Dear Jim,
The incontestable reason for the survival of lute tablature
is that it was the medium used by historical lutenists to
preserve their music. Even today, despite the efforts of
editors of lute music throughout the last century, the
greater part of the lute repertoire has not been transcribed
into staff notation. If you want to play the music that has
not been transcribed you have to approach it on its own
terms in the original tablature.
Its my understanding that tablature systems evolved,
apparently in the latter half of the fifteenth century, when
the normal medium for transmitting music in mensural
notation was in separate individual parts. Some composers
used a kind of score that was written temporarily onto
a slate during the composition process, but this was
wiped clean when the music had been transferred
to its individual parts. So the idea of a single score showing
all the parts of a polyphonic composition was not in
common use. In this context the development of lute and organ
tablatures which placed all the parts of a polyphonic composition
on a single stave was, as far as I can see, revolutionary.
It's still difficult to beat the elegance of a lute intabulation
for transmitting a polyphonic composition in its entirety.
There is evidence of sixteenth century composers trying out
choral works on the lute, which shows that this advantage
was well known at that time. I suspect that this is one of the
reasons for the proliferation of lute intabulations in the
renaissance lute repertoire.
Another extremely important reason for the historical use
of tablature was that it was easier to print and easier for
amateur players to use. Let's assume for a moment that lute
staff notation as we know it today was a known medium
in Petrucci's day. If those first volumes of Spinacino and
Dalza had been printed in two line staff notation, they would
have taken around twice as much (very expensive) paper to print
the same amount of music, and would have been much less accessible to
his target audience ('those who don't know how to sing').
Leaping forward to modern times, it was fairly standard practice
forty years ago to produce modern editions of lute music with
parallel tablature and staff notation. My perception is that they
were never hugely popular with lute players because of the
inevitable multiple page turns and the difficulty of seeing a longer
piece in its entirety. The fact that the use of this medium has
declined considerably whilst the publication of facsimilies
and tablature only editions has expanded is probably a very
good indicator of what the majority of present day players want.
As tablature was evidently good enough for Marco Dall'Aquila,
Francesco da Milano, and John Dowland, I can see their point.
Best wishes,
Denys
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Abraham" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "LUTE-LIST" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:50 PM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: New Lutenist Question
> The thing I really don't like about tablature is that it's hard to measure
> intervals and in general to get a spatial sense of the music by looking at
> it. I've often read that tab was necessary given the many different lutes
in
> different tunings that one might write for. But most lute tablature, at
> least in modern editions/transcriptions is usually identified as being for
> one instrument or another, e.g. "for renaissance lute" or even "for
> renaissance lute in G." If that's the case, why not just use staff
> notation? Or is it to help the PLAYERS, not the composers, players who
> might have to play many different lutes in different tunings, and who
> reasonably can't learn all those fingerboards? Sorry if this seems
obvious,
> but to me tab seems to have so much going AGAINST it vis-a-vis staff
> notation, that there must be one incontestable reason for its survival.
>
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