To my knowledge none of the sources go into such detail about R-hand
technique. De Visee is one of the people who does put dots on the 1st
course but as far as I can see all he says is..........
"When there are dots on some of the lines as you may see here (ex.) you
should not strike the strings which they indicate so as to avoid dissonances
and to render the melody more distinct."
I would imagine it was more a matter of precision and practice. It is not
only a problem when you have to leave out the first course. There are
sometimes 3-part passages on the lowest three courses or on the middle 3
courses which are just as difficult to play cleanly.
Monica
----- Original Message -----
From: "Martyn Hodgson" <hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk>
To: "Vihuela Dmth" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2012 10:57 AM
Subject: [VIHUELA] 5 course guitar - partial strums
Various 5 course guitar tablature sources ask for partial strums in
which only some of the courses are to be strummed; unstrummed
courses being indicated by dots (although the practice may, of course,
be more widespread than suggested only by the tablatures with these
dots).
A typical example is a G major chord (stopped on the 2nd and 5th
courses) but with a dot on the first course indicating a strum of the
lower 4 courses but without the first course strummed (eg Lobkowicz Ms
OLIM Prague II Ms Kk77 fol 82v - Minuet). Is there any evidence that
these were ever performed by using, say, the middle finger of the right
hand (or even a spare left hand finger) to damp the unplayed course or
is it simply a matter of precision in execution of the strum with the
index finger?
MH
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