Daniel Winheld
Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:16:52 -0700
Well Ron you've provoked me into spending a thoroughly enjoyable hour playing through my Piccinini, which I haven't spent nearly enough time with since I got my archlute. Thank you! While it's certainly true that weak beat/index finger dots were sprinkled around so automatically and frequently as to function at least as well for keeping the accents of the passagi straight and aid tab/music reading, in the Piccinini I think he really was thumb-index picking his way all the way down in that no. XX Toccata. Dots in the bass down into the diapasons occur like that in only one other piece that I could find- the Partita Variate for chitarrone, 5th measure from the end. What makes p-i plausible in these two pieces is the nature of the run: by course, the notes descend 7 6. 8 7. 9 8. X 9. V in the Partita and in the Toccata go down two more to the 12th. In all the other pieces where the bass line is just linear, no skipping, there are no dots. Piccinini seems very picky about his his signs- he throws in those slurs exactly where he wants them, too. I wish I could have seen more of those fingerstyle guitarists (let alone studying with them!)- I've only seen Doc Watson and a few others, but what an experience. Classical guitar training, in some cases, causes more RH problems than benefits when taking up the lute. Thanks also for the Barto tip- I should have that newsletter. >Daniel and all: > >I am not convinced those single dots always indicated use of the >right-hand index finger. From the early prints of Spinacino on, I >think the alternating dots were just a way of keeping track of >strong-weak beats in a long run of tablature ciphers. We have seen >that ornamentation signs meant different things to different >printers and copyists, it should come as no surprise that >fingering dots served different functions. > >Lute News Number 81 (April 2007) contains a transcription of a talk >given by Bob Barto on the use of the right-hand ring finger in the >music of Weiss. He seems to have drawn no conclusions but offers >several interesting ideas. > >On the subject of fingerstyle guitarists, Doc Watson, Merle Travis, >Etta Baker, John Jackson and doubtless others all played (or in the >case of Doc, still play) with thumb and index finger. They seemed >to do OK without embracing the modern classical guitar technique of >using the ring finger. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html