[VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar?
Dear Eugene, I also find Strizich more complicated than necessary and really only useful for academics interested in the period guitar who don't actually play the instrument - are there any? And I agree with what you're saying below: ie to transcribe the tablature into staff notation by pretending that the 4th and 5th courses have both strings at the lower octave. This way there's much less room for ambiguity and the music will sound different depending on which particular tuning arrangement an individual player chooses to employ - in fact, a sort of staff notation tablature regards, Martyn --- On Wed, 21/11/12, Braig, Eugene brai...@osu.edu wrote: From: Braig, Eugene brai...@osu.edu Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Wednesday, 21 November, 2012, 21:18 Indeed. I'm in the day job office and can't refer directly, but I seem to remember spots/chords where it's not clear to which course/string the symbol applied. Feel free to correct me if this is not the case. Strizich is a somewhat useful...but also a somewhat odd effort. Personally, I feel de Visee is one of those few 5-course characters who loses almost nothing in use of the low A throughout. If transcribing de Visee to modern notation, I'd almost rather assume a typical modern instrument, with notes along the fifth notated as though they are along an A, as Grimes did in his guitar transcriptions for good ol' Mel Bay, de Visee included. Best, Eugene -Original Message- From: [1]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:[2]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Monica Hall Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 3:39 PM To: Braig, Eugene Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? Well - Strizich does indicate which course the notes are on with a little figure in a circle below the stave but you need a magnifying glass to read them. e.g. in the first bar the c is played on the 5th course and the a on the 3rd. He also puts in zeros to indicate open courses e.g. on line 3 in the third bar the zeros over the a and b natural indicate that they are played on the open 5th and 2nd courses. It does highlight how difficult it is to transcribe baroque guitar music coherantly. Monica Monica - Original Message - From: Braig, Eugene [3]brai...@osu.edu To: Vihuelalist [4]vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 7:41 PM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? A little late to this chat, but I find the Strizich transcription a bit unwieldy in notating notes along the reentrant a at pitch. It's just hard to know whether notes in the relevant range belong along the a, g, or b string. Best, Eugene -Original Message- From: [5]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:[6]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Monica Hall Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 2:33 PM To: [7]ar...@student.matnat.uio.no Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? A transcription of it is also included in Robert Strizich's edition of De Visee's complete works published by Heugel in1969. Monica - Original Message - From: [8]ar...@student.matnat.uio.no To: Monica Hall [9]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Cc: Arto Wikla [10]wi...@cs.helsinki.fi; Vihuelalist [11]vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 5:21 PM Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? It has also been recorded by Rafael Andia. But I don't really like the recording... mvh Are Dear Arto There is a guitar version of this chaconne - in D minor - in the huge manuscript F.Pn Res. F. 844. It is on p.237. Someone - Stuart I think - pointed out that you can download an image of the whole of this ms. from the Bib. Nat. site. Regards Monica - Original Message - From: Arto Wikla [12]wi...@cs.helsinki.fi To: Vihuelalist [13]vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2012 9:22 PM Subject: [VIHUELA] de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? Dear flat back lutenists, My try on de Visee's Chaconne in A minor is - as I told - is in [14]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqHHPeLMNYUfeature=youtu.be [15]http://vimeo.com/53172045 As I said, there is the original(?) theorbo version of this d-minor lute version, but I have a strong memory image that there is also a version to the 5 course guitar of this Chaconne. Is it there? Monica? Other specialists? best,
[VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar?
