Dear Lex, You write below that 'I can assure you that many pupils hate them ('barre' chords) intensely.'
Well some beginners may find them a trouble at first but experience tells us that practice soon renders them relatively easy: chords like N P K G are very comfortable under the fingers; perhaps M S & are a little trickier but we've only 5 courses to span not the 6 on the 'modern' guitar. And bear in mind that M is not a million miles from the ubiquitous D major chord shape on a g lute which some lute players nowadays seem to struggle with but which the Old Ones used with abandon. Martyn M --- On Wed, 1/9/10, Lex Eisenhardt <eisenha...@planet.nl> wrote: From: Lex Eisenhardt <eisenha...@planet.nl> Subject: [VIHUELA] Re: stringing and performance To: "Vihuelalist" <vihuela@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Wednesday, 1 September, 2010, 20:49 >> But Amat is rather pedantic about his >> invention, and eager to prove his right. > I don't know what you mean by that. I was thinking of his report of his meeting with the singers in the pub. Seems to have been a self-satisfied exraordinary narrow pedantic guitarist. > What he says is quite simple and > straightforward and works perfectly well in practice. Using a barre is not that difficult! I can assure you that many pupils hate them intensely. It is probably not for nothing that the first seven chords of alfabeto, which are used the most, have no barre. >> Indeed. But if we consider the keys the dances are in, they are almost all >> in G major, G minor, D major, D minor and C major. That seems to reflect >> daily practice. > > So..........if you are just dancing it doesn't matter what key you are in. I thought we were discussing the practice of amateur guitarists. Easy keys without many barre's make the five-course guitar much more practical in self-accompaniment than a six-course instrument [the rest of this message can only be followed with 'The Lute' 47 before you, sorry] > > As far as Pedrual is concerned I think that you are mistaken in assuming that in your second example all four chords are to be strummed in full. It is a very early example of a passage which is intended to be in mixed style. The fact that there are stroke marks does not mean that the second and third chords are to be strummed including all open courses. I know that the transcription is based on a number of assumptions. As would be any transcription. But why on earth would it have to be mixed style? Most chords in ex 3 have unfingered courses. Should we suppose that they should all be plucked? > There is in fact a dot after the stroke symbol above the first chord which you have ignored. It should probably be a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver. All played with downstrokes. Interesting... In the end, for the harmony it does not make a difference. > In a situation like this where there are no bar lines and no note values the stroke marks have a dual function. They indicate the duration of the notes and make the music easier to read. A suitable notation was not invented overnight. It evolved - and that is true of notation as a whole not just baroque guitar notation. You are simply working on the assumption that what the signs mean in later sources should be interpreted in the same way 20-30 years earlier. So, in some occasions the stroke signs are not there to indicate strokes at all ?? Lex To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html