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Practical Considerations for Lute Instruments

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Practical Considerations for Lute Instruments Informed Play Robin Rolfhamre, MMus, PhD University of Agder Informed Play APPROACHING A CONCEPT AND BIOLOGY OF TONE PRODUCTION ON EARLY MODERN LUTE INSTRUMENTS © 2018 Robin Rolfhamre. This work is protected under the provisions of the Norwegian Copyright Act (Act No. 2 of May 12, 1961, relating to Copyright in Literary, Scientific and Artistic Works) and published Open Access under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). This license allows third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format for non-commercial purposes only. Third parties are prohibited from applying legal terms or technological measures that restrict others from doing anything permitted under the terms of the license. Note that the license may not provide all of the permissions necessary for an intended reuse; other rights, for example publicity, privacy, or moral rights, may limit third party use of the material. ISBN PDF: 978-82-02-59044-4 ISBN HTML: 978-82-02-60838-5 ISBN EPUB: 978-82-02-60837-8 ISBN XML: 978-82-02-60839-2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.23865/noasp.38 This peer-reviewed monograph has been made possible with support from the University of Agder Open Access Publication Fund. Cover photograph: © Petter Sandell (petterphoto.com) Cover design: Cappelen Damm AS Cappelen Damm Akademisk / NOASP www.noasp.no [email protected] Contents Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................9 Previous work ........................................................................................................................... 11 The ambition.............................................................................................................................13 How to use this book ............................................................................................................. 14 Foundation ............................................................................................................................... 15 Sources and literature ...................................................................................................... 16 Instruments ........................................................................................................................ 18 My own musicianship ...................................................................................................... 18 My earlier publications .................................................................................................... 19 Structure .................................................................................................................................. 20 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 2 Building blocks of the past ..............................................................23 Literature ..................................................................................................................................24 The shape of instruments ...............................................................................................25 Right-hand position ..........................................................................................................27 Right-hand plucking ........................................................................................................ 34 Visual arts ...............................................................................................................................40 Fingering .................................................................................................................................. 49 The preference for open strings and the first position ........................................... 50 The weight distribution of the figuetas technique..................................................... 51 The pronounced figuetas reminiscence of the French Baroque lute repertoire ...............................................................................................................52 The transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque plucked chord ...................53 The right-hand strumming mosaic of Francesco Corbetta (1671, 1674) ............ 54 The offbeat slurs of the Baroque repertoire .............................................................. 56 Silence ................................................................................................................................. 56 Chapter 3 Present discourse ............................................................................59 Instruction articles ................................................................................................................. 61 Instruction books ................................................................................................................... 68 Renaissance Lute .............................................................................................................. 68 Baroque lute ...................................................................................................................... 82 Online resources ..................................................................................................................... 91 They all agree? Then what? .................................................................................................93 5 contents Chapter 4 Something moves ............................................................................97 Sound behaviour as foundation for conceptualising tone production ..................... 99 Sound propagation and lute construction ......................................................................103 Wood and the elements .................................................................................................... 106 Strings .................................................................................................................................... 110 Historical sources .............................................................................................................111 A few notes on modern strings ....................................................................................117 Temperaments, tension and sustain................................................................................122 Practical considerations for lute instruments ...............................................................126 Performing in an acoustical space ...................................................................................129 Chapter 5 To whom it may concern ................................................................ 137 Embodiment ..........................................................................................................................138 Attitudes and behaviours ....................................................................................................141 Self-expression versus communication ..........................................................................146 The social psychology of Self .............................................................................................151 Self-expression and identity ..............................................................................................158 Self-expressive acts and interpreted material ..............................................................159 Chapter 6 Recording ....................................................................................... 165 Recording and engineering mentalities ..........................................................................168 Cosmetics and editing ....................................................................................................171 The Classical recording in a consumer context .......................................................172 Recording technology and authenticity ..........................................................................175 Technological considerations — approaching a biological perspective .................179 Microphones ................................................................................................................... 180 Into the circuit — join the resistance! .........................................................................181 To bits and pieces — on PCM, Nyquist and jitter ...................................................185 Into the press ...................................................................................................................189 A brief note on recorded stereo space ........................................................................... 190 Lute sound as transformative process .......................................................................192 Chapter 7 Conclusion: Approaching a concept and biology of lute sound ... 197 Methodological review .......................................................................................................197 Biological perspective .........................................................................................................199 Conceptual understanding and post scriptum...............................................................203 References ........................................................................................................ 205 Videography .....................................................................................................
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