Early Guitars and Vihuela

A network for historic guitars and vihuelas

I recently came accorss a 1966 article by Sylvia Garnsey: The use of Hand-Plucked Instruments in the Continuo Body: Nicola Matteis. Music and Letters, Vol. 47 No. 2 (apr. 1966)

I found it to be a very interesting read. As something written almost half a century ago, it is bound to have some opinions that are no longer current.  However, what struck me the most was that she mentions that Matteis's continuo realizations lead to awkward voicing.  I wouldn't be surprised, but when I strum a chord in a BG I am not really sure I can not really tell the inversion....

Now, the interesting part.  She claims that by tuning the Guitar  Aa dd' gG bB e' (she probably meant aA d'd gG bB e'), Matteis's realizations "...almost  always yielded the chords in their  proper positions".   

It is an usual tuning, and she claims she found it by trial and error. ¿Is this tuning documented anywhere?¿Has anyone ever tried this tuning for continuo work? ¿Any opinions?

Views: 153

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

No - there is no evidence that the b-guitar was ever strung like this and indeed her suggestion is not really practical.   I doubt whether she even played the guitar.   What she doesn't seem to have realised is that putting low octave strings on the 3rd and 2nd courses would create a whole new lot of wrongly inverted chords because these would sound below the low octave strings on the 5th and 4th courses. She almost certainly didn't know that the high octave strings were placed on the thumb side of a course either as that is something that was "discovered" later. In the 1960s very little was known about the baroque guitar and anything written that long ago should be read with extreme caution.   Musicology is a very dynamic discipline. 

RSS

© 2024   Created by Jelma van Amersfoort.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service