Stewart,
--- Stewart McCoy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Even though I could have both a low F and a
> stopped low F# available, I rarely take advantage of
> this. I tune the 8th course to F or F# depending on
> the key of the music, and just get on with it, as
> best I can.
>
I used to have 8 strings on the board but rarely used
the low F#. For one thing you can't play a very
full-sounding chord above this note because your hand
is so stretched out just reaching for the bass note.
F# an octave higher sounds just as full IMO.
Now I have 7 on the board. I can not believe how many
recits have a prominent, exposed low G#, usually
forming the bass of a very expressive diminished or
dominant sonority. I find myself using this quite a
bit even though I know it wasn't the norm on most
theorbos.
> In the past, if they didn't have the note available,
> they didn't play it. Obvious. One can download free
> from the internet Fleury's treatise on playing the
> theorbo, published in 1660. He clearly had six short
> strings on his theorbo. On page 8 he gives a
> chromatic scale up from low F to the D above middle
> C. Above each note of the scale he gives the
> appropriate chord in tablature. His theorbo in A
> doesn't have a low F# and G#, so he simply plays
> those notes an octave higher. For the first six
> notes of the scale he gives the following chords:
>
>
> _____a____b__________________
> __b_____|_d__a__|__b__|__b___
> __b__d__|_d__a__|__b__|__d___
> __c_____|____b__|_____|__d___
> _____e__|_______|_____|______
> ________|_______|__a__|__b___ etc.
> /a a
>
Problem! The 4th chord is actually _not_ in first
inversion if you're using a re-entrant theorbo tuning
which I assume Fleury did. (If he used the second
course an octave higher, then none of this
applies.)The second course E will actually be a third
lower than the "bass" note G# on the 4th course. This
is what David Taylor has been calling "crossing the
bass" and it is the sort of thing he claims hotshot
modern directors will throw you out of their groups
and blacklist you forever if you do too much. Yet
here is evidence that theorbists did it.
Although I avoid inversions like this as much as
possible, I'll concede that the E below the bass does
not SOUND too much like its below the bass since the
thumb emphasizes the G#. Still, it sounds a bit funny
if you're not used to hearing it.
Chris
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