lutes (if I recall right from Van Edwards' web site), something like 1450-90. Look at the side profile of this 1503 gamba (far left) . . . http://www.thecipher.com/violAngelConsort1503lrg.jpg . . . see the elevated fretboard (lets the top vibrate more freely) and dished out face. That appears to me to be a later design refinement -- one that was to be retained thereafter (once it cought on and spread widely). See the neck joint on this reproduction 17th cent viol, elevated, wide, and radiused . . http://www.thecipher.com/viol_neck_joint.jpg that's what I mean about the difference between the fretboard on the Viti instrument being flat, and flat on the deck, guitar and lute style, not elevated in later gamba style. The Viti viol looks old technology by comparison, guitaresque, and maybe even 5 string originally -- the neck is just too narrow. It's also proportionally very long, long like the Borgia plucked viola http://www.thecipher.com/violasineacrulo_Borgia1493bw.jpg If not a broken bowing bridge in two pieces, it could still be a plucking bridge tucked away and an ill fitting, ill seated, entirely improvised bowing bridge currently in place. I don't know any more ;') I sure wish we could see a good photo of the painting and in color. That would remove a lot of speculation and wrong alleys. whatever it is, it sure is strange, and interesting -- that the artist left it like that, purposely not prettying it up. It certainly does add interest -- to whit this discussion and incident ;') -- as yet unresoved. I never expected nor even wanted to find a dual bridge specimen (if that's what it is). That the two types, plucked and bowed, are so obvouisly related though, so close in anatomy, tuned and played the same way, played by the same persons, that we can even talk about them so easily in the same breath, is really the point. Any way you look at it they are very close siblings. Roger -- Faites un voeu et puis Voila ! www.voila.fr -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: also Viola picture
- Original Message - From: Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 6:27 PM Subject: Re: also Viola picture - Original Message - From: rosinfiorini [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 7:59 PM Subject: also Viola picture actually, i made the image paler and enlarges and it becomes apparent that it is simply the way the bridge is drawn (its shadow) that looks like a dark stripe. I'm not very good at drawing with the mouse, but here i enlarged the image and drew the way the bridge actually is shaped (IMHO).. it's here: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/raydimitry/imagini/Viola].jpg :) -- Hi Rosinfiorini; let me just clearify that the problem with the bridge in general, and the way you've connected those dots, is that this artist _knows_ how to draw good perspective. If you look at the right side edge of the viol's face, as it drops down the side of instrument, all the well exicuted perspective and geometry of those boxy edges and sides of the middle waist bout, you can see how true this is. Now if you go back the the bridge, if it were all one connected piece, it's perspective (in relation to all other prespective on the viol) would be way off -- the work of a talented 5 year old perhaps, but not Viti. That rendering would not pass muster, would never get out the door (or on the wall) with Viti's name and reputation attached to it, I believe. So, if for no other reason, that's why I'm not ready to accept that we're looking at one connected piece of bridgework. In your minds eye, imagine standing a boxed deck of cards or cigarette pack upright on it's long narrow edge on top of the face of that instrument, perpendicular to the face of the viola. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg can you see the kind of perspective it would create, and the kind of perspective Viti would have seen? He sees the correct perspective just 2 or 3 inches away at the right side of the instrument, so why can't he see it for the bridge? Thanks Roger I'm sending these bits below, just because I happened to do a quick check on the date of Durer's perspective. He published his book in 1525, 20 years or so after the Viti viol was painted, but he had traveled to Italy to learn about prespective in the first place, which investigations had been underway in Italy for quite some time. This is just to point out that the idea of good rendering was very much in the air, a point of pride, effort, and study, in Renaissance Italy -- contemporary with Viti. Roger http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/durer.html Durer's Polyhedra Albrecht Durer, the remarkable German renaissance printmaker (1471-1528), made an important contribution to the polyhedral literature in his 1525 book, Underweysung der Messung, available in English translation as Painter's Manual. It was one of the first books to teach the methods of perspective, and was highly regarded throughout the sixteenth century. Durer travelled to Italy to learn perspective and wanted to publish the methods so they were not kept secret among a few artists. Who he learned from is not known, but Luca Pacioli is a likely possibility. Some of the techniques and illustrations follow very closely the work of Piero della Francesca. http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/pacioli.html Luca Pacioli (1445 - 1514, sometimes Paciolo) is the central figure in this painting (by Jacopo de Barbari*, 1495). Perhaps no other work so epitomizes the deep Renaissance connection between art and mathematics. Pacioli (a Franciscan friar, shown in his robes) stands at a table filled with geometrical tools (slate, chalk, compass, dodecahedron model, etc.), illustrating a theorem from Euclid, while examining a beautiful glass rhombicuboctahedron half-filled with water. Every aspect of the picture has been composed meaningfully, and art historians have analyzed it at length, yet the figure at right remains a mystery. For two rather different conclusions, see the references by M. Davis (who suspects the figure is a self-portrait of the painter) and N. MacKinnon (who proposes that the figure is Albrecht Durer---compare Durer's 1498 self-portrait). http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/piero.html Piero della Francesca's Polyhedra Piero della Francesca (1410(?) - 1492) was an outstanding 15th century Renaissance artist, both a mathematician and a painter. His genius in developing the new methods of perspective and employing them in his paintings has withstood the centuries. However, his well-deserved mathematical reputation was lost and only has been regained in this century. That loss was largely due to the fact that Pacioli plagarized Piero's major writings shortly after Piero's death, incorporating them into his published books without attribution
