Re: Bourdons or diapasons?
Thomas, I risk it, I speak to the English language and sound. I haven't the vaguest idea what the term Bourdon means, but if your description is right I would call it sympathetic vibrations. That would not apply to the bagpipes, as they are very unsympathetic (to most people g, although I was brought up on them). If your definition is right then the easy way to test it would be to damp the sympathetic strings and see if the sound changes. (A finger, or a bit of tape). Best, Jon I have learned (in school) Bourdons would be sounds which are not produced directly (by plucking a string or hitting a key) but just sound when other tones appear. The sound of a bagpipe is also described as having bourduns. or the viola d'amore has a second set of (bourdon) strings which are not bowed - they just sound along and enrich the sound of the bowed tones. I guess the english language has a different usage of this word. I never thought of the bases of a lute as bourdons and would have used diaparsons (which doesn't sound so similar to the german Bordun) Best wishes Thomas
Re: Fw: Equal Temperament
On Friday 30 January 2004 06:50, Jon Murphy wrote: Dear Jon, I wonder if this Catherine is helped by your explanation because you do not explain anything of the background of differences between temperaments in your long e-mail. For example meantone has pure thirds etc. If you want the explain temperaments you need to refer to the differences of how the octave is divided, i.e. the differences in ratio often expressed in cents. It would be better if you give her some website links with explanations. Perhaps you can forward her the following links which I saved on my webbrowser a long time ago: http://www.microtonal.co.uk/xtra.htm http://home.planet.nl/~d.v.ooijen/lgs/meantone.html and the following more technical links: http://www.b0b.com/infoedu/science.html http://www.jimloy.com/physics/scale.htm http://home.swipnet.se/~w-37192/eng/handbook/Tuning/history.html About electronic tuners you are wrong. I have two of these things, one is a cheapo with ofcourse only equal temperament and only a=440 Hz. The other Korg OT-12) can be calibrated to any frequency you like and also many temperaments (valotti, meantone, etc. etc.). that's certainly not a cheap thing. This was also written on this list by the way if I remember well. Best taco Ladies and gentlemen,=20 0 I ask your indulgence in reviewing this message that I have forwarded to = the Lute List. The question comes from the Harp List, and my response = has been sent. I'd like to know if I've made any gross errors (the = object was to answer in principle, not in detail). Do remember that = accomplished musicians on intruments that have fixed temperament may not = have knowledge of temperament.=20 I solicit your comments,=20 I did see a letter a bit ago on the Lute List on electronic tuning, and = it made me wonder if the electronic tuner used equal temperament. Been = planning to repair my occilliscope and look at the freqencies, but I = think is a good assumption that the electronic tuner uses equal = temperament.=20 Best, Jon - Original Message -=20 From: Catherine Hicks=20 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 4:12 PM Subject: Equal Temperament Dear Jon,=20 Hello, my name is Catherine and I am a harp student (just beginning!) = of Eala Clarke's. She said that you would be willing to maybe answer = some of my questions? My music theory isn't the grandest and this may be rather confusing, I = hope you can get at what I'm asking. I play piano as well as harp, and I = was reading a book on pianos, their construction and philosophy and = history, and it described the methods of tuning that they used. Equal = temperament, they called it, saying that the intervals are not tuned to = the same pitches all the way up the piano because it would then end up = sharp. So they divide the octave up into twelve tones and tune with = that. Then a friend of mine asked me if my harp was tuned in equal = temperament, like a piano. I use an electronic tuner and just tune it to = that. So what exactly is equal temperament? Would it not be true for other = instruments as well? Are electronic tuners based on that system? Thank you very much! Catherine Hicks ~ In Corde Mariae [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Fw: Equal Temperament
