© 2018 Robin Rolfhamre.
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
Tone production is that particular moment when sound is initiated and set free, developing the sounds necessary to present an audible experience. It is a topic that is highly subjective, debated and discussed, which can only exist in relation to the socio-cultural context in which it is being produced. With such a central phenomenon at hand, I ask in this book: ‘how can we understand tone production on Early Modern lute instruments before the 1700s?’
Although there are numerous words used to speak about sound (including terminologies such as ‘tone production,’ ‘timbre,’ ‘tone colour’ and ‘frequency construct’), I find that tone production is the most apt for the argument I wish to present. This is because ‘tone’ (n.) has an inherent sense of a physically-produced sound that mediates something; consider its relations to Old French
Although the lute is perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the music market today, it is nonetheless present in the social and musical community. The instrument enjoyed a revival with the awakening of interest in historical music around 1900 and throughout the twentieth-century. That revival was further boosted by the Early Music Movement in the same century. There are many professional lutenists, especially in Europe, where most of the employment is found and lute performance practise has reached considerable heights in recent years, thanks to a growing number of world-class lutenists, such as Rolf Lislevand, Hopkinson Smith, Paul O’Dette, Miguel Yisrael, Xavier Diaz Latorre, Robert Barto, Nigel North and Anthony Bailes. We can also take note of many guitarists switching over to the lute, and many of them continue practising guitar techniques on the new instrument, thus perhaps not fully exploring the sonic and expressive capacities inherent in the instrument. Many guitarists prefer to play the theorbo as it, most often, is single-strung and therefore suits the modern guitarist’s nail-based technique better than the double-strung instruments.
I wish to present arguments that are directly usable for the performer as well as the scholar. Much published information can be found, but it is scattered (throughout articles, magazines, etc.) and often distinguishes between historical and practical approaches. Furthermore, the literature is often very traditional in its approach, focusing mainly on fingering and experience-based perspectives on performance practices; there is often more emphasis on how something should be played than how it sounds (as will be discussed in full in later chapters). Some scholars are, for instance, not performers and sometimes miss out on important perspectives closely connected to the highest, international-level performances in their research on music performance. Additionally, many prominent performing lutenists do not publish their experience in writing, meaning that their knowledge is only accessible through personal tuition. A few attempts have been made in recent times to present effective methodologies for learning lute practices but they are, more or less, solely designed to provide ‘do it like this’ solutions and do not include more complex perspectives, such as physics and psychology; neither do they present their work in a format that supports and develops academic theoretical perspectives.
Taylor (1978)
On other occasions, it may be equally easy and effective to turn to historical works, but, with some exceptions, they almost never talk clearly about tone production. Only a few approach the subject, but not to an extent that sheds much light on the performer.
Of course, there is a great amount of experience and knowledge preserved in audio and film recordings by high-level international performers of Early Music, but these recordings can often prove difficult to turn into practical knowledge to implement in one’s own playing, mainly because of poor recording quality and a certain distance to the performer, making it difficult to perceive what they are actually doing without much prior knowledge of that particular artist’s practice.
Additionally, some areas within Early Music performance are scarcely treated at all. For example, the
It is my strong opinion that interdisciplinarity is the way to go for Early Modern music performance studies. The problem we meet is how to ensure that the study is indeed interdisciplinary and not only parallel-disciplinary; i.e. how to join the knowledge of several fields together without losing the precision of the argument and without presenting two or more separate, parallel discourses. Furthermore, I am very interested in how artistic practice and traditional academic research can work together to produce knowledge. To me, this is crucial for developing arguments, theories and practices that are interesting and directly useable for musicians, while preserving the academic dimensions and giving the research the proper scientific attention. The present book functions as a sort of meta-argument, from which we can better understand lute tone production from a biological point of view and its morphological aspects. The ‘biology of lute sound’ is a perspective I developed in my earlier study,
The formulations ‘informed play’ and ‘artistic approach to research’ are important keys to understanding and using this book. There will be no definitive answers on how to do things properly; there will be no definitive methodology teaching the right and only way to play. What will be offered, however, is a pool of perspectives, facts and sources from which the reader can make up their own mind about what constitutes a good lute sound; hence, ‘informed play.’ Furthermore, a practice will be presented in which traditional, academic scholarship works hand in hand with musical performance to unveil perspectives that may be lost when only considering the written word. When practical considerations are addressed, I will present arguments based on my own approach to lute playing through case studies of my own instruments. This will be done based on a certain line of thought and foundation of source materials which will give the reader an opportunity to judge for themselves, instead of directly offering a ‘Rolfhamre school of playing.’ This is further grounded in the book’s focus on
The main value of this project lies in the combination of an experience-based discipline with an academic one. Following such an approach, other values are gained: 1) the introduction of a more systematic, reflective approach towards tone production; 2) highlighting of perspectives relating in particular to playing the lute at a professional level; and 3) a contribution to increased competence among lutenists and scholars researching lute instruments, both concerning what is entailed in the different perspectives and what each perspective can contribute to the others.
