Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: Why re-entrant tunings? > It should be p. 69, 2nd line, bar 2 (the note in the tablature system > indicates the strum) and 5th line, bar 2 (idem, the last beat).
Of course! I see what you mean. (I play this piece - I should be so dumb!). The second bar on the 5th line seems unproblematic to me. I would play the open 3rd and 4th courses. The c is just an ascending appogiatura to the d. The chord progression is Ib IV(c) V I. The bass line goes F# G A D. I know it is a 6/4 chord but that wouldn't worry me. (Nor does it seem to worry Richard Pinnell or Antonio Ligios who plays it like that on his CD). Line 2 bar 2 is interesting. I would say that since Corbetta hasn't put in the "a"s you should play what is written (which is what Ligios and I do, and Pinnell has done in his dissertation.) It is interesting to compare the Duke of Monmouth gavotte with the vocal version (which is not easy to do since it is in a different key with a C clef for the voice part!). In the vocal version it is just an imperfect cadence in G minor (although the guitar part will have a 6/4 with octave stringing!). In the guitar version the note on the 4th course is the 7th and resolves onto the c on the 2nd course in the next chord. The 5th course is rather like a pedal note which is introduced on the previous quaver and is repeated to the cadence - a sort of anticipation of the keynote. (I hope Martyn doesn't think that is procrustean!). I think it sounds quite attractive (least when played with the French tuning) - perhaps because it is in a minor key at that point. I have been looking at Lettere Tagliate in the earlier books and it seems to me possible that they may have included open courses which are dissonant in strummed chords at first. Millioni has two - At and Dt. At is the G major chord with an unstopped 5th course. Dt is an E major chord (rather surprisingly) with an unstopped 5th course. In the table there are zeros on the relevant lines. No where does he say that the 5th course is to be left out. There are too many > > "imponderables". > > It is indeed hard to make a reconstruction of how he or his contemporaries > will have played those spots exactly. I'm glad we can agree on that. I would just see them as variant versions. If you look at the Sarabande La Stuarde on p.71. There is the Sarabande which is full chords and a Double which is mostly a single line. At the cadence at the halfway of the first version you have the same chord as in Pinnell's first example. This is what I call a variant of chord H - H3 in this instance. The dissonant note on the 4th course is there because you can't finger it and play the ornament on the 1st course. This is also an anticipation of the keynote. Leaving out the 4th and 5th course here results in a weak cadence and if you are using octave stringing on the 5th course you are not taking advantage of it. You might as well play it the same way as in the Double.In the Double at the same point the chord is thinned out to three parts. The whole point seems to me to be to create a contrast in texture. > > > 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. > > That is exactly what I find hard to accept, within the style of 17th c. > music. It is a very harsh dissonance, not resolving. I'm not so convinced > that it would have been considered as 'just an insignificant hanging note', > to be neglected. I think the point is that it is unavoidable. How would you eliminate it? In the example you often mentioned - Bartolotti, book 1, p.31, line1, bar 3, there is a very prominent unresolved 7th on the 4th course on the 2nd beat - it resolves on the C# on the 2nd course in chord I in the next bar. It really stands out and the octave doubling of the changing note peters out too. I am taking in consideration where those self-made > guitarists came from, still I suppose there has been a invisible circle > (even harder to see for us, more than 300 years later) where they would stay > within. Dissonance, yes, but always resolving in such a way that the ear can > follow. This is really where I can't agree. I think this is what De Visee is referring to when he say "Don't be shocked if I sometimes break the rules". The 6/4 chords are not the problem. The unresolved dissonance is. Unless you are going to go down the road of trying to play the treble and bass strings independantly in a big way you can't make the music conform to the rules of music theory whichever method of stringing you use. This is why everyone disagrees. You don't like the dissonance - other people don't like the skips of a 7th in the melodic line. I know some people try to play each string of a course separately but I don't think the music sounds any better like that. It just sounds thin and uninteresting. Better to take up the 13 course lute! M. > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