First of all - don't you think that some academics at least ought to be interested in the 5-course guitar repertoire? Frankly I think they should be and indeed some of them are. After all it has some bearing on other aspects of 17th century music e.g. music for lute and keyboard and continuo playing. I don't think a ghetto mentality does us any favours. Secondly - I think that it is unhelpful and misleading to transcribe 5-course guitar music as if the 4th and 5th courses were always in the lower octave. It gives completely the wrong idea about how the music really sounds and is one reason why even people who play the 5-course guitar don't appreciate the significance of re-entrant tunings and the re-entrant effect. Thirdly - when I did my dissertation on Murcia I did my transcriptions just as you suggest and two of my examiners - both eminent professors of music just couldn't get their heads around the idea that a lot of the notes really sounded an octave higher. Their re-action was The music is rubbish isn't it? Fortunately the third examiner was a guitarist... I have been doing a lot of transcriptions for a project recently and what I find helpful is to use different shaped note heads for notes on the 4th and 5th courses or do them a different colour when it is necessary to highlight them. Strizich may not have had that option but I still think his original transcription is very useful. As ever Monica - Original Message - From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk To: EugeneBraig brai...@osu.edu Cc: Vihuela Dmth vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:40 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? Dear Eugene, I also find Strizich more complicated than necessary and really only useful for academics interested in the period guitar who don't actually play the instrument - are there any? And I agree with what you're saying below: ie to transcribe the tablature into staff notation by pretending that the 4th and 5th courses have both strings at the lower octave. This way there's much less room for ambiguity and the music will sound different depending on which particular tuning arrangement an individual player chooses to employ - in fact, a sort of staff notation tablature regards, Martyn --- On Wed, 21/11/12, Braig, Eugene brai...@osu.edu wrote: From: Braig, Eugene brai...@osu.edu Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Wednesday, 21 November, 2012, 21:18 Indeed. I'm in the day job office and can't refer directly, but I seem to remember spots/chords where it's not clear to which course/string the symbol applied. Feel free to correct me if this is not the case. Strizich is a somewhat useful...but also a somewhat odd effort. Personally, I feel de Visee is one of those few 5-course characters who loses almost nothing in use of the low A throughout. If transcribing de Visee to modern notation, I'd almost rather assume a typical modern instrument, with notes along the fifth notated as though they are along an A, as Grimes did in his guitar transcriptions for good ol' Mel Bay, de Visee included. Best, Eugene -Original Message- From: [1]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:[2]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Monica Hall Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 3:39 PM To: Braig, Eugene Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? Well - Strizich does indicate which course the notes are on with a little figure in a circle below the stave but you need a magnifying glass to read them. e.g. in the first bar the c is played on the 5th course and the a on the 3rd. He also puts in zeros to indicate open courses e.g. on line 3 in the third bar the zeros over the a and b natural indicate that they are played on the open 5th and 2nd courses. It does highlight how difficult it is to transcribe baroque guitar music coherantly. Monica Monica - Original Message - From: Braig, Eugene [3]brai...@osu.edu To: Vihuelalist [4]vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 7:41 PM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? A little late to this chat, but I find the Strizich transcription a bit unwieldy in notating notes along the reentrant a at pitch. It's just hard to know whether notes in the relevant range belong along the a, g, or b string. Best, Eugene -Original Message- From: [5]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:[6]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Monica Hall Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 2:33 PM To: [7]ar...@student.matnat.uio.no Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? A
[VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar?
From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the
guitar?
To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Date: Thursday, 22 November, 2012, 15:17
Dear Monica,
I think you've misunderstood my point about fellow academics! - sorry I
wasn't clearer.
In writing this: ' I also find Strizich more complicated than necessary
and really only useful for academics interested in the period guitar
who don't actually play the instrument - are there any?' I was _not_
making the point that academics should not take an interest in the 5
course guitar, but that I couldn't conceive of them doing very much
unless they played the instrument - at least at a basic level. Your
thirdly comment below ('Their re-action was The music is rubbish
isn't it? Fortunately the third examiner was a
guitarist'.) reinforces my point. Moreover, what would the first
two examiners have said if presented them with a Strizich style
transcription? probaby passed out I shouldn't wonder.
Though on reflection, you may be right about not using a low bass 4th
and 5th course as a sort of substitute tablature as I suggested
earlier: not so much from the point of notational precision, but
because it muddies the waters of different possible interpretations
depending on whether the thumb or finger is plucking, the angle of
pluck employed (ie to emphasise a particular string within a course),
etc. But Heaven alone knows how we should notate this subjective and
interpretative matter: perhaps Strizich was on the right lines in using
small notes (maybe making them faint too might help) but I think he
over-eggs the pudding by trying to make his transcriptions served
different purposes: to both represent the sounds and to show where to
finger notes. For non-guitar players a transcription is probably best
just left as a staff notation showing pitches (with small notes) and no
playing markings.
regards
Martyn
--- On Thu, 22/11/12, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the
guitar?
To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Thursday, 22 November, 2012, 14:01
First of all - don't you think that some academics at least ought to be
interested in the 5-course guitar repertoire? Frankly I think they
should be and indeed some of them are. After all it has some bearing
on other aspects of 17th century music e.g. music for lute and keyboard
and continuo playing. I don't think a ghetto mentality does us any
favours.