It is then possible for various types of readers to utilise this book in several ways. Firstly, scholars may be interested in the scientific approach of the book, exploring artistic research as a scholarly practice; obtaining new perspectives on historical music practices; and using it as a handbook to better understand the practical side of lute playing. Secondly, educators and students at institutions around the world may incorporate this book into their tuition, both as support for the course content and as course curriculum. Thirdly, professional lutenists globally may gain new perspectives and inspiration for their own practice, contributing to their artistic development. Finally, amateur lutenists across the globe who are not following any formal course may utilise this book to guide their work. The book naturally follows an argument from beginning to end, but each chapter can be used separately in a course of study, making the book flexible. A sound-recording course curriculum may, for instance, be more interested in Chapter 6, while a beginning lutenist may be more interested in starting with Chapters 2 and 3. The more advanced, intermediate or professional lutenist may find new perspectives in Chapter 4 and 5. These are just a few of the possible approaches to the book.
A study related to historical practice and how that can be realised today depends completely on the foundation from which it emerges, i.e. the common ground on which various discourses, aesthetics and ideologies can start to form. Naturally, in order to justify the arguments that I am presenting here, I find it necessary to present the research foundation which underlies those arguments, in order to clarify the framework in which the argument will unfold. In this section, I will give a brief presentation of how sources and literature, instruments, my own musicianship, and some of my earlier publications have contributed to this book.
An obvious start for any historical inquiry is, of course, literature and sources, which we can divide into original primary sources, secondary sources, literature and practical instructions. Primary sources can be thought of in different terms. Writing about music, for instance, the musical score can be considered a primary source, while literature describing the music can be termed secondary sources. According to Yale’s
Primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning a topic under investigation. They are created by witnesses or recorders who experienced the events or conditions being documented. Often these sources are created at the time when the events or conditions are occurring, but primary sources can also include autobiographies, memoirs, and oral histories recorded later.
The functional definition of primary sources in this book will be based on Yale’s definition, i.e. that primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence concerning the topic under investigation. This would, in the present context, include sources such as musical notation (handwritten manuscripts, engravings and prints) and pedagogical material (historical documents describing how to play an instrument). Due to matters concerning copyright laws, I have chosen to write the examples of music in my own hand. Given that it is the content of the music — not the actual handwriting, print or engraving — that is being considered in this book, it should not present any problems to the interpretation nor the understanding of the given examples.
Secondary sources include documents or recordings that relate to or discuss information originally presented elsewhere. These would then include publications such as letters, poems and encyclopedias.
Literature includes modern scholarly publications treating Early Modern practice. I have focused my corpora of literature mostly on English-language publications, but I have also studied and reviewed relevant publications in French, Italian, German and Spanish. In all instances where I have referred to non-English texts, the translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated. I do not claim to present translations that do justice to the tone and original syntax of the literature from a linguistic perspective, but merely to present functional translations that mediate the intention behind the written words. To give the reader the benefit of judging the translation themselves, I will present both the original text and its translation throughout the book. I have tried to keep the transcription of the original texts as accurate as possible, but I have taken the liberty to alter certain typographical letters, such as ‘v’ to ‘u’ and ‘vv’ to ‘w’, where appropriate, for the sake of clarity. Where
Practical instructions include modern publications directly treating a handicraft, such as how to play lute instruments and how to perform music. Common for practical instructions is that they are often based on the author’s own experience and personal idiolect, rather than on fully-presented academic arguments.
The hierarchy of these sources throughout the book, for the sake of the argument I wish to present, will be:
Primary sources
Secondary sources
Literature
Practical instructions
The book also has an artistic-performance aspect to its research foundation. The instruments used for the practical studies are from my own collection. There are several reasons for this: 1) my approach is founded on a principle that we do not necessarily buy good sound (of course, there are quality differences between instruments and makers), but that it is rather a matter of how we use the instruments; 2) instruments can be expensive and a successful approach to tone production should be grounded in the performer rather than the object; a lutenist playing at a concert is judged on their performance ‘here and now,’ not based on what instrument they may acquire in the future; 3) by using the instruments I have at my disposal at home, I simulate the situation of most readers and therefore the argument of informed play and an artistic approach to research becomes more valid and useful in practise; and finally, 4) I do not find it necessary for the academic argument of the book to use original instruments found in museums. This is because many of them are not playable and their present state corresponds to their lifespan. Some instruments are restored by modern luthiers, but then again, we cannot speak of the ‘original sound’ for the reasons already stated. Modern instruments are in themselves interpretations made from historical evidence, based on the luthier’s understanding, knowledge and artistic agenda; they do not necessarily correspond to what was actually used in the Early Modern era. Modern instruments are also based on a modern perception of what sounds good and what feels good when playing.
