On Feb 6, 2008, at 12:37 PM, Monica Hall wrote: > Campanellas are a particular kind of scale passage in which each > note of the scale is played on a different string so that the notes > overlap creating a bell like effect.
Yes, I think we got the definition right on the third try. > In that context the displaced notes are acceptable. This, of course, is a conclusion, which is based on "pre-conceived ideas." Do you get the impression we're going round in circles? >> Reentrant tuning might >> have started as a concession to necessity, but it persisted because >> of its musical advantages > > What are it's musical advantages? It seems to be creating rather > a problem....Surely it would make more sense from a musical point > of view to tune the instrument straight down from treble to bass - > like the violin, harpsichord etc... Are you, baroque guitar maven, really asking what the advantages of reentrant tuning are? > Singers can't strum 6/4 chords! But there are plenty of 6/4 chords in vocal music, and in any event I can't see how it bears on the point. Harpsichords can play 6/4 chords but the octave displacement we're talking about doesn't occur in harpsichord music; and even lute or keyboard in the broken style usually makes sense as separate lines. So it proves nothing to say that instruments are not voices. If you're really arguing that guitar or theorbo music should be considered in isolation in considering the octave displacement question, fine. We can agree to disagree. >> Doesn't it strike you as odd that the only instruments in which we >> have to discuss whether octaves should be displaced in melodic >> passages are the instruments about which we're unsure of the >> stringing? Is it more reasonable to assume that they're an island in >> the musical landscape, or that we haven't figured out the stringing >> questions? > > I see no reason why they shouldn't have their own peculiarities. > Certainly other instruments do. But none of them have the particular peculiarity that you contend guitars and theorbos have. > It would be interesting to know what sort of strings you are using > to put a high octave string on the second course of your theorbo. Without knowing the size of the theorbo, pitch standard and nominal pitch involved, it would be merely mysterious. But my theorbo can only be single strung, so for me the split-octave second course is not an option, and neither is Melii. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
