Bill, Much as I like the idea of projecting back by finding early recordings I question the validity. One of my instruments is the Mountain/Appalachian Dulcimer (actually of the lute family of chordophones, as the strings are stopped, rather than the zither family that the true dulcimer is). The old "front porch boys" of the Appalachians played it as a pure drone instrument (the treble course, normally doubled, was played with a "noter" - a bit of dowel pressed only on that course). That made the other two courses monophonic drones. The moderns (read the Ritchie family recorded in the thirties) chord the drone courses by fingering. One has to assume that the earlier players did the same, else why frets on all three courses? So the logical conclusion is that the backwoods lads who would have been recorded at the turn of the century (19 to 20) were not representative of the earlier player in their ancestral Europe. The same could apply to a rural Ukranian kobsa player of the same time (not all of them, just the particular one recorded).
Many things are lost in the noise of outside influences, but just as often things may be lost in the concentration of tradition. An old college friend of mine, John Solum, had a career as one of the top flautists in the world (none of you will know the name - he stuck with orchestral anonimity). In his retirement he has an early music orchestra (I think they are basically Baroque, although I haven't heard them). They use original, or reproduced original, instruments. But even they, a collection of retired professionals, can't duplicate the sound - in my humble opinion. John's early flute reproduction will yet have the benefit of our modern tools in drilling the finger holes and boring the tube. I have to feel that the instrument makers of early times weren't as consistant as we can be. The best musicians could afford the best made instrument, but the average musician would have to settle for what he could afford - and unless they were all affluent kings of music there would have been a lot of mediocre instruments. Best, Jon ----- Original Message ----- From: "bill kilpatrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "lute list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 10:52 AM Subject: early recordings > dear roman - > > thanks for your reply. > > i wasn't so much interested in hearing early > recordings of the established baroque repertoire > (bach, weiss, etc.) but more in hearing what an early, > lute like instrument itself might sound like. > > there must be early kobsa recordings, for example > which would give us an idea. maybe this is stupid but > by comparing how a ukranian kobsa player from the turn > of the last cent. treated his instrument - without, i > would assume, any over riding, outside influences from > other cultures, radio, etc. - it might be possible > to draw conclusions about similar cordophones from the > same era and project them all the way back to the > baroque and beyond. > > that's the idea, at any rate. > > even allowing for poor quality sound and scratchy > recordings it might be possible to hear if he was > playing near the bridge or away from it; with strings > tuned more to one frequency than another. > > didn't bartok make recordings of folk instruments, > cordophones amongst them? > > for example, on the google early music site, i posted > the same query with this address: > > http://www.cuatro-pr.org/Home/Eng/Instrmus/Instrmnts/Tiples/tiples.htm > > > there's an early recording sample of a tiple from > rural puerto rico (sound sample courtesy kacho > maldonado, at the bottom of the page) which suggests > (to me) that not much has changed with it or the music > played on it, for a very, very long time. > > regards - bill > > > > ===== > "and thus i made...a small vihuela from the shell of a creepy crawly..." - Don Gonzalo de Guerrero (1512), "Historias de la Conquista del Mayab" by Fra Joseph of San Buenaventura. go to: http://www.charango.cl/paginas/quieninvento.htm > > > > ___________________________________________________________ > Win a castle for NYE with your mates and Yahoo! Messenger > http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > > >
