[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Martyn Hodgson]

   Dear Monica,

   In response to my scepticism that  these books/Ms were primarily aimed
   at professional guitar players you write  'In any case the books are
   intended primarily for theorbo
   and keyboard players.' -  but what is your evidence for this? As said
   earlier, it's more likely that publishers saw commercial opportunities
   amongst non-professional guitar players as an opportunity to make
   money.

   I also wrote: 'Similarly, manuscript collections were frequently
   for  transmission of dances/songs to pupils. Incidentally amatuers in
   this contemporary sense does not equate to unaccomplished singers -
   the affluent classes had the time as well as money to devote time to
   the  'arts' and deveoped some proficiency. In any event these songs are
   not
   Rossini coloratura arias'.
   rgds

   Martyn
   --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

 From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
 Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
 Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 17:28

   Dear Monica,
   
  You write:   'I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song books
   are
  not intended for
  amateurs (although amateurs may have performed cf. Schubert
   lieder).
  This is clear from the voice part.   They are intended for
   accomplished
  singers - of whom there would have been a large number in Italy
   where
  every church and cathedral had a body of professional singers.'
   
  I beg to differ -  what is your evidence for such a statement?
   Surely
  the very act of publishing printed books is to sell to the wider
   market
  than the few guitar 'professionals' versed in composition so as to
   make
  money.
   I am not saying that they were intended for just a few guitar
   professionals.   In any case the books are intended primarily for
   theorbo
   and keyboard players.
   There must have been thousands of professional singers in Italy at the
   time - there were dozens of churches in Rome alone with professional
   choirs
   and the singers did just sing in church - they earned theirr living in
   various ways - as they do today.
   The copies of each book printed would have been in the region of
   1000.   How
   do you know that the manuscripts belonged to amateurs.
   Monica
   Similarly manuscript collections were frequently for
  transmission of dances/songs to pupils. Incidentally amatuers in
   this
  contemporary sense does not equate to unaccomplished singers - the
  affluent classes had the time as well as money to devote time to
   the
  'arts' and deveoped some proficiency. In any event these songs are
   not
  Rossini coloratura arias
  .
   
  Martyn
  --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Monica Hall [1]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
   
From: Monica Hall [2]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
To: Lex Eisenhardt [3]eisenha...@planet.nl
Cc: Vihuelalist [4]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 12:41
   
  Sanseverino's six (dance-) songs are accompaniments to well-known
   melodies.
  Obviously you haven't seen them.   (They are not the same songs
  included in
  the 1620 edition).  They are songs which were currently in the
  repertoire at
  the time - Rontani's Caldi sospiri to name but one. This had
   apppeared
  with
  basso continuo in a song book printed in Florence in 1614 without
  alfabeto and was reprinted in Rome with
  alfabeto in 1623.
   The songs of Marini, Berti and so many others were new
   compositions,
   provided with the harmony of a basso continuo. The alfabeto
   could well have been inscribed by the composer himself, as we
   assume
  of
   Biagio Marini, for example.
  I am sure that it was and if you read what Marini has said and
   study
  how he
  has added the alfabeto to the songs you can see that he had in mind
  something quite different from what you seem to think
   [could we please have
   this discussion in Dutch ?:~) ]
  Double  Dutch perhaps.   What you are saying sounds like pedantry
   to
  me.
  what was going on in
   Surely they are one and the same?
  
   No they are not.
  I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song books are not
   intended
  for
  amateurs (although amateurs may have performed cf. Schubert
   lieder).
  This is clear from the voice part.   They are intended for
  accomplished singers - of whom there would have been a large number
   in
  Italy
  where every church and cathedral had a body of professional
   singers.
   We cannot tell how someone like Foscarini, of whom we have no
   songs,
   would have shaped his accompaniment to a song by Marini or Landi.
   But
  we

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Thanks Stewart.  I am off to the Lute Society shortly - to hear Nigel North. 
Balm for troubled souls.


Monica

- Original Message - 
From: Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk

To: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 10:01 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence



Dear Monica,

I agree that it is probably best to move on now, but please don't think
the thread has not been worthwhile. I have learned a lot about the
baroque guitar and its music, in particular about Landi's songs, and I
value what you, Lex, Martyn and others have had to say on the subject.

In a couple of minutes I'll be off to The Plough for a couple of pints.
Pity the three of you can't join me there.

Best wishes,

Stewart.

-Original Message-
From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
Behalf Of Monica Hall
Sent: 19 November 2010 19:35
To: Martyn Hodgson
Cc: Vihuelalist
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

I can't summarize it in a single sentence but I hope I can explain
briefly.

I think the reason for including alfabeto in these song books  is
because
they were
not intended to be
accompanied in the same way as they would be on the theorbo or keyboard.

There is no point in doing something which other instruments could do
better.   And if performers could or wanted to do so they would use the
bass
line provided.

A different style of accompaniment is intended - one which is entirely
strummed which can in its way be very effective.   Later perhaps taste
changed leading to a mixed or more varied style of accompaniment but   I

don't think that strumming ever went out of fashion.

I responded cautiously to Lex's original message about the Landi songs
because it was an interesting subject and I thought I might be able to
shed
some light on the problem.   I am grateful to him to drawing my
attention to
the facsimile as I was familiar with some of the songs but had not
previously seen the orignal score.

However we have discussed all the rest of this previously and what
happens
is that we end up going round and round in circles.  We obviously have
very
different ideas on the subject.  The only reason for my continuing to
take
part in it is because I don't think that only one point of view should
be
put forward.   But my time is limited.

I think that it is a pity that we cannot find anything more worthwhile
to
discuss than the stringing of the 5-course guitar which is where it
always
ends up.

Monica

- Original Message - 
From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk

To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu; Lex Eisenhardt
eisenha...@planet.nl; Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 10:51 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence




   Dear Lex,

  Well, it just goes to show how such a protracted exchange can become

as

  Chinese whispers.  I had gained the impression that this (ie
  principally avoidance of inversions in alfabeto) was the issue -
  including of course non-BC bourdon use  with which it is

inextricably

  entwined.   I can therefore see little practical difference between

any

  of these vigorously defended positions.  If there is any significant
  difference after all that has been said, would you and Monica kindly
  (in a sentence) summarise the res as they see it.

  Martyn
  --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl wrote:

From: Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 9:49

 Dear Martyn,
 you wrote:
 However, I don't think this is quite the same as saying, as

I

 think Lex
does, that players (even the amateurs at which the tablatures

are

 often
aimed) would have routinely (perhaps even always) sought to

avoid

inversions by selective strumming.
 What makes you think that I believe that??
 I have no idea what was done routinely ('even [by] the

amateurs'),

  and
 do not pretend to know what was (perhaps) always done. Nor what

was

  _
 never_ done, for that matter.
 best wishes, Lex
 --
  To get on or off this list see list information at
  [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html

  --

References

  1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Martyn

I will reply to your messages late - off the list if you have no objection.

Monica

- Original Message - 
From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk

To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Saturday, November 20, 2010 9:21 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence




  Dear Monica,

  In response to my scepticism that  these books/Ms were primarily aimed
  at professional guitar players you write  'In any case the books are
  intended primarily for theorbo
  and keyboard players.' -  but what is your evidence for this? As said
  earlier, it's more likely that publishers saw commercial opportunities
  amongst non-professional guitar players as an opportunity to make
  money.

  I also wrote: 'Similarly, manuscript collections were frequently
  for  transmission of dances/songs to pupils. Incidentally amatuers in
  this contemporary sense does not equate to unaccomplished singers -
  the affluent classes had the time as well as money to devote time to
  the  'arts' and deveoped some proficiency. In any event these songs are
  not
  Rossini coloratura arias'.
  rgds

  Martyn
  --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 17:28

  Dear Monica,
  
 You write:   'I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song books
  are
 not intended for
 amateurs (although amateurs may have performed cf. Schubert
  lieder).
 This is clear from the voice part.   They are intended for
  accomplished
 singers - of whom there would have been a large number in Italy
  where
 every church and cathedral had a body of professional singers.'
  
 I beg to differ -  what is your evidence for such a statement?
  Surely
 the very act of publishing printed books is to sell to the wider
  market
 than the few guitar 'professionals' versed in composition so as to
  make
 money.
  I am not saying that they were intended for just a few guitar
  professionals.   In any case the books are intended primarily for
  theorbo
  and keyboard players.
  There must have been thousands of professional singers in Italy at the
  time - there were dozens of churches in Rome alone with professional
  choirs
  and the singers did just sing in church - they earned theirr living in
  various ways - as they do today.
  The copies of each book printed would have been in the region of
  1000.   How
  do you know that the manuscripts belonged to amateurs.
  Monica
  Similarly manuscript collections were frequently for
 transmission of dances/songs to pupils. Incidentally amatuers in
  this
 contemporary sense does not equate to unaccomplished singers - the
 affluent classes had the time as well as money to devote time to
  the
 'arts' and deveoped some proficiency. In any event these songs are
  not
 Rossini coloratura arias
 .
  
 Martyn
 --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Monica Hall [1]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
  
   From: Monica Hall [2]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
   Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
   To: Lex Eisenhardt [3]eisenha...@planet.nl
   Cc: Vihuelalist [4]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
   Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 12:41
  
 Sanseverino's six (dance-) songs are accompaniments to well-known
  melodies.
 Obviously you haven't seen them.   (They are not the same songs
 included in
 the 1620 edition).  They are songs which were currently in the
 repertoire at
 the time - Rontani's Caldi sospiri to name but one. This had
  apppeared
 with
 basso continuo in a song book printed in Florence in 1614 without
 alfabeto and was reprinted in Rome with
 alfabeto in 1623.
  The songs of Marini, Berti and so many others were new
  compositions,
  provided with the harmony of a basso continuo. The alfabeto
  could well have been inscribed by the composer himself, as we
  assume
 of
  Biagio Marini, for example.
 I am sure that it was and if you read what Marini has said and
  study
 how he
 has added the alfabeto to the songs you can see that he had in mind
 something quite different from what you seem to think
  [could we please have
  this discussion in Dutch ?:~) ]
 Double  Dutch perhaps.   What you are saying sounds like pedantry
  to
 me.
 what was going on in
  Surely they are one and the same?
 
  No they are not.
 I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song books are not
  intended
 for
 amateurs (although amateurs may have performed cf. Schubert
  lieder).
 This is clear from the voice part.   They are intended for
 accomplished singers - of whom there would have been a large number
  in
 Italy
 where every

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Dear Martyn

In the end I decided that I would reply to the list as there are a few 
things which I

think are worth mentioning.


  In response to my scepticism that  these books/Ms were primarily aimed
  at professional guitar players you write  'In any case the books are
  intended primarily for theorbo
  and keyboard players.' -  but what is your evidence for this?


Many of the books include some songs
with alfabeto but by no means all of them have alfabeto.   Landi's first 
book includes 20 songs, but only 6 have alfabeto.  There is sometimes a
distinction between those which were thought suitable for guitar 
accompaniment (and therefore perhaps intended to be accompanied in a 
different way) and those that weren't. (This is the basis of Cory Gavito's 
dissertation if I remember rightly).


But quite a few songbooks were published
which included no songs with alfabeto. And others were published originally 
without alfabeto and later with it - like Rontani's.  The alfabeto is 
included because the guitar was

considered to be a suitable option - even if the alfabeto is not much
help.   It is not something that you can generalise about.

What I really meant to say is that the songs themselves were not
composed for amateur singers.  Some are quite virtuosic.  People like Landi 
would have sung them

themselves or performed them with colleagues.   Some of the Landi songs have
a compas of an octave + 5th or 6th.
Canta la cicaletta is a good example - very difficult to sing well. But some 
amateurs may have sung them.


As said

  earlier, it's more likely that publishers saw commercial opportunities
  amongst non-professional guitar players as an opportunity to make
  money.


I think it is very difficult to say who the books were intended for.
Received wisdom  is that the printer added the alfabeto to sell more copies. 
But to whom?   Would an amateur guitarist want to buy a book of 20 songs 
with guitar accompaniment for only 6 of them? Different printers may have 
had different markets in mind.



  I also wrote: 'Similarly, manuscript collections were frequently
  for  transmission of dances/songs to pupils.


But these also include some songs with alfabeto and some without.

The other reason for sending this to the list is because I am not sure that 
in the Landi the clefs are transposing clefs.   It may have more to do with 
minimising the use of ledger lines.   But there is still a lot about it 
which puzzles me.


Monica




mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:


From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 17:28

  Dear Monica,
  
 You write:   'I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song books
  are
 not intended for
 amateurs (although amateurs may have performed cf. Schubert
  lieder).
 This is clear from the voice part.   They are intended for
  accomplished
 singers - of whom there would have been a large number in Italy
  where
 every church and cathedral had a body of professional singers.'
  
 I beg to differ -  what is your evidence for such a statement?
  Surely
 the very act of publishing printed books is to sell to the wider
  market
 than the few guitar 'professionals' versed in composition so as to
  make
 money.
  I am not saying that they were intended for just a few guitar
  professionals.   In any case the books are intended primarily for
  theorbo
  and keyboard players.
  There must have been thousands of professional singers in Italy at the
  time - there were dozens of churches in Rome alone with professional
  choirs
  and the singers did just sing in church - they earned theirr living in
  various ways - as they do today.
  The copies of each book printed would have been in the region of
  1000.   How
  do you know that the manuscripts belonged to amateurs.
  Monica
  Similarly manuscript collections were frequently for
 transmission of dances/songs to pupils. Incidentally amatuers in
  this
 contemporary sense does not equate to unaccomplished singers - the
 affluent classes had the time as well as money to devote time to
  the
 'arts' and deveoped some proficiency. In any event these songs are
  not
 Rossini coloratura arias
 .
  
 Martyn
 --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Monica Hall [1]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
  
   From: Monica Hall [2]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
   Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
   To: Lex Eisenhardt [3]eisenha...@planet.nl
   Cc: Vihuelalist [4]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
   Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 12:41
  
 Sanseverino's six (dance-) songs are accompaniments to well-known
  melodies.
 Obviously you haven't seen them.   (They are not the same songs
 included in
 the 1620 edition).  They are songs which were currently in the
 repertoire

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Martyn Hodgson]

   Dear Monica,


   Thanks for this.

   You wrote: 'What I really meant to say is that the songs themselves
   were not
   composed for amateur singers.  Some are quite virtuosic. '

   I'm not convinced that 'amateur' singers of the period were so
   untutored as you think. This this may be a false analogy with present
   day perceptions where an apparently unbridgeable gulf is apparent
   between those singing the principal roles in, say, Rossini, Verdi,
   Wagner, Strass et al and those singing 'folk' songs at their local
   boozer. The songs you mention are not really that 'difficult' and I
   continue to believe they were well within the accomplishment of many
   non-professional singers who, coming from the moneyed classes, could
   afford leisure activities (Bourgeoisie we might call them later) and
   were able to develop a decent contemporary technique - tutored with the
   help of these books/ms and professional musicians.

   rgds

   M.




   --- On Sat, 20/11/10, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

 From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
 Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
 Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Saturday, 20 November, 2010, 21:18

   Dear Martyn
   In the end I decided that I would reply to the list as there are a few
   things which I
   think are worth mentioning.
  In response to my scepticism that  these books/Ms were primarily
   aimed
  at professional guitar players you write  'In any case the books
   are
  intended primarily for theorbo
  and keyboard players.' -  but what is your evidence for this?
   Many of the books include some songs
   with alfabeto but by no means all of them have alfabeto.   Landi's
   first book includes 20 songs, but only 6 have alfabeto.  There is
   sometimes a
   distinction between those which were thought suitable for guitar
   accompaniment (and therefore perhaps intended to be accompanied in a
   different way) and those that weren't. (This is the basis of Cory
   Gavito's dissertation if I remember rightly).
   But quite a few songbooks were published
   which included no songs with alfabeto. And others were published
   originally without alfabeto and later with it - like Rontani's.  The
   alfabeto is included because the guitar was
   considered to be a suitable option - even if the alfabeto is not much
   help.   It is not something that you can generalise about.
   What I really meant to say is that the songs themselves were not
   composed for amateur singers.  Some are quite virtuosic.  People like
   Landi would have sung them
   themselves or performed them with colleagues.   Some of the Landi songs
   have
   a compas of an octave + 5th or 6th.
   Canta la cicaletta is a good example - very difficult to sing well. But
   some amateurs may have sung them.
   As said
  earlier, it's more likely that publishers saw commercial
   opportunities
  amongst non-professional guitar players as an opportunity to make
  money.
   I think it is very difficult to say who the books were intended for.
   Received wisdom  is that the printer added the alfabeto to sell more
   copies. But to whom?   Would an amateur guitarist want to buy a book of
   20 songs with guitar accompaniment for only 6 of them? Different
   printers may have had different markets in mind.
  I also wrote: 'Similarly, manuscript collections were frequently
  for  transmission of dances/songs to pupils.
   But these also include some songs with alfabeto and some without.
   The other reason for sending this to the list is because I am not sure
   that in the Landi the clefs are transposing clefs.   It may have more
   to do with minimising the use of ledger lines.   But there is still a
   lot about it which puzzles me.
   Monica
   [1]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
   
From: Monica Hall [2]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
To: Martyn Hodgson [3]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
Cc: Vihuelalist [4]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 17:28
   
  Dear Monica,
  
 You write:   'I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song
   books
  are
 not intended for
 amateurs (although amateurs may have performed cf. Schubert
  lieder).
 This is clear from the voice part.   They are intended for
  accomplished
 singers - of whom there would have been a large number in Italy
  where
 every church and cathedral had a body of professional singers.'
  
 I beg to differ -  what is your evidence for such a statement?
  Surely
 the very act of publishing printed books is to sell to the
   wider
  market
 than the few guitar 'professionals' versed in composition so as
   to
  make
 money.
  I am not saying that they were intended for just

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Martyn Hodgson]

   Dear Stewart,

   As you'll have seen from recent (and indeed earlier) postings, my view
   is also that most contemporary strumming indications (ie first decades
   of 17th century) only give a rough indication of some of the more
   sophisticated patterns I believe were employed  - perhaps first even on
   the humble 4 course instrument.  Certainly Valdambrini's patterns (see
   the example mentioned earlier) indicates a degree of technical
   expertise allowing such complex patterns.

   However, I don't think this is quite the same as saying, as I think Lex
   does, that players (even the amateurs at which the tablatures are often
   aimed) would have routinely (perhaps even always) sought to avoid
   inversions by selective strumming.  Strumming is more to do with the
   texture and rhetoric of the music: strummed chords in solo music and
   song accompaniment are more platonic models of chords than thorough
   bass realisations (with strict voice leading etc) - see earlier
   postings.

   rgds

   Martyn


   --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

 From: Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk
 Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 1:03

   Dear Monica,
   The changes you describe came much earlier. Adding contrapuntal parts
   to
   a tenor was the sort of thing musicians were doing at the end of the
   15th and early part of the 16th century. The most popular tenor at that
   time seems to have been La Spagna. It is significant that Diego Ortiz
   treats this old tenor as a bass line in 1553.
   Triads were not new in the 17th century. They had certainly been around
   a lot earlier than that, and were pretty well established by the 15th
   century. Composers like Dufay made much use of them. You have only to
   look at 15th-century pieces played on the lute with a plectrum to see
   how a polyphonic texture was filled out here and there with triadic
   chords.
   Some of the dance pieces in Dalza's collection of lute music (1508) are
   based on simple grounds or chord sequences, and we have strumming of
   sorts on the lute with Newsidler's Durchstreicher in 1536.
   -o-O-o-
   As far as strumming on the guitar is concerned, the actual notes played
   cannot always be notated accurately, because a skilled strummer will
   not
   strike all the strings of a chord every time. He may, for example,
   choose to strike all the strings for a strong down-stroke, but catch
   just the first few strings with a lighter strum on the up-stroke.
   The limitations of notating strumming:
   1) It is possible to say what the chord is, by giving an alfabeto
   symbol
   (e.g. A, B, C), or a chord name (G, C, D7), or tablature of various
   kinds, or staff notation, or chord shapes like this:
   |  |  |  |  |  |
   |__|__|__|__|__|
   |  |  |  |  |  |
   |__|__|__x__|__x
   |  |  |  |  |  |
   |__|__|__|__x__|
   |  |  |  |  |  |
   |  |  |  |  |  |
   2) It is possible to notate the direction of strums (up and down), and,
   as you know, there were different ways of doing this in the 17th
   century.
   3) It is impossible to say exactly how many strings are actually struck
   at any one time. This is what all the various notations fail to convey
   accurately. Anyone writing about strumming would find it difficult to
   describe what is, by its very nature, a fluid, variable technique. To
   strum all the strings all the time would be dreadfully dull. I can
   happily accept Lex's view that a player would have been selective in
   which strings he chose to strum at any particular time, and that he
   would have been aware (to a greater or lesser extent) of the effect his
   bourdons, assuming he had them,  may have had in the course of a piece,
   irrespective of whether or not he could read the notes in staff
   notation
   printed under his alfabeto.
   Best wishes,
   Stewart.
   -Original Message-
   From: [1]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
   [mailto:[2]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
   Behalf Of Monica Hall
   Sent: 17 November 2010 17:14
   To: Lex Eisenhardt
   Cc: Vihuelalist
   Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
  Our ready ear is very much influenced/spoiled by functional
   harmony,
  I'm afraid. I suppose it went wrong so often (then) because the
   trick
  of finding the appropriate harmonies was to add 'middle voices' to
   a
  bass and soprano.
   I think you are mistaken here because throughout the 16th century
   general
   practice was to add contrapuntal parts to a tenor voice.   The shift to
   working from the bass took place at the beginning of the 17th century.
   The
   practice of basso continuo was new and not well established at the time
   many
   of these songs were composed.   It started off as a way of creating a
   keyboard accompaniment to mainly polyphonic works.
   Underlying this discussion is the idea that it is somehow

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Martyn Hodgson]

Dear Lex,

   Well, it just goes to show how such a protracted exchange can become as
   Chinese whispers.  I had gained the impression that this (ie
   principally avoidance of inversions in alfabeto) was the issue -
   including of course non-BC bourdon use  with which it is inextricably
   entwined.   I can therefore see little practical difference between any
   of these vigorously defended positions.  If there is any significant
   difference after all that has been said, would you and Monica kindly
   (in a sentence) summarise the res as they see it.

