split 4th 1

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Comment by Monica Hall on April 8, 2015 at 10:02

I think you are right about it being a 5-course instrument.   You cant really see how many pegs there are.  The drawing can't have been made much before 1630 as apparently Carlo Cantu was born in 1609.   A 17th century drawing doesn't shed much light on what Leroy and Morlaye might have done a hundred years earlier.

Comment by Monica Hall on April 7, 2015 at 8:40

To continue...

What Bermudo says does not  underline the universal use of standard tuning.   Michael has taken the sentence out of context and omitted part of it.  

 Bermudo says that “They usually put on the 4^th course another string” which suggests that they did not always.  

 f.96 -  Suelen poner a la quarta de la guitarra otra cuerda, que le llaman requinta.  No se, si quando este nombre pusieron a la tal cuerda: formava con la dicha quarta un diapente, que es quinta perfecta: y por esto tomo nombre de requinta.  Ahora no tienen este temple: mas forman ambas cuerdas una octava: segun tiene el laud, o vihuela de Flandes  Este instrumento teniendo las tres, o quatro ordenes de cuerdas dobladas, que forman entre si octavas: dizen tener las cuerdas requintadas.

 They usually put on the fourth course of the guitar another string which they call "requinta".  I do not know whether when they gave this name to this string {in the past] it made the interval of a 5th with the  fourth course, and for this reason it has this name.  Today it is not tuned in this way;  instead the two strings form an octave in the same way as on the lute, or "vihuela de Flandes" [i.e. another name for the lute].   Because this instrument [i.e. the lute] has three or four strings doubled in octaves they say that it has its strings "requintadas". 

As far as the 6-4 chords are concerned in most instances the sensible option is to omit the 4th course. The treble string is just duplicating the 5th of the chord which is usually present in the chord anyway. LeRoy does do this at cadences quite a lot but Morlaye is a bit less fussy. The other thing is that the 4th course is often tuned down a tone to ensure that chords at cadences are in the correct inversion.  No need to resort to split courses.....

Comment by Monica Hall on April 7, 2015 at 8:30

The three examples which Michael refers to are flawed and can’t be taken as proof that of the stringing arrangement which he proposes was ever adopted.  

Giovanni Smit 4-course guitar (Vienna Kuntsthistorisches Museum SAM 49) 

This is actually one of a pair of similar instruments dating 1646.  As Cogg says the present stringing is just what the Museum has come up with and gives no indication of the original arrangement.  It is uncertain whether the bridge, or the spacing of the strings is  original.

What is not clear from the photos is that both instruments are very small with a scale length of only 37cms - much smaller than what is considered the norm for 4-course guitar;   

Michael says “The Smit guitar was undoubtedly tuned according to Ex.2a” i.e.with a bourdon on the 4^th course.   We simply don’t know whether this was so.   It would certainly have been tuned at least a minor 3^rd higher than what is assumed to be standard 4-course guitar pitch today. Pitch: c" (or d" ).  Hardly suitable for the 16^th century  4-course repertoire. 

The two other two drawings which he has reproduced are just artists impressions – they are not pbotographs.  The Cellier drawing may not be accurate. There are obvious errors in the some of the other drawings in the manuscript.  

French/Flemish iconography.   

 The illustrations in the Morlaye books and in Phalese clearly show the strings equally spaced on all courses. 

There are at least two other illustrations showing normal string spacing.

 Harvey Turnbull  pl. 17a & 18 & p. 141.  Both show the strings of the  4^th course close together.

 17a      French – engraving from Bib. Nat. Paris.

 18.       Atributed to  Tobias Stimmer 1539-1584.   Swiss painter and illustrator.  Died in Strasbourg. One of 10 engravings in N.Y. Public Library – Astor, Llennox and Tilden Foundation.

 There is also an illustration of a 4-course guitar in a Spanish source Francisco Guerrero – Sacrae Cantiones (Seville, 1555).   It is difficult to see the spacing but it seems to be equal.  Harvey Turnbull pl. 16a & p. 141. 

That's about half of my notes.  Will add the rest separately...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comment by Robert Barto on April 7, 2015 at 7:31

Hello Cogg, 

Yes i know what you mean and these are possibilities. The third and perhaps most convincing example is a drawing by Jacques Cellier 1585 as part of manuscript book including musical instruments presented to King Henry III. This is harder for me to reproduce but I 'll try soon.

Let me make clear here that I have no interest in proving or disproving anything said in the article. I would much prefer that Michael Fink could explain some things but he is apparently not around for this discussion.  (I don't know him, by the way.)

I do find many 6 and 6-4 chords in the Le Roy and Morlaye  problematic when the root position seems to make more sense. So I switched my 4th course octave to the outside yesterday and found that it solved many of these problems. (I'll try to make some recording examples  soon.) But then I talked to my friend Michael Craddock last night and he is absolutely convinced that the octave should be on the inside. I also listened to parts of his CD (which I can highly recommend) and he seemed to solve these problems by just hitting one string or the other, without change of spacing, I think.

I've only been looking at this music for a few months, haven't even decided where the octave should be, and at the moment am not sure what to think. So maybe I'm not the best person to evaluate Michael's article. Placing the two strings of the 4th course a bit farther apart than the strings in the other courses to aid in plucking one or the other is no big deal though and something we all might do on any instrument. I still find it very interesting though what Michael came up with.

Monica I'd be curious to hear your comments on the article.

Cogg thanks for your comment and glad to hear you're a fan...even at that level.

Comment by Monica Hall on April 5, 2015 at 21:51

Sorry to say I was unconvinced by a lot of what Michael said.  I made some detailed notes when I read the article but I will wait and see what more you have to say about it before posting them.   The whole article seems to me to be based on a false premise - or two - that the 6/4 chords were considered unacceptable and that split course technique was widely used to eliminate them.  Too late for more than that tonight!

Comment by Robert Barto on April 2, 2015 at 9:08

In the LSA Quarterly winter 2012 Michael Fink has a very interesting article about the historical use of split fourth courses on the 4-course guitar. The point being that the player can then choose whether to play the bourdon or the octave. (for more proper voice leading and avoiding indiscriminate 6-4 chords.) I'm not sure why one needs it for both right and left hands though.

  Queen Marie's Dump is used in this article as an example of writing which completely avoids these problems by using the guitar more as a lute I think. More about the piece and source later.