----- Original Message ----- From: Lex Eisenhardt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Monica Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: vihuela <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 11:05 AM Subject: Re: vihuelina > > My question is: can we be sure about the use of the word 'bordon' with > Mudarra?
Not sure what the problem is here! When Mudarra says that there must be a bordon on the fourth course surely what he means is that a bass string must be added to a course which only had treble strings? You seemed to be suggesting that this applies only to the piece in the old tuning. However the note which immediately precedes the 4-course pieces must apply to all of them. In full it reads "A de estar trastado como vihuela con diez trastes; a de tener bordon en la quarta." " It has to be fretted like the vihuela with ten frets. It has to have a bordon on the fourth course." The only piece which uses the tenth fret is the Romanesca. According to your argument the note about the ten frets should therefore precede this piece. If you are suggesting that "It must have a bordon on the 4th course" means "The fourth course must be tuned a fifth below the 3rd" - well the Spanish just doesn't mean that! Just because it is in a foreign language you can't translate it any which way. > Note that Covarrubias (1611) is so much later than Mudarra. With Agazzari, > in 1606, 'bordoni' could mean bass string rather than 'octave that sounds > below'. Agazzari is also much later than Mudarra and Italian not Spanish! The term "bordon" is a very common one - in particular it is used in connection with the organ for ranks of 16 foot stops. The precise meaning depends on the context. In the context of Mudarra it means a string which sounds an octave below must be added to the 4th course. > > It appears from Bermudo that 'requinta' refers to a high string, and from > other sources that 'bordon' refers to a low one. In some occasions we can't > tell if it was meant to imply 'low octave next to a high string'. I think you have to bear in mind that Bermudo is comparing the instrument to the vihuela. He has already said that a guitar is like the vihuela without the 1st and 6th courses. He then says "It is the custom to place another string on the 4th course which they call requinta. I don't know if they called it this because it used to form a fifth with the fourth course....Now they do not have this tuning but the said strings form an octave." He seems to imply that the fifth course of the vihuela was tuned in unisons and therefore the requinta on the guitar is a high octave. However what he says doesn't clearly indicate that the high octave string was added rather than the lower one. All that he is saying is that octave stringing on this course is usual. Note that he says "I don't know whether they gave it this name because ...etc.". He doesn't know - he is making an unlikely guess! In fact the 4th c. > then consists of 2 'requintas', if they may be called like that. This makes > a re-entrant tuning in 'temple nuevo'. There seems to be no direct evidence > from the 16th c. for this tuning. A re-entrant tuning is what Mudarra implies! He says "it has to have" - this is an instruction to players who might otherwise not use one and make a dog's dinner of his music. The music cannot be played without it or without ten frets...although instruments may sometimes have had less. If he was merely stating a fact he would say "tiene un bordon en la quarta" - it has a bordon on the 4th course. > - a 4th c. (in unisono) that is a fourth above the 3rd c. Re-entrant in > temple viejo. Compare Cerreto 1601. I hesitate to bring this up again but it has been argued very convincingly that the instrument which Cerreto is describing is a mandora/mandola not a guitar. > > For 'bordon' there are also different explanations: > - a string on the 4th c., tuned an octave lower than the other. This simply wouldn't work in practice! > - a 4th c. tuned in low unisons, the word 'bordon' meaning 'bass', like the > 'bordoni' with Agazzari (??). I'm not sure what you mean by this but if Mudarra is saying there has to be a bass string on the 4th course, that surely implies that there might not be one!! The 4th c. could have been tuned a fifth lower > (in unison or with an octave) than the 3rd c. (= temple viejo). To > speculate: the interval of a fifth creates a 'bourdon', in the sense of > 'drone'. Sorry but bordon doesn't really mean a drone! > > About Mudarra's books. Someone mixed up the headings, so they are of no > help. This is just a printers error which was probably corrected by hand at the printers. It is really self-evident that these headings were intended to indicate the method of tuning appropriate for the pieces. Why else include them? But there was a tradition, if we may call it so, of giving verbal > information on the next piece on the page. Both Milan and Narvaez did that > before Mudarra. Again this is just for the convenience of the printer who has the task of fitting it all on the page. In any case this doesn't seem to be really relevant here since the note is on the same page as the piece! It cannot be excluded that Mudarra refers to the 1st > fantasia only, when he mentiones the 'bordon'. It could be a clarification > of the 'temple viejo'. As I have already said ?Why should he have placed the instruction about the ten frets even before that about the bordon when the piece in temple viejo doesn't use the tenth fret at all? > We all use the word 'bourdon' for a low octave nowadays. Mudarra's tres > libros seems to be the only 16th c. source in which we find the word, in a > slightly ambiguous setting. > Why is this important? Mudarra's remark would be by far the earliest > reference to a guitar in re-entrant tuning. Bermudo discusses the high > strings that accompany the usual (?) low ones. Mudarra would be the first to > do the opposite. Mudarra was a distinguished vihuela (and presumably guitar) player giving practical information about how to play his music.Bermudo was a theoretician who may have got some of his information second hand and is a bit uncertain about what it means. My money is on Mudarra! Monica To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
