Dear Monica, The changes you describe came much earlier. Adding contrapuntal parts to a tenor was the sort of thing musicians were doing at the end of the 15th and early part of the 16th century. The most popular tenor at that time seems to have been La Spagna. It is significant that Diego Ortiz treats this old tenor as a bass line in 1553.
Triads were not new in the 17th century. They had certainly been around a lot earlier than that, and were pretty well established by the 15th century. Composers like Dufay made much use of them. You have only to look at 15th-century pieces played on the lute with a plectrum to see how a polyphonic texture was filled out here and there with triadic chords. Some of the dance pieces in Dalza's collection of lute music (1508) are based on simple grounds or chord sequences, and we have strumming of sorts on the lute with Newsidler's Durchstreicher in 1536. -o-O-o- As far as strumming on the guitar is concerned, the actual notes played cannot always be notated accurately, because a skilled strummer will not strike all the strings of a chord every time. He may, for example, choose to strike all the strings for a strong down-stroke, but catch just the first few strings with a lighter strum on the up-stroke. The limitations of notating strumming: 1) It is possible to say what the chord is, by giving an alfabeto symbol (e.g. A, B, C), or a chord name (G, C, D7), or tablature of various kinds, or staff notation, or chord shapes like this: | | | | | | |__|__|__|__|__| | | | | | | |__|__|__x__|__x | | | | | | |__|__|__|__x__| | | | | | | | | | | | | 2) It is possible to notate the direction of strums (up and down), and, as you know, there were different ways of doing this in the 17th century. 3) It is impossible to say exactly how many strings are actually struck at any one time. This is what all the various notations fail to convey accurately. Anyone writing about strumming would find it difficult to describe what is, by its very nature, a fluid, variable technique. To strum all the strings all the time would be dreadfully dull. I can happily accept Lex's view that a player would have been selective in which strings he chose to strum at any particular time, and that he would have been aware (to a greater or lesser extent) of the effect his bourdons, assuming he had them, may have had in the course of a piece, irrespective of whether or not he could read the notes in staff notation printed under his alfabeto. Best wishes, Stewart. -----Original Message----- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Monica Hall Sent: 17 November 2010 17:14 To: Lex Eisenhardt Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Valdambrini's evidence > 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. I think you are mistaken here because throughout the 16th century general practice was to add contrapuntal parts to a tenor voice. The shift to working from the bass took place at the beginning of the 17th century. The practice of basso continuo was new and not well established at the time many of these songs were composed. It started off as a way of creating a keyboard accompaniment to mainly polyphonic works. Underlying this discussion is the idea that it is somehow inferior or amateurish to accompany the songs in this way. This in my view shows a lack of historical insight and sensitivity to changes taking place at the time. A kind of 21st century superior and censorious attitude to what people did in the past. Triadic harmony was new, original, exciting and in tune with other developments taking place at the time i.e. accompanied monody. The guitar was ideally suited to be part of this change and certainly contributed to developments in harmonic thinking. It is of its time. It is not helpful to suggest that "the harmonic language of alfabeto is somewhat one-dimensional." This is a bit like saying that Wagner's music is superior to that of Mozart because he used larger forces and more complex and colourful harmony. An evolutionary view of musical history which went out of fashion in England years ago. > 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. No.. we should think about what writers at the time said about what they were trying to achieve. I have already quoted Marini and Milanuzzi who presumably prepared their own books for the press and indicate that they thought it was necessary and satisfactory to suggest a different way of accompanying on the guitar. Do you think they were writing for the general strumming public - if indeed such a public existed. That could of course also > be interesting information (for a gig in 17th c costume). Your views seem to coloured by the need to please a 21st century audience. This is understandable but if we are trying to understand what these songs meant to people in the past and what gave them pleasure we should leave our personal prejudices at the door. Monica > > > > 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
