Hi Lex > > I think it is not always easy to decide which open courses should be > included in the strum when the tablature doesn't give information (for > example when dots are missing, with Corbetta). Let me give just two examples > that can cause headaches: p.69 2nd line, bar 2 and, more painful, 5th line, > bar 3 (last beat). What to do with open courses? I can come up with several > solutions, but essentially it is unclear.
Sorry - I'm a bit confused but I think you can't be referring to p.69. This is the Sarabande in D major and in both places there are no strummed chords. But in general I think deciding which open courses to include is a separate issue. The only possible reason for leaving them out is to save time and trouble. Putting them in (even with a computer) is very time consuming. Ideally you should put in exactly the notes to be played. Also although tablature is initially a "placement" notation and still is today if you play from it all the time you soon acquire the ability to read it as staff notation. People like Bartolotti must have been able to do this. Tablature as a whole is a labour saving device, quicker and easier to copy than staff notation. > Even more so if we compare to p. 65 2nd line, bar 3. This is an almost > identical situation, but in another key. Antoine Carre (c.1675 p.17) gave a > simplified version of exactly this spot, with only the 4th and 3rd courses > included in the strum. The first point is that Carre has not indicated that the two notes are to be strummed - they are to be played pizzicato. Corbetta has indicated that the whole chord is to be strummed. It would be singularly perverse of him to notate the notes as if they are to be strummed if that is not what he intended! (I know, elsewhere he didn't. In fact it doesn't > matter much who changed what, and when. The idea to leave out strings is > certainly not new, nor just mine). The second point is that Corbetta's contemporaries may not have liked or understood his dissonance any more than we do and edited it out sometimes but not others. And Corbetta may have sometimes played it differently. There are too many "imponderables". Should we suppose that all open courses > should be included in the example on the 5th line of p. 69, to obtain a > similar harmony as on p.65 ? I can't find this example - is this the right page number? > > [Note that the chord on the 3rd line of p. 12 is different from what would > come out on p. 69 when we would add all the open courses. More important is > that the chord progression on p.12 is really different too.] He has put in the "a"s on p.12. The are 4 variations of this chord a barre with the 2nd course stopped 1 or 2 frets higher a barre with the 3rd course stopped 1 or 2 frets higher. > > > One last thought - an interesting passage from Bartolotti Book 1, p.2, the > > 3rd line...first 3 lines... > > > > A perfect cadence in every sense! > > Absolutely! I never said that there are chord shapes that by nature are > forbidden. Here all dissonance resolves in an comprehensible way, easy to > follow by ear. It may the only place in 180 pages with guitar music of this > composer with such a remarkable harmony. I think it is! But this is one of Corbetta's standard chord shapes - a barre + 3rd course stopped 2 frets higher according to my classification..and there are at least 7 examples in GR1671. Bartolotti is more conservative in his harmonic language - although a lot of it is really interesting. And with octave stringing on the 4th course which I am sure he used, the 7th strictly speaking will only resolve on the 2nd course in the upper octave leaving the lower octave hanging. M > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > >
