Dear Lex (and Monica), I'm afraid I've not had the time to be involved in yr interesting recent exchange of views but have quickly scanned most of the messages. One thing which now seems to be pretty central to how you see the chords is the harmonic importance you're placing on the low basses of the 4th @ 5th courses. I would differ from you in that I find the high octave generally very clearly predominates (even when tried at a significantly lower tension than the low bass and the 'Strad' records indicate the high octave was at a higher tension than the low bass) - this is partly due to being struck first (if using the thumb) but also the higher (and more penetrating) upper harmonics of the higher string. In short, describing the thoeretical harmony by reference to the lowest pitched note being played may well be misleading in terms of how the Old Ones were thinking when creating a passage. The use of 7th chords (sometimes without a thoeretical root as I see it) can also lead to confusion - this was discussed in an earlier chain of messages before this most recent one. Having said this, plse keep up the good work: - highly entertaining as well as instructive. rgds Martyn PS Incidentally did you see my exchange a few weeks ago with Alexander (Batov) about wire strung folded belly battentes? Do you have a view about their existence before the 18thC? Do you know the whereabouts of the instrument I mentioned (Baines- pictures 294, 295) M.
Lex Eisenhardt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > At this point we probably part company as to how we interpret notes on > the 4th course and 5th courses. I think one > should take into account the fact that all notes on these course will sound > an octave above more prominently than the bourdon and when > transcribing the music you should put them in (unless they are duplicated on > a higher course). You can't ignore them. > I would therefore read this chord downwards as A G D C [G] - the low G is > extraneous. The E is certainly lacking - the D is substituted for it. > > The D on the 5th course remains; the G in the upper octave resolves onto > the F# on the 2nd course. And the low G of the 4th course does not. I do not agree that the notes on the 4th and 5th courses do sound more prominently in the higher octave. The tradition of the 'bourdon tuning' in Italy seems to have been that people thought of those as the bass. Sanseverino remarks: 'the fifth, known as the bass'. You could argue that Corbetta saw the guitar from the "French side": stringed in re-entrant tuning, with an added octave on the fourth course. I'm aware that we have different views on this. ============== > > This may seem procrustean to you but I don't think that you can ignore the > fact that because the treble strings are on the thumb side they will > predominate. But certainly not in strums. ============= What I would call the "re-entrancy" is pervasive. We are so > used to thinking of the lowest lines as representing the lowest notes from > childhood upwards. But they don't have to. What you think of as > dissonances on the lowest courses not resolving are actually resolving > happily on the upper courses. Not the low octave(s). What makes you think that people in the 17th century had different listening habits, in this respect? ====================== > The same progression occurs in the prelude and at the end of the sarabande. > Here - in the previous bar he has actually put the line under the stave to > indicate where you should anticipate the barre before you get to the chord. > I can't see the point of his putting in the notes on the 4th and 5th course > if they are not to be played. I would then just use a half barre - maybe > you wouldn't - I don't know. It depends on the anatomy of the hand. Sometimes it is easier to put a full barre than a short one. Maybe it was something specific of Corbetta's technique. It can also become a habit of doing things. You suppose that people were used to understand things in a certain way, like ignoring the sound of the low octave of the 4th course (and maybe even of the 5th course, if I am right). In what we call campanela-playing today, this may certainly be true, we have the possibility to make nuances in the way we touch the course(s) tuned in an octave. In strummed chords this is not well possible. The discussion is obscured by the fact that, specificly in the early times, there has been a lot of harmonic experiment, several guitarists did break the rules all the time. This can be explained, at least partly, by their amateuristic background. The comparison to the culture of Rock music is certainly adequate in some resperts. Corbetta was one of the biggest stars, and he kept on writing very crude chord progressions, also in his later works. In an environment like that, music notation can have been looked upon as a necessary evil, an intellectual means (in notes and figures - Montesardo) to express aspects of an art that is considered mainly as just practical. As a consequence, notational accuracy may have been of insignificance for some. Zero's have been left out (I don't think lutenists did ever do that), indistinctness about the exact number of (open) courses to be included in strums was accepted. It's really just one step further to misuse tablature for the notation of barre's as well. Even more so because there was no other way in use (in guitar tablatures) to indicate barre's, at that time. I have pointed before at the first line of passacaille on p. 56 from La Guitarre Royalle (on my Cd/rom). All barre's, parallel shifted, without any fingerings on the two lowest courses. Much like Villa-Lobos studies, avant-la-lettre. This is how the left hand moves. Sometimes the right hand should not know what the left hand does.... Lex, unplugged. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com --
