A few remarks:
- saying that Paumann was "credited for having invented tablature" is
slightly missleading.
Virdung reports that he invented german lute tablature (which is utterly
unuseable for
playing keyboard). German lute tablature is indeed very convenient to
read/dictate to
someone else.
- "music for keyboard was NOT notated in tablature." As others have already
remarked, keyboard
music was notated in tablature - but what easily gets neglected is the fact
that 16th century keyboard
music was only notated in tablature, only we don't recoginize it as such
since the italian keyboard tablature
evolved into modern scores.
BTW, nice intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl1m7bOoI7I
Cheers, RalfD
Am Sonntag, 07. Oktober 2018 23:51 CEST, jslute <[email protected]> schrieb:
> Ron, Rainer and All,
>
> Cabezon's works were notated in tablature. Like Paumann, he was blind.
> His works were advertised as also playable on harp or vihuela.
> credited for having invented tablature
> Jim Stimson
>
> Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Ron Andrico <[email protected]>
> Date: 10/7/18 2:18 PM (GMT-05:00)
> To: Lute net <[email protected]>+
> Subject: [LUTE] Re: The origins of tablature
>
> Rainer:
> Like most who examine the origins of tablature, you overlooked the
> fact
> that Conrad Paumann, credited for having invented tablature, was
> primarily a keyboardist. My understanding is that the application
> tablature to the lute was secondary. And the purpose for tablature
> was
> not so that lutenists could play polyphonic music (they already did
> that from memory), but so that a full score of music could be
> condensed
> from several partbooks onto one staff and that the musical
> information
> could be more easily accessed. When we view tablature as a
> simplified
> way of notating music solely for performance, we undermine the
> usefulness of tablature as a reservoir of information that can only
> be
> effectively realized by a musician who possesses a firm grasp on
> performing polyphonic music with a clear sense of line. This is not
> a
> theory but a fact. Bach used tablature when he ran out of space at
> the
> bottom of the page.
> RA
> __________________________________________________________________
> From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on
> behalf
> of Rainer <[email protected]>
> Sent: Sunday, October 7, 2018 4:58 PM
> To: Lute net
> Subject: [LUTE] The origins of tablature
> Dear lute netters,
> I have often asked myselfe why lute tablature was invented.
> The "classical" answer seems to be because lutenists started to play
> polyphonic music (or at least music with more than one voice).
> This seems to be a very poor argument since - apart from German
> organ
> tablature - music for keyboard was NOT notated in tablature.
> Any ideas anybody?
> Rainer
> I seem to remember that MANY years ago somebody claimed to have
> found
> 14th century French lute tablature which was refuted soon.
> But hasn't this been discussed again recently?
> Somewhere else (where?) somebody mentioned that tablature may have
> been
> used much earlier in Arabian countries.
> To get on or off this list see list information at
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> --
> References
> 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
>
