[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
i've been gently reminded of the deja-charango-vu quality of this discourse and a reluctance to return to it. google has a feature which scans the internet looking for a selected word or phrase and gives notice - alerts, they're called - when it comes up. using this facility i placed 5c. vihuela in the search engine recently and was not especially flattered - just a little alarmed, in fact - to discover that most of the resulting references came from me. so in conclusion ... chaps! ... chapettes! ... oyez-oyez! - there's a wonderful little 5c. instrument from south america that's eminently suitable to the sort of music we enjoy playing and listening to. it's relatively inexpensive, readily available and lots and lots of fun to play. give one a try - you'll love it. it's called a ... http://earlymusiccharango.blogspot.com/ ___ New Yahoo! Mail is the ultimate force in competitive emailing. Find out more at the Yahoo! Mail Championships. Plus: play games and win prizes. http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
i was taken with the face test employed by ms. tey to establish the true character of richard. i downloaded portraits of both him and henry VII and placed them side by side on my computer screen and ... whatever i may thought about richard prior to the reading of her novel ... opposite the decidedly dodgy face of henry - he (richard) looks like a genuine bloke. The well known portrait of Richard III was not made during his life time. It is a much later copy of a no longer existant painting! There are other more contemporary portraits of him which are more enigmatic and less flattering. based solely on the evidence suppied in the novel, i don't think he did it. Last night I read through the relevant section on the Princes in the Tower in Paul Kendall's biography of Richard - which makes the point that there isn't enough eviedence - after 600 years - to prove who murdered them. It is surprising that after all this time we still get worked up about it! Probably because of Shakespeare's play! I think we are too ready to attribute our own values and ideas of right and wrong to people in the past. It was par for the course in the 15th - and 16th century to grab the crown and bump off any other possible contenders. Richard would only have been doing what everyone else before and after him did in the late Middle Ages. Don't believe everything you read in historical fiction! much in the way that a side-by-side comparison of an acknowledged vihuela and a classically proportioned charango will reveal more deep-seeded bonds of kinship than any incidental diaspora of otherness. I am not sure about that! As with Richard, we can't really prove anything one way or another. Monica To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
do you mean that the portrait in (i think) the queen's collection is not a contemporary painting? the one i'm referring to has him fiddling with his rings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England .. i thought x-ray examination of the painting revealed that the slight hump was added a later date. admittedly irrational - as if there wasn't enough contemporary injustice - but i get worked up about the cathars as well. i wonder if britain's first past the post principle in politics works in hip circles as well - the first idea wins and anything subsequent to it gets the who's to say ... think what you like ribbon. - bill --- Monica Hall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i was taken with the face test employed by ms. tey to establish the true character of richard. i downloaded portraits of both him and henry VII and placed them side by side on my computer screen and ... whatever i may thought about richard prior to the reading of her novel ... opposite the decidedly dodgy face of henry - he (richard) looks like a genuine bloke. The well known portrait of Richard III was not made during his life time. It is a much later copy of a no longer existant painting! There are other more contemporary portraits of him which are more enigmatic and less flattering. based solely on the evidence suppied in the novel, i don't think he did it. Last night I read through the relevant section on the Princes in the Tower in Paul Kendall's biography of Richard - which makes the point that there isn't enough eviedence - after 600 years - to prove who murdered them. It is surprising that after all this time we still get worked up about it! Probably because of Shakespeare's play! I think we are too ready to attribute our own values and ideas of right and wrong to people in the past. It was par for the course in the 15th - and 16th century to grab the crown and bump off any other possible contenders. Richard would only have been doing what everyone else before and after him did in the late Middle Ages. Don't believe everything you read in historical fiction! much in the way that a side-by-side comparison of an acknowledged vihuela and a classically proportioned charango will reveal more deep-seeded bonds of kinship than any incidental diaspora of otherness. I am not sure about that! As with Richard, we can't really prove anything one way or another. Monica http://earlymusiccharango.blogspot.com/ ___ Yahoo! Answers - Got a question? Someone out there knows the answer. Try it now. http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
