Except that the way the 7 course vihuela players did it was strictly
mental- by tuning the 4th course down from f to e, and just "thinking"
of it as G instrument with a "high" treble course, despite the actual
pitch level and range being identical to a 7 course lute with a low D
7th. It was this flexible thinking on the part of vihuelists that
fooled eary musicologists into believing that every vihuelist had to
own 7 vihuelas to cover every tone in the scale. Of course, one could
get the same impression from any number of 16th and 17th century lute
songbooks that put the singer's first note reference almost anywhere on
the fingerboard (Willeart, the Verdelot madrigals intabutated for voice
and lute, for example).
But it's interesting that Galilei proposed a short string to actually
go higher- how the hell did he propose to fret such a string? Not to
mention avoiding the existing frets. (Look forward to you exploring
this one.) Another unasked question- how did he feel about his kid Mike
fooling around with (gasp!) 10 course lutes?
I never knew about the McClintock translation- is that available? I
would love a copy. (As well as translations of Capirola and Piccinini)
Dan
__________________________________________________________________
From: "Martin Shepherd" <[email protected]>
To: "Lute List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, August 19, 2011 12:49:47 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Re: [Le_luth] Dedillo
Well, this has really opened something up for me. I've just been
reading Carol McClintock's translation of Galilei's Fronimo, and
amongst
the many fascinating things he says (of which more anon) is that
there's
no point having all those extra bass courses on the lute because they
sound too weak and in any case you can do everything you want on a 6c
lute. That much is fairly widely known. But he goes on to say that if
you really want to intabulate pieces which go slightly outside the
range
you should do it by adding an extra course in the treble, tuned a
fourth
higher than the original top string, which now becomes the second
course
(so we now have a high "c" string). I don't know exactly how he
physically managed this, but he talks about adding an extra little
bridge so the new top string is a bit shorter than the others. I'm
just
about go on a trip so don't have the time to explore all this right
now,
but I'm intrigued that it seems the vihuelistas may actually have done
this.
Best wishes,
Martin
On 19/08/2011 06:06, [email protected] wrote:
> Quite right, Ed, about the 7 course vihuela and how it is
misunderstood
> today. I plead guilty to tuning- and using- my own 7 course
Chambure
> copy as a part-time stealth 7 course "lute". What I understand
from
> reading Ward& Bermudo is that the 7th course is considered to be
a
> nominal high "c" string, (for a g vihuela) in order to make the
higher
> voices of motets, masses, etc. playable within reasonable areas
of the
> fingerboard- just like a having a 5 string cello for Bach's 6th
cello
> suite. In practical terms, of course, (the laws of physics being
what
> they are, despite what Republican's would like them to be) a 7
course
> vihuela of say 59 cm. sl would actually be set up as a small "D"
> instrument, whose scale allows the high "g" string- but it would
be
> nominally a "G" instrument with a high "c" string. All I would
have to
> do on mine would be to lower the 4th course from f to e to come
up with
> the correct intervals- then I would be good to go, playing all
the
> voices from the vocal scores. The other tuning in Bermudo is a
> theoretical proposal of 4ths and 5ths that sounds cool but, like
other
> things, would be thankless wishful thinking; what with the laws
of
> physics being what they are; vis-a-vis the breaking point of gut
and
> the integrity of bridges to soundboard connections.
> Dedillo? Tried it, don't like it; I'm with Fuenllana on that one.
I
> still await a convincing performance.
> Dan
>
__________________________________________________________________
>
> From: "Edward Martin"<[email protected]>
> To: "Martin Shepherd"<[email protected]>, "Lute List"
> <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, August 18, 2011 9:30:30 PM
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: [Le_luth] Dedillo
> Thanks for posting this, Martin! Ralph Maier certainly gives us
> something to contemplate.
> Many of us play the vihuela, but very few, if any, play the
dedillo
> stroke. I have dabbled a bit with it, but not made a serious
study
> of it, and Maier makes a great case for making another attempt.
He
> is obviously using bright synthetic strings, and if he used gut,
I
> am certain that the tone emitted from the back side nail would be
> sweeter; it seems too harsh on synthetics, in my opinion. But,
he
> wrote a great paper, and provides us with incentive to do better.
> That is one thing that in our modern times, we have almost
ignored:
> dedillo.
> There is another thing we have ignored, which is the 7-course
> vihuela. Ward and Bermudo discuss this at length, and they make
the
> case for there having been the"ordinary" vihuela in 6 courses,
with
> our standard renaissance tuning; the other is the 7-course
vihuela,
> in which entirely different tuning systems were employed. Ward
> provides us with many names of vihuelistas who performed 7-course
> vihuela, but other than Bermudo's examples, there is no existing
> music for those tunings. Bermudo states that all the great
> vihuelistas also played 7-course vihuela.