   Martyn
   --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl wrote:

 From: Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl
 Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 9:49

  Dear Martyn,
  you wrote:
  However, I don't think this is quite the same as saying, as I
  think Lex
 does, that players (even the amateurs at which the tablatures are
  often
 aimed) would have routinely (perhaps even always) sought to avoid
 inversions by selective strumming.
  What makes you think that I believe that??
  I have no idea what was done routinely ('even [by] the amateurs'),
   and
  do not pretend to know what was (perhaps) always done. Nor what was
   _
  never_ done, for that matter.
  best wishes, Lex
  --
   To get on or off this list see list information at
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   --

References

   1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

The shift had taken place by then.  I don't know if you have seen the 1622
edition of Sanseverino's guitar book
but it includes six songs with what are in effect written out guitar
accompaniments.   It gives you a clear idea of how he expected the songs
to
be accompanied.


Sanseverino's six (dance-) songs are accompaniments to well-known melodies.
The songs of Marini, Berti and so many others were new compositions,
provided with the harmony of a basso continuo. The alfabeto
could well have been inscribed by the composer himself, as we assume of
Biagio Marini, for example.



I get the impression that Alex Dean thinks it was a two way process.  But
perhaps I have not understood what he is saying,   Do you?


Several people have assumed that the guitar was 'at the forefront of the
revolution from the horizontal to the vertical' (Craig Russell). We could
discuss Alex Dean's thesis here, which perhaps not many will have read. It
is a very complexe issue, and my point of view (for now) would be that the
guitar was deeply involved in a genre (of little songs) in which we can
recognise very specific compositional strategies. Dean gives good examples
of a modular compositional style, based on small, sequenced melodic and
rhythmic motives. For me the question remains where it all began. Is the way
the alfabeto accompaniment is shaped a reaction on an broader autonomous
development or should it be seen as a driving force? [could we please have
this discussion in Dutch ?:~) ]
It seems to me that the simplicity of clear-cut standard progressions of the
dance-like accompaniment of the omnipresent guitar could well have
influenced the developments in some ways. After all, the idea behind the
genre of villanella, scherzo or arietta is a sincere simplicity, to which
plain strummed accompaniment suits so well. I have more doubts about the
role of the guitar in the transition to tonal thinking. It could be that
alfabeto harmony (whatever that is) merely reflects what was going on in the 
outside musical

world.



The experienced theorbist-guitarist could use lute tablature for this

purpose.


And a performer?


Surely they are one and the same?


No they are not.
We cannot tell how someone like Foscarini, of whom we have no songs,
would have shaped his accompaniment to a song by Marini or Landi. But we are
so fortunate to have his BC instructions, even if they are late.

Lex






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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Chris Despopoulos]

   Thanks much...
   In practice, I'm moving slowly back in time.  I will have to come to
   grips with the Renaissance sooner or later, in terms of understanding
   and practice.  Well, that's the goal, at any rate.  You open great
   areas to explore.  In fact, I'm confronted with choosing which
   instrument to explore...  given a limited budget.  R. Guitar, Lute, or
   Vihuela?  So much beauty, so little time (and money).
   Cheers  cud
 __

   From: Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk
   To: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
   Sent: Fri, November 19, 2010 7:30:48 AM
   Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
 Dear Chris,
 I have in mind pieces like this Calata ala spagnola from Dalza's
 collection printed in 1508:

   [1][1]http://www.gerbode.net/ft2/sources/dalza_intabulatura_v4_1508/50v
   .pn
 g
 The piece is constructed on a simple, repeated bass line giving
 root-position chords. In fact, there are slight discrepancies as you
   go
 through the piece, which suggest either a bar or two missing or a
   free
 attitude to the chord sequence, but the piece is certainly not
 polyphonic, and one could be excused for imagining it had been
   written
 100 years later.
 An example of Newsidler's Durchstreicher - downward strums with the
 thumb - can be seen at
 [2][2]http://www.gerbode.net/ft2/sources/hnewsidler/1536_1/x2.jpg
 Again, the texture is not a strictly polyphonic one.
 Filling out chords for lute music played with a plectrum may be seen
   in
 the Pesaro manuscipt kept at the Biblioteca Oliveriana. I'm afraid I
 don't know if any of the music is available on the internet. There is
   a
 facsimile in print, but unfortunately I don't have a copy. You can
   see
 some of the music in facsimile in the booklet which accompanies
   Andrea
 Dammiani's CD of music from that manuscript, CD EL962305. The music
   in
 this manuscript dates from the latter part of the 15th century. The
 trouble with plectrums (as with bows on a viol) is that you are
   forced
 into playing chords involving notes on adjacent strings. For example,
 one piece ends as follows:
   |\  |\  |\  |\  |\  |\  |
   |\  |\  |\  |  |  |  |
   |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 _1___1___
 _1___5___1___
 _4___2___1___2___1___2___
 _3___3___
 _3___3___
 _1___
 That was in Neapolitan tablature. It would look like this in French
 tablature:
   |\  |\  |\  |\  |\  |\  |
   |\  |\  |\  |  |  |  |
   |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 _a___a___
 _a___e___a___
 _d___b___a___b___a___b___
 _c___c___
 _c___c___
 _a___
 A strictly polyphonic version playable with fingers may have been
 something like:
   |\  |\  |\  |\  |\  |\  |
   |\  |\  |\  |  |  |  |
   |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 _a___a___
 _e___
 _d___b___a___b___a___
 _c___c___
 _c___
 _a___
 There are so many examples of chord progressions throughout the 16th
 century, it is difficult to know where to start. Paccaloni's lute
   trios
 is a happy hunting ground, as is Diego Ortiz's book of improvisation
   on
 the viol.
 As I understand it, during the 15th century temperament changed from
 one which had favoured perfect fifths to one which favoured major
 thirds. Composers like Machaut in the 14th century had tended to
   avoid
 major triads, whereas composers like Dufay in the 15th century made
 great use of them. Instrumentalists filling out a polyphonic texture
 with triads soon followed. I regard this fundamental change in
 temperament a far more significant milestone in the history of music
 than the transition from renaissance to baroque.
 Best wishes,
 Stewart.
 -Original Message-
 From: Chris Despopoulos [mailto:[3]despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com]
 Sent: 19 November 2010 07:30
 To: Stewart McCoy
 Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
 Dear Stewart...
 You say:
 Some of the dance pieces in Dalza's collection of lute music (1508)
 are
 based on simple grounds or chord sequences, and we have strumming of
 sorts on the lute with Newsidler's Durchstreicher in 1536.
 I find this interesting.  In my reading of 2nd- and probably 3rd-hand
 sources (or even further removed), I'm led to believe that grounding
 musical structure on chordal progression was an innovation of the
 Baroque...  if not THE innovation.  Of course, drawing distinct lines
 between phases of musical 

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Sanseverino's six (dance-) songs are accompaniments to well-known

melodies.


Obviously you haven't seen them.   (They are not the same songs included in
the 1620 edition).  They are songs which were currently in the repertoire at
the time - Rontani's Caldi sospiri to name but one. This had apppeared with
basso continuo in a song book printed in Florence in 1614 without alfabeto 
and was reprinted in Rome with

alfabeto in 1623.


The songs of Marini, Berti and so many others were new compositions,
provided with the harmony of a basso continuo. The alfabeto
could well have been inscribed by the composer himself, as we assume of
Biagio Marini, for example.


I am sure that it was and if you read what Marini has said and study how he
has added the alfabeto to the songs you can see that he had in mind
something quite different from what you seem to think


[could we please have
this discussion in Dutch ?:~) ]


Double  Dutch perhaps.   What you are saying sounds like pedantry to me.

what was going on in


Surely they are one and the same?


No they are not.


I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song books are not intended for
amateurs (although amateurs may have performed cf. Schubert lieder).  This 
is clear from the voice part.   They are intended for

accomplished singers - of whom there would have been a large number in Italy
where every church and cathedral had a body of professional singers.


We cannot tell how someone like Foscarini, of whom we have no songs,
would have shaped his accompaniment to a song by Marini or Landi. But we
are
so fortunate to have his BC instructions, even if they are late.


That is the point isn't it.   They are included in the latest (surviving)
edition of his work - 1640 - not the earlier one.   But sources from the 
1620s tell a different
story.   We don't even know if he would ever have accompanied these songs - 
which according to you were going out of style by 1640.   But some of the 
pieces in his 1629 book and that of Colonna are clearly intended to be 
accompaniments to songs in fashion at the time.


Monica




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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Them's my sentiments too!!!

Monica

- Original Message - 
From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
To: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu; Stewart McCoy 
lu...@tiscali.co.uk

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 8:42 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence




  Dear Stewart,

  As you'll have seen from recent (and indeed earlier) postings, my view
  is also that most contemporary strumming indications (ie first decades
  of 17th century) only give a rough indication of some of the more
  sophisticated patterns I believe were employed  - perhaps first even on
  the humble 4 course instrument.  Certainly Valdambrini's patterns (see
  the example mentioned earlier) indicates a degree of technical
  expertise allowing such complex patterns.

