Dear Martin, Barley (1596) explicitly (The sixteenth Rule) requires 'For to play foure partes .............. the thumb and the three fingers together,...'.
However, he also (The fourteenth Rule) describes a sort of mixed raking play for six part chords whereby (as best I can make out) the thumb takes the fifth and sixth courses, the first finger takes the third and fourth courses, the second finger the second course and the third finger the first course. This technique doesn't seem to have modern adherents.... regards Martyn --- On Mon, 25/2/13, Martin Shepherd <[email protected]> wrote: From: Martin Shepherd <[email protected]> Subject: [LUTE] Re: 3rd finger in french baroque? To: [email protected] Date: Monday, 25 February, 2013, 9:03 Very interesting question. Use of the third finger in renaissance music may not be quite as common as we tend to think. Dalza and Hans Newsidler, for example, didn't use it at all, if the evidence of their printed music is anything to go by. I wonder how Kapsberger played his lute music? For the chitarrone he says you must place the third and fourth fingers on the soundboard and keep them there. Even when there are chords of four notes, it is not safe to assume the third finger was used. For example I find I am sometimes tempted (for reasons of sonority) to play c2d3c4a5 using the thumb for the lowest two notes so that I can use the second finger on the top note. Perhaps some 16th century players did the same. Robinson (1603) explicitly advises the use of the third finger in a "modern" way, even though he also advocates "thumb-inside" technique. Obviously different people did different things, perhaps even more than we do today. I would be interested to see examples (big chords, for example) from the French repertoire which are typically played these days using the third finger but which would have been played differently using only thumb, middle, index. I haven't explored this music enough to have any choice examples to offer myself. Martin On 24/02/2013 21:10, [1][email protected] wrote: > > It is my understanding that the french baroque lute players/composers did not use the third finger of the right hand to sound any strings, limiting only to thumb, first and second fingers, but clearly the third finger was widely used in earlier renaissance music, and again in later baroque lute music. Does anyone know what prompted this change in technique (or am I wrong in my statement). From what I've read, it seems that the french school was well enmeshed with a very philosophical approach to the instrument and to music. I was wondering if there was a philosophical reason perhaps to avoid using the third finger? > > -- > > To get on or off this list see list information at > [2]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected] 2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
