Monica Hall wrote:
Having looked at the piece of music in question now, I can see that in
this instance you are objecting to the fact that the note the arrow
points to is duplicated an octave above. I think the point is that
he has put it on the 4th course rather than at the 2nd fret on the 3rd
course because it is simply more convenient to play it there. This
kind of compromise is very common - it's a solution to the problem of
how you arrange complex music for an instrument with only 5 courses.
I don't think that in performance this is a problem. It is just part
of the campanella effect.
Monica
Here is the piece again:
http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/Prelude.jpg
If whoever composed the piece put the note on the third course, the
result would be the same as a NON-re-entrant tuning. 2nd fret-third
course= 7th fret-fourth course (= a. In this alternative tuning the
three lower courses aren't changed). But if the instrument is strung
re-entrantly (or with octave stringing and struck with the thumb) then
7th fret-fourth course=1st course-7th fret.
Here's what the two possibilities of bar 7 sound like on my guitar (with
all the caveats: I'm an amateur player, playing an amateur-made guitar,
strung with Kurschner strings (not gut)). The first version is
non-re-entrant (and what it would sound like if the note with the red
arrow pointing to it had been on the third fret - but without the
ringing effect). The second version of bar 7 is re-entrant, or
octave+bourdon but played with the thumb so that the high octave is
inevitably emphasised.
http://www.pluckedturkeys.co.uk/example.mp3
On my guitar, with my technique, with these strings, the second version
doesn't - if you'll pardon the expression - ring true.
But I don't think it's just my problem: a really competent player on a
wonderful guitar must be faced with something like the same situation.
If the competent player on the wonderful guitar is playing fully
re-entrantly, bar 7 will sound just the same as I played it (but with a
lovely timbre etc). If the competent player played it with
bourdon+octave and using the thumb (and not 'cheating' as I do, by
playing lower notes with the fingers to get the bourdon or playing
'split-string') the result will be very similar to my second version.
Fully re-entrant tuning here (and in many similar situations) continues
to baffle me. 'They' really wanted that?
Or, the combination of bourdon+octave gut strings in those times had an
ambiguity and conjoined, mutual identity that today's
sharply-defined-as-individual strings don't have.
Or that players on instruments with bourdon+octaves had some little bits
of magic and artitstry that made bourdon+octave sometimes sound in one
octave and sometime sound in another.
Stuart
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