  However, I don't think this is quite the same as saying, as I think Lex
  does, that players (even the amateurs at which the tablatures are often
  aimed) would have routinely (perhaps even always) sought to avoid
  inversions by selective strumming.  Strumming is more to do with the
  texture and rhetoric of the music: strummed chords in solo music and
  song accompaniment are more platonic models of chords than thorough
  bass realisations (with strict voice leading etc) - see earlier
  postings.

  rgds

  Martyn


  --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

From: Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
To: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 1:03

  Dear Monica,
  The changes you describe came much earlier. Adding contrapuntal parts
  to
  a tenor was the sort of thing musicians were doing at the end of the
  15th and early part of the 16th century. The most popular tenor at that
  time seems to have been La Spagna. It is significant that Diego Ortiz
  treats this old tenor as a bass line in 1553.
  Triads were not new in the 17th century. They had certainly been around
  a lot earlier than that, and were pretty well established by the 15th
  century. Composers like Dufay made much use of them. You have only to
  look at 15th-century pieces played on the lute with a plectrum to see
  how a polyphonic texture was filled out here and there with triadic
  chords.
  Some of the dance pieces in Dalza's collection of lute music (1508) are
  based on simple grounds or chord sequences, and we have strumming of
  sorts on the lute with Newsidler's Durchstreicher in 1536.
  -o-O-o-
  As far as strumming on the guitar is concerned, the actual notes played
  cannot always be notated accurately, because a skilled strummer will
  not
  strike all the strings of a chord every time. He may, for example,
  choose to strike all the strings for a strong down-stroke, but catch
  just the first few strings with a lighter strum on the up-stroke.
  The limitations of notating strumming:
  1) It is possible to say what the chord is, by giving an alfabeto
  symbol
  (e.g. A, B, C), or a chord name (G, C, D7), or tablature of various
  kinds, or staff notation, or chord shapes like this:
  |  |  |  |  |  |
  |__|__|__|__|__|
  |  |  |  |  |  |
  |__|__|__x__|__x
  |  |  |  |  |  |
  |__|__|__|__x__|
  |  |  |  |  |  |
  |  |  |  |  |  |
  2) It is possible to notate the direction of strums (up and down), and,
  as you know, there were different ways of doing this in the 17th
  century.
  3) It is impossible to say exactly how many strings are actually struck
  at any one time. This is what all the various notations fail to convey
  accurately. Anyone writing about strumming would find it difficult to
  describe what is, by its very nature, a fluid, variable technique. To
  strum all the strings all the time would be dreadfully dull. I can
  happily accept Lex's view that a player would have been selective in
  which strings he chose to strum at any particular time, and that he
  would have been aware (to a greater or lesser extent) of the effect his
  bourdons, assuming he had them,  may have had in the course of a piece,
  irrespective of whether or not he could read the notes in staff
  notation
  printed under his alfabeto.
  Best wishes,
  Stewart.
  -Original Message-
  From: [1]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  [mailto:[2]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
  Behalf Of Monica Hall
  Sent: 17 November 2010 17:14
  To: Lex Eisenhardt
  Cc: Vihuelalist
  Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 Our ready ear is very much influenced/spoiled by functional
  harmony,
 I'm afraid. I suppose it went wrong so often (then) because the
  trick
 of finding the appropriate harmonies was to add 'middle voices' to
  a
 bass and soprano.
  I think you are mistaken here because throughout the 16th century
  general
  practice was to add contrapuntal parts to a tenor voice.   The shift to
  working from the bass took place at the beginning of the 17th century.
  The
  practice of basso continuo was new and not well established at the time
  many

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

   I'll let Lex do that first.



   Monica

   - Original Message -

   From: [1]Martyn Hodgson

   To: [2]Vihuelalist ; [3]Lex Eisenhardt ; [4]Monica Hall

   Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 10:51 AM

   Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

Dear Lex,

   Well, it just goes to show how such a protracted exchange can become as
   Chinese whispers.  I had gained the impression that this (ie
   principally avoidance of inversions in alfabeto) was the issue -
   including of course non-BC bourdon use  with which it is inextricably
   entwined.   I can therefore see little practical difference between any
   of these vigorously defended positions.  If there is any significant
   difference after all that has been said, would you and Monica kindly
   (in a sentence) summarise the res as they see it.

   Martyn
   --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl wrote:

 From: Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl
 Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 9:49

  Dear Martyn,
  you wrote:
  However, I don't think this is quite the same as saying, as I
  think Lex
 does, that players (even the amateurs at which the tablatures are
  often
 aimed) would have routinely (perhaps even always) sought to avoid
 inversions by selective strumming.
  What makes you think that I believe that??
  I have no idea what was done routinely ('even [by] the amateurs'),
   and
  do not pretend to know what was (perhaps) always done. Nor what was
   _
  never_ done, for that matter.
  best wishes, Lex
  --
   To get on or off this list see list information at
   [5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html

   --

References

   1. mailto:hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
   2. mailto:vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
   3. mailto:eisenha...@planet.nl
   4. mailto:mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
   5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

To answer Martyn's question I can only summarize my position:

I think that it is possible that players ('amateurs' or not) have left out 
the fifth course in certain occasions.

No more no less

To which I should add however:
that I suppose there have individually different approaches and different 
repertoires, at different times (such as sung dances and basso continuo 
songs), in which players could have done differently.




Then to Monica's remarks:


Sanseverino's six (dance-) songs are accompaniments to well-known

melodies.


Obviously you haven't seen them.


Actually, I checked them this morning. Leading Musicologists nowadays treat 
such repertoire as dance-songs.



I am sure that it was and if you read what Marini has said and study how 
he

has added the alfabeto to the songs you can see that he had in mind
something quite different from what you seem to think


There's the Chinese whispering again.



[could we please have
this discussion in Dutch ?:~) ]


Double  Dutch perhaps.   What you are saying sounds like pedantry to me.


You asked me what I thought of Alexander Dean's views, to which I answered 
quite seriously.

If you don't agree, please be so kind to explain.




I think you are mistaken.   Most of these song books are not intended for
amateurs


Which I didn't say. But even if they were, what is your problem?


About Foscarini:

we are so fortunate to have his BC instructions, even if they are late.



That is the point isn't it.   They are included in the latest (surviving)
edition of his work - 1640 - not the earlier one.   But sources from the 
1620s tell a different

story.


And songs from the 1630s?
Should we really suppose that Foscarini's instructions don't apply for 
anything from before 1640?


Lex




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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Martyn Hodgson]

   Indeed, the Platonic chord..
   --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com
   wrote:

 From: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com
 Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk, Vihuela List
 vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 14:01

  Another point of re-entrant tuning that any self-respecting ukulele
  player would understand, is that of chord voicing.  It's notoriously
  difficult to voice close intervals on the guitar...  hence difficult
   to
  directly transcribe piano music to the guitar, for example.  With
  re-entrant tuning that difficulty goes away.  It could be that the
  resulting voicings sounded better to players at the time.  For me
   it's
  a revelation...  voicings that once were restricted to possibilities
  inherent in open strings can now be had anywhere on the neck.  Of
  course, I give up a lower range...  It's a very different instrument
  without the bass, but no less valid or interesting.
  Intuitively, I also suspect that keeping the number of courses at 5
  indicates at least some tendancy to think and hear in terms of the
  higher register, bordones or no.  As long as you think that way,
   then a
  6th course for the E string is strictly redundant.  Only when you
   use
  it to extend the bass range does it shed that redundancy.  I'm sure
  there was a period during which guitars had 5 courses but players
  thought in terms of extending into the bass.  Then the 6-course
   guitar
  arrived, but as I understand it, it was short-lived and quickly
  replaced with the stringing we use in the modern 6-string guitar.
   But
  after the fact, to me the period of time devoted to 5 courses
   indicates
  re-entrant thinking, and not the opposite.  Strictly intuition, but
  there it is.
  cud
__
  From: Stewart McCoy [1]lu...@tiscali.co.uk
  To: Vihuela List [2]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Fri, November 19, 2010 8:16:36 AM
  Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
  Dear Monica,
  Many thanks for your reply to my email about strumming. We agree
   that a
  good guitarist wouldn't always feel obliged to strum every available
  string of a chord all the time. We also agree that guitarists had
   long
  been happy with the wrong inversion of a chord - in particular,
  second
  inversions.
  Where we differ, I think, is whether someone strumming a guitar with
  bourdons may have chosen to avoid some of the lower notes of a
   chord,
  where they would otherwise interfere with a bass line, like the bass
  notes played on a spinet for that song by Stefano Landi.
  To this I would ask, why is that guitarists in the 17th century
   chose
  to
  string their guitars without bourdons? By doing that, they
   drastically
  reduce the overall range of the instrument, and different courses
   end
  up
  duplicating each other by sounding notes at the same pitch. It seems
   a
  very strange thing to want to do, yet so many guitarists chose to
  string
  their guitars that way. Having a re-entrant tuning enables one to
   play
  lots of fancy campanellas, of course, but I suspect that this was
   not
  why the bourdons were removed in the first place.
  My guess, (and it would be lovely if you could confirm it to be
   right),
  is that the bourdons were removed for the sake of strumming. Second
  inversions were not such a problem per se, especially if there was
  another instrument supplying the true bass, but a second inversion
  involving a wrong note sounding below the bass, or one which was
  particularly low in pitch, was not satisfactory.
  Assuming that to be the case, the guitarist has two ways of avoiding
  those low, unwanted notes. Either he avoids playing them, as Lex has
  maintained was a possibility, or he gets rid of the bourdons
  altogether,
  so that he can strum to his heart's content without having to worry
  about having to miss out the odd unfelicitous low note.
  Best wishes,
  Stewart.
  -Original Message-
  From: [1][3]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  [mailto:[2][4]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
  Behalf Of Monica Hall
  Sent: 19 November 2010 12:18
  To: Stewart McCoy
  Cc: Vihuelalist
  Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
   Triads were not new in the 17th century. They had certainly been
  around
   a lot earlier than that, and were pretty well established by the
   15th
   century. Composers like Dufay made much use of them. You have only
   to
   look at 15th-century pieces played on the lute with a plectrum to
   see
   how a polyphonic texture

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Roman Turovsky]

My understanding was that inversions were against the rules until the Middle 
Baroque.


RT


- Original Message - 
From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
To: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu; Stewart McCoy 
lu...@tiscali.co.uk

Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 9:21 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence




  Dear Stewart,

  You write:  'My guess, (and it would be lovely if you could confirm it
  to be right),
  is that the bourdons were removed for the sake of strumming. Second
  inversions were not such a problem per se, especially if there was
  another instrument supplying the true bass, but a second inversion
  involving a wrong note sounding below the bass, or one which was
  particularly low in pitch, was not satisfactory.'

