From: p00168@psilink.com (James F. Tims)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar
Subject: Re: Help out a new guy
Date: 19 Nov 92 06:08:58 GMT
Organization: Semper Excelsior
X-Mailer: PSILink (3.2)

>DATE:   18 Nov 92 21:44:54 GMT
>FROM:   Mark Basinski <basinski@biosci.arizona.edu>
>
>In article <1992Nov17.201710.324@netcom.com>, seifert@netcom.com (Rich
>Seifert) wrote:
>> > [talking about Mudarra's "Fantasia" that sounds like a harp (sorry, I
>> > forget the actual title)]
>>
[...]
>> 
>> We are left with a decision on maintaining the intent of the composer,
>> or going for the most beautiful (to our ears) sound. I (any many
>> others) opt for the latter, but it is just interesting to note that
>> this is more OUR sensibilities than the composer's.
>> 
> Don't forget that the original publications were kind of like today's
> "E-Z Guitar" methods, in that they were intended for a non-professional
>market, and much of the music in them is fairly easy (though there are 
>plenty of exceptions to that too!). There is also other issues:
>	
>		* the "ringing-through" sound is actually fairly dissonant (technically
>	    speaking) and to "early-renaissance-ears" might have been considered
>	    very ugly and to be avoided!
>
>  *  the kind of strings they had might not have sustained enough to have
>	    the same kind of effect?
>
>There is the whole brouhaha about "authentic performance" - i.e. in certain
>circles it would be considered "sacrilege" to perform this music on any
>thing except an "original instrument" (or copy thereof). Other music
>writers,
>in particular, Richard Taruskin, has made fun of the "authenticity" 
>fanatics - how can we possibly know what is "authentic" and have that have
>the same meaning in our day and age? 

I played gut strings once -- really dull.  I have no doubt that Tarrega
would have preferred nylon.  A vihuela was just a guitar built
before they figured out how to make one properly -- Mudarra would have
rather had a Hauser. 

Except for harpsichords, klavichords and lutes, I find almost all
early instruments extremely dreary.  Recorders are especially annoying,
associated as they are with those vague English ditties that always
sound a little out of tune as the minstrels play merrily away while
Errol Flynn talks a little treason with the Sheriff. And those old
trumpets!  Boy, do they stink up Mozart, or what?  Sort of like
the brass section's version of gut strings.  Odd about the violins,
cellos, and basses, though...hmmm.  I feel some major heat all of a
sudden. 8^[

>
>	The music deserves to at least be studied with the original fingering, to 
>see if you can get the feel of what the composer wanted, but if you like
>the campanella effect (and it was used by other lutenists/guitarists of the
>period, Sanz in particular), then play it that way.
>----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Mark Basinski      Internet: basinski@biosci.arizona.edu

Mark is right, as usual, and I'm sure I've opened up myself for further
bashing already, so in for a dime, in for a dollar. 8^)  I'll make the
ever-popular analogy to sports, e.g. gymnastics or ice-skating.  Certainly,
the techniques of any pursuit are enriched by generations of inspired
contributors.  Sonja Henie looks brittle and clumsy compared with
Dorothy Hamil, for instance.  I was surprised to learn, in 1960, that
I, a 17 year old recreational swimmer, could easily break Johnny
Weismuller's Olympic records.  Why?  Because I knew how to swim and he
didn't.  Nobody knew how to swim back then.  Any good  RC Water Safety
Instructor can easily eclipse world records set well into the '30s.  
Eddie the Eagle would have won the Gold Medal back in the '20s.  But
there is more than simply the physical aspects of this analogy, that is
the methods, studies, drills, metronomes, reach development exercises,
and so forth.  New ways to turn a phrase are tried, and some are kept
as sounding more beautiful than others.  Sometimes even Bach can benefit,
in my opinion at least, from a little Romantic phrasing here and there,
ways of playing scales and bridges borrowed from my Chopin days.
(I started on piano.)  I think it was Schubert that once remarked
(I could DEFINITELY be wrong here, but somebody said it.), "When
Chopin plays my music, I sound like a genius. When I play it, I
sound like a music teacher.".  So what was Schubert's
"intent"?  This would indicate to me that there can be more music 
in a piece than a composer even realized.

One piece that every child should be able to play on a piano by the
age of eight is Bach's Prelude #1 from the Wohltempiert Klavier.  I
still like to play it from time to time, but the doubled bass Cs in the last
few bars are out of the guitar's range.  Parkening hits the C twice,
and, if you ask me, it sounds better on the piano that way, too.  I
guess I'm just a Philistine.

Be nice, Mark.  I'm just a stupid amateur musician with enough talent
and training to know that I have totally inadequate amounts of both.

(ASIDE: Anyone wondering about the odd use of quotation marks is referred
to alt.fan.dan-quayle.  The "inside/outside" dilemna has been resolved.)


-- 
jim tims 
"And if you're a miner, when you're too tired and old and sick and stupid
to do your job properly, you have to go, whereas just the opposite applies
with the judges."  Beyond the Fringe
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical.guitar