Sorry for my late reply, and I would like to thank again Ron, Stathis for
the correction,
and Ralf for giving me the answer for detail!
(I am deeply thankful to Ron for your Mignarda editions
which always help me to learn lute pieces that originally were songs and
their lyrics & translation!!)
Medieval/renaissance/baroque theory organizes pitches into two systems,
the "claves" and the "voces" system. One, the "claves"-system is quasi a
context-free system - a "G" is just a "G" - while the other is gives
context - a "fa" is a note that has a hlf-step below, a minor third
below, a major third above etc. By combining these two systems you get a
lot of information just by the pitch name ("A la mi re" etc.).
Is the "Voce" system is what Dowland called "Voyces" in Miclogos ?
http://luna.folger.edu/luna/servlet/detail/FOLGERCM1~6~6~26728~101966:-Musice-actiue-micrologus--English-#
From left to light, the images of pipes (?) represent Voyces:
Hard hexachord (G-hexachord), Natural hexachord(C-hexachord), Soft
hexachord(F-hexachord) ...?
I wasn't talking about an interval ;-)
1 g so fa ut
I think this should be:
1 g sol re ut ???
2 a la mi re
3 b fa
4 b mi
5 c sol fa ut
6 d fa sol re
This happens because in that part two hexachords overlap (that a fifth
above the c-Hexachord and that a fifth below it) and those two
hexachords have one note not in common.
As in the Micrologos,
"a.b.c.d.e.f.g for b fa ♮mi. is not one Key onely, but two"
whereas "Capitall eight" (Grave and basse keyes) have one B ( ♮)...
If my understanding is correct.....
you won't have b-fa and b-mi at once, since you (normally only stay in
two hexachords, so either F/C or C/G. But in this diagram Dowland shows
the whole Gamut and hence lists all three.
So could the "disdiatessaron" mean that there are TWO types of forth between
Smale meane and Great meane:
mi-fa-sol-la of Soft hexachord
and re-mi-fa-sol of Hard hexachord??
or simple mistake?
I think that's one of the most important skills to have if you're doing
renaissance/baroque music.
Thank you for helping me with understand that complicated structure! :-D !!
Tomoko
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