- Original Message - From: Monica Hall [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: bill kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 10:27 AM Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango do you mean that the portrait in (i think) the queen's collection is not a contemporary painting? the one i'm referring to has him fiddling with his rings: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England .. i thought x-ray examination of the painting revealed that the slight hump was added a later date. According to what it says in wikipedia this is a 19th century copy of the painting. I don't know where it is. The best known version of the same portrait is in the National Portrait Gallery in London and dates from ca. 1590. This may be a copy of an earlier painting. He still had supporters in the 16th century! In the Pitkin guide Richard III there is a rather similar portrait of him which is probably contemporary. He is facing in the opposite direction and wearing the same cap but a slightly differenct jacket, but still fiddling with his rings! His left shoulder is slightly higher than his right. He probably was slightly deformed, but not grotesquly so. The booklet doesn't say where the portrait is exhibited. admittedly irrational - as if there wasn't enough contemporary injustice - but i get worked up about the cathars as well. Shakespeare's portrayal of him is so grotesque. I guess the English sense of fair play is the reason why Richard still has a fan club today. He was no worse than the rest of them. i wonder if britain's first past the post principle in politics works in hip circles as well - the first idea wins and anything subsequent to it gets the who's to say ... think what you like ribbon. I'm not sure whether it is due to the first past the post principle but I would agree that in general once an idea has been established it gets repeated ad infinitum and it is very difficult to alter accepted wisdom. My favourite example of this is the biography of Santiago de Murcia which is entirely a work of fiction but which is repeated on the liner notes of every CD of his music and has even been reproduced in two scholarly encyclopedias. Monica To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango (museum)
At 09:16 AM 7/9/2007, bill kilpatrick wrote: here it is: http://www.charangobolivia.org/museodeinstrumentos/index.htm in looking through the photos i see there's a violin in the collection, the sound chamber of which is made from a large, tubular section of bamboo - 4 tuning pegs; more or less the same size but looking nothing like its european ancestors. ... a violango? ... charangolin? ... bamboorangolin? how about ... violin? Without knowing what its makers and players called it, I would also be OK with I don't know, but it is similar to... I suspect curators might label it folk violin or similar. Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
At 03:15 PM 7/9/2007, bill kilpatrick wrote: --- Eugene C. Braig IV [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I still have real difficulty understanding the why of your tireless campaign, Bill. sallying forth, probing the defensives for any signs of weakness ... .. folk violin was a welcome bit mush. - bill (folk vihuelaista) Of course, charango has a commonly applied name, a fine tradition, and skilled luthiers building things with the intent they be named charango. An assumed once-off, 4-string, bowed bamboo tube is not so fortunate. The names of musical instruments tend to be rather plastic across time and place and are most useful as a means of communicating amongst people of like mind. I almost always thus believe the status quo name as applied by contemporary builders, players, and writers (whether I like the name or not) to be the most efficient and useful. Charango as vihuela, whatever its kinships or similarities with earlier similar things, just doesn't cut it as status quo and creates obfuscation, requiring additional explanation...especially to those who already know what is expected of things named charango and vihuela (either 16th-c. or modern). Best, E To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
The names of musical instruments tend to be rather plastic across time and place and are most useful as a means of communicating amongst people of like mind. I almost always thus believe the status quo name as applied by contemporary builders, players, and writers (whether I like the name or not) to be the most efficient and useful. I agree. Charango as vihuela, whatever its kinships or similarities with earlier similar things, just doesn't cut it as status quo and creates obfuscation, requiring additional explanation...especially to those who already know what is expected of things named charango and vihuela (either 16th-c. or modern). Best, E To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
--- Eugene C. Braig IV [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Charango as vihuela, whatever its kinships or similarities with earlier similar things, just doesn't cut it as status quo and creates obfuscation, requiring additional explanation...especially to those who already know what is expected of things named charango and vihuela (either 16th-c. or modern). imagine how obfuscated 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and even 19th cent. players of south american vihuelas might have felt had their instruments been refered to as charangos ... and how obfuscating they would have viewed some tut-tutting, 21st cent. hip-ster telling them they've got it all wrong. you've ennobled a bamboo tube readily enough with the name folk violin - what prevents you from extending the honor to the folk vihuela - aka charango? it's irrelevant how many bamboo violins get made or how good the makers of these instruments may become at making them - they'll always be violins. if kinship is acknowledged between a vihuela and a charango - at what point in history did one become the other? ... and why? historical information tells us that early pluckers in south america referred to their chordaphones as vihuelas - who are we to tell them they're wrong? at what point did the folk application of this instrument demand a change of nomenclature? the advent of national radio broadcasting systems in south america - late 1920's ... 1930's perhaps? - assuming folk music was even allowed on the airways at that time. folk vihuela seems a perfectly reasonable, comprehensive and historically informed name for the charango and the gatto (me' old plum) is out of the sacco. - bill http://earlymusiccharango.blogspot.com/ ___ Now you can scan emails quickly with a reading pane. Get the new Yahoo! Mail. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