Always when dealing with the performance of musical traditions long gone, there are inevitable subjective and intuitive aspects to how a musical performance presents itself. This is not always easy to put on paper, and the ‘ear’ of the beholder plays a crucial role in this process. I will, therefore, present relevant aspects of my own musical background to clarify the perspective which forms the foundation of my readings, interpretations, expectations and understanding.
As a guitarist and lutenist, I was primarily formed by my teachers and mentors, ranging from the beginning of my studies with Theodor Holmer at the Public Music School in Haninge, Sweden, to high school studies at Södra Latin in Stockholm, Sweden, with Bo Hansson and Jan Risberg, to my University-level degrees at the University of Agder, Norway, where I studied with Per Kjetil Farstad and Jan Erik Pettersen. In recent years, Rolf Lislevand has also functioned as an important source of input in my development as a lutenist, which of course has had implications for my approach towards perspectives related to Early Music aesthetics, playing technique and performance.
Additionally, my understanding of Early Modern music (and music in general) stems from my interest in the breaking point between ‘Early Modern art-music’ ( for want of a better term) and what we today label as ‘folk music’. This is an approach based on a pragmatic ideology that I have developed throughout my artistic career based in Scandinavia, and through my studies in music performance (Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees) and research (PhD) — where sound and emotion are favoured before traditional schools and the nearly impossible: complete accuracy.
What’s more, being an Associate Professor at the University of Agder and teaching lute instruments, among other things, has put me in the position of constantly needing to analyse my own approach towards lute playing and tone production, to be able to direct my students properly.
Part of this book has been presented beforehand in earlier versions. Chapter 6 is a combination and reworking of two previously-published papers, ‘Dissecting Transformation: Towards a Biology of Recorded Lute Sound’
Some selected, short passages retrieved from my doctoral dissertation,
Chapter 2 addresses the historical perspective, introducing English, Italian, French, German and Spanish sources. The purpose of this chapter is to map out what contemporary materials have been published and what they do, or do not, unveil.
Chapter 3 turns to modern literature and handbooks to address the status of modern lute technique, what is being said about tone production in modern handbooks and instructions on lute play, what literature there is and what can be found online.
It is also important to understand how sound is created on lute instruments and how we can relate to that phenomenon. In Chapter 4, I will address matters relating to the physics of sound, including lute construction and function, string properties, how string materials influence tone production, and how their properties change over time.
Chapter 5 will raise some psychological perspectives, through which I wish to address relevant matters relating to perspectives such as social influence and learning, perception, attitudes, values and inter-group relations. This is to put tone production into a human perspective, focusing on how our perception of good tone production is formed, not only from knowledge but also from inter-human relations, to become self-expressive acts.
Another important aspect for many performing lutenists is how they maintain and nurture their tone production through the recording medium. In Chapter 6, I will address the relationship between the lute and recording technology, and discuss the recording as a mediator of scholarly work. This will be followed by discussions on both technological and performance-practical considerations.
In the final conclusion, I draw everything to a close, focusing on the conceptual and biological perspectives of tone production, and I attempt to conclude the process itself and propose a context in which my argument can be further utilised by colleagues.
Before the book fully unveils, there are some people I wish to thank for their support, input and guidance. First of all, I would like to extend my gratitude to Rolf Lislevand, for his support and feedback. Several of the important perspectives presented in this book were born during our conversations, and it has been valuable indeed to gain access to his far-reaching experience and knowledge. I am also grateful for being able to test my theories and ideas in practice with my current lute and guitar students at the University of Agder. Furthermore, Anne Haugland Balsnes deserves a great thank you for reading the manuscript and providing her comments prior to submission to the editor. Support has also been given by one of my current PhD students, Inga Marie Nesmann, who has provided support and feedback. My dear friend and colleague, Per Kjetil Farstad, has been there and supported me all the way from my Bachelor’s Degree and Master’s Degree, throughout my PhD and now finally as my colleague at the University of Agder, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Classical Music and Music Education; thank you! Additionally, Are Skisland at the University of Agder Library has been a great help in getting the necessary material and literature for the book. My gratitude extends to Lars Aase at Portal Forlag for believing in this project and providing support in the early stages, before they became part of Cappelen Damm Akademisk, where my current editors, Simon Aase and Katia Stieglitz, took over responsibility for the book; thank you, all three of you. Finally, I wish to say thank you to the University of Agder, Faculty of Fine Arts and the University of Agder Open Access Publication Fund for funding production of the book and granting me the time to write it.
For instance: University of Agder, Norway; Royal College of Music, Stockholm, Sweden; Conservatoire National de Toulouse, France; Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany.
