[VIHUELA] Re: Matteis
Hi Monica, I've been tackling similar passages for transcription recently. As the printed notations offer no guarantee of being error free and as such inconsistencies in notation are common (see Matteis p. 29 2nd bar, where the same chord has a muted 5th course but no dot on the 1st course) I look for evidence of the fully strummed voicing in use elsewhere and also take into account my own preferences. Valdambrini notates the clashing D sharp and open E on a number of occasions. I don't have my sources to hand at the moment but I wouldn't be surprised to find it in Corbetta/Bartolotti/Foscarini too. A 4/3 clash in the context of a cadence is quite a common (see also the grating dissonance in Matteis's 'extraordinary' alternative cadence on B on page 12). All in all I don't find the inclusion of the open courses too offensive. Then again, I'd probably play the chord differently as it re-occurred. Maybe including the open 1st course on one occasion and sounding just the inner courses on another depending on how dissonant I wanted the chord to sound. Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 16:12:40 + To: hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk CC: vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu From: mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Matteis It is on p.2 at the end of the third stave. Whilst you are looking at the book could you also look at the following piece on p.3, the last stave. You will see that the same phrase occurs twice. Matteis has indicated that the 4th and 5th courses are to be omitted the first time (in the first full bar) with dots, but the second time (bar 5) there are no dots! Monica - Original Message - From: [1]Martyn Hodgson To: [2]Monica Hall Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 4:08 PM Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Matteis Page no in 1682 original plse M __ From: Monica Hall [3]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk To: Vihuelalist [4]vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, 14 November 2013, 15:34 Subject: [VIHUELA] Matteis On p.260 of his dissertation Alex Dean has reproduced two passages from Matteis's False consonances. In his transcription of the excerpt at the top of the page Dean proposes that the open 1st and 5th courses should be included in all the chords in the 2nd and 3rd bars. Although Matteis does put dots on the lines very frequently to indicate that courses should be omitted he has not done so here. However he does not seem to me to be wholly consistent about putting in the dots, about putting inas for open courses - or for that matter in indicating whether 4 part chords should be strummed. I wonder how many people on the list - who can be bothered to look at it - would include the open course in this passage. Perhaps we could have a vote on it! As ever Monica -- To get on or off this list see list information at [5]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk 2. mailto:mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk 3. mailto:mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk 4. mailto:vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu 5. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
[VIHUELA] Re: Matteis
__ From: natasha.mi...@hotmail.co.uk To: mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Subject: RE: [VIHUELA] Re: Matteis Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:33:39 + I agree that the melodic line should be taken into account. I found when transcribing Foscarini's music that some of his more ambiguous dissonante chords worked better melodically when some of the courses were muted. Sorry if I was unclear but I was referring to the 'otherwise' cadence in B on page 12. The notations imply, to me at least, that the A sharp is to be re-struck in the final B chord. Valdambrini's notations are clearer. He notates an 0 when open strings are to be included. Some of his harmonies are pretty adventurous. If you have his 1646 book to hand there is a B chord with an open 1st course indicated on the third system of page 12. There are many more examples in the 5th passacaglia in the 1647 book (p.17, 6th and 7th system). Valdambrini does not notate an 0 when he wants the inner courses to sound alone. In the 1st bar of the 2nd system (p.17) this serves an obvious melodic purpose. Natasha Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:04:21 + To: natasha.mi...@hotmail.co.uk CC: vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu From: mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Matteis Thanks for your helpful reply. The piece on p.2 is actually a solo piece, not part of the section on accompaniment. I can see no objection to including the 5th course at least in the first chord as it is the dominant 7th and with the French tuning will sound in the upper octave but if you include the 1st course throughout the passage it spoils the melodic line which seems to me to be an important element in the composition. The second example which Dean has given on the same page p.260 but hasn't transcribed is from Matteis p.50, the 1st system. This is illustrating a 4-3 suspension. The bass line is figured and Matteis has not indicated that the 7th should be included in the chord. As far as the melodic line is concerned it is also more varied if the 1st course is not repeated all the way through. This same progression occurs in the example on p.30/2nd system/2nd bar. On the 5th quaver he has duplicated the note E in unison - there is an a on line 1 as well as an f on line 2. Again it seems to me that the melodic line is paramount. The same progression occurs in the last bar. These examples are supposed to illustrate basic progressions used in continuo accompaniment .It seems to me to be reading far more into them than Matteis intended to suggest that they represent the unusual dissonance associated with Italian monody. In the 'extraordinary' alternative cadence on B (on page 12) the suspended 4th is doubled on the 5th course but with the French tuning it will be in unison with the B on the 3rd course. The A# is given as a single note. The chord is not to be repeated. Corbetta does this a lot. In the examples in the initial section - from p8-13 he doesn't seem to put any dots in. On p12 - the second of the exmples labeled Otherwise the 4th and 5th courses can't possibly be included in the 1st chord which is G# C# F# resolving to E# although he has indicated that it should be strummed. You could go on .listing all the discrepancies. I must have a look at Valdambrini.. How literally do you take the notation? As ever Monica - Original Message - From: Natasha Miles natasha.mi...