- Original Message - From: bill kilpatrick [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, July 9, 2007 6:33 pm Subject: Re: [VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango imagine how obfuscated 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th and even 19th cent. players of south american vihuelas might have felt had their instruments been refered to as charangos ... and how obfuscating they would have viewed some tut-tutting, 21st cent. hip-ster telling them they've got it all wrong. I would never do so. Instruments are called whatever their contemporaries, especially their makers, are calling them. I call my 6-course mandolino mandolino (or mandolin as an English speaker) because it is a deliberate reproduction of an early 18th-c. original, and the majority of its literature names it that. There are some who would name such things Milanese mandolin, Lombardian mandolin, or any other number of things that I don't use because there is no period precedent. I call my modern guitars guitar in spite of the fact that what was called guitar 500 years ago was substantially different (and those differencs are pretty evident in spite of the name). If we know the name, these things should be named what they were named by their makers and users at the time they were made. you've ennobled a bamboo tube readily enough with the name folk violin You seem to have missed my stated acceptance for I don't know, but it is similar to... If its a one-off, whatever you call it is more a description than a formal type designation. I know of a particualr Embergher mandolin in an American collection like no other, hybridizing a number of construction features from a number of different types. I know one organologist who was eager to name a conceptual mandolin type after the thing. Personally, I don't see the point unless we know what Embergher called it. We don't, so I wouldn't be so bold beyond naming it mandolin and describing its features. - what prevents you from extending the honor to the folk vihuela - aka charango? Appropriate deference to the status quo of its time of construction. Revisionist nomenclature is not a manner of conferring some perceived para-honor on a thing; it simply is a patently bad idea. Why is vihuela honorable but charango not? it's irrelevant how many bamboo violins get made or how good the makers of these instruments may become at making them - they'll always be violins. If enough people build and play them to name them such. if kinship is acknowledged between a vihuela and a charango - at what point in history did one become the other? ... and why? I don't know and because that's what their contemporaries came to name them, respectively. historical information tells us that early pluckers in south america referred to their chordaphones as vihuelas - who are we to tell them they're wrong? Not me because they weren't. Instrument are/were called whatever their makers and users called them. Travelers continued to carry things called guitarra to the Americas, even smallish 5-course things that could be considered more similar to charango than the vihuela of Milan and Mudarra, but you don't argue that people should acknowledge charango is guitar. Why vihuela and not chitarrino or similar? Vihuela or viola is still used for some variants today, so that's what they are called even if they aren't set up to play the music of Milan as written. at what point did the folk application of this instrument demand a change of nomenclature? Whenever it happened for whatever reason. I don't think a folk application is necessarily a defining characteristic of charango. You know as well as anybody that there are people playing formally composed art music on charango as artfully as the music can be played...and naming their instruments charango in general. An example I personally know better: Even today, players of Irish music are calling a thing cittern that is very much like the ca. 1900 Neapolitan liuto cantabile (and much less like renaissance-era citterns). I don't necessarily like it, but that's what it is. folk vihuela seems a perfectly reasonable, comprehensive and historically informed name for the charango and the gatto (me' old plum) is out of the sacco. It doesn't fit for me because nobody else (as far as I know) calls it that, called it that, or built instruments under that name. It just mucks up communication, and frankly, flies in the face of the craftsman who assembled it. When it becomes status quo for the world at large to abandon the fine charango tradition and begin building similar things named folk vihuela (which seems quaintly diminutive and perhaps a little disrespectful somehow) as the status quo, I'll be on board...but I'll still call things built today as charango charango because that's what its makers and users (at least the bulk of them) seem to be calling it. Eugene To get on or off this list see list information
[VIHUELA] Re: richard III and the charango
kindest regards - i was taken with the face test employed by ms. tey to establish the true character of richard. i downloaded portraits of both him and henry VII and placed them side by side on my computer screen and ... whatever i may thought about richard prior to the reading of her novel ... opposite the decidedly dodgy face of henry - he (richard) looks like a genuine bloke. based solely on the evidence suppied in the novel, i don't think he did it. much in the way that a side-by-side comparison of an acknowledged vihuela and a classically proportioned charango will reveal more deep-seeded bonds of kinship than any incidental diaspora of otherness. - bill http://earlymusiccharango.blogspot.com/ ___ Yahoo! Mail is the world's favourite email. Don't settle for less, sign up for your free account today http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/mail/winter07.html To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