Taco, Your message is well taken, but the details of the specific differences is what I was trying to avoid. My impression from her message was that she needed a small impression of the idea of temperaments rather than a full description. As her message to me was off the harp list I expect that if she needs more information she'll ask for it. Some people can be scared off by too much theory, others thrive on it. I hope she comes back to me for a bit more. (And I do appreciate the web links, I'll have to check them, but I can lay out the frequencies versus the cents. About electronic tuners you are wrong. I have two of these things, one is a cheapo with ofcourse only equal temperament and only a=440 Hz. The other Korg OT-12) can be calibrated to any frequency you like and also many temperaments (valotti, meantone, etc. etc.). that's certainly not a cheap thing. This was also written on this list by the way if I remember well. I haven't seen one that handles the temperaments (and I'm not familiar with the valotti by name, although I'm sure is is one of the variations of meantone). It must be expensive, just in the amount of buttons it must have. If I didn't play the harp I wouldn't have an electronic tuner. I'd just stay with my old A 440 fork I've banged on my skull for fifty years. I trust my ear better than the tuner, which might say that I must have my own temperament drilled into my neural structure. But that comes as a former vocalist, that most flexible of instruments. My tuner only allows a change of A calibration. I got it as I have 52 strings to tune on the harp, and doing a relative tuning off an A would take forever, but I still correct it by ear. Now to the basic question! Is a temperament, other than equal, valid for an instrument like a harp or piano where one may be playing in any and all keys without retuning. Where are the perfect thirds when you start anywhere, even on the pentatonic notes? I believe that was what I was trying to tell her, without getting into the math. Equal temperament seems to me to be the only solution for an instrument that needs to be played in any key (chromatically) without adjusting the frets or pitch of the open key. Correct me if I'm wrong. Best, Jon
Re: Lute-painting on eBay
Oh yes! VERY tastefull and decent! Am Fre, 2004-01-30 um 12.14 schrieb Christopher Schaub: I love the very tasteful frame. --- Arne Keller [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Dear all, there is a strange old portrait of a left-handed lute player up for auction at: http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=16216871ssPageName=L2 Amused, Arne. -- Thomas Schall Niederhofheimer Weg 3 D-65843 Sulzbach 06196/74519 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.lautenist.de / www.tslaute.de/weiss --
Re: Church authority in the Renaissance.
Wow, what a discussion. Let us first define the Church. And we'll only look at the Christian church as we are speaking of Europe. The Church in medieval times (and the Dark Ages, if you want to seperate them, I don't) was the Roman Church. But this was a relatively late development in that first millenium A.D. I'll not put dates into this, partly because my aging memory is losing them and I don't feel like looking in my bookshelves - but mainly as everything develops over a period of time and specific dates are irrelevant when looking at the known world. We can start at the back end of the messages, just for fun. Henry VIII wasn't a protestant, although his church is called protestant. Martin Luther was a protester, as were others. Henry just got pissed at Rome, but his doctrine retained the Trinity and much of the rest of the Church doctrine. Martin Luther and John Wesley took a new, and old, view. In the first century A.D. there was a conflict among the Christians - the Pauls and the Peters (and the James's) - as to whether to worship Jesus as Messiah of the Jews or Lord of all man (yes, overly simplified). Paul wanted to go to the Gentiles as well as the Jews, Peter took a middle ground, and James wanted the worship to remain within the confines of Jewish law. Not overly relevant today, but it meant a lot to them. When St. Patrick brought Christianity to Ireland is wasn't the Church of Rome, which really didn't exist as such at the time, it was the more general teachings of Jesus. Constantine's conversion was a defining moment for the church in that it made the remains of the Empire Christian, but not a controlling matter for the believers. I would hesitate to say when the Pope of Rome became arbiter of the Church, but I'd guess that Pope Gregory would be a good guess. Many of the Frankish tribes had converted by then, but like the other Christians of the north they were yet secular for their worldly matters. Probably the coronation of Otto may have been the change. The Merovingian dynasty of converted Franks became the Carolingians of the Holy Roman Empire. What had been lost at arms was regained in the sacristy. But yet there were the other Christian sects, and this went on for hundreds of years. The Albigensians were probably decendents of the Visigoths who had become Roman in loyalty, but had their own Christian church. And if you read Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose (a pleasant conciept) you see the Irish