Hola Monica!
> I was rather surprised to read the following when going through the correspondence on Lutenet! > I said that: > "For the guitar I see an entirely different cause: like the ukelele the > instrument needed to be heard in the open air (imagine Spain or the New > World). By having as many strings in the alto register as possible the > guitar became louder in rasgado style playing. Lower strings at the basses, > in combination with the relatively short scale, were not too useful. Much > later some composers started to use the high notes that are available on the > 4th and 5th courses in treble melody lines." > > What Sanz says is that double bordones on the 4th & 5th courses i.e. no treble strings - are more suitable for "noisy >outdoor music". Having all the strings in the tenor register doesn't really make the instrument louder when played rasgado. > The ukelele doesn't really come into it. I think especially for open air performance the plain gut basses of the five course guitar are not very useful. The 'musica ruidosa' that Sanz speaks of could refer to another (indoor?) situation. 'el que quiere taner guitarra para hazer musica ruidosa, o accompagnarse el baxo con alguno tono, o sonada, es mejor con bordones la guitarra, que sin ellos. It seems that he speaks of basso continuo (and, indeed , of 'noisy music'). In his time, in Spain, every use of strumming may have been seen as 'noisy'. As you know Sanz, Marin and Gueray did hardly use this technique. It could be understood as a way to say that bourdons are useful for strumming in the old-fashioned or popular style. My point (rather speculative) was that the origins of the re-entrant tuning may have come from outdoor playing, possibly a century or more before Sanz. I have the impression that certain frequencies (middle-higher) of early plucked instruments reach further outdoors than lower ones. Hence the (respectful) ukelele comparison. L. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
