Denys and all,
I've thought about this a bit and don't find it
so strange that "the lute" typically doesn't have
stock block chord shapes.
How many contemporary, modern, 21st-century, just
published, classical guitar methods include a chord
chart? I don't know of many now nor in the past 50
years. Another personal anecdote: I just met the
other day with a highly competent classical guitarist
who could not remember for the life of her how to
finger a B minor chord. (Needed it for a wedding
music piece.) Quite unusually for an American
guitarist, she had only played classical guitar her
whole life. (She got it eventually.)
I think lute and classical guitar share the same
attitude towards chords; they both see the notes on
the fingerboard rather like keys on a keyboard which
can be assembled in various ways, none of the
potential groupings standardized.
Chris
--- Denys Stephens <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
> Dear Neil,
> I find this question very interesting, because it
> uncovers
> some of the expectations created by the modern
> guitar tradition.
> We have agreed names for guitar chords because of
> the fixed pitch
> of the instrument.Admittedly there are three or four
> positions for
> the same chord on a guitar neck, but one only has to
> remember a few
> fingerings for them.
>
> The lute never had a fixed pitch because several
> sizes were in
> common use. Despite the modern fixation that lutes
> are notionally
> tuned in G, it was probably not a practical reality
> for historical
> players. So the standard fingering patterns that we
> think of
> as G, C , D or whatever in guitar terms would have
> needed different
> name on each size of lute. Sixteenth century
> lutenists clearly
> knew these patterns, but they don't seem to have had
> names for them.
> In the surviving English translation of Leroy's
> tutor there
> is a stave full of chord patterns shown in tablature
> below
> the heading 'common accordes' - but none of them are
> named.
> It's actually quite tricky to name a pattern
> involving placing four
> fingers on six strings if you don't have the
> convenience of
> appending a universally agreed label to it.It was a
> lot easier to
> show them in tablature, where a name was not needed
> to convey
> exactly what was required. In the Dowland / Besarde
> instructions we find examples of chords again,
> referred to here
> as 'griffes,' but once again no names.
>
> As Stewart has already said, the idea of 'chords' is
> strongly
> associated with strumming. I suspect that this has
> in some respects
> changed our notion of what a 'chord' is. For modern
> guitar it often
> means a fixed fingering pattern that's held for
> several beats. But
> even in the most chordal lute pieces I think we have
> to consider that
> historical players saw them as the progression of
> polyphonic voices,
> which is a different notion altogether.
>
> The sixteenth century approach to intabulation was
> to transcribe each
> voice, one at a time, into tablature. It was a
> linear rather than
> vertical process. So the need to think 'what chord
> am I playing now?'
> didn't arise. It just happened that at certain
> points the vertical
> alignment of voices produced chords in passing.
>
> So if one really wants named chords on the lute one
> has to apply
> modern guitar-like thinking and assume a fixed
> pitch. That might be
> helpful in some respects, but all the names will be
> wrong when you
> pick up a different sized lute.In my view it's one
> of those areas
> where modern guitar practice just doesn't translate
> very well onto
> the lute.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Denys
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthony Hind [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: 15 June 2007 19:25
> To: Stewart McCoy; Lute Net
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: Lute Chord Confusion
>
> Thank you Stewart
> I must admit I hadn't read Besard, but the texts I
> had read did not
> include chord patterns, and when I looked at
> Renaissance manuals such as
> Damiani's that seemd quite detailed, but did not
> talk about chords, I
> thought perhaps that the polyphonic origin of much
> Renaissance lute music,
> might mean that what we recognize as chords (sort of
> static horizontal
> relations) might have been felt differently as
> passing dynamic almost
> fleeting relations. I see I am probably wrong in
> that, unless it can be
> considered that Besard is in some way premonitory
> (can we say that in
> English) looking forward to a different melodic
> system. I notice, in a
> search on the web, that Besard also favoured thumb
> out, which was to become
> the dominant pattern in later Baroque lute music, so
> could he be considered,
> as pointing in a new direction.
> I am probably wrong again, I do tend to jump to
> conclusions as has been
> pointed out to me previously on our pages.
> Regards
> Anthony
>
> Le 15 juin 07 à 17:39, Stewart McCoy a écrit :
>
> > Dear Neil and Anthony,
> >
> > Some sources of lute music give chords. For
> example, there are lots of
> > chords in Besard's Instructions, which form the
> introduction to Robert
> > Dowland's _Varietie of Lute-Lessons_ (London,
> 1610). Here the chords
> > are given to show left-hand fingering.
> >
> > Thomas Mace gives lots of chords shapes in
> _Musick's Monument_
> > (London, 1676), but he does so to show that one
> tuning is better than
> > another.
> >
> > There are chords on folio 1r of the so-called ML
> Lute Book, i.e.
> > London, British Library, Additional Manuscript
> 38539, which seems to
> > be a guide for how to realise a figured bass.
> >
> > It is fair to say that there is one important
> difference betwen the
> > lute and the guitar: you are often required to
> strum chords on a
> > guitar, but strumming is rare on the Lute.
> (Newsidler, Caroso?, and
> > occasional French baroque composers are exceptions
> which spring to
> > mind). Notation reflects performance practice, so
> the alfabeto system
> > arose in Italy in the early part of the 17th
> century, because people
> > were strumming their guitars. Lute music tended to
> be more polyphonic
> > in character, so tablatures were used as the
> easiest way of showing
> > players what to do.
> >
> > Although it can be helpful to think of chord
> shapes when playing the
> > lute, it is of less use when intabulating or
> arranging music for the
> > instrument. If you are unfamiliar with the notes
> on the fingerboard,
> > it might help to give yourself a cog. Draw a
> five-line stave and a
> > six-line stave, one above the other. On the
> five-line stave write down
> > an ascending chromatic scale with all the notes
> from bottom G (or your
> > lowest course) up to say top e" at the 9th fret of
> the first course.
> > (That neatly covers all the notes commonly
> included in the hexachord
> > system.) On the six-line stave copy out all the
> tablature letters
> > which equate to those notes in staff notation. You
> can use this
> > conversion chart to transfer notes from one
> notation to the other.
> > After a while, you become so familiar with the
> notes on the
> > fingerboard, that you hardly need look at your
> cog.
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Stewart McCoy.
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anthony Hind"
>
>
=== message truncated ===
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