church at the time of the papacy of Avignon as a haven for the books being burned by the heirarchy of that same church of patronage and indulgences that Martin Luther resisted, and against which he posted his proclamations. Wow, I'm really in trouble. I've offended everyone and I haven't even made a coherent thesis. But there is a way to get back to music yet. The Church, and the protestant churches, all had an influence on the music of their times. The English, French, German and Scottish Psalters were a revival of plainsong, but also a form of harmony. The rule was that every word sung in church must come directly from the Scriptures. A musical rebellion against the formal and embellished worship of the Roman Church (and I don't say Catholic, as the Anglican and several Eastern Orthodox chuches consider themselves to be catholic also). Its a long thread, and I haven't read it all - but I've tried to read a good sampling. The Renaissance is defined as the era of re-learning, not of learning. A rebirth of the ancient arts (and the implication is that they were suppressed by the Church). The printing press (as someone said) brought the vernacular bible to the people - although the writer who mentioned the death penalty for possession was too limited, the same applied in England. Enough, it is an age I study, and nothing I can say in this long letter (but brief history) can satisfy all. Suffice to say that I am either atheist or agnostic, depending on the definition, but both enjoy and understand the history of the church and the Church in defining Western culture, and in that way defining Western music. But I'd love to fine some early ballads of the melody lute and some words from the balladeers. Best, Jon - Original Message - From: James A Stimson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Vance Wood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: lute list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 10:44 PM Subject: Re: Church authority in the Renaissance. Dear All: Those who doubt the threat to the church posed by the printing press should bear in mind that during the Albigensian crusades possession of a vernacular translation of the Bible was punishable by death. Yours, Jim
Re: Lute-painting on eBay
Hi all On Friday 30 January 2004 15:03, Roman Turovsky wrote: I am suspicious. Looks too much like Arto Wikla. there is a strange old portrait of a left-handed lute player up for auction at: http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=16216871ssPageName=L2 Well, I don't know what to think... ;) Anyhow I put Roman's comment and the picture to my page http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/wikla/mus/Me.html Arto
RE: Lute-painting on eBay
Yuck! Boy, I wouldn't bid on that one. Maybe the frame is 17th century, but I doubt that the painting is. I think that a 17th century artist would have had a better idea of what a lute looked like. How about early 20th century? Could the lute be one of the wandervogel lute-guitars? Tim Original Message From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Lute-painting on eBay Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:50:42 +0100 Dear all, there is a strange old portrait of a left-handed lute player up for auction at: http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=16216871ssPageName=L2 Amused, Arne.
equal temperament
Dear All, Just a footnote - well-tempered is not the same as equal-tempered. No one knows exactly which temperament Bach had in mind when he wrote the WTC but there are some strong candidates amongst temperaments which were popular at the time. The late John Barnes wrote an article in Early Music on the subject some years ago, unfortunately I no longer have it to hand. These temperaments were irregular because (unlike meantone temperaments) they had several sizes of fifth, and circular because you could play in any key. The effect of these tunings is to give nearly pure thirds in some home key (usually C or F) and wider thirds as you modulate further away. The WTC then becomes an interesting exercise in *composing* in different keys (because each key has its own character), rather than an exercise in *playing* in any key (which is trivial). If you are interested in this issue, a good place to start is the articles Temperament and Well-tempered clavier in Grove. Best wishes, Martin
Re: equal temperament
The WTC then becomes an interesting exercise in *composing* in different keys (because each key has its own character), rather than an exercise in *playing* in any key (which is trivial). This is a matter of opinion, and I personally find nothing trivial about it. Unequal temperament may give some flavour to earlier music that blandly never strays to far from the home key, but in the era in which modulation became an important element of expression ET is anything but trivial. It is INDISPENSABLE, as a matter of fact. RT __ Roman M. Turovsky http://turovsky.org http://polyhymnion.org
