Dear Sean and All,
It's very interesting that you see the "long and two shorts" thing in a
mensural source, because apart from anything else there are no
barlines. I always wondered whether the lute notation was a consequence
of putting in barlines every two minims and the consequent difficulty of
notating a note tied across a barline. But of course the lute sources
have the same thing within a bar as well, so that can't be the reason.
I have also wondered whether Newsidler felt that dotted notes would be
hard for beginners to understand, but he does use them sometimes, so
that can't be the reason either.
Like Arto, I'm always tempted to "restore the dot" - sometimes I do,
sometimes I don't. I've even been known to play the repeated note very
softly, which gives almost the same effect as restoring the dot, while
conforming to the original notation.
With regard to Newsidler's techniques, there are two things I find
particularly interesting:
1. Even when he intabulates a piece in four or more parts, he always
reduces it to three, sometimes very cleverly keeping the interesting
bits by swapping a line from part to part. And he never writes a chord
of more than three notes except at a final chord, and even then it's on
adjacent courses. I conclude that he never used the RH ring finger.
2. I can't find any evidence of a barré in his works, suggesting that
he never did it (unlike Melchior!).
Best wishes,
Martin
On 02/02/2013 03:59, Sean Smith wrote:
Arto,
You see the long-and-two-shorts all over Spinacino, too. For example, in the
Sidedero in the Odhecaton uses a dotted figure while Spinacino repeated uses it
in the way you describe in Newsidler (we find the same figures more often
dotted rhythms in the Capirola Sidedero, however).
Interestingly, comparing the Tsat een meskin between the Odhecaton and the
Segovia ms. Petrucci uses the dotted figure while the Segovia usually uses the
long note and two shorts. Since both are mensural sources I'm not sure we can
attribute it to being a lute phenomenon unless we consider Segovia a possible
lute source.
Sean
On Feb 1, 2013, at 10:59 AM, Arto Wikla wrote:
Dear lutenists,
if memory serves, we have been talking about one interesting question of
interpreting German tabulature: when (especially) Hans Newsidler repeated a
short note after longer one, did he really mean repeating the pluck, or did he
thus just in this way express a note with a dot? Did he mean just a tie?
An example (translated to French tabulature) (use monospace!):
|\ |\\ |\
| | |
| | |
__a_____a__a__c__d_______
_____|______________|____
_____|__b________b__|____
__c__|__c________c__|____ ...
_____|______________|____
_____|______________|____
So, should or shouldn't the top string third a be plucked or not? I vote that
you should not repeat the pluck!
I played Hans' intabulation of Ludvig Senfl's famous Lied "Elslein liebstes Elslein
mein". I made two versions: First literally as it is written, second as I think it
is meant to be played. The piece becomes much more vocal-like that way, and it also feels
much more natural.
Take a look (take a hear (can you say so in English?)):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pakfWwq8wok&feature=youtu.be
http://vimeo.com/58727395
What do you vote?
All the best,
Arto
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