@hotmail.co.uk To: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Cc: Vihuela List vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 6:13 PM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: Matteis Hi Monica, I've been tackling similar passages for transcription recently. As the printed notations offer no guarantee of being error free and as such inconsistencies in notation are common (see Matteis p. 29 2nd bar, where the same chord has a muted 5th course but no dot on the 1st course) I look for evidence of the fully strummed voicing in use elsewhere and also take into account my own preferences. Valdambrini notates the clashing D sharp and open E on a number of occasions. I don't have my sources to hand at the moment but I wouldn't be surprised to find it in Corbetta/Bartolotti/Foscarini too. A 4/3 clash in the context of a cadence is quite a common (see also the grating dissonance in Matteis's 'extraordinary' alternative cadence on B on page 12). All in all I don't find the inclusion of the open courses too offensive. Then again, I'd probably play the chord differently as it re-occurred. Maybe including the open 1st course on one occasion
[VIHUELA] Re: G chord on Baroque Guitar
Just a thought, Possibly it has something to do with smooth transition from the chord most likely to precede G major (chord V, D major). If you play a D on the second course you have a finger already prepared for the final G chord. Natasha Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:13:01 +0100 To: mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk CC: vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu From: hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: G chord on Baroque Guitar Dear Monica, When you write 'The point is that the alfabeto chords (and other chords) are arranged in the way that most conveniently fits them on to the guitar fingerboard. The order of the notes and which ones are doubled is determined by practical considerations not by what anyone may have learnt in their harmony course.' your second sentence about the irrelevance of formal rules of harmony seems to me to accurately reflect how these chords probably became established. However the first sentence begs the original question: viz. why show as 20033 rather than 20003? Here, as others have already pointed out, I really do think there was some conscious decision made (by strummers before the days of recorded alfabeto) - in my view probably to duplicate the fifth rather than the third because the latter was already strong being the first course struck in a downwards strum. Also if there is a bourdon on the fourth course (ie the Corbetta/ French tuning which might reflect an earlier practice than generally recorded - certainly the four course guitar had an octave on the fourth course) if the 2nd course were taken open you would only have one string (the higher of the fifth course) for the upper octave fifth but four strings for the thirds; in this case fingering the 2nd course gives more equality between the thirds and fifths rgds Martyn --- On Mon, 10/9/12, Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk wrote: From: Monica Hall mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: G chord on Baroque Guitar To: Chris Despopoulos despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com Cc: Vihuelalist vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Date: Monday, 10 September, 2012, 14:32 Well - I think we are getting a bit bogged down here. The point is that the alfabeto chords (and other chords) are arranged in the way that most conveniently fits them on to the guitar fingerboard. The order of the notes and which ones are doubled is determined by practical considerations not by what anyone may have learnt in their harmony course. Most of them can't be easily be rearranged or refingered and in the context in which they are used there is not a lot of point in doing so. In what circumtances would you want to use one form of Chord A rather than another? The chords in Sanz' Labyrinth are the same old basic chords played in different positions on the fingerboard. They are not revoiced or re-arranged in any way. What Sanz has in mind is plaing different harmonic progressions at different pitches not altering the chords themselves. I don't perceive music in alfabeto as being a way of getting you to play the guitar or some sort of stepping stone to doing something superior. It is a perfectly valid tradition in its own right. After all people had been playing the 4-course guitar for years before alfabeto came on the scene. Obviously you can do things like inserting 4-3 suspensions and 7th into the chords and adding ornamentation and of course you can write out completely different chords in tablature. Improvisation doesn't mean doing something completely out of character. Monica - Original Message - From: Chris Despopoulos [1]despopoulos_chr...@yahoo.com To: Monica Hall [2]mjlh...@tiscali.co.uk; David van Ooijen [3]davidvanooi...@gmail.com Cc: Vihuelalist [4]vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 9:22 AM Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: G chord on Baroque Guitar I have an opinion -- Giving that opinion may open me up to some clarification, which is why I'm giving it. In other words, if I'm wrong about this, please let me know! When playing the modern guitar, I'll choose to add the D on the 2nd course (from high to low) or not, at will. Considerations include practical (as Monica stated for chord changes), leading notes, or general emphasis within the musical context. Everybody learns the G chord (modern) in various ways, and then later sees other people playing it with variations. At some point, one tries all the variations at least once. My opinion is that the Alfabeto is there to get you playing the guitar... Same as rudimentary chord books today. See your typical Ukulele book, for example. Sanz expanded on the Alfabeto with his
