Dear Ed,
You'll have seen by now Monica Hall's response and our subsequent
discussion. Unless there's any other input, it seems there is no
evidence to suggest this sort of string damping - it's probably just a
question of employing great precision in strumming; but I'll keep an
open mind.
Your point about the 5th course is certainly well made, however,
missing this course is not so tricky as avoiding playing the first
course when using a downwards index strum. Indeed, I raised the matter
since I'd heard quite a few players accidentally (I presume) strum a
dissonance by catching the first course especially (tho', of course,
the occasional unexpected dissonance might be thought to be part of the
idiosyncratic charm of the instrument.......).
MH
Martyn
--- On Fri, 1/6/12, Ed Durbrow <edurb...@sea.plala.or.jp> wrote:
From: Ed Durbrow <edurb...@sea.plala.or.jp>
Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: 5 course guitar - partial strums
To: "vl" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Date: Friday, 1 June, 2012, 12:30
I am curious if there is an answer to your question. Tangentally, I
have a theory that so many strummed chords didn't include the 5th
course, that they didn't even bother to put a dot there if it would
make a dissonance, they just assumed you wouldn't include it in the
strum.
On May 31, 2012, at 6:57 PM, Martyn Hodgson wrote:
> 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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References
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