Re: equal temperament
On Friday, January 30, 2004, at 04:01 PM, Roman Turovsky wrote: The WTC then becomes an interesting exercise in *composing* in different keys (because each key has its own character), rather than an exercise in *playing* in any key (which is trivial). I'm sorry - writing for writing. Try to play ''in any key''! This is a matter of opinion, and I personally find nothing trivial about it. Unequal temperament may give some flavour to earlier music that blandly never strays to far from the home key, but in the era in which modulation became an important element of expression ET is anything but trivial. It is INDISPENSABLE, as a matter of fact. RT Crazily loving modulations (which are so rare in Baroque literature) I undersigne with both hands. jurek
Re: equal temperament
The WTC then becomes an interesting exercise in *composing* in different keys (because each key has its own character), rather than an exercise in *playing* in any key (which is trivial). I'm sorry - writing for writing. Try to play ''in any key''! This is a matter of opinion, and I personally find nothing trivial about it. Unequal temperament may give some flavour to earlier music that blandly never strays to far from the home key, but in the era in which modulation became an important element of expression ET is anything but trivial. It is INDISPENSABLE, as a matter of fact. RT Crazily loving modulations (which are so rare in Baroque literature) I undersigne with both hands. jurek S made a point of catering to the individuals afflicted with the modulation vice, you know. Monteverdi operas modulate sufficiently for Claudio M. to have him ask his musicians to tune in ET, for which he suffered criticism from a gentleman named Artusi. Who remembers Artusi now? RT
Re: Re: Lute-painting on eBay
I consider this painting on Ebay is just another piece of evidence to demonstrate that left-handed players DID exist and play even the 17th century. Jean-Marie Poirier (another 20th century left-hander) ;-))) (By the way it could be fun to know how many of us play the other way round, just to get rid of all underhand attacks on left-handed playing) I am suspicious. Looks too much like Arto Wikla. RT there is a strange old portrait of a left-handed lute player up for auction at: http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=16216871ssPageName=L2 Amused, Arne.
Re: Lute-painting on eBay
Yuck! Boy, I wouldn't bid on that one. Maybe the frame is 17th century, but I doubt that the painting is. I think that a 17th century artist would have had a better idea of what a lute looked like. How about early 20th century? Could the lute be one of the wandervogel lute-guitars? Tim There are MANY iconographically occurring instruments that defy definition or have irregular features, so your opinion is ill-informed. As to wandervogel-lauten: we all know what they look like, and it ain't this one. RT there is a strange old portrait of a left-handed lute player up for auction at: http://www.stores.ebay.com/id=16216871ssPageName=L2 Amused, Arne.
Re: Re: Lute-painting on eBay
At 18:23 30-01-2004 +0100, jmpoirier2 wrote: I consider this painting on Ebay is just another piece of evidence to demonstrate that left-handed players DID exist and play even the 17th century. Jean-Marie Poirier (another 20th century left-hander) ;-))) (By the way it could be fun to know how many of us play the other way round, just to get rid of all underhand attacks on left-handed playing) I resent the implication, that in the unlikely event that I should make an attack on a left-hander, that I should then be considered underhand. HA HA!! I MAKE JOKE!! Foresightedly, Arne.
Re: equal temperament
Roman Turovsky at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Monteverdi operas modulate sufficiently for Claudio M. to have him ask his musicians to tune in ET, for which he suffered criticism from a gentleman named Artusi. Who remembers Artusi now? Alas, I can't seem to find my list of the persons who remember Artusi now. I also can't find any reference to equal temperament from either Monteverdi or Artusi. Perhaps you could specify? Howard
Re: equal temperament
Monteverdi operas modulate sufficiently for Claudio M. to have him ask his musicians to tune in ET, for which he suffered criticism from a gentleman named Artusi. Who remembers Artusi now? Alas, I can't seem to find my list of the persons who remember Artusi now. I also can't find any reference to equal temperament from either Monteverdi or Artusi. Perhaps you could specify? Howard You might still have Margo Schulter's message with the info. I have deleted all of them... RT
Re: Church authority in the Renaissance.