Secondly - I think that it is unhelpful and misleading to transcribe
5-course guitar music as if the 4th and 5th courses were always in the
lower octave. It gives completely the wrong idea about how the music
really sounds and is one reason why even people who play the 5-course
guitar don't appreciate the significance of re-entrant tunings and the
re-entrant effect.
Thirdly - when I did my dissertation on Murcia I did my transcriptions
just as you suggest and two of my examiners - both eminent professors
of music just couldn't get their heads around the idea that a lot of
the notes really sounded an octave higher. Their re-action was The
music is rubbish isn't it? Fortunately the third examiner was a
guitarist...
I have been doing a lot of transcriptions for a project recently and
what I find helpful is to use different shaped note heads for notes on
the 4th and 5th courses or do them a different colour when it is
necessary to highlight them. Strizich may not have had that option
but I still think his original transcription is very useful.
As ever
Monica
- Original Message - From: Martyn Hodgson
[1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
To: EugeneBraig [2]brai...@osu.edu
Cc: Vihuela Dmth [3]vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:40 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar?
Dear Eugene,
I also find Strizich more complicated than necessary and really
only
useful for academics interested in the period guitar who don't
actually
play the instrument - are there any?
And I agree with what you're saying below: ie to transcribe the
tablature into staff notation by pretending that the 4th and 5th
courses have both strings at the lower octave. This way there's
much
less room for ambiguity and the music will sound different
depending on
which particular tuning arrangement an individual player chooses to
employ - in fact, a sort of staff notation tablature
regards,
Martyn
--- On Wed, 21/11/12, Braig, Eugene [4]brai...@osu.edu wrote:
[VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar?
I should clarify that the straight-to-A transcriptions work best for me in music that is most workable in that tuning. I find it pretty satisfactory for de Visee, Guerau, etc. Ironically, the one perhaps most poorly served by non-reentrant notation, Sanz, is perhaps the most commonly abused by it. I suppose we should blame Segovia. I suppose the issue is that actual-pitch transcriptions of music written to reentrant tuning are of potential use to characters like Respighi or academics who don't play the instruments in question, but of little use to those who play...and it seems to me that characters like Respighi are relatively rare. ...And those who play the instruments in question almost universally take the time to learn how to use the tablature, which is often more clear regarding reentrant tunings. So, I guess there is an academic purpose to such transcriptions, but the audience to benefit most is very limited, and those transcriptions are of limited use in performance. I seem to recall that Strizich actually recommended putting a stock b string on the modern guitar where the A used to be and tuning that string to a. Frankly, my modern guitars get more regular use in post-reentrant music, and dedicating any instrument to such a scheme isn't practical for me. Staff notation is really a rather linear scheme. It gets too messy in trying to represent music where pitch and the sequence of pitches is more ambiguous than accommodated by strictly linear, like reentrant tuning or octave strings. ...But the two of you chatting with me here know all this as well as anybody. Best, Eugene From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] on behalf of Monica Hall [mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:01 AM To: Martyn Hodgson Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? First of all - don't you think that some academics at least ought to be interested in the 5-course guitar repertoire? Frankly I think they should be and indeed some of them are. After all it has some bearing on other aspects of 17th century music e.g. music for lute and keyboard and continuo playing. I don't think a ghetto mentality does us any favours. Secondly - I think that it is unhelpful and misleading to transcribe 5-course guitar music as if the 4th and 5th courses were always in the lower octave. It gives completely the wrong idea about how the music really sounds and is one reason why even people who play the 5-course guitar don't appreciate the significance of re-entrant tunings and the re-entrant effect. Thirdly - when I did my dissertation on Murcia I did my transcriptions just as you suggest and two of my examiners - both eminent professors of music just couldn't get their heads around the idea that a lot of the notes really sounded an octave higher. Their re-action was The music is rubbish isn't it? Fortunately the third examiner was a guitarist... I have been doing a lot of transcriptions for a project recently and what I find helpful is to use different shaped note heads for notes on the 4th and 5th courses or do them a different colour when it is necessary to highlight them. Strizich may not have had that option but I still think his original transcription is very useful. As ever Monica - Original Message - From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk To: EugeneBraig brai...@osu.edu Cc: Vihuela Dmth vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:40 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? Dear Eugene, I also find Strizich more complicated than necessary and really only useful for academics interested in the period guitar who don't actually play the instrument - are there any? And I agree with what you're saying below: ie to transcribe the tablature into staff notation by pretending that the 4th and 5th courses have both strings at the lower octave. This way there's much less room for ambiguity and the music will sound different depending on which particular tuning arrangement an individual player chooses to employ - in fact, a sort of staff notation tablature regards, Martyn --- On Wed, 21/11/12, Braig, Eugene brai...@osu.edu wrote: From: Braig, Eugene brai...@osu.edu Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Wednesday, 21 November, 2012, 21:18 Indeed. I'm in the day job office and can't refer directly, but I seem to remember spots/chords where it's not clear to which course/string the symbol applied. Feel free to correct me if this is not the case. Strizich is a somewhat useful...but also a somewhat odd effort. Personally, I feel de Visee is one of those few 5-course characters who loses almost nothing in use of
[VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar?
