Dear Stanley, List, >>There is no "they." Stringing practices in the 17th century varied. >> That's more or less what Gaspar Sanz said, indeed. He had his way and he knew others with different stringing arrangements. Obviously there were things one could say about the stringing of the guitar. Like we can do nowadays. We can try to reconstruct how things may have been. Stringing practices varied, and "we" wish to find out about that. I do not believe that people decided, just at will, for the tuning that suited them best, for every single piece of music. There may have been certain traditions and customs, probably differing locally or regionally.
>> >> > >The fact that so many 17th/18th century guitar writers said nothing about >stringing while at the same time going into detail about how one should >play, for example, as common an ornament as a mordent suggests that they >didn't care so much about the particulars of stringing; > The other half of that population has given information. It is subject of discussion how to interpret what they left us. >I feel that the charm of >much plucked five-course guitar music lies in the "consistent inconsistency" >of it's textures; I also feel that thin strings on the lower courses are an >important part of this, while bordons are a very much a secondary issue >(except for Guerau!). > The concept 'Consistent inconsistency' is a way to look at it in retrospect. Let's not forget that we are dealing with a repertoire from over 150 years, to which many composers contributed. I agree that ambiguity in the choice of the octave placement of notes on courses tuned in octaves is part of the style of some composers. It would need a close look to decide if this concept of 'consistent inconsistency' applies to an individual composer. There is the danger that such a concept would hinder the sight of other possible explanations of how guitarists were dealing with the limitations of their tunings. There may be more to say about the treatment of the bass lines, inversion of chords and so on. Deliberate inconsistency may be a modern paradigm. >As Monica has pointed out, there is often no single >stringing solution that solves all voice-leading "anomolies" (if that's what >they actually are) for the music of a given writer. Having said that, low >bordons are much more likely to result in unacceptable (to our ears) >inversions and voice-leading anomolies than are thin strings. > I happen to disagree. It is not the fact that bourdons are there, it is the way they are played. Gut bourdons for instance do create a balance within the course that makes the 'anomalies' more unproblematic. I'll repeat my question from an earlier mail: does anyone know of a performance with a g' string, made of gut? Lex -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