  As you'll have seen from my previous postings I really do not consider
  these inversions problematical (neither I think does Monica but she
  can, and will, speak for herself) and indeed even the earlier
  generation of 4 course guitarists generally didn't either.

  As pointed out recently and many other times over the past year or so
  during this discussion thread (how time flies) these guitar alfabeto
  chords are a sort of platonic form of a particular harmony.  Just as
  Plato invents the concept of a form of a chair (his example) but
  without relating it to any particular chair to explain how we identify
  such an object, so the chord produced by guitar strumming is a harmony.
  Such is even the practice today - for example in popular music I really
  don't think most guitar strummers are over bothered about the fine
  progression of the bass line.

  This is particularly the case if the treble of the bass pair is placed
  so as to be struck first by the thumb/downwards strum so that there is
  a further imprecision in the auditor's ear as to the precise pitch of
  the lowest notes in the chord. Indeed, I can well imagine an entirely
  different scenario to you whereby the re-entrant nature of octave
  basses became an attraction in itself by allowing various idiomatic
  styles (such as campanellas) to be developed without drastically
  changing the platonic chord ability.

  I'm afraid a further problem with suggesting that the avoidance of
  bourdons on the 4th and 5th avoids inversions is that it doesn't. Play
  almost any common chord other than G, A and maybe B and Bb and you have
  an inversion with the third course as the lowest.

  rgds

  Martyn


  --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

From: Stewart McCoy lu...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
To: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 13:16

  Dear Monica,
  Many thanks for your reply to my email about strumming. We agree that a
  good guitarist wouldn't always feel obliged to strum every available
  string of a chord all the time. We also agree that guitarists had long
  been happy with the wrong inversion of a chord - in particular,
  second
  inversions.
  Where we differ, I think, is whether someone strumming a guitar with
  bourdons may have chosen to avoid some of the lower notes of a chord,
  where they would otherwise interfere with a bass line, like the bass
  notes played on a spinet for that song by Stefano Landi.
  To this I would ask, why is that guitarists in the 17th century chose
  to
  string their guitars without bourdons? By doing that, they drastically
  reduce the overall range of the instrument, and different courses end
  up
  duplicating each other by sounding notes at the same pitch. It seems a
  very strange thing to want to do, yet so many guitarists chose to
  string
  their guitars that way. Having a re-entrant tuning enables one to play
  lots of fancy campanellas, of course, but I suspect that this was not
  why the bourdons were removed in the first place.
  My guess, (and it would be lovely if you could confirm it to be right),
  is that the bourdons were removed for the sake of strumming. Second
  inversions were not such a problem per se, especially if there was
  another instrument supplying the true bass, but a second inversion
  involving a wrong note sounding below the bass, or one which was
  particularly low in pitch, was not satisfactory.
  Assuming that to be the case, the guitarist has two ways of avoiding
  those low, unwanted notes. Either he avoids playing them, as Lex has
  maintained was a possibility, or he gets rid of the bourdons
  altogether,
  so that he can strum to his heart's content without having to worry
  about having to miss out the odd unfelicitous low note.
  Best wishes,
  Stewart.
  -Original Message-
  From: [1]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  [mailto:[2]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
  Behalf Of Monica Hall
  Sent: 19 November 2010 12:18
  To: Stewart McCoy
  Cc: Vihuelalist
  Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
   Triads were not new in the 17th century. They had certainly been
  around
   a lot

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Thanks for your message.

I agree with what you say.   I think Chris has gone into more detail about 
this in a later message.


There are definite advantages to a re-entrant tuning when it comes to 
placing music on the fingerboard of a 5-course instrument - even when 
accompanying a bass line.


Without bourdons the 6/4 chords are less intrusive.   Most players seem to 
recognise this.


Monica



Where we differ, I think, is whether someone strumming a guitar with
bourdons may have chosen to avoid some of the lower notes of a chord,
where they would otherwise interfere with a bass line, like the bass
notes played on a spinet for that song by Stefano Landi.

To this I would ask, why is that guitarists in the 17th century chose to
string their guitars without bourdons? By doing that, they drastically
reduce the overall range of the instrument, and different courses end up
duplicating each other by sounding notes at the same pitch. It seems a
very strange thing to want to do, yet so many guitarists chose to string
their guitars that way. Having a re-entrant tuning enables one to play
lots of fancy campanellas, of course, but I suspect that this was not
why the bourdons were removed in the first place.

My guess, (and it would be lovely if you could confirm it to be right),
is that the bourdons were removed for the sake of strumming. Second
inversions were not such a problem per se, especially if there was
another instrument supplying the true bass, but a second inversion
involving a wrong note sounding below the bass, or one which was
particularly low in pitch, was not satisfactory.

Assuming that to be the case, the guitarist has two ways of avoiding
those low, unwanted notes. Either he avoids playing them, as Lex has
maintained was a possibility, or he gets rid of the bourdons altogether,
so that he can strum to his heart's content without having to worry
about having to miss out the odd unfelicitous low note.

Best wishes,

Stewart.



-Original Message-
From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On
Behalf Of Monica Hall
Sent: 19 November 2010 12:18
To: Stewart McCoy
Cc: Vihuelalist
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence



Triads were not new in the 17th century. They had certainly been

around

a lot earlier than that, and were pretty well established by the 15th
century. Composers like Dufay made much use of them. You have only to
look at 15th-century pieces played on the lute with a plectrum to see
how a polyphonic texture was filled out here and there with triadic
chords.


I think you are taking everything I have said literally and out of
context.
There is a
difference between consonances made up of the notes of a triad and a
recognization of the relationship between them.  It is not that these
things
are new in the sense that no-one had ever thought them before.  Rather

there is a shift of emphasis with the emmergence of the seconda
prattica.

It is obvious in the 4-course repertoire that there are the same chords
which are found in the 5-course repertoire but without the fifth course
and
these may have been strummed.   These are on the margins so to speak.


As far as strumming on the guitar is concerned, the actual notes

played

cannot always be notated accurately, because a skilled strummer will

not

strike all the strings of a chord every time. He may, for example,
choose to strike all the strings for a strong down-stroke, but catch
just the first few strings with a lighter strum on the up-stroke.


I have no problem at all with the idea that there would be different
strumming patterns to create a contrast in texture but I do not agree
with
you or Lex that ensuring that the chords were in the correct inversions
was
an issue.   It is an entirely modern obsession.

Monica






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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Sanseverino's six (dance-) songs are accompaniments to well-known

melodies.



Actually, I checked them this morning. Leading Musicologists nowadays
treat such repertoire as dance-songs.


Which Leading Musicologists?   Even songs by Rontani connected with the 
Florentine school?  How could you dance
to Caldi sospiri? Which songs are you referring to?  I have even found a 
version of Caccini's Amaryllis with alfabeto.   Is that a dance song?



I am sure that it was and if you read what Marini has said and study how
he
has added the alfabeto to the songs you can see that he had in mind
something quite different from what you seem to think


There's the Chinese whispering again.


Well this is what you said ...
The songs of Marini, Berti and so many others were new compositions,
provided with the harmony of a basso continuo. The alfabeto
could well have been inscribed by the composer himself, as we assume of
Biagio Marini, for example.

which seems imply that because the alfabeto was included by the composers 
themselves it was intended to be interpreted differently.



[could we please have
this discussion in Dutch ?:~) ]


Double  Dutch perhaps.   What you are saying sounds like pedantry to me.


You asked me what I thought of Alexander Dean's views, to which I answered
quite seriously.


I think you could have explained it using simpler, more direct language 
rather than using wordy acaemicspeak..



And songs from the 1630s?
Should we really suppose that Foscarini's instructions don't apply for
anything from before 1640?


Probably.   There is a very marked change in style in the solo pieces in 
book five from the earlier books.   The whole of Foscarini's book reflects 
quite rapid changes taking place between 1629 and 1640.  A microcosm of what 
was happening then.


Monica





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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

   Dear Stewart



To this I would ask, why is that guitarists in the 17th century chose
   to
string their guitars without bourdons? By doing that, they
   drastically
reduce the overall range of the instrument, and different courses end
   up
duplicating each other by sounding notes at the same pitch. It seems
   a
very strange thing to want to do, yet so many guitarists chose to
   string
their guitars that way.



   It is indeed an intriguing question.

   You suppose that many guitarists strung their instruments in that way,
   but we really don't know much about numbers, do we?







Assuming that to be the case, the guitarist has two ways of avoiding
those low, unwanted notes. Either he avoids playing them, as Lex has
maintained was a possibility, or he gets rid of the bourdons
   altogether,
so that he can strum to his heart's content without having to worry
about having to miss out the odd unfelicitous low note.



   Inversion free strumming could indeed have been a reason to prefer
   re-entrant stringing.

   Only the idea that a guitarist would have removed the low basses of a
   guitar in bourdon tuning does not completely convince me.

   It could well be that re-entrant tuning had spread before the rise of
   basso continuo, and would initially have little to do with avoiding a
   conflict with a bass line (or a bass line instrument). We encounter
   more sources referring to re-entrant in France. Basso continuo seems to
   have arrived there rather later.



   best wishes, Lex

   --


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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

You asked me what I thought of Alexander Dean's views, to which I answered

quite seriously.


I think you could have explained it using simpler, more direct language 
rather than using wordy acaemicspeak..


My goodness. Apparently you have not understood a word of it. As you seem to 
have missed most of what Alexander Dean has said in his (400 pages indeed) 
dissertation this doesn't surprise me.



There is a very marked change in style in the solo pieces in book five 
from the earlier books.   The whole of Foscarini's book reflects quite 
rapid changes taking place between 1629 and 1640.  A microcosm of what was 
happening then.


So for alfabeto songs from the 1630s then?

Lex





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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

You haven't anwered my questions.  I will repeat them.

Which Leading Musicologists nowadays treat which songs as dance-repertoire?
Even songs by Rontani connected with the
Florentine school?  How could you dance
to Caldi sospiri? Which songs are you referring to?  I have even found a
version of Caccini's Amaryllis with alfabeto.   Is that a dance song?

But perhaps you don't know the anwer.


I think you could have explained it using simpler, more direct language
rather than using wordy acaemicspeak..


My goodness. Apparently you have not understood a word of it.


I wonder if you have either as you seem unable to summarize what he has said
coherently for the benefit of those on this list who might not have read it.

 There is a very marked change in style in the solo pieces in book five

from the earlier books.   The whole of Foscarini's book reflects quite
rapid changes taking place between 1629 and 1640.  A microcosm of what
was happening then.