The Lute Society of America, The Argentine Society for Lutes and Early Guitars, The Austrian Lute Society, The Belgian Lute Society, Czech Viola da Gamba and Lute Society, The Dutch Lute Society, The French Lute Society, The German Lute Society, The Italian Lute Society, to name only a few. For further details; see:
See for instance
See for instance
Rolfhamre,
In dealing with historical practice, we must always relate ourselves — either by embracing or renouncing the fact — to what was common practice at the time. In historical practices related to musical performances this is indeed difficult, and the earlier the music, the more overwhelming and impossible the task may seem. Attempts to gain some understanding of common practice at a given time is a complex matter and a range of sources must be reviewed together. This is not only true within a given performance tradition, but also in how it is preserved through time. The difficulties relating to Early Modern sources are greatly increased as the scribes did not necessarily have the required competence on the matter they were instructed to document. In Medieval manuscripts and codices, for example, the neumatic notation presents a clear example of this as it gave rise to the
The English sources are those which speak most clearly about tone production. Rough times and alteration of practice are good for scholars, because they are reasons which inspire authors to write more clearly about musical performance activities. Indeed, if something is axiomatic, or common practice, one need not write about it. Evidently, the lute had lost some of its favour in the seventeenth century, as several English authors put lute practice into writing. As John Playford (1666), for one, puts it: ‘
The first subject addressed by the sources, which I will present here, is the shape of the instrument; the second is the right-hand position, and the last is how to utilise the right hand.
Information regarding the form and shape of instruments remains in various formats, including surviving instruments, encyclopedias and theoretical works, but information about the sonic and performance-related consequences that certain designs afford are rarer.
[…] there is a great dispute amongst the moderns concerning the shape of the lute. Some will have it somewhat roundish, the rising in the middle of the back and sloping of each side, as we see [in] the lutes of Monsieur Desmoulins of Paris […]. The reason is that the lure so framed is capable of moore sound because of his concavity, and that the sound not keeping in the deep and hollow bottom but, contrariwise, being put forth by the straitness of the sides towards the middle and so to the rose, from whence it issues greater and with more impetuosity. The other have for their defence and reason the handsomeness of the pear, [and] the comeliness of it — because, being more flat in the back, they lie better upon the stomach and do not endanger people to grow crooked. Besides all Bologna lutes are in the shape of a pear, and those are the best lutes; but their goodness is not attributed to their figure but to their antiquity […] The lutes of Padua are something roundish and like those of Monsieur De[s]moulins; therefore their sound is greater than those of Bologna, which are very sweet.
Mace (1676), on the other hand, prefers pearl-shaped lutes as they are both well-sounding and sit comfortably on the performer: ‘The
English Gaultier [[a contemporary lutenist]] hath been of another opinion and hath caused two heads to be made to the lute. […] The reasons of English Gaultier are so feeble that they destroy themselves. First, he saith that the length of the strings produce[s] a longer and bigger sound. But all the strings ought to have the same length of sound, and the sound of a string must make room to the other; for besides the confusion that the length of sounds produce, it also causeth a discord (since every bass cannot make a concord with every small string). And this is the first reason. The second evil effect that condemneth this alteration is that the sound of these long strings are no good, and that sound is like that of one that sings in the nose.
Although authors aside from Burwell and Mace show little interest in the matters concerning lute design, we find slightly more interest directed towards the right-hand position. This may be because the lute performer had little influence on the design of their instrument (perhaps it was second-hand or the luthier only used one or two standard moulds, making the selection rather simple and restricted). In general, there seems to be a consensus about the placement of the right hand, at least in the later seventeenth-century sources (the Renaissance practice will be better unveiled later in this chapter).
For the right hand, it must be placed between the rose and the bridge, but nearest to the bridge. Your hand must lie upon the belly of the lute with the little finger only, which must be as if it were glued unto it; and keep the thumb as much as one can leaning upon the bass. That hand must be rising in the middle in the form of an arch, [so] that you may not smother the strings. […] For the nails, they must be short and smoothly cut (which some do with a little file).
This view is also shared by Mace (1676), who mentions the same attributes. What Mace does, however, is to give more detailed information (as is often the case) as to how the strings are indeed to be plucked; an important indicator here is that, as mentioned in
Lastly, That in
The earlier William Barley, in his
[…] the stringes must bee stroken beneath on the bellie of the Lute, with the finger of the right hand, as wel as stopped with the fingers of the left.
This hand position is even further supported by John Playford in his
[…] For your right hand, rest only your little finger on the belly of your
The German sources are scarce, but we find that Johann Stobaeus’ (or Stobäus’)
1. Von der Rechten Handt.
“Die Rechte Hand soll kurtz für dem Stege gehalten u. d. kleine finger steif aufgesetzet u. gehalten werden. D. daume soll starck ausgestrecket werden, das er fast ein glied den andern fingern vorgehe. Es sollen auch die finger einwertz unter den daumen fein zu sich gezogen werden, dz der _resonans_ fein starck klinge.
