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