[VIHUELA] Re: 2) tablature, alfabeto and BC

[Monica Hall]

This type of rule of thumb already appeared in the earliest alfabeto
songbooks. Application of these rules leads in many occasions to
completely
wrong harmonies.

It shouldn't do if it is applied correctly.

Already in 1981

Robert Strizich has pointed at harmonic conflicts between the alfabeto
harmonies and the top melody, in songs of Kapsberger. This is by no means
an
isolated case.

No - but this is probably because the alfabeto was often added by the
printer.  It unlikely that someone like Kapsberger would put in completely
the wrong chords (not just the inversions) which he does.  Players with any
nous would surely have been able to correct these.   And there are other
instances of printers making a hash of notation which they didn't
understand - e.g. the transposing clefs  in Aranes - the alfabeto doesn't
match the keys of the pieces.   Don't assume that everything is correct or
intentional in the first place.

Mostly strummed indeed, but not all. As far as the available sources seem
to
imply, Corbetta's accompaniments have not become standard procedure.

It is more likely that they were standard procedure for guitarists of
Italian origin.   Grenerin was a professional theorboist and French and may
have seen things differently.

With

Grenerin and Matteis (as well as Sanz and de Murcia) there are
considerably
fewer battuto chords. In plucked harmonies the chord position--and with
that
the position of the bass--is much more an issue. These composers have
made
an attempt to use the guitar for a real basso continuo, whereas in La
Guitarre royalle Corbetta is still somewhere halfway the early battuto
practice.

Nothing wrong with that. Maybe that's where he chorse to be.

En passant the guitar accompaniment in the few songs in Moulinie's Airs de
Cours of 1629  is probably meant to be strummed in spite of the fact that
it's in French Tab.without stroke marks.  And at least one of these songs
has found it's way into an English publication by Playford.

Monica



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