At 10:22 AM +0900 9/17/04, Vance Wood: > However in some situations where there seems to be a more logical way of >playing a particular passage the more difficult fingering is not just to >show off but to take advantage of how the notes play in that register or, >and more importantly, sometimes they are not quite in tune when played >somewhere else. This is not always the quickest or most logical way of >playing something, but it may be the only way of playing it in tune. If you >have been following this list for a while you are probably aware that one of >the major discussion to come up around here is the issue of tuning the Lute.
It is interesting to speculate why a composer/scribe chose a particular fingering. Like Vance says, it may be for tuning. I think it is natural for someone to write down the way that works best for himself on his particular lute with the strings he has at that particular moment. That may change. An odd fingering could have something to do with octave stringing, a certain timbre, bad string or the player's hand. An interesting case is the ending of the piece Laudato Dio p. 56 (last piece?) in Dalza's book. In French tab it is: _f___|___efefre_|_f_|| _r___|__________|_r_|| _____|_f________|___|| _e___|_r________|___|| ___f_|__________|_a_|| _____|__________|___|| But why not _f___|___efefre_|_f_|| _r___|_a________|_r_|| _a___|__________|___|| ___a_|_r________|___|| _____|__________|_a_|| _____|__________|___|| ? On my A lute, the original sounds great. Try it on a large lute though and you would probably change it to the second version. IMHO, one shouldn't feel a slave to the tab. As long as you aren't pulling a 'Segovia', you would be perfectly authentic to change fingerings, notes, ornaments and anything else to make a piece your own. After all, how often do you see the same piece in two different sources turn out to be exactly the same? cheers, -- Ed Durbrow Saitama, Japan http://www9.plala.or.jp/edurbrow/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
