On 22nd May Lex wrote the following: That's exactly what a bourdon does. Probably that was what the temple viejo was designed for. When there is an interval of a fifth between the lowest strings of the guitar, the lowest one is used predominantly as an open string. It has always been used like that, even in the 19th c. with a composer like Fernando Sor. But also in the repertoire of the 4-course guitar in temple viejo it could work like this. Mudarra's first Fantasia is something like an exception. It is polyphonic, and yet the guitar 'a de tener bordon en la quarta'......
I was going to let this matter drop, but on reflection there do seem to be some further points worth making on this topic. As a former violinist I would say that in general instruments tuned in fifths are melody instruments. The 4-course guitar which played old romances was probably a melody instument played with a plectrum. For this reason it may also have had a re-entrant tuning (like the cittern which has a fifth between the 2nd and 3rd courses.) I recently came across an interesting quotation referring to Apollo from a book printed in 1490 tanesse muchos suaves instrumentos de musica e senaladamente la guitarra, con su propio pulgar, dexada la penola he played many sweet instruments of music especially the guitar, with his own thumb, leaving aside the plectrum. Drones are more a feature of instruments capable of sustaining notes than plucked stringed instruments. Not does the interval of a fifth relate specifically to a drone. There are several pieces in LeRoy's Cinquiesme livre de guiterre which are "a corde avallee". These are intabulations of songs and the lowered 4th course is necessary to fit the part writing onto the instrument. It is not used as a drone. There are also 4 fantasias in Fuenllana f.104v-106v in which the sixth course of the vihuela is to be tuned down a tone for the same reason. As you say Mudarra doesn't use the 4th course as a drone, so why should he refer to it as if it were one? The whole point of tuning down a tone is to extend the compass of the instrument. I'm not sure what you mean by "It has always been like that". It seems to me that it hasn't always been like that! Perhaps you could give some examples of 16th century guitar music which feature a drone. In later pieces which do, e.g. in Murcia's Folias Gallegas he doesn't tune down - the drone is the interval of a fourth between the 4th and 5th courses (unless of course you play it with the French tuning - perhaps this is an indication that you should!). In other words a drone is as likely to define the interval of a fourth. It is not necessary to tune the two lowest courses a fifth apart to supply one. If you look carefully through Mudarra's book you will see that instructions which apply to one particular piece always follow the title. The note about the fretting and the bordon precedes the title of the first piece and it would be strange if one part of the sentence referred to all the pieces and the rest of it only to the first. Both instructions are intended to ensure the instrument has an adequate compass. There is no reason why Mudarra or his readers should have associated the temple viejo with a drone or used "bordon" in this sense. He had the terms temple viejo and temple nuevo at his disposal which presumably everyone understood. It is just for convenience sake they appear at the top of each page instead of after the title. Cheers Monica -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