“Der daume soll auswertz nit einwertz, geschlagen werden, wie die Alten zu thun pflegen, u. gemeinlich die Niederländer und Alte Teutschen. Denn es _probiret_ worden, das es weit besser den daumen auswertz zuschlagen, klinget reiner scherffer u. heller, dz ander klinget gar faull u. dümpffig.
“Auswertz gebrauchen den daumen diese Berümbte Lautenisten, _In Germania: Gregorius Ruwet [Huwet], d. Dulandus Anglus,_ welcher doch anfänglich einwendig den daumen gebraucht. _In Italia:_ Zu Rohm _Laurentinus,_ zu _Padua Hortensius._ _In Gallia_ Borquet , Mercurius Polandus_ u. andere mehr.
“Wenn volle griffe zuschlagen, gebraucht man alle 4 finger.
“Wenn _Coloraturen,_ bisweilen mit dem daumen und Zeiger, bisweilen d. Zeiger u. mittelste finger wie drunten bey den _Coloraturen_ soll gedacht werden.”
(1. On the Right Hand.
The right hand is to be held close to the bridge, and the little finger firmly placed and held down. The thumb is to be stretched out strongly, so that it stands out almost as a limb [so that it stands out one knuckle] to the other fingers. The fingers are to be pulled cleanly inwards under the thumb, so that the sound resonates cleanly and strongly. The thumb is to be struck outwards, not inwards like the people in the past used to do, and commonly the Dutch and old Germans. For it has been proved that it is far better to strike the thumb outwards, it sounds purer, sharper, and brighter, the other sounds quite rotten and muffled. These famous lutenists used the thumb outside: In Germany: Gregorius Ruwet [=Huwet], Dowland the Englishman, who at first used his thumb the other way. In Italy: in Rome Laurencini, in Padua Hortensius. In France, Bocquet, Mercure the Pole, and many more. If you strike full chords, you use all four fingers [=three fingers + thumb]; for divisions, [play] sometimes with the thumb and index finger, sometimes with the index and middle finger, see below under Divisions.) (Translated by Stewart McCoy; amendment by Markus Lutz)
Esaias Reusner, in his
An der rechten Hand muß der kleine Finger vor dem Steg gesetzet werden, wann man lieblich spielenwil; soll es aber etwas stärcker klingen, kan man auch wol den kleinen Finger hinter dem Steg setzen. Der Daumen muß allezeit, wann er eienen Chor geschlagen, auff dem anderen liegen bleiben. Auff die Verwechselung der Finger muß man auch fleissig Achtung geben.
Was die lincke Hand anbelagt, […] Ferner sollen auch die Striche, wo man überlegen soll, wol in acht genommen und allezeit die Finger veste aufgedrucket werden, damit es desto reiner klinge […].
(On the right hand, the little finger must be placed before the bridge when you play pleasantly; but if it should sound a bit stronger, you can also put the little finger behind the bridge. The thumb must always lie at the other end [of the bridge], when it is used to pluck. One must be careful not to confuse the fingers.
As for the left hand, […] the strokes, too, should be taken into consideration, and the fingers must always be plucked [in a manner] that may sound purer.)
Interestingly enough, Reusner (or Reusnern) does not mention the possibility of playing with the supporting finger behind the bridge in his 1676 treatise: ‘First, the small finger must be positioned somewhat before the bridge [direction, rosette], and not behind, whereby one achieves a sweeter sound […].’ (in Roland H. Stearns’ translation; brackets added by the translator).
French sources are even more scarce. Without mentioning the position between the rosette and the bridge, Charles Mouton writes in 1698 that the ‘little right [plucking] hand finger must rest on the lute top on the side of the bridge where the strings are tied; the other fingers extend to prepare to play, and the thumb, [further] extends to a position outside the fingers’ (same translator).
Clearly sources agree on the high angle of the wrist and, as in the later sources, also the close proximity to the bridge. Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger, in
Si deve tenere il quarto deto della mano destra appoggiato al fondo di quà dal ponticello, et non il quinto: le ragioni di ciò si dichiarano dall’Autore, nel suo libro intitolato il Kapsberger della Musica Dialogo.
(One must keep the fourth finger [i.e. the ring finger] of the right hand leaning back to the bottom of the bridge, and not the fifth [i.e. the little finger]: the reasons for this are stated by the Author, in his book entitled
John Baptisto Besardo of Visconti, on the other hand, presents an essay entitled ‘Neccesarie Observations Belonging to the Lute and Lute-Playing,’ in Robert Dowland’s publication
First, set your little finger on the belly of the LUTE, not towards the Rose, but a little lower, stretch our your Thombe with all the force you can, especially if thy Thombe be short, so that the other fingers may be carryed in a manner of a fist, and let the Thombe be held higher than them, this in the beginning will be hard. Yet they which have a short Thombe may imitate those which strike the strings with the Thombe under the other fingers, which though it be nothing so elegant, yet to them it will be more easie.