So for alfabeto songs from the 1630s then?


They were certainly being printed then.   Landi's book was printed in 1637.

Monica



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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

I can't summarize it in a single sentence but I hope I can explain briefly.

I think the reason for including alfabeto in these song books  is because 
they were

not intended to be
accompanied in the same way as they would be on the theorbo or keyboard. 
There is no point in doing something which other instruments could do 
better.   And if performers could or wanted to do so they would use the bass 
line provided.


A different style of accompaniment is intended - one which is entirely 
strummed which can in its way be very effective.   Later perhaps taste 
changed leading to a mixed or more varied style of accompaniment but   I 
don't think that strumming ever went out of fashion.


I responded cautiously to Lex's original message about the Landi songs 
because it was an interesting subject and I thought I might be able to shed 
some light on the problem.   I am grateful to him to drawing my attention to 
the facsimile as I was familiar with some of the songs but had not 
previously seen the orignal score.


However we have discussed all the rest of this previously and what happens 
is that we end up going round and round in circles.  We obviously have very 
different ideas on the subject.  The only reason for my continuing to take 
part in it is because I don't think that only one point of view should be 
put forward.   But my time is limited.


I think that it is a pity that we cannot find anything more worthwhile to 
discuss than the stringing of the 5-course guitar which is where it always 
ends up.


Monica

- Original Message - 
From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk

To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu; Lex Eisenhardt
eisenha...@planet.nl; Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 10:51 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence




   Dear Lex,

  Well, it just goes to show how such a protracted exchange can become as
  Chinese whispers.  I had gained the impression that this (ie
  principally avoidance of inversions in alfabeto) was the issue -
  including of course non-BC bourdon use  with which it is inextricably
  entwined.   I can therefore see little practical difference between any
  of these vigorously defended positions.  If there is any significant
  difference after all that has been said, would you and Monica kindly
  (in a sentence) summarise the res as they see it.

  Martyn
  --- On Fri, 19/11/10, Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl wrote:

From: Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 9:49

 Dear Martyn,
 you wrote:
 However, I don't think this is quite the same as saying, as I
 think Lex
does, that players (even the amateurs at which the tablatures are
 often
aimed) would have routinely (perhaps even always) sought to avoid
inversions by selective strumming.
 What makes you think that I believe that??
 I have no idea what was done routinely ('even [by] the amateurs'),
  and
 do not pretend to know what was (perhaps) always done. Nor what was
  _
 never_ done, for that matter.
 best wishes, Lex
 --
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References

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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

I think you are mistaken here because throughout the 16th century general
practice was to add contrapuntal parts to a tenor voice.   The shift to
working from the bass took place at the beginning of the 17th century.


So how about songs from the 1620s and 30s?




Underlying this discussion is the idea that it is somehow inferior or
amateurish to accompany the songs in this way.   This in my view shows a
lack of historical insight and sensitivity to changes taking place at the
time.   A kind of 21st century superior and censorious attitude to what
people did in the past.


Your comment is really surprising.
Anyone can hear what my ideas are, on the CD Canta Venetia. Most of the time
I just play the (amateurish...) alfabeto chords as written. Occasionally I
leave out the A bass of a D chord. I think it is unreasonable to condemn
that since it is almost too easy, also for a player in 1627. For the rest I
'keep an eye on the bass' which I think could be done by educated players.
Therefore I sometimes play the 6-3 chords which we find in Foscarini 1640
and Corbetta 1643. Too close to call it anachronistic.



Triadic harmony was new, original, exciting and in tune with other
developments taking place at the time i.e. accompanied monody.   The
guitar was ideally suited to be part of this change and certainly
contributed to developments in harmonic thinking.


Did it?



Your views seem to coloured by the need to please a 21st century audience.
This is understandable but if we are trying to understand what these songs
meant to people in the past and what gave them pleasure we should leave
our personal prejudices at the door


I just try not to be fundamentalistic about sources



There was no need for them to expand the system of alfabeto from within.
The experienced theorbist-guitarist could use lute tablature for this
purpose.


And a performer?



It never lost ground.  It was still alive and well and living in Italy
until well into the 18th century.


The numbers of printed alfabeto songbooks went down dramatically after 
1640.

Alfabeto songs were no longer appearing in print.
I know of course that the simple alfabeto instructionbooks of Millioni,
Monte, Marchetti were reprinted for about a century. There still was some 
demand

for strumming, but no repertoire of contemporary composed alfabeto song has
survived.



You may not be in sympathy with earlier ways of doing things but that is
no reason for heaping scorn on those of us who are.


Again, I'm surprised that you say that, you completely misread my words. 
Not

for the first time.

Lex




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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

While Sanseverino tells us better not to use the guitar for plucking (in 
1620, when alfabeto was the standard notation) we can suppose that he heard 
players doing that.




Alfabeto is a form of shorthand.  You can't
have a system of shorthand which everyone interprets as they wish.


Chord notation (in cifras and alfabeto) was very successful for at least 
half a
century. It's indeed a very practical type of shorthand, but to me it seems 
odd
to suppose that no player would ever have thought of the theoretical 
implications. I mean, how can you find the chords to a song if you have no 
idea of counterpoint and voice-leading at all. Perhaps a naive 
(singer-)guitarist would just have performed it thoughtlessly.




And again - in French tablature the chords are written out in full - no
ambiguity.   Why assume that Italian players did anything different.


Guitar music in French tablature is rather later. Chord notation in French 
tablature seems highly ambiguous to me, with regard to open strings. We have 
discussed this at length here and could not reach agreement.




   As far as the alfabeto song books are concerned the little
  information we have does seem to indicate that the guitar was not
  intended to reproduce the bass line etc. but just strummed the basic
  chords. It is an anachronism to do anything much more elaborate than
  that if what you are trying to is to re-create the ambience in which
  they were first performed.


I could sum up several other things that would spoil the ambience for me, 
like improvising far out of the box of modality, accompaniment with18th c 
(or 21st c...) tonal harmony, poppy syncopations etc. The result of leaving 
out the 5th c bourdon is not inconsistent with the general style of the 
time. We, as well-informed hardliners, reach different conclusions as to 
whether this could possibly have been done by a guitarist in the 1620s or 
30s. I would prefer to take in account that an experienced 
theorbist-guitarist would perhaps have tried to expand the system of 
alfabeto from within. I don't see alfabeto as a completely rigid system, 
mainly for amateurs, without any relation to the developments that were 
going on in the sphere of basso continuo or solo music. We can assume that 
the guitar was used as well by singers and composers such as Falconieri, 
Marini, Berti and Milanuzzi, who were often trained in church music, on 
instruments like the organ or the lute. This is music from the latter days 
of the alfabeto song repertoire, when the genre was at its height. At the 
same time the paradigm of the guitar as an instrument of chord strumming was 
losing ground.


Lex






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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Martyn Hodgson]

   Dear Lex,

   You write '.how can you find the chords to a song if you have no
   idea of counterpoint and voice-leading at all...' .  Surely this is why
   a such a basically simple chordal instrument is so popular even today -
   once you've mastered a few chords and have a reasonable ear you're
   ready to tackle the mainly straightforward repertoire of songs alfabeto
   was used for. Of course, odd clashes would have occurred occasionally
   which is why more than just a few alfabeto chords are used in some
   songs. But I wonder how much it mattered to the 'non-expert' player
   that a passing dissonance which was soon resolved was not slavishly
   harmonised.
   And again you write ' I would prefer to take in account that an
   experienced theorbist-guitarist would perhaps have tried to expand the
   system of alfabeto from within'.But surely when looking at most
   simple alfabeto accompaniments we are not speaking of these expert
   practitioners but the more general strumming public who may not have
   been up to improvising more than the basic three tonal chords

   Finally if you've ever performed Cesare Morelli's (Pepys guitar
   teacher) arrangement of  'To be or not to be' (an experience of
   novelty rather than artistic merit I can tell you)  from the later 17th
   century you'd not rush to suggest strumming to songs was little
   employed by then - little written down maybe.  And Morelli, supposedly
   a 'professional' of sorts often gets the harmonisations 'wrong'

   rgds

   M.
   --- On Wed, 17/11/10, Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl wrote:

 From: Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl
 Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Wednesday, 17 November, 2010, 13:33

   While Sanseverino tells us better not to use the guitar for plucking
   (in 1620, when alfabeto was the standard notation) we can suppose that
   he heard players doing that.
Alfabeto is a form of shorthand.  You can't
have a system of shorthand which everyone interprets as they wish.
   Chord notation (in cifras and alfabeto) was very successful for at
   least half a
   century. It's indeed a very practical type of shorthand, but to me it
   seems odd
   to suppose that no player would ever have thought of the theoretical
   implications. I mean, how can you find the chords to a song if you have
   no idea of counterpoint and voice-leading at all. Perhaps a naive
   (singer-)guitarist would just have performed it thoughtlessly.
And again - in French tablature the chords are written out in full -
   no
ambiguity.   Why assume that Italian players did anything different.
   Guitar music in French tablature is rather later. Chord notation in
   French tablature seems highly ambiguous to me, with regard to open
   strings. We have discussed this at length here and could not reach
   agreement.
   As far as the alfabeto song books are concerned the little
  information we have does seem to indicate that the guitar was not
  intended to reproduce the bass line etc. but just strummed the
   basic
  chords. It is an anachronism to do anything much more elaborate
   than
  that if what you are trying to is to re-create the ambience in
   which
  they were first performed.
   I could sum up several other things that would spoil the ambience for
   me, like improvising far out of the box of modality, accompaniment
   with18th c (or 21st c...) tonal harmony, poppy syncopations etc. The
   result of leaving out the 5th c bourdon is not inconsistent with the
   general style of the time. We, as well-informed hardliners, reach
   different conclusions as to whether this could possibly have been done
   by a guitarist in the 1620s or 30s. I would prefer to take in account
   that an experienced theorbist-guitarist would perhaps have tried to
   expand the system of alfabeto from within. I don't see alfabeto as a
   completely rigid system, mainly for amateurs, without any relation to
   the developments that were going on in the sphere of basso continuo or
   solo music. We can assume that the guitar was used as well by singers
   and composers such as Falconieri, Marini, Berti and Milanuzzi, who were
   often trained in church music, on instruments like the organ or the
   lute. This is music from the latter days of the alfabeto song
   repertoire, when the genre was at its height. At the same time the
   paradigm of the guitar as an instrument of chord strumming was losing
   ground.
   Lex
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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

   Dear Martyn,

You write '.how can you find the chords to a song if you have no
   idea of counterpoint and voice-leading at all...' .  Surely this is why
   a such a basically simple chordal instrument is so popular even today -
   once you've mastered a few chords and have a reasonable ear you're
   ready to tackle the mainly straightforward repertoire of songs alfabeto
   was used for.

