David et al
Just a few thoughts in response to your message
> I, too, am guilty of searching for a tone that comes close to my first
> musical experience. Like so many of today's lute players that was
> playing a
> modern guitar, heavily build and strung with nylon and overspuns,
> played
> with nails for optimum tone. I liked doing that, and I still love
> the sound
> of it. Going from there to what might be closer to a 'true' or
> 'authentic'
> lute sound, one that does justice to the instrument and the music
> written
> for it makes both work in an optimum fashion, is a long way of slow
> learning
> and ear training and appreciating new ways of tone production.
Yes, I think, as you say, it is inevitable that we project our own
aesthetics on to lute playing, even if we play with gut strings and
use light instruments.
Also professional players, perform to audiences that have also been
unconsciously formed to expect a certain type of sweet and pure
string sound from guitars,
which they extend to the lute. There is no way we can completely
forget the aesthetic sound habits we have been brought up with (and
would this be a good thing?);
but I think several aesthetic systems can coexist for some people. We
can probably add new ways of listening to our repertoire.
I adore the sound of gut in Renaissance and Baroque music. I also
adore Classic and contemporary quartets. The sound is very different,
but I suppose I shift my sound reference system. I also adore
contemporary music and modal to free Jazz. I think most of us shift
aesthetic systems fairly easily, but we often associate these with a
specific musical context.
If we enter a Jazz club, rather than enter an opera house, for example.
The "voice" of a gut string might already seem surprising to those
who only know synthetics. I happen to love the slight rasp you can
produce, if you want to, on releasing bass gut strings; but then
years ago, I spent many hours listening to a Paul Oliver recording of
country blues players, "Blues Fell this Morning", so that the rasping
attack is not so surprising to my ears, and entirely expected in that
genre. « Blues Fell this Morning » (1960). http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Paul_Oliver
I think, as you imply, performing research slowly opens up new ways
of playing and listening; It is not just musical "archeology" but the
pleasure of discovering new sound systems and being pleasantly
"dépaysé". Along the way, there is a temptation to stop and make the
most of where we are now. I think this is good. It is the only way
virtuoso players can develop.
I think there has to be a stabilization for this to happen. On the
other hand, I believe and hope that some players will maintain the
pioneering spirit of musicological research, so that we can be
constantly surprised and that "ancient music" remains open rather
than a closed musical area.
When I saw and heard the superb Korean national theatre production of
"Le Jeu du Kwi-Jok ou Le Bourgeois gentilhomme". http://www.opera-
comique.com/spectacles.swf,
I was, happily, but completely dépaysé by the sound of the original
Korean instruments playing Lully's music. These instruments are
definitely towards the "reed" side of the sound spectrum.
Unfortunately, I understand that many young Koreans are completely
abandoning this sound aesthetics, and adopting the "sweetest and
purest" of Classical music types.
Like the Bourgeois Gentil homme, wealthy Koreans send their children
to acquire this modern sound, and will pay almost anything for it.
Perhaps, this is why this French play was so interesting to the Koreans.
Just a couple of thoughts : I think it is actually more difficult to
adopt modern aesthetics with some reed wind instruments such as Crum-
horns (but here perhaps folk instruments such as the bag-pipes give a
different popular expectancy), and when I have heard them playing
together with lutes, I have always been struck by the interesting
contrast, while wondering whether this is in fact historically valid.
Not, I agree, that this matters, necessarily.
I know of quite a few players who use light instruments and gut
strings, but very few who also use the narrow necks shown on
Renaissance paintings.
Deny Stephens tells me that he does have such a lute, but I think he
always plays 6 course lutes. Most lutists play more than one lute
type, and obviously don't want
to have to adapt to completely different course spacings. It would be
interesting to see what sounds change would occur if some players did
adopt this lute type and even the thumb-over technique that so
horrifies classical guitarists, but could have been quite usual in
early lute playing.
Best regards
Anthony
Le 12 févr. 07 à 13:36, LGS-Europe a écrit :
> Anthony
>
>
> As a response to modern lute players in ...
>
>>>
> search for a sweeter purer sound, while he thinks the ancients sought
> for a harsher tone and a very marked attack with sharp parasitic
> sounds, a change in aesthetics in effect.
> <<
>
> I think it fair to say that our aesthetics might well be far
> removed from
> those of lute players three, four let alone five hundred years ago.
> Think
> only of the changes that took place in tone production in pianos in
> the 19th
> century. In the course of one hundred years I can hear a world of
> difference. Guitars the same story, but here we have to do with modern
> players projecting their ideas of a perfect sound on an instrument
> that was
> build to produce something quite different. Pianos are more
> objectively
> judged. But how to judge the sound of a lute when so many variables
> are
> unknown? Most of us resort to what we happen to think is beautiful
> in a lute
> sound. I happen to like lightly build lutes with gut strings, but I
> suppose
> I, too, am guilty of searching for a tone that comes close to my first
> musical experience. Like so many of today's lute players that was
> playing a
> modern guitar, heavily build and strung with nylon and overspuns,
> played
> with nails for optimum tone. I liked doing that, and I still love
> the sound
> of it. Going from there to what might be closer to a 'true' or
> 'authentic'
> lute sound, one that does justice to the instrument and the music
> written
> for it makes both work in an optimum fashion, is a long way of slow
> learning
> and ear training and appreciating new ways of tone production.
>
> David
>
>
> ****************************
> David van Ooijen
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> www.davidvanooijen.nl
> ****************************
>
>
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