Now for choosing one of these kindes, learne first to strike the strings more hard and cleare [
But the placing of the hand is not all, and for sound to be produced something has to move (see Chapter 4), meaning that a string has to be plucked.
For the striking of the lute, that concerneth rather the perfection rather than the beginning of the learning; yet in the beginning ‘tis to be observed to strike hard and near the bridge. But take heed that you never lay the little finger upon the bridge or behind the bridge, neither strike the strings with the nails, nor so hard as if you would tear them in pieces. But never leave fingers upon the strings (the thumb as much as you please upon the bass. When you begin to play something well, you must alter your way of striking and flatter (as we speak) the lute — that is to strike it sometimes gently. […] in playing of the lute, in some places you must strike hard and in others so gently that one may hardly hear you.
It is further emphasised later in the book that one should play without nails: ‘The grace is in the flesh, and in the touching of it.’
But in doing of
Thomas Mace (1676) is the only one, however, to clearly describe the motion of the fingers. He describes what must be done for a clear and clean tone, but it is difficult to discern exactly what he means by an ‘upwards’ and ‘not slanting’ movement. It may suggest the difference between the free stroke (
And that you may learn to
William Barley (1596) writes more than Mace on the matter, but seems more concerned with terminology and fingering than with tone production itself:
[…] you have but foure fingers to play, the thumb accounted for one, for note that the little finger serveth to guide the hand upon the bellie of the Lute. […] And to the end yee shall not be ignorant what these tearmes meane of striking downewardes, or upwards, or to gripe, I meane by striking downewards the stringes is when the thumb playeth alone, and to strike with the fingers is when the letters hath pricks under them, and the stringes are striken upwardes, to gripe is when the fingers and the thumb playeth together and yet not looseth their office in striking upwardes and downewardes, that is to say to strike downeward and upward with the fingers.
It is not until Barley introduces less common instruments, such as the metal-strung orpharion in
[…] the Orpharion is strong with wire stringes, by reason of which manner of stringing, the Orpharion doth necessarilie require a more gentle & drawing stroke than the Lute, I meane the fingers of the right hand must be easilie drawen over the stringes, and not suddenly griped [
Francesco Corbetta seems to take for granted that the performer knows how to strike the strings in general, which is a logical inference as only a trained musician could perform his complex and technically-demanding works as presented in
In Italy, however, Vincenzo Capirola’s lute book
[…] Le consonantie tu troverai a tre over a quatro, evertisi che quella de mezo se sentra, che molto la tua orech//ia te ingana te par sonar 4 bote, et non se sente nisi 3., et cusi 3 che soni non se sente poi do […] Nota. il piu bel secreto et arte che, e, nel meter suxo una cosa, et sonar, abi questo per una masima de aristotille, et fali gran fondamento: avertisi nel sonar sempre tenir ferme le bote col deo, over dei sul manego fina che trovi altre bote che te sia forza lasarlle, cusi sempre farai de man, in man, per che limporta asai, e tuti non livrende, come desoto, forza sera ne parli […] et nota un miraculo che io viti a un lauto che solena aver: il scagnelin era un poco inzo piu che[?] dover che canto andava inciso, et pareva il lauto muto il fisi andare insu al suo luoco respiro il lauto cosa danno creder […]
([…] When you find chords with three or four notes, be careful that the middle one is audible, as often your ears will cheat you. You will think you are playing four notes, but actually only three of them will be sounding, or when you play three, only two will be heard.[…] The most beautiful secret in preparing and playing a piece is found in a rule given by Aristotle to which great importance must be given: when you play, be careful to hold the notes, keeping the fingers (of the left hand) on the fingerboard, until you have to play other notes (with the same fingers). Do not move them until you have to; be careful always to observe this rule while you are playing through the pieces. Not everybody understands this as I do, so I had to explain it. […] Witness the miracle I saw in a lute that I had: the nut was slightly lower than it should have been, the ‘canto’ (1st string) was too low (on the fingerboard), and the lute sounded mute. I raised it to the proper height and amazingly, the lute came alive.)
Similarly, we can also find other perspectives given in Gaspar Sanz’
Del pulgar de la mano derecha, es necessario tener grande cuidado, porque como siempre toca la voz baxa, si hallaren dos numeros, aunque sea en las dos rayas mas baxas, procuren que el pulgar toque el bagete, porque le pertenece à èl explicar aquella voz, para que tenga mas cuerpo, y porque no suena tambien la segunda herida àzia arriba con el indice, como con el pulgar àzia abaxo, y pueden probar esta regla en la tercera diferencia de la Xacara, al quarto compàs, y experimentaràs, que alli es mejor tañer la segunda con el pulgar, que con otro dedo, y alsimismo en otros casos.