   Our ready ear is very much influenced/spoiled by functional harmony,
   I'm afraid. I suppose it went wrong so often (then) because the trick
   of finding the appropriate harmonies was to add 'middle voices' to a
   bass and soprano.


Of course, odd clashes would have occurred occasionally which is why
   more than just a few alfabeto chords are used in some songs. But I
   wonder how much it mattered to the 'non-expert' player that a passing
   dissonance which was soon resolved was not slavishly harmonised.

   True, but I was thinking of the expert player.

And again you write ' I would prefer to take in account that an
   experienced theorbist-guitarist would perhaps have tried to expand the
   system of alfabeto from within'.But surely when looking at most
   simple alfabeto accompaniments we are not speaking of these expert
   practitioners but the more general strumming public who may not have
   been up to improvising more than the basic three tonal chords

   If we are trying to figure out what was possibly done in the 1620s and
   30s, to reach an optimal performance of the most beautiful songs,
   respecting the
   ambience they were performed in, then we should not only think of what
   the general strumming public did. That could of course also
   be interesting information (for a gig in 17th c costume).


Finally if you've ever performed Cesare Morelli's (Pepys guitar
   teacher) arrangement of  'To be or not to be' (an experience of
   novelty rather than artistic merit I can tell you)  from the later 17th
   century you'd not rush to suggest strumming to songs was little
   employed by then - little written down maybe.  And Morelli, supposedly
   a 'professional' of sorts often gets the harmonisations 'wrong'

   No, but I've done Stairway to heaven, does that count?

   Lex

   --


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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Chris Despopoulos]

   Well, stairway to heaven brings up an interesting issue of music, and
   that's imitation.  How many kids learned that old saw without having a
   clue of what they were doing?  (I can name one for certain...)  To ask
   it a bit more politely, how often is theory invoked to explain what we
   already imitate anyway?  And so even the more educated players --
   certainly those of today, but why not those back then -- have nothing
   against merely imitating a phrase or a piece, and maybe digesting the
   theoretical implications later.  Or to consider it at yet another
   level, how much of the striving and arriving at the optimal beauty for
   a piece was a product of imitation, slight mutation, and a statement
   that is itself imitated.  It's wonderful to think that all of art
   music's development was theoretical and pure, and never sullied by the
   iterative cycles of cultural acceptance we ascribe to folk and ethnic
   music.  Somehow I'm not convinced.
   But you thankfully give the reminder that our ears are already trained
   to accept a harmonic orientation that didn't necessarily exist in the
   early Baroque.  So without the benefit of theoretical underpinnings,
   what could the criteria have been for mutation and evolution?  I see a
   happy tension between these issues.
   cud
 __

   From: Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl
   To: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
   Sent: Wed, November 17, 2010 9:42:03 AM
   Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence
 Dear Martyn,
  You write '.how can you find the chords to a song if you have
   no
 idea of counterpoint and voice-leading at all...' .  Surely this is
   why
 a such a basically simple chordal instrument is so popular even today
   -
 once you've mastered a few chords and have a reasonable ear you're
 ready to tackle the mainly straightforward repertoire of songs
   alfabeto
 was used for.
 Our ready ear is very much influenced/spoiled by functional harmony,
 I'm afraid. I suppose it went wrong so often (then) because the trick
 of finding the appropriate harmonies was to add 'middle voices' to a
 bass and soprano.
  Of course, odd clashes would have occurred occasionally which is
   why
 more than just a few alfabeto chords are used in some songs. But I
 wonder how much it mattered to the 'non-expert' player that a passing
 dissonance which was soon resolved was not slavishly harmonised.
 True, but I was thinking of the expert player.
  And again you write ' I would prefer to take in account that an
 experienced theorbist-guitarist would perhaps have tried to expand
   the
 system of alfabeto from within'.But surely when looking at
   most
 simple alfabeto accompaniments we are not speaking of these expert
 practitioners but the more general strumming public who may not have
 been up to improvising more than the basic three tonal chords
 If we are trying to figure out what was possibly done in the 1620s
   and
 30s, to reach an optimal performance of the most beautiful songs,
 respecting the
 ambience they were performed in, then we should not only think of
   what
 the general strumming public did. That could of course also
 be interesting information (for a gig in 17th c costume).
  Finally if you've ever performed Cesare Morelli's (Pepys guitar
 teacher) arrangement of  'To be or not to be' (an experience of
 novelty rather than artistic merit I can tell you)  from the later
   17th
 century you'd not rush to suggest strumming to songs was little
 employed by then - little written down maybe.  And Morelli,
   supposedly
 a 'professional' of sorts often gets the harmonisations
   'wrong'
 No, but I've done Stairway to heaven, does that count?
 Lex
 --
   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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References

   1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/%7Ewbc/lute-admin/index.html

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

  Our ready ear is very much influenced/spoiled by functional harmony,
  I'm afraid. I suppose it went wrong so often (then) because the trick
  of finding the appropriate harmonies was to add 'middle voices' to a
  bass and soprano.


I think you are mistaken here because throughout the 16th century general 
practice was to add contrapuntal parts to a tenor voice.   The shift to 
working from the bass took place at the beginning of the 17th century.  The 
practice of basso continuo was new and not well established at the time many 
of these songs were composed.   It started off as a way of creating a 
keyboard accompaniment to mainly polyphonic works.


Underlying this discussion is the idea that it is somehow inferior or 
amateurish to accompany the songs in this way.   This in my view shows a 
lack of historical insight and sensitivity to changes taking place at the 
time.   A kind of 21st century superior and censorious attitude to what 
people did in the past.


Triadic harmony was new, original, exciting and in tune with other 
developments taking place at the time i.e. accompanied monody.   The guitar 
was ideally suited to be part of this change and certainly contributed to 
developments in harmonic thinking.  It is of its time.


It is not helpful to suggest that the harmonic language of alfabeto is 
somewhat one-dimensional.  This is a bit like saying that Wagner's music is 
superior to that of Mozart because he used larger forces and more complex 
and colourful harmony.   An evolutionary view of musical history which went 
out of fashion in England years ago.



  If we are trying to figure out what was possibly done in the 1620s and
  30s, to reach an optimal performance of the most beautiful songs,
  respecting the
  ambience they were performed in, then we should not only think of what
  the general strumming public did.


No.. we should think about what writers at the time said about what they 
were trying to achieve.   I have already quoted Marini and Milanuzzi who 
presumably prepared their own books for the press and indicate that they 
thought it was necessary and satisfactory to suggest a different way of 
accompanying on the guitar.Do you think they were writing for the 
general strumming public - if indeed such a public existed.


That could of course also

  be interesting information (for a gig in 17th c costume).


Your views seem to coloured by the need to please a 21st century audience. 
This is understandable but if we are trying to understand what these songs 
meant to people in the past and what gave them pleasure we should leave our 
personal prejudices at the door.


Monica





   Finally if you've ever performed Cesare Morelli's (Pepys guitar
  teacher) arrangement of  'To be or not to be' (an experience of
  novelty rather than artistic merit I can tell you)  from the later 17th
  century you'd not rush to suggest strumming to songs was little
  employed by then - little written down maybe.  And Morelli, supposedly
  a 'professional' of sorts often gets the harmonisations 'wrong'

  No, but I've done Stairway to heaven, does that count?

  Lex

  --


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http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

30s. I would prefer to take in account that an experienced
theorbist-guitarist would perhaps have tried to expand the system of 
alfabeto from within.


There was no need for them to expand the system of alfabeto from within. 
The experienced theorbist-guitarist could use lute tablature for this 
purpose.


music. We can assume that
the guitar was used as well by singers and composers such as Falconieri, 
Marini, Berti and Milanuzzi, who were often trained in church music, on 
instruments like the organ or the lute.


I have already pointed out that Marini and Milanuzzi did seem to think that 
the guitar had fewer consonances etc... And Sanseverino and Montesardo were 
both trained church musicians.


This is music from the latter days
of the alfabeto song repertoire, when the genre was at its height. At the 
same time the paradigm of the guitar as an instrument of chord strumming 
was losing ground.


It never lost ground.  It was still alive and well and living in Italy until 
well into the 18th century.   It is just that the idea of what was possible 
expanded to include lute style counterpoint.   Wagner is not superior to 
Mozart.


You may not be in sympathy with earlier ways of doing things but that is no 
reason for heaping scorn on those of us who are.


Monica




To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Roman Turovsky]

That is not true. Renaissance bass patterns certainly predate 17th century.
RT


- Original Message - 
From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk

To: Lex Eisenhardt eisenha...@planet.nl
Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:13 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence



  Our ready ear is very much influenced/spoiled by functional harmony,
  I'm afraid. I suppose it went wrong so often (then) because the trick
  of finding the appropriate harmonies was to add 'middle voices' to a
  bass and soprano.


I think you are mistaken here because throughout the 16th century general 
practice was to add contrapuntal parts to a tenor voice.   The shift to 
working from the bass took place at the beginning of the 17th century. 
The practice of basso continuo was new and not well established at the 
time many of these songs were composed.   It started off as a way of 
creating a keyboard accompaniment to mainly polyphonic works.


Underlying this discussion is the idea that it is somehow inferior or 
amateurish to accompany the songs in this way.   This in my view shows a 
lack of historical insight and sensitivity to changes taking place at the 
time.   A kind of 21st century superior and censorious attitude to what 
people did in the past.


Triadic harmony was new, original, exciting and in tune with other 
developments taking place at the time i.e. accompanied monody.   The 
guitar was ideally suited to be part of this change and certainly 
contributed to developments in harmonic thinking.  It is of its time.


It is not helpful to suggest that the harmonic language of alfabeto is 
somewhat one-dimensional.  This is a bit like saying that Wagner's music 
is superior to that of Mozart because he used larger forces and more 
complex and colourful harmony.   An evolutionary view of musical history 
which went out of fashion in England years ago.



  If we are trying to figure out what was possibly done in the 1620s and
  30s, to reach an optimal performance of the most beautiful songs,
  respecting the
  ambience they were performed in, then we should not only think of what
  the general strumming public did.


No.. we should think about what writers at the time said about what they 
were trying to achieve.   I have already quoted Marini and Milanuzzi who 
presumably prepared their own books for the press and indicate that they 
thought it was necessary and satisfactory to suggest a different way of 
accompanying on the guitar.Do you think they were writing for the 
general strumming public - if indeed such a public existed.