Hi David: Thank You, and thank you again. It seems that my casual remarks to a casual question about the authority of the church has provoked the passion of one or more members of the list. Why this is I do not know. It is as though there are those who expect a detailed astro-physical explanation about a simple question about sun rise (this is an analogy in case someone wants to know what sun rise has to do with the early church under discussion). And of course you brought up the critical question: What does this have to do with Lute playing? Everything and nothing. This is simply the times and political climate that surrounded the musicians and composers we are most interested in. It is for these reasons that John Dowland was never able to gain an appointment to the court of Queen Elizabeth I. It is also why his career took him all over Europe (generalization). I suspect there were other factors involved here but his conversion to Catholicism seems to be the major excuse given. God forbid, but dare we discuss The Plague? Vance Wood. - Original Message - From: David Rastall [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Caroline Usher [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Vance Wood [EMAIL PROTECTED]; lute list [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2004 5:06 PM Subject: Re: Church authority in the Renaissance. On Thursday, January 29, 2004, at 05:05 PM, Caroline Usher wrote: It was not until Henry VIII decided to challenge the authority of the Church by declaring himself the supreme head of the Church in England did the mortar that held Medieval Christianity under the thumb of Rome start to crumble, and the corruption of that institution begin to be known by an increasingly educated population. Vance, have you never heard of Martin Luther? Not to mention the many earlier reformers, many of whom wrought significant changes in the institutional Church. I agee with Vance: Luther may have challenged the spiritual authority of the church, but it was Henry VIII who directly, and personally, confronted the temporal authority of the Pope. Henry ended up investing the power of the English church in the English monarchy, laying the groundwork for a century and a half of civil strife. Anyhow, be that as it may, Henry VIII centralized the country's ecclesiastical beaurocracy in himself. I don't think Luther or any of the other reformers, not even Calvin, did that. Not that this has anything to do with lute playing. DR P.S. If you want to read an interesting historical novel about life in the Vatican during the renaissance, read The Family by Mario Puzo.
Re: Church authority in the Renaissance.
Either way, the media don't invent it; they produce general knowledge of it. True and relevant, of course. But I would guess that Priest X, who buys his meat from Calverde, bought his office from Bishop Y. must have been common village gossip in the Medieval world. I read someplace that, until recently (say 1880) most people never got more than 20 miles from their birthplace. They (even the upper class) were, I suspect, very provincial and full of quaint ideas.
Re: Church authority in the Renaissance.
At 02:06 PM 1/30/2004 -0800, Vance Wood wrote: Hi David: Thank You, and thank you again. It seems that my casual remarks to a casual question about the authority of the church has provoked the passion of one or more members of the list. Why this is I do not know. It is because, like my friend Bob Clair, I dislike seeing misinformation posted for all the lurkers and newbies. Like Bob, I also don't like pat answers that tend to discourage people from further research and study of complex questions. As the essay that I pointed to yesterday puts it, From a historical point of view, the idea that the medieval church was corrupt is based on a couple of methodological fallacies, such as disrespect for the peculiarities of medieval religion, arbitrary use of historical evidence, and ignorance of the situation in the medieval church. http://www.the-orb.net/non_spec/missteps/ch11.html It is these methodological fallacies as much as the specific assertions made that I should like readers of this list to be aware of. It's so easy to project our values onto the past, to interpret the past in the light of what we know eventually happened, and to reduce its complexity to simple a + b = c. The original questioner asked for help in comprehending how people thought back then, specifically about the Church and religion. Such a quest is not aided by gross oversimplification. Indeed, your response took a fascinating variety of eras and places and people and viewpoints and reduced them to a monochrome. Caroline * Caroline Usher DCMB Administrative Coordinator 613-8155 Box 91000 --
Re: Church authority in the Renaissance.
