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Rasgueado

Is there a Baroque text that gives technical details for rasgueado? You see plenty of creative variation on youtube, but I wonder what is the historical evidence? Following what I can discern from Sanz or Corbetta, it looks like either straight alternations up and down, probably at the same division as whatever the primary division for the punteado is, (eighth notes, say.) or in a triple feel, two down and one up. Is there a source that delves into this further?

Likewise, is golpe accurate for this time, or inferred based on flamenco traditions?

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Permalink Reply by Monica Hall on December 3, 2015 at 17:13

Well this is what Montesardo says in the introduction to the book...

My principal profession is that of a composer of madrigals and other serious forms of music. Nevertheless in order at once to please our lively and noble youth and to obey their honest wishes I must try to play a new rôle. And because many of the gentlemen and noblemen with whom I have spent much of my life have always desired to know how to play the Spanish guitar, I need to take special care, in order to please them. For they not only wish to know how to play this instrument but have also urged me to invent an Easy Rule so that they can learn to play in the correct time and measure without having either notes or numbers. And so that anyone can learn to play the aforesaid instrument, I decided to publish this newly invented very easy rule. Anyone who studies the rule which I will show you will be able to play according to it without having a teacher. You will quickly be able to achieve the noble and charming accomplishments which you desire.

I suppose we can't be certain about what these lively and noble youths wanted to learn to play the guitar for but in general it was regarded as desirable for them to learn to play a musical instrument to amuse themselves and keep them out of mischief. They would have played solos, accompanied themselves singing and played for dances. We know that this is the sort of thing which the privileged young got up to.....

The whole of Montesardo's introduction is translated on my web page.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Brettschneider on December 3, 2015 at 17:30

I read that introduction, and what I took him to mean was very different from what I meant by performance. but then, I realize that what classical guitarists consider to be "performance" today would likely be very different from guitar "performance" in the 17th C. I want to come to a better understanding of what guitar performances, both amateur and professional, would have looked like at that time, but I am at a loss here as well.

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Permalink Reply by Monica Hall on December 4, 2015 at 10:50

To resume professional guitarists would not have given recitals in concert halls to paying audiences as they do today. They would have been employed as servants to wealthy patrons and played for them and their guests as required. De Visee used to play to Louis IV in his bed chamber when he retired for the night. Professional players would have taken part in more formal circumstances e.g. as one of the instrumentalist accompanying opera or in church. But these would still be for the benefit of fairly small groups of wealthy people. Public concerts with paying audiences begin to happen towards the end of the 17th century. Amateur players would have played for their own amusement which is more like what they do today.

Permalink Reply by Monica Hall on December 3, 2015 at 16:46

Your query about the golpe seems to have been overlooked. It does appear in the Santiago de Murcia manuscript known as the Codice Saldivar which was copied around 1730. So it is acceptable although we don't know how often or how widely it was used.