I don't think those of us who play the baroque guitar need staff notation versions at all to play from although I sometimes make them for myself to refer to so that I can see the underlying harmony or counterpoint more clearly. I can't therefore see any point in making transcriptions with notes on the 4th and 5th courses always in the lower octave. I don't think my examiners would have had a problem with Strizich's edition. Both were keyboard players and presumably used to seeing fingering and other performance markings. What threw them was that the notes were in the wrong octave and there were all these leaps of a 7th or a 9th But it is not only academics who don't understand guitar notation. Some players of other plucked stringed instruments don't either. A prominent member of the Lute Society didn't realize that baroque guitar music wasn't notated in staff notation until I enlightened him! And frankly I find it difficult to follow lute tablature if it is for anything other than the old tuning. I like to have a transcription for anything I am not familiar with. If we want the instrument and its music to be taken more seriously I think we have to make it more accessible. The biggest problem is transcribing music in the re-entrant tuning because you end up with so many unisons... Still I think we have to try. As ever Monica - Original Message - From: Braig, Eugene brai...@osu.edu To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk; Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 3:41 PM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? I should clarify that the straight-to-A transcriptions work best for me in music that is most workable in that tuning. I find it pretty satisfactory for de Visee, Guerau, etc. Ironically, the one perhaps most poorly served by non-reentrant notation, Sanz, is perhaps the most commonly abused by it. I suppose we should blame Segovia. I suppose the issue is that actual-pitch transcriptions of music written to reentrant tuning are of potential use to characters like Respighi or academics who don't play the instruments in question, but of little use to those who play...and it seems to me that characters like Respighi are relatively rare. ...And those who play the instruments in question almost universally take the time to learn how to use the tablature, which is often more clear regarding reentrant tunings. So, I guess there is an academic purpose to such transcriptions, but the audience to benefit most is very limited, and those transcriptions are of limited use in performance. I seem to recall that Strizich actually recommended putting a stock b string on the modern guitar where the A used to be and tuning that string to a. Frankly, my modern guitars get more regular use in post-reentrant music, and dedicating any instrument to such a scheme isn't practical for me. Staff notation is really a rather linear scheme. It gets too messy in trying to represent music where pitch and the sequence of pitches is more ambiguous than accommodated by strictly linear, like reentrant tuning or octave strings. ...But the two of you chatting with me here know all this as well as anybody. Best, Eugene From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] on behalf of Monica Hall [mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk] Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:01 AM To: Martyn Hodgson Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: de Visee Chaconne in a minor to the guitar? First of all - don't you think that some academics at least ought to be interested in the 5-course guitar repertoire? Frankly I think they should be and indeed some of them are. After all it has some bearing on other aspects of 17th century music e.g. music for lute and keyboard and continuo playing. I don't think a ghetto mentality does us any favours. Secondly - I think that it is unhelpful and misleading to transcribe 5-course guitar music as if the 4th and 5th courses were always in the lower octave. It gives completely the wrong idea about how the music really sounds and is one reason why even people who play the 5-course guitar don't appreciate the significance of re-entrant tunings and the re-entrant effect. Thirdly - when I did my dissertation on Murcia I did my transcriptions just as you suggest and two of my examiners - both eminent professors of music just couldn't get their heads around the idea that a lot of the notes really sounded an octave higher. Their re-action was The music is rubbish isn't it? Fortunately the third examiner was a guitarist... I have been doing a lot of transcriptions for a project recently and what I find helpful is to use different shaped note heads for notes on the 4th and 5th courses or do them a different colour when it is necessary to highlight them. Strizich may not
