Dear Stewart,
As you'll have seen from recent (and indeed earlier) postings, my view
is also that most contemporary strumming indications (ie first decades
of 17th century) only give a rough indication of some of the more
sophisticated patterns I believe were employed - perhaps first even on
the humble 4 course instrument. Certainly Valdambrini's patterns (see
the example mentioned earlier) indicates a degree of technical
expertise allowing such complex patterns.
However, I don't think this is quite the same as saying, as I think Lex
does, that players (even the amateurs at which the tablatures are often
aimed) would have routinely (perhaps even always) sought to avoid
inversions by selective strumming. Strumming is more to do with the
texture and rhetoric of the music: strummed chords in solo music and
song accompaniment are more platonic models of chords than thorough
bass realisations (with strict voice leading etc) - see earlier
postings.....
rgds
Martyn
--- On Fri, 19/11/10, Stewart McCoy <lu...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
From: Stewart McCoy <lu...@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: [VIHUELA] Valdambrini's evidence
To: "Vihuela List" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Date: Friday, 19 November, 2010, 1:03
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: [1]lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
[mailto:[2]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
> [3]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
2. http://uk.mc263.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu
3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
