Re: Interesting LH pressure exercise.
Dear Martin, Jon all On Monday 10 November 2003 12:03, Martin Shepherd wrote: From: Jon Murphy [EMAIL PROTECTED] And what did Arto mean by strong notes, Arto will doubtless explain what he means, Well, now I have to..., I guess... :-) To be short: There are important or good notes and there are less important or bad notes. In the days of lute there was no democracy between the notes, not either between the human beings. In lute music the system used was to play strong notes with the thumb, weak notes with the index finger. And if the thumb is occupied, middle finger is the vice-thumb. Often the weak notes are marked with a dot, which tells you to use the weak index finger. Compare this to the violin playing: downbow is the strong one, it goes to the direction where thumb is strong. And upbow is for the weaker notes. Also the viola da gamba players make this separation - they just happen to keep the bow otherway round. But also for them the movement to the direction of pushing with the thumb is the strong one. I hope I could explain this; using a foreign language in a little more complicated matters is not so easy... Arto
Re: Interesting LH pressure exercise.
Dear all, I have something to add. I wrote: And what did Arto mean by strong notes, Arto will doubtless explain what he means, Well, now I have to..., I guess... :-) To be short: There are important or good notes and there are less important or bad notes. In the days of lute there was no democracy etc. But actually in the original context I think I meant just the fact that when I play the whole fragment of a melody strongly, I tend to use also more pressure of the left hand. And then I am able to make some small and nice changes in the pitch of the notes, too. But also the other story is important... ;-) Arto
Re: Interesting LH pressure exercise.
Dear Herbert and others, on Mon, 10 Nov 2003, Herbert Ward wrote: [...} The point, of course, is to develop a well-regulated LH pressure, perfectly independent of RH activity, in the hope that minimum LH pressure, and hand independence, will lead to more speed and fluidity. A variation, productive of further hand independence, is to cycle between forte and piano with the RH, without disturbing the LH's quest for buzzes. Just a small point: This somehow reminds me of the times of my guitar playing! I was (as also my guitarist friends were) trying to practice for example to play RH fingering i m a and produce even rhytm. Or I was practicing RH i m to produce ternary rhytm. In the same way I tried to make the accents not to depend on the use of the index or the middle finger. It was like drinking fresh water to come to the lute, and stop fighting against the Nature; In the lute playing you use the strong fingers to play the strong notes, weaker fingers to play weaker notes. I think this might apply also to the left hand. When you play strong, you also tend to push harder with the left hand, and that might have a good effect: when pushing harder you also have more control to the (tiny) coulourings to the pitch! Small movements (no real vibrato) may give living and life to your strong notes. And with the weaker notes your weaker touch of the left hand leaves the colourings also weaker. According the Nature... Just an idea. Arto