That could of course also

  be interesting information (for a gig in 17th c costume).


Your views seem to coloured by the need to please a 21st century audience. 
This is understandable but if we are trying to understand what these songs 
meant to people in the past and what gave them pleasure we should leave 
our personal prejudices at the door.


Monica





   Finally if you've ever performed Cesare Morelli's (Pepys guitar
  teacher) arrangement of  'To be or not to be' (an experience of
  novelty rather than artistic merit I can tell you)  from the later 17th
  century you'd not rush to suggest strumming to songs was little
  employed by then - little written down maybe.  And Morelli, supposedly
  a 'professional' of sorts often gets the harmonisations 'wrong'

  No, but I've done Stairway to heaven, does that count?

  Lex

  --


To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Lex Eisenhardt]

   However, Sanseverino tells not to play in lute style because the guitar
   would be deprived of its harmony. So it should not be plucked, but
   played with full strokes. What exactly are 'botte piene'? I would say
   that also the strummed chords of alfabeto falso, or those in tablature
   on p. 73 of Corbetta 1643 should be played with full sound, so that
   every string can give its 'true effect' (as Foscarini says). The
   question of course remains if this approach could as well apply for
   standard alfabeto. Would every player, also those who had experience
   with the lute or theorbo, have used alfabeto in the same limited
   sense, never leaving out any course? If we don't really know about that
   we should better seriously consider every other option.



   I agree with Stewart that someone who published a book with alfabeto
   could expect that it would be played with different tunings. But I
   understand relativism as considering different things as equal of value
   or importance. I believe that it would be difficult to tell this of
   musicians from the past. At least in this specific case we do not have
   enough information about their preferences to suppose that they did not
   care.



   Kapsberger and the re-entrant tuning. An encyclopedist like Mersenne
   probably collected information from many contacts in different
   countries and it seems unlikely that all what he has written on plucked
   instruments came literally from Kapsberger. We should therefore not
   reverse the argument, saying that while the tuning chart in
   Mersennes Harmonie is for re-entrant tuning Kapsberger will have used
   it. We don't know what Kapsberger wrote to Mersenne. And Kircher
   probably borrowed heavily from Mersenne.



   Monica writes:

As far as the alfabeto song books are concerned the little
   information we have does seem to indicate that the guitar was not
   intended to reproduce the bass line etc. but just strummed the basic
   chords. It is an anachronism to do anything much more elaborate than
   that if what you are trying to is to re-create the ambience in which
   they were first performed. The original idea was for the singer to
   accompany themselves, something which few people do today.


I have considered to do that (sing myself) but it seemed not such a brilliant id
ea, after all.
Also with self accompaniment it is perfectly possible to add some elaborations,
keep in mind that
singers even accompanied themselves on the theorbo.
Landi's collection is of 1637. I would say that it is close enough to Foscarini
or Corbetta to
justify some adaptations of good old alfabeto.
And it seems reasonable to suppose that change was in the air.

Lex

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[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Martyn Hodgson]

   Indeed - he is also having his cake and eating it

   M
   --- On Mon, 15/11/10, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

 From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
 Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
 To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
 Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
 Date: Monday, 15 November, 2010, 14:03

   A P.S.
   Valdambrini's second book also includes some instructions on
   accompanying a
   bass line.  There are a small number of places in these (on p.30) where
   he
   has written out chords in tablature and these would reproduce the bass
   line
   as written if there were bourdons - but not if the re-entrant tuning
   was
   used.
   There is a certain amount of virtual or visual harmony in all these
   things.Accompanying a bass line is about the art of the
   possible.   The
   exercises illustrate what you can actually play but are not intended to
   be
   taken literally.
   Alternatively perhaps Valdambrini use a different method of stringing
   when
   accompanying.
   Monica
   - Original Message -
   From: Martyn Hodgson [1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
   To: Monica Hall [2]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
   Cc: Vihuelalist [3]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
   Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 9:09 AM
   Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
   
   
   
  Monica writes: 'Valdambrini's first book was printed in Rome seven
  years after Landi died (1646).   He not only gives instructions for
  re-entrant tuning but clearly
  states that the instrument has no basses.'  Also of course she
   might
  have added that he very clearly indicates octaves in the
   Avvertimenti
  (both in Italian AND French tablature) thus once again confirming
   fully
  re-entrant for his music.
   
  As a further aside, I like V's penchant for carefully controlled
  strumming (ie not 'thrashing') - clearly he had an advanced
   technique
  allowing him to exclude certain courses at will(partial
  strumming). Many examples such as second book: bottom of page 29 in
   the
  variatione on a ciaccona. I've previously suggested this was a well
  established practice by 1646 - at least for some if not for Colonna
   and
  Sanseverino.
  M.
  --- On Mon, 15/11/10, Monica Hall [4]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
   
From: Monica Hall [5]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Stefano Landi
To: Lex Eisenhardt [6]eisenha...@planet.nl
Cc: Vihuelalist [7]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Monday, 15 November, 2010, 8:32
   
 We don't know which tuning predominated in the circles around
  Landi,
 for example.
  Well - we have some ideas.   One of his contemporaries in Rome was
  Kapsberger, and it was from Kapsberger that Mersenne obtained his
  information about how the guitar was strung - i.e. with a fully
  re-entrant
  tuning.   Kapsberger published two books of guitar music now lost.
  Valdambrini's first book was printed in Rome seven years after
   Landi
  died
  (1646).   He not only gives instructions for re-entrant tuning but
  clearly
  states that the instrument has no basses.
  Kircher gives the re-entrant tuning in Musurgia Universalis printed
   in
  Rome
  1650.
  And of course rather later Sanz also says that guitarists in Rome
   used
  the
  re-entrant tuning.
  Just straws in the wind..
  From our XXIc position it is difficult to know exactly who
 used what tuning, or which composer was exposed to one way of
  tuning or
 the other. If one way of stringing is very usual among your
   friends
  or
 in your town there would be no reason to say anything about it.
  Therein lies the problem.   If none of us can be certain a position
   of
  relativity is inevitable.   The relativity is ours rather than
   theirs.
 It supposes that in the 17th century 'they' had a sort of
  relativism,
 with respect to the tuning and theoretical issues. The first
  attempts
 of Focarini and Corbetta from around 1640, to apply the figures
   and
 voice-leading of basso continuo on the guitar, give a different
 picture.
  In what way?   Even if this was so in what way is it relevant to
   what
  players did earlier?
  Monica
   To get on or off this list see list information at
   [1][8]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
   
  --
   
References
   
  1. [9]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
   

   --

References

   1. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
   2. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
   3. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
   4. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
   

[VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence

[Monica Hall]

Well I am not sure who is having the cake and who is eating it here.

Lex said

The first attempts
  of Foscarini and Corbetta from around 1640, to apply the figures and
  voice-leading of basso continuo on the guitar, give a different
  picture.   But Valdambrini's attempts around the same time  give exactly 
the same picture but he evidently used the re-entrant tuning.


What you see is not always what you get.   Nor is the cake.

Monica




- Original Message - 
From: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk

To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 5:12 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence





  Indeed - he is also having his cake and eating it

  M
  --- On Mon, 15/11/10, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:

From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
To: Martyn Hodgson hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu
Date: Monday, 15 November, 2010, 14:03

  A P.S.
  Valdambrini's second book also includes some instructions on
  accompanying a
  bass line.  There are a small number of places in these (on p.30) where
  he
  has written out chords in tablature and these would reproduce the bass
  line
  as written if there were bourdons - but not if the re-entrant tuning
  was
  used.
  There is a certain amount of virtual or visual harmony in all these
  things.Accompanying a bass line is about the art of the
  possible.   The
  exercises illustrate what you can actually play but are not intended to
  be
  taken literally.
  Alternatively perhaps Valdambrini use a different method of stringing
  when
  accompanying.
  Monica
  - Original Message -
  From: Martyn Hodgson [1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk
  To: Monica Hall [2]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
  Cc: Vihuelalist [3]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
  Sent: Monday, November 15, 2010 9:09 AM
  Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
  
  
  
 Monica writes: 'Valdambrini's first book was printed in Rome seven
 years after Landi died (1646).   He not only gives instructions for
 re-entrant tuning but clearly
 states that the instrument has no basses.'  Also of course she
  might
 have added that he very clearly indicates octaves in the
  Avvertimenti
 (both in Italian AND French tablature) thus once again confirming
  fully
 re-entrant for his music.
  
 As a further aside, I like V's penchant for carefully controlled
 strumming (ie not 'thrashing') - clearly he had an advanced
  technique
 allowing him to exclude certain courses at will(partial
 strumming). Many examples such as second book: bottom of page 29 in
  the
 variatione on a ciaccona. I've previously suggested this was a well
 established practice by 1646 - at least for some if not for Colonna
  and
 Sanseverino.
 M.
 --- On Mon, 15/11/10, Monica Hall [4]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
  
   From: Monica Hall [5]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk
   Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Stefano Landi
   To: Lex Eisenhardt [6]eisenha...@planet.nl
   Cc: Vihuelalist [7]vihu...@cs.dartmouth.edu
   Date: Monday, 15 November, 2010, 8:32
  
We don't know which tuning predominated in the circles around
 Landi,
for example.
 Well - we have some ideas.   One of his contemporaries in Rome was
 Kapsberger, and it was from Kapsberger that Mersenne obtained his
 information about how the guitar was strung - i.e. with a fully
 re-entrant
 tuning.   Kapsberger published two books of guitar music now lost.
 Valdambrini's first book was printed in Rome seven years after
  Landi
 died
 (1646).   He not only gives instructions for re-entrant tuning but
 clearly
 states that the instrument has no basses.
 Kircher gives the re-entrant tuning in Musurgia Universalis printed
  in
 Rome
 1650.
 And of course rather later Sanz also says that guitarists in Rome
  used
 the
 re-entrant tuning.
 Just straws in the wind..
 From our XXIc position it is difficult to know exactly who
used what tuning, or which composer was exposed to one way of
 tuning or
the other. If one way of stringing is very usual among your
  friends
 or
in your town there would be no reason to say anything about it.
 Therein lies the problem.   If none of us can be certain a position
  of
 relativity is inevitable.   The relativity is ours rather than
  theirs.
It supposes that in the 17th century 'they' had a sort of
 relativism,
with respect to the tuning and theoretical issues. The first
 attempts
of Focarini and Corbetta from around 1640, to apply the figures
  and
voice-leading of basso continuo on the guitar, give a different
picture.
 In what way?   Even if this was so in what way is it relevant to
  what