Re: also Viola picture
- Original Message - From: Roger E. Blumberg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2004 6:27 PM Subject: Re: also Viola picture - Original Message - From: rosinfiorini [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 7:59 PM Subject: also Viola picture actually, i made the image paler and enlarges and it becomes apparent that it is simply the way the bridge is drawn (its shadow) that looks like a dark stripe. I'm not very good at drawing with the mouse, but here i enlarged the image and drew the way the bridge actually is shaped (IMHO).. it's here: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/raydimitry/imagini/Viola].jpg :) -- Hi Rosinfiorini; let me just clearify that the problem with the bridge in general, and the way you've connected those dots, is that this artist _knows_ how to draw good perspective. If you look at the right side edge of the viol's face, as it drops down the side of instrument, all the well exicuted perspective and geometry of those boxy edges and sides of the middle waist bout, you can see how true this is. Now if you go back the the bridge, if it were all one connected piece, it's perspective (in relation to all other prespective on the viol) would be way off -- the work of a talented 5 year old perhaps, but not Viti. That rendering would not pass muster, would never get out the door (or on the wall) with Viti's name and reputation attached to it, I believe. So, if for no other reason, that's why I'm not ready to accept that we're looking at one connected piece of bridgework. In your minds eye, imagine standing a boxed deck of cards or cigarette pack upright on it's long narrow edge on top of the face of that instrument, perpendicular to the face of the viola. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg can you see the kind of perspective it would create, and the kind of perspective Viti would have seen? He sees the correct perspective just 2 or 3 inches away at the right side of the instrument, so why can't he see it for the bridge? Thanks Roger just another bit of detail to add to the mix (I don't know here else to tack it, so I'll put it here); regarding the likelihood of the Viti viola having originally been a 4 or 5 stringed machine, and that it better defaults to a plucked viola as well (and no kind of even 5 string bowed viol), see the width of the tail piece, and the exteme paths and angles the strings need to take to reach the 1st and 6th slots of the bridge, and then they head in the sharp opposite direction after the bridge to meet the nut slots. http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg Under tension those strings will want to walk up the bridge to rest closer to center, closer to a straight line path -- tail to nut. They'll jump their bridge slots guaranteed. Now compare the width of a true real dedicated and better developed/refined 6 string gamba as again seen in the 1502 fresco grouping. I'll isolate one instrument. http://www.thecipher.com/AngelConsort1503single.jpg See the wide width of the tail behind the bridge, and the better string path that would create? Some of that greater width is shadow I think, but it's still much wider than on the Viti viola, wide enough for six strings to fit comfortably, and the string path is much straighter from tail to bridge, pretty much a straight line. even the tail-width of this true dedicated bowed 5 stringer is wider than the Viti tail. http://www.thecipher.com/oldestGamba-40p.jpg The Viti tail and neck width _are_ in good proportion to each other, the plucking bridge (if it is) is also in good proportion to tail width and neck width. But neither that bowing bridge's width, nor 6 strings, are proportional for that instrument. I think maybe we are getting closer to unraveling this. Roger To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Viola picture
Hi, if i were the lil angel in this picture(http://www.thecipher.com/viol_TimoteoViti_c1500Madonna-italy.jpg), the dark stripe that you see parallel to the bridge wouldn't be a second bridge but a stripe/piece of cloth intertwined in the strings portions after the bridge to prevent them from buzzing and reverberating in a prasite way the vibrations of the music. Probably this is the same reason that this lady has decorated her viola: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Bild-VdgG/Vdg_musscher.jpg Some other pics of violas: http://www.mdw.ac.at/I105/orpheon/Seiten/education/Violin_Vdg_Families.htm -- Faites un voeu et puis Voila ! www.voila.fr -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
Re: also Viola picture
- Original Message - From: rosinfiorini [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2004 7:59 PM Subject: also Viola picture actually, i made the image paler and enlarges and it becomes apparent that it is simply the way the bridge is drawn (its shadow) that looks like a dark stripe. I'm not very good at drawing with the mouse, but here i enlarged the image and drew the way the bridge actually is shaped (IMHO).. it's here: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/raydimitry/imagini/Viola].jpg :) -- Hi again; but this one is pure fantasy ;') I know you spent a lot of time on that, but that's really a stretch my freind. Thanks Roger Faites un voeu et puis Voila ! www.voila.fr -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
