Stewart McCoy
Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:14:55 -0700
Dear Monica, Thank you for confirming what I had thought was the case, that this is the standard fingering for the A major chord in 17th-century guitar books:
____a___ _2__c___ _1__c___ _1__c___ ____a___ That is the fingering I try to use now. The great advantage is that you can trill on the 2nd course using your 4th finger at the 3rd fret. You get plenty of leverage trilling between the 2nd and 4th fingers, more than you would trilling with the 3rd and 4th fingers. There are many ways of fingering that A major chord. The commonest seen in modern guitar tutors is ____a___ _3__c___ _2__c___ _1__c___ ____a___ ________ That's OK if you have thin fingers, but there is always the danger that the 1st finger won't get close enough to the 2nd fret, and you'll get a buzz. One way of avoiding that, is to use this fingering: ____a___ _3__c___ _1__c___ _2__c___ ____a___ which I sometimes use, particularly if hopping back and forth between chords of A and D major, because the 1st and 3rd fingers stay on the same string. Otherwise I go for the first fingering above. By the way, exactly the same thing applies to the chord of G major on a renaissance lute: ____a___ ____a___ _2__c___ _1__c___ _1__c___ ____a___ is usually best, and as with the guitar, you can trill with your 4th finger, this time on the 3rd course. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. -----Original Message----- From: lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu [mailto:lute-...@cs.dartmouth.edu] On Behalf Of Monica Hall Sent: 11 October 2009 15:22 To: Rob MacKillop Cc: Vihuelalist Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Chord I That's very helpful and interesting what you say about the technique being standard for blues and jazz. There's obviously a long tradition there. Monica ----- Original Message ----- From: [1]Rob MacKillop To: [2]Monica Hall Cc: [3]Vihuelalist Sent: Sunday, October 11, 2009 1:42 PM Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Chord I I use the 2nd finger on the 2nd course, and the first finger on the other two courses. I have no problem with the open first string sounding. I show beginner-ish students this technique and invariable they can't bend their first finger inwards at the first joint, but some who have played blues and or jazz guitar before have no problem - it is fairly standard technique for those styles. Rob 2009/10/11 Monica Hall <[4]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk> This is a rather abstruse query. In most Italian guitar tables of alfabeto chords which include the left hand fingering the indication is that Chord I is to be played using a half (or hinge) barre to stop the 4th and 3rd courses and the 2nd finger to stop the 2nd course at the 2nd fret. 0 2 1 2 1 2 2 0 This doesn't seem to me the most convenient way of doing it especially when combined with other chords and I always use 1st, 2nd and 3rd fingers. Ruiz de Ribayaz does give my preferred fingering as an alternative to the Italian one. Both Sanz and Murcia seem to think that the 4th course should be stopped with the 1st finger and a 2nd finger half barre used to stop the 2nd and 3rd which seems a bit odd to me! I wonder if Sanz is a misprint which Murcia has copied. In the illustrations of the fingers stopping the chords on the fingerboard in Sanz the standard Italian fingering is shown. I just wonder how everyone else on this list usually fingers chord I and what the advantages are of the different possibilities. Monica -- To get on or off this list see list information at [5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:luteplay...@googlemail.com 2. mailto:mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk 3. mailto:vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu 4. mailto:mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk 5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html