Vance Wood at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: It seems that my casual remarks to a casual question about the authority of the church has provoked the passion of one or more members of the list. It may seem that way to you. It seems to me that someone disagreed with you. HP
Re: equal temperament
Roman wrote: Monteverdi operas modulate sufficiently for Claudio M. to have him ask his musicians to tune in ET, for which he suffered criticism from a gentleman named Artusi. I wrote: I ... can't find any reference to equal temperament from either Monteverdi or Artusi. Perhaps you could specify? Roman wrote: You might still have Margo Schulter's message with the info. I have deleted all of them... I can't seem to delete newsgroup postings. Last December 7, Margo said that Artusi took Monteverdi to task for writing intervals that sounded harsh in the less-tempered tuning of singers, though they would sound OK on lutes, which were more tempered (Margo accepts uncritically Lindley's interpretation that lutes were normally tuned in equal temperament. I voice disagreement whenever I happen to read one of her posts, which isn't all that often). Nothing about instructing musicians to play in equal temperament (Artusi could not have known what Monteverdi told his musicians, and Artusi's signed essays did not even mention Monteverdi's name). Modulation didn't enter into it. Nor did Monteverdi's operas, which didn't yet exist. HP
Re: Church authority in the Renaissance.
Wow! That's a good one Roman, you really got me that time. Vance Wood. - Original Message - From: Roman Turovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: LUTE-LIST [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 6:55 PM Subject: Re: Church authority in the Renaissance. I might add that it is said of this period that there were enough pieces of the Original Cross of Christ found in England to make Noah's Ark. Vance Wood. The Ark was actually built of bonsai, and not with the chips off the Original Cross. RT __ Roman M. Turovsky http://turovsky.org http://polyhymnion.org
Re: equal temperament
Martin Shepherd: And ET is not indispensable for modulation - as I hoped I had made clear, it is just one of many temperaments which allow modulation to any key. It also has the unfortunate effect of making all keys sound the same, and therefore largely removes the point of modulating in the first place... Roman Turovsky: Why is it then that composers start modulating only when the temperament becomes sufficiently equalized? To Martin: The point of modulating has little to do with the character of keys, but with the progression from one key and pitch level to another. If the keys all sound alike, it makes perfect sense to go from C minor to d minor to G major to C major in a movement, but it doesn't alter the sound much to start in b minor instead of c minor. To Roman: You assumed your conclusion. Composers modulated without ET. Not much. Real modulation starts with Frecobaldi and Froberger, who were very much in the pro-ET camp. __ Roman M. Turovsky http://turovsky.org http://polyhymnion.org
Re: equal temperament
Roman wrote: Monteverdi operas modulate sufficiently for Claudio M. to have him ask his musicians to tune in ET, for which he suffered criticism from a gentleman named Artusi. I wrote: I ... can't find any reference to equal temperament from either Monteverdi or Artusi. Perhaps you could specify? Roman wrote: You might still have Margo Schulter's message with the info. I have deleted all of them... I can't seem to delete newsgroup postings. Last December 7, Margo said that Artusi took Monteverdi to task for writing intervals that sounded harsh in the less-tempered tuning of singers, though they would sound OK on lutes, which were more tempered (Margo accepts uncritically Lindley's interpretation that lutes were normally tuned in equal temperament. I voice disagreement whenever I happen to read one of her posts, which isn't all that often). Nothing about instructing musicians to play in equal temperament (Artusi could not have known what Monteverdi told his musicians, and Artusi's signed essays did not even mention Monteverdi's name). Modulation didn't enter into it. Nor did Monteverdi's operas, which didn't yet exist. I didn't say that Artusi's criticism was directed at CM's instructions. It was directed at his practice. Composers are practical creatures and I doubt they were given to the masochism and snobbery of the type of our friend in Helsinki. I think we can permit ourselves some perspicacious conjecture that CM tuned in ET because long cyclical works go through such a sufficient number of different keys that ET would have been warranted.And it solves a lot more problems that it creates. RT
