Hi Howard, Thanks for the reply!
On 2 Sep, 2014, at 1:51 AM, howard posner <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sep 1, 2014, at 8:44 AM, Edward C. Yong <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Style and taste question - do you think an archlute or a baroque guitar >> would be better for this? > > Impossible to answer that question in a vacuum. It depends on your > particular instruments and ability (is your guitar much louder than your > archlute? on which instrument are most fluent?), the ensemble you’re playing > with (20 modern string players? one-to-a-part baroque instruments? are you > the only continuo player, or is there a harpsichord, organ, harp and 14 > theorbos?) The archlute's quite loud (Harz model), about the same volume as the guitar, though of course if I'm strumming, the guitar is much louder. I'm much more fluent on the archlute, but figured some strummy Vivaldi might be the way to start getting some experience on the b.g. The ensemble is all modern strings (3 first violins, 2 second, 1 vla, 1 cello, possibly 1 bass), and continuo will be harpsichord and me. > shot in the dark possibility: I gather, from your lack of confidence in your > ability to figure the part, that your continuo skills are not advanced. If > you’re likely to freeze reading figures in the heat of combat, you might > consider just marking chord names above the strong beats and important > changes and using the guitar. Not advanced, definitely - even on archlute I need to work out a sort of 80% realisation with a top line and learn that before rehearsals. Monteverdi and gang I can read figures on the spot but not for later music. Thank you! Edward Chrysogonus Yong [email protected] To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