(Of the thumb of the right hand, it is necessary to take great care, because as always the low voice sounds, if they find two numbers, even in the two smallest lines, try to have the thumb touch the course (?;
As my final example, Alessandro Piccinini (1623) emphasises a clean and clear tone production and directs the reader to play over the rose to render the best sound:
Dico dunque, che frà le parti principali le quali si ricercano al buon suonatore, l’una & molto importante è il suonare netto, & polito; Di maniera che ogni minimo tocco di corda sia schietto, come Perla, & chi non tocca in questa maniera è poco da stimarsi; E certamente gran diligenza conviene usarsi, per suonare cosi; & in particolare in Francia, dove non si stima alcuno, il quale non suoni netto, e delicate. […] Rende il Liuto, e cosi ancor il Chitarrone miglior armonia in mezo frà la Rosa, e lo scanello; e però in quell luoco si deve tenere la mano destra.
(So, I say, what is the main role that is being sought by the good player, one very important [task] is to play clearly, & clean; In such a way that every little touch of [a] string is fine, like [a] pearl, and they who do not touch it in this manner is of little esteem; And, certainly, great diligence should be payed to play thusly; & particularly so in France, where no one is esteemed, who does not[, through their playing,] sound clear, and delicate. […] It makes the Lute, and also the Chitarrone[, produce the] best harmony [when placing the right hand] in the middle of the rose, and on top of it; and therefore, you must hold your right hand in that place.)
A key to producing proper sound, according to Piccinini, is to have the nails short and egg-shaped, yet long enough to provide support for the fleshy part of the fingertips, and that the fingers move towards, that is, into the soundboard. Both strings of each course should be plucked with the flesh.
Per imparare di tener ben la mano destra, chiuderai il pugno, e poi l’aprirai un poco, tanto, che le punte delle dita siano incontra alle corde, & il deto Police stia longo; & l’Auricolare stia posato sobra il fondo […] Il deto Police, il qual io non approve, che habbia l’ugna molto longa, s’adopra in questa maniera, cioè che ogni volta, che suonerà la corda, dovrà mandarsi verso il fondo, so che caschi sempre sopra, la corda, che li farà sotto, & iui si fermi sin tanto, che di nuovo dovrà porsi in opera. E quando si suona una pizzicata (che pizzicato intend, quando si suona più d’una corda insieme) anche il Police deve fare il medesimo movimento, e questo molto importa, prima per la buona armonia, che faranno li Bassi toccata à quell modo, & ancora perche apporta commodità grandissima […]. Le atre trè Dita, cioè Indice, Medio, & Anulare, I quali certamente debbono havere le ungne tanto longhe, che avanzino la carne, e non più, & che habbiano dell’ovato, cio[è]; che siano più alt ein mezzo; s’adopreranno in questa maniera, cioè; che quando si farà una pizzicato, overo, si suonera una corda sola […].
(To learn to hold your right hand, you will close your fist, and then open it a little, so that the tips of your fingers meet the strings, and the thumb is long [i.e. stretched out]; and the little finger is rested at the bottom [i.e. the soundboard] […] The thumb, of which I do not approve when it has a very long nail[. U]se it in this way, that is, that every time it plays the course it has to move towards the soundboard […]. And when you play a
Other valuable sources on the concept of tone production can be found in the visual arts, but they must be treated with care in this context. Paintings are certainly full of uncertainties as they are not photographs, and we are subject to the eye of the artist creating them. A person depicted playing the lute in a certain fashion does not automatically mean that that certain way of playing is what was actually done. The performer may have chosen a more comfortable position to be able to sit for the artist over a long period of time; the performer may not even have been a musician at all, only finding the lute to look good in the painting; the artist may have adjusted, or even changed, the reality according to taste, memory or for many other reasons. Indeed, whatever the actual course of events, we cannot rely on works of art alone, but we can use them to get a better understanding of how they (the musician, the artist or the person who commissioned the painting)
When people hear a musical performance, they see it as an embodied activity. While they hear, they also witness: how the performers look and gesture, how they regard the audience, how listeners heed the performers. Thus the musical event is perceived as a socialized activity […] Visual art cannot replicate musical acoustics, but it can provide an invaluable hortatory account of what, how, and why a given society heard and hence in part what the sounds meant.
We can therefore use visual works of art when trying to understand what constitutes a certain idea or concept. This will prove helpful when trying to understand a historically-distant musical activity from a sonic perspective. Because of the scarcity of written documentation (which again is subject to the reader’s interpretation) and the completely non-existent corpora of recordings from the time, we must seek additional information elsewhere. Visual art can in such cases prove quite enlightening. Leppert further argues that what appears in a visual work of art is there for a reason, to convey meaning to the perceiver and to take part in social interaction at more complex levels:
The only purpose in preserving — making replicable — sounds is that they mean something; […] It is no accident that the early history of notation coincides with the codification (regularization for ideological and political purposes) of the liturgy in the medieval Church. It is no accident that musical manuscripts were often elaborate, visually stunning productions or that much of the printed art music of the nineteenth century carried dedications to rich patrons. The issue of dedications goes beyond the mere economic gain hoped for by impoverished composers. It begs the question why the commission of manuscripts and dedications in printed music might matter to patrons. The value implied exceeds that of physically possessing notated music, which cannot, like a painting, be hung up and looked at. The value instead comes with the faith, sometimes
Following his argument, the actual sound of a performance and how sound is represented are closely linked. In such a context that I present in this book, where original sources are relatively scarce, it is therefore possible to turn to works of art to find meanings which can fill some of the gaps or even contextualise the written primary sources already presented. I will do this from two perspectives: firstly, focusing on how the physical hand position is represented, ranging from the Renaissance to the Baroque; and secondly, looking at the depicted bodies’ extroverted or introverted postures.
