No open mind? I hope you'll > forgive > > me that I do not take your judgement as a yardstick. > > Sorry - but I can't take your judgement as any sort of yardstick whatever > that is meant to mean.
Your judgement as a measure of my open-mindedness. Your approach is entirely > cerebral. These are the rules - nobody could possibly have done anything > different. I'm sorry to hear that you understand it like this. I was able to convince quite some well-informed colleagues. > What I would like to ask you is whether you ever considered any alternative > explanations before deciding on the one which you though was most > appropriate. Had you even noticed that the chords are actually altered > alfabeto chords for example? If you cannot even acknowledge this you inded > have a closed mind. This could be an explanation as to why he has notated > the music in the way that he has. I have considered all that. In a way all dissonant chords are 'altered alfabeto chords'. (Except indeed L) Standard Alfabeto is entirely triadic (major/minor). > > As I recall I pointed out to you in a private > correspondence that Corbetta's chords are not unique and that unusual > dissonance is a feature of baroque guitar music. You seemed to be > unaware of this - and a lot of other things too. That's the trouble with mixing in private correspondence in a open forum like this. I was very much aware of all that. I recall an entirely different discussion. > > You have completely mistunderstood and misrepresented what I have said. I am > saying that the unusual harmony is a direct result of the need to adapt the > basic chord shapes to accommodate more elaborate passage work. I understand perfectly well what you said. We have a different view on C's style and technique. That explains all. I am not > saying that he sat down and invented a whole new system - like Webern! I only came up with Webern as a dummy. You sort of provoked that. > You should start with the assumption that Corbetta has as far as possible > notated the music in the way it is meant to sound Alfabeto was a left-hand fingering device in the first place, that initially was used (in monody) to give the most necessary information on how to place the fingers to be able to accompany. Only later came the stroke signs, to show the action of the right hand. The information on strummed chords in the usual mixed alfabeto/tablature notation (Foscarini, Corbetta) is definitely not always precise. We have discussed that before, on this list. Corbetta's tablature notation in his book from 1671 is a direct continuation of mixed tablature. Obviously he was used to imprecision of the notation of strummed chords. He could have done better. and that he has explained > his notation reasonably clearly in the preface. If he intended notes to be > left out I would expect him to mention this - as it is an extremely unusual > way of going to work. That's what it is. Yet many people seem to understand quite well where the dots are missing. Leaving out tablature letters from strummed chords is indeed another thing. But I am in the good company of Henri Francois Gallot and Antoine Carre anyway... L. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
