The lute--and renaissance music--uses a transposing system.. Core tones
of A and G are common, but neither is "the" pitch.
Even the keyboard uses a transposing system, renaissance diagrams
frequently "name" what we call middle C by other names.
Most modern musicians, except for clarinet, trumpet and so on, are
trained in fixed pitch. Even forty years ago, the two systems existed
side by side: my teacher was trained in "moveable Do" and so was I
until graduate school.
Moveable Do is necessary to understand renaissance theory, "mutation"
(the renaming of the hexachord syllables to modulate) and
sight-singing.
__________________________________________________________________
From: William Samson <[email protected]>
To: Lute List <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, April 14, 2012 2:05:38 AM
Subject: [LUTE] Pitch names and lute tunings.
Dear Collective Wisdom,
I was wondering when pitch names began to be associated with the
strings on a lute. Nowadays the 'standard' renaissance lute is
considered to be in G tuning, with the top string at g.
Published books of lute songs seem, by and large to agree with this,
with the vocal part(s) in staff notation agreeing with a lute
accompaniment on a G-lute.
So was 'g' defined as the pitch at which your top string is about to
break?
I would guess that with the theorbo (an instrument of which I know
very
little) the theorbo had to agree with the other instruments in the
ensemble and conform to whatever pitch standard was in use at the
time
- though if the theorbist is playing from a bass line (rather than
tablature) it's up to him/her to conform with the pitches of the
other
instruments, regardless of how the theorbo is tuned.
It all seems very confusing - Is there a clear association between
pitch names and lute tunings?
Bill
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