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From: Rob MacKillop [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 08 March 2005 18:56 To: 'Martyn Hodgson' Cc: 'Cittern NET' Subject: RE: FW: nails, pitch I was only talking about pitch, not the entire gamut of performance practice... I don't think comparing orchestral pitch of any period to domestic cittern/guittar pitch is going to lead us anywhere constructive. But as it happens...I actually prefer many of those early recordings, from a time when an English orchestra sounded English, a French orchestra sounded French, a Russian orchestra, etc, etc. Now they all sound mid-Atlantic to me. IMHO that is even less 'authentic' (remember that word - haven't seen it for a while?). But this is a big area. One professional viol player once told me she didn't like Jordi Savall's playing because he made everything sound Spanish. I see nothing wrong with that. I imagine Legnani, for instance, made everything sound Italian. We should be more open to different aproaches/interpretations. Rob _____ From: Martyn Hodgson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 08 March 2005 10:45 To: Rob MacKillop Cc: Cittern NET Subject: Re: FW: nails, pitch I have some sympathy Rob with yr views about ignoring scientific research (re pitch below), but don't you think the problem is that any judgement can then become deeply subjective - for example listen to the way orchestras played Elgar in the 30's and modern orchestras performing his music: no doubt they then thought theirs was the best sound quality. Many, many other examples of changing musical tastes of course rgds Martyn Rob MacKillop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: -----Original Message----- From: Rob MacKillop [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 07 March 2005 19:32 To: 'doc rossi' Subject: RE: nails, pitch My guittar has a beautiful sound, but it is certainly not an easy instrument to record. However, I never did any editing-out of the buzzes and creaks, so what you hear is what is there. Most people would hardly notice it, if at all, but as you must know, when you are making a CD all these things seem, to you at least, very loud. Yesterday I listned to it for the first time in a couple of years, and what I had thought of as noise before doesn't bother me at all now. But I can say that it had nothing whatsoever to do with nails. Re pitches: my first guittar recording (on Flowers of the Forest) was of the more traditional Scottish repertoire, and seemed to suit a very open, floating sound, I therefore tuned the instrument quite low, quite close to A. The strings I used were given me by a harpsichord specialist who has written academic papers on 18th-century wire strings. He really seemed to know what he was doing. But he wasn't available for the Oswald recording. I decided that the Oswald repertoire, being more classical, seemed to appreciate a tighter, closer sound, yet still resonant, than the traditional repertoire, so I tuned the same strings up to almost B. Now, this method of tuning pitch dependent on musical style is not something I had read about or even discussed with other musicians, and you all might think me crazy.... But it works for me....what more can I say? It did not really have any effect on the general 'noise' of the instrument. My nails are very soft, and, indeed I don't use them. I _did_ use them on the Flowers of the Forest recording, but not on the Oswald. My strings were fairly loose on the Flowers recording, and quite tight on the Oswald. My suggestion to everyone is that they forget about what you are told an instrument should be tuned to, and listen more to the instrument and the music you are playing on it. That will teach us much more. Does that make me sound arrogant? I hope not. I've just read so much guff over the years by 'experts' about pitch - now I just tune it where it sings...Of course, that is not such a good idea in ensemble situations! Rob MacKillop PS I'm in the process of adding a cittern page to my website. It is still under construction, but you can access facsimiles of the Oswald Divertimentis for the Guittar (1759) and Bremner's Instructions (1758). And you can hear a couple of Mp3s, one of a diatonic cittern, the other my original guittar: www.rmguitar.co.uk click on 'Cittern'. Let me know if there are any problems. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com --