> In particular, Bermudo states this instrument was used primarily
for
> doing intabulations. Yes, some modern players in our times do
have
> 7-course vihuelas, but I have thus far found nobody in our times
> using the 7-course vihuela as an instrument which utilizes it's
> initial purpose, which is to use various tunings to devise
> intabulations. All the ones, to my knowledge, use it as having
an
> extra bass course, similar to the lute. This was not the intent
of
> such an instrument.
> We have come a long way in our understanding of the vihuela, but
we
> have a long journey ahead of us......
> ed
> At 02:50 PM 8/18/2011, Martin Shepherd wrote:
> > I can't resist passing this on - fascinating stuff.
> > M
> > -------- Original Message --------
> >
> > Subject: [Le_luth] Dedillo
> > Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:08:41 +0200
> > From: Sauvage Valery [1]<[email protected]>
> > Reply-To: [2][email protected]
> > To: [3]<[email protected]>
> >
> >
> > Bonjour,
> > Un ami m'a fait part de cette page `a propos de technique
de main
> > droite
> > concernant la vihuela, que certains pourraient trouver
> interessante...
> > [4]http://www.ralphmaier.com/index_files/Page318.htm
> > (en faisant defiler il y a quelques videos de
demonstrations)
> > Bonne rentree `a tous...
> > Val.
> > __._,_.___
> > [5]Repondre `a expediteur | [6]Repondre `a groupe |
[7]Repondre en
> mode
> > Web | [8]Nouvelle discussion
> > [9]Toute la discussion (1)
> > Activites recentes:
> >
> > [10]Aller sur votre groupe
> > [11]Yahoo! Groupes
> > Passer A : [12]Texte seulement, [13]RA(c)sumA(c) du jour o
> > [14]Desinscription o [15]Conditions d'utilisation
> > .
> >
> > [stime=1313669394]
> >
> > __,_._,___
> >
> > --
> >
> >References
> >
> > 1. mailto:[email protected]
> > 2. mailto:[email protected]
> > 3. mailto:[email protected]
> > 4. http://www.ralphmaier.com/index_files/Page318.htm
> > 5. mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re%A0%3A%20Dedillo
> > 6.
mailto:[email protected]?subject=Re%A0%3A%20Dedillo
> > 7.
> >
>
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Le_luth/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJyb2Qwajd1BF9T
>
Azk3NDkwNDY4BGdycElkAzE2MTg5MzE0BGdycHNwSWQDMjEyMzgwMTYxNARtc2dJZAMxMzM
>
1MgRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNycGx5BHN0aW1lAzEzMTM2NjkzOTQ-?act=reply&messageNum=
> 13352
> > 8.
> >
>
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Le_luth/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJmZTg1MWoyBF9T
>
Azk3NDkwNDY4BGdycElkAzE2MTg5MzE0BGdycHNwSWQDMjEyMzgwMTYxNARzZWMDZnRyBHN
> sawNudHBjBHN0aW1lAzEzMTM2NjkzOTQ-
> > 9.
> >
>
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Le_luth/message/13352;_ylc=X3oDMTM3aGJ
>
tZjBqBF9TAzk3NDkwNDY4BGdycElkAzE2MTg5MzE0BGdycHNwSWQDMjEyMzgwMTYxNARtc2
>
dJZAMxMzM1MgRzZWMDZnRyBHNsawN2dHBjBHN0aW1lAzEzMTM2NjkzOTQEdHBjSWQDMTMzN
> TI-
> > 10.
> >
>
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/group/Le_luth;_ylc=X3oDMTJmM2VoNG03BF9TAzk3N
>
DkwNDY4BGdycElkAzE2MTg5MzE0BGdycHNwSWQDMjEyMzgwMTYxNARzZWMDdnRsBHNsawN2
> Z2hwBHN0aW1lAzEzMTM2NjkzOTQ-
> > 11.
> >
>
http://fr.groups.yahoo.com/;_ylc=X3oDMTJlaWZmczVhBF9TAzk3NDkwNDY4BGdycE
>
lkAzE2MTg5MzE0BGdycHNwSWQDMjEyMzgwMTYxNARzZWMDZnRyBHNsawNnZnAEc3RpbWUDM
> TMxMzY2OTM5NA--
> > 12.
> >
>
mailto:[email protected]?subject=Changer%20le%20forma
> t%20:%20Traditionnel
> > 13.
> >
>
mailto:[email protected]?subject=Messages%20du%20groupe%20
> :+R%C3%A9sum%C3%A9
> > 14.
>
mailto:[email protected]?subject=D%E9sinscription
> > 15. http://fr.docs.yahoo.com/info/utos.html
> >
> >
> >To get on or off this list see list information at
> >http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
> Edward Martin
> 2817 East 2nd Street
> Duluth, Minnesota 55812
> e-mail: [email protected]
> voice: (218) 728-1202
> http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1660298871&ref=name
> http://www.myspace.com/edslute
> http://magnatune.com/artists/edward_martin
>
> --
>
--
