At 1:43 PM -0500 12/13/10, David W. Fenton wrote:
I'm not much of a string player, just a viola da gambist, but when I'm writing for viols I know exactly what the best fingerings are for every note I put down on the page. And, indeed, because I'm writing music that will almost never be played by professionals and that will never have adequate rehearsal time, I would tend to avoid writing anything that requires extended use of high positions
Two very important points that David brings up. First, you have to know the instrument you're writing for, and what is easy and what is not. And second, you have to know for whom you are writing, and take their level of competence into consideration. The Bach gamba sonatas are challenging because they do require extended high positions and fast leaps, and even the viol parts in Brandenburg 6 have their challenges. Of course Bach's death inventory included a viol, which he could probably play, perhaps having learned from his colleague Abel at Köthen. Most people think of him as a keyboardist, because most of his published music was teaching music for keyboard, but his first professional gig at age 17 was as a violinist in a court orchestra.
John -- John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music Virginia Tech Department of Music College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[email protected]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition of jazz musicians. _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
