I will try to follow our newly suggested protocol and reply at the top!
It depends on what you want to do. These songs probably continued to be
performed throughout the 17th century and there is no reason why they should
not be accompanied in the more complex way as illustrated by Foscarini
etc.which involves reproducing the bass line and the harmony in the correct
inversions at least to some extent. Lex's CD illustrates this perfectly.
However it does seem that originally the idea was to accompany oneself as -
so they believed - the ancient Greeks did. And if the guitar was doing the
accompanying this would strum only.
With reference to what Alex Dean says I think that the dissonance is more
likely to result from the interaction of the guitar with the voice part
rather than with the bass part. At the cadence e.g. the voice part may
have the equivalent of a 4-3 suspension but the guitar would accompanay this
with a simple major triad so that the 4th and 3rd sound simultaneously.
But there is also evidence from some of the surviving lute accompaniments
that the voice part may not resolve the suspended 4th at all whilst the
accompanying instrument does. This is referred to as an "elipsis".
So it is difficult to determine to what extent the guitar played a role in
this. I think it did promote an understanding of triadic harmony and also
of course was in the forefront adopting equal temperament which facilitates
transpositiion - very useful for singers.
About stringing I think you should chose whatever method works best for you.
I agree with you that the bourdon on the 5th course does have the effect of
creating an unwanted and inappropriate bass line. I have always used a
bourdon only on the 4th course and possibly because of the different in tone
quality it never sounds so intrusive. (And there is no reason to suppose
that this method of stringing was not used before 1670!) James Tyler does
suggest that fully re-entrant is appropriated for this repertoire. All
that we really know is that there were different methods of stringing and
people had different ideas about the way to go.
Best
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "bud roach" <jbuds...@yahoo.com>
To: "Martyn Hodgson" <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>; "Monica Hall"
<mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Cc: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2011 8:45 PM
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Strumming as basso continuo {was: Return to earlier
question: {was: Agazzari guitar [was Re: Capona?]}
Hello everyone-
I hope I'm going about this the right way, by just responding in the
thread rather than going back to individual messages from the last 24
hours.
Thanks very much to all who took the time to listen to recordings I've
posted. For those who may have missed that message, the link is:
[1]http://www.budroach.com/baroque_guitar.html?r=20111217024548
What I was hoping to garner was a sense of whether or not the simple
alfabeto strumming is considered to be a sufficient accompaniment for
songs from the 1620's, and the general opinion seems to be in the
affirmative. On this issue, Monica and I seem to be in agreement, but
others have introduced suggestions that, in my view, would partly
diminish my goal with this project, which is to recreate what a singer
from the period would have done.
Martyn's suggestion to follow the bass line in certain passages would,
I agree, be musically effective, but would also depart from a "pure"
alfabeto accompaniment. Of course, the odd 4-3 suspension is also a
version of that same departure, and I often do this, but I'm not
convinced that the block harmony of the guitar is the best vehicle for
switching bar to bar from a bass line role to block-ish harmonic
underpinning. The evidence for this can be found in Grandi's third
volume itself. Although titled "Cantade et arie", there are 23 strophic
songs, and only one cantata at the end. Alfabeto is used for every
strophic song, but not the cantata, which incorporates the odd measure
of melodic material in the bass line. The role of the bass in this
piece is clearly different from in the songs, which makes it less
suitable for accompaniment by a lone guitar.
At the risk of tossing too many ideas into the mix, this also touches
on the notion of combining the alfabeto with the printed bass line. I
am intrigued by Alexander Dean's argument that the harmonic dissonance
that would be created (specifically at cadential points) by this
arrangement helped to formulate the evolution of later 17th-century
harmonic practice. However, it again is outside my specific goal of
presenting these songs as a self-accompanied singer.
