[I tried to send this message 6 times. If you received them all, sorry]
Hello. I re-subscribed to this list, to react on some remarks about my Youtube clips. Indeed they are unedited, and that should explain why one or two twangy bass notes, so aptly noted by Monica, are there. I thought they could be forgiven, considering the playing noises we normally hear on live recordings on the baroque guitar. On my last three CD's with the baroque guitar (Marin songs, the Corbetta suites and the 'Canta Venetia' disk) I used Gut bourdons (Larson). For practical reasons I now use nylguts, which I think work quite well. It seems right to be grounded on the g of the third course for (al least part of) the works of Sanz. But I happen to believe that for a number of Italian composers, including Bartolotti, we better have bourdons. In the wonderful polyphony of the courante or the gigue it would be almost impossible to leave the high strings of the fourth and fifth courses out. Perhaps I'll try next time :~). As a result of individual listening habits some people seem to perceive the bass notes in the high octave, while for other listeners the lower notes of the bourdons clearly have the 'upper hand'. This is one of the many idiosyncasies of the repertoire. My approach has nothing to do with having a background in Classical Guitar, and it seems trivial to make an accusation like that. Perhaps I should bring in mind my work on the vihuela, as I have never heard anyone complain about a guitaristic approach, when performing that repertoire. If (if?) there were bourdons then we should probably better learn how to use them properly, and get used to the idea that in certain works the five course guitar was used in another way than we often hear it today. The whole preconceived idea that the baroque guitar should be 'totally different' from any other instrument (be it the lute or the classical guitar) seems to prevent proper judgement. Of course we should respect the idiosyncrasies of the instrument, but who can tell exactly how they were handled in the 17th century? There are no 'skips of 7th's etc.' in the campanela sections, and therefore nothing was eliminated. They do audibly ring on and overlap, as seems to be the whole idea (....). Playing campanelas including little sound from the bourdons is merely a matter of how you imagine these melodic lines. The technique follows the musical concept, so to speak. To me they should fit into the musical discourse in the first place, even if some virtousity is implied. It is not so much editing out anything, but being a bit orderly in the outline of one's performance. Excessive ornamentation, super-intricate (folk-rock) strumming and the display of lightspeed in campanelas are hallmarks of a fashionable modern image of the baroque guitar, for which at least there seems to be little historic evidence. Lex -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