And, finally, to perhaps drive everyone crazy with a topic that has
been discussed so much in recent threads, I would like to bring out
into the open what Lex has brought up privately- the use of bourdons
in this repertoire. (I can almost hear your groans of despair!) From
what I have read, both from sources and from opinions posted on this
site, it is uncertain that one single stringing option was embraced by
an entire region for an extended period of time (for my purposes, the
third decade of the 17th century). Since the case can be made for a
number of stringing options, I have chosen the one that sounds best to
my ear, which is a boudon on the fourth course only. The fuller sound
that results from a bourdon on the fifth course is very appealing in
the abstract, but I find it distracting that with every downward stroke
there is an implied bass line from that pesky but useful fifth course!
Yet for some reason a bourdon on the fourth course isn't nearly as
intrusive, giving the benefits of a fuller tone without the harmonic
implications that I don't believe the composer (in this case Grandi)
intended.
So those are my three cents. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Since I have been receiving the messages from the listserve I have been
struck by the passion you all bring to these subjects, and am thrilled
to be a part of the discussion! And to read it all while listening to
Lex's beautiful playing on his Canta Venetia recording is a great way
to spend an early Saturday afternoon.
Bud
--- On Sat, 12/17/11, Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
From: Monica Hall <mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk>
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Strumming as basso continuo {was: Return to
earlier question: {was: Agazzari guitar [was Re: Capona?]}
To: "Martyn Hodgson" <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>
Cc: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Received: Saturday, December 17, 2011, 10:35 AM
Ah - I think I know what's happening - you've got the wrong end of
the
> stick:
I am glad you know what is happening. It all depends on which end of
the
stick one has got hold of.
I'm not (and have not as far as I can see) suggesting that an
> alfabeto accompaniment necessarily converts into a bass line (ie
the
> lowest sounding note in each chord would result in the bass line -
even
> if we knew it) but the converse: that a bass line enables one to
> 'realise' a chordal accompaniment (eg alfabeto) on the guitar - not
the
> same thing at all.
I'll take your word for it - there isn't time to go back all over it.
> And, of course, songs with nothing other than alfabeto can't and
> therefore don't show single notes. It's only when mixed tablature
> becomes common that we could expect to start to
> see such realisations. That's quite different to say it's 'wrong'
to
> consider the practice of inserting some bass notes if one has the
bass
> and not just the alfabeto. It's almost as if
> one only saw the alfabeto dances in Calvi (1646) without noticing
his
> intabulated dances later in the same book and concluded he never
wrote
> in two parts.
He didn't write either of them actually. He copied them from
elsewhere. The
alfabeto pieces are copied from Corbetta's 1639 book and the other
pieces
from an unidentified source probably not originally for
guitar. They
belong to two different traditions.
> And I haven't even got round to Valdambrini yet - he seems to
exhibit a
> fine disregard for the precise octave of the bass in his cadential
> examples.
But that is not relevant to earlier alfabeto accompaniments.
>
> And, no, I don't anywhere suggest that if one has a bass line AND
the
> alfabeto one should always seek to amalgamate the two. But I
certainly
> don't think the practice is prohibited by any early contemporary
> sources - hence my suggestion about the performance of the
> Grandi song which has both the alfabeto and the bass line...
It is not a question of whether it is prohibited or not since we do not
have
any surviving instructions. It is a question of what was customary
at the
time the Grandi song appeared in print and earlier - as far as we can
tell
from surviving sources which include written out alfabeto
accompaniments.
These do not give any suggestion at all that any attempt was made to
include
the bass part.
Monica
With reference to Lex ps "could you please stop sending the whole
thread of the discussion together
with your newest posts"? I have deleted an endless stream of junk
from the end of this message.
I suppose we are all such incurable individualists on this list that we
will never agree as to how we should reply to messages.
But I wish that people would delete everything except the points they
are responding to. Whatever may have been "netiquette" in the dim
distant past seems to me irrelevant today. Remember that these
messages are archived and if they are just a mess it is difficult to
refer back to them for useful information.
To get on or off this list see list information at
[2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
--
References
1. http://www.budroach.com/baroque_guitar.html?r=20111217024548
2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