Jean-Marie Poirier has collected numerous historical paintings on a website illustrating the left and right-hand positions.
What the study revealed is that the visual aesthetics of tone production changed in art from the sixteenth century, where the right hand was depicted closer or directly over the soundhole (see
[…] if there be three small strings together you must not strike them as people did formerly with three several fingers, but with the forefinger only, sliding from the treble upwards over the strings and repeating sometimes the treble with the middle finger. The reason why we do not play with three several fingers is that striking thus we miss half of the strings; that is, of every couple of strings we can strike but one.
In line with Leppert’s argument that we can ‘see’ sound in a visual work of art, it is also interesting to read introversion and extroversion alongside the hand positions discussed above. In this phase of my analysis I revisited the same paintings and categorised them according to the performers’ body postures. I labelled them according to bodies playing in a balanced, centred position (where I perceived bodily control, balance and order); bodies in an extroverted, open position (neck bent backwards, looking away, displaying the chest, etc.); and finally, bodies in a closed position (bending forward, looking down, reading some sort of musical notation). The results were intriguing, as they supported the move from the dull and less projecting tone quality (at least over greater distance) of the Renaissance to the more metallic, piercing tone quality of the later Baroque. This is evident because the Renaissance category was overrepresented by centred and closed bodies (see
Category | Favoured hand position | Favoured body posture | Suggested reading |
---|---|---|---|
Renaissance | Close to or directly above soundhole | Centred/closed | Duller, less percussive, soft and quiet. |
Seventeenth century | Centred/close to the bridge | Open/centred | More open, extroverted tone quality, more apparent overtone activity. Clearer attack. Louder. |
Eighteenth century | Close to the bridge | Centred | Very percussive, much more overtone activity, woody sound. Loud and piercing. |
What is covered most regarding the right hand in historical lute sources are fingerings. To various degrees, according to nationality, time period and the intended instrument, we can learn much of performance practice simply by studying fingerings. The subject is vast, and a full-scale inquiry of the matter is not necessary in this present context, but I will, however, draw attention to some specific examples which unveil important perspectives for my development of a conceptual understanding of tone production on lute instruments. The points I wish to make relate to seven key perspectives:
The preference for open strings and the first position.
The weight distribution of the weak
The
The transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque plucked chord.
The right-hand strumming mosaic of Francesco Corbetta (1671, 1674).
The offbeat slurs of the Baroque repertoire.
Silence.
Mace made an interesting observation when he wrote: ‘[…] because an
The Renaissance practice of plucking the strings, that is the
It is also noticeable that the thumb keeps playing an important part as the foundation for tone production even after the Renaissance
If we compare the traditional Renaissance fingering, where each tone of a chord is plucked by a separate finger (see, for instance, Visconti’s description above), to the sweeping motion of one finger to produce the same chord described in
Francesco Corbetta presents another case where fingering provides useful information as to what can be constituted as a concept of tone production. He presents an elaborate right-hand mosaic of a strumming pattern, in which three fingers of the right hand are used according to their natural difference in weight and length to colour each strummed chord individually:
Vedrai lesempio dun repicco posto in una Ciaconna, doue la nota piu longa significa il polzo, cominciando prima i diti poi con il polzo facendo listesso all in su e osserua che le guatro notre legate significano douersi far prima con il secondo dito e poi con il primo appresso, e cosi all in su sotto a un tempo piu presto, e poi seguita con i diti et il polzo […] Vous uerrez l’example d’une batterie, mise sur un caprice de chacone où la note la plus longue signifie le pouce tant au dessous qu’au dessus et remarquez que quand uous uerrez quatre notes liees ensemble, uous deuez uous seruir auparauant du second doigt en descendant, et puis apres du premier doight uous ferez de mesme en montant dans un tĕps plus prompt et continuez tousiours auec les doigts et le pouce suiuant l’example que uous y uerrez.
(You will see the example of a
This is further supported by Corbetta’s 1674 version of
Rhythmic value: | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
Finger: | m | p | p | i | m | i | m | i | i | i | m | p | p | i |
Finger direction: | d | d | u | u | d | d | u | u | d | u | d | d | u | u |
We find several examples of slurs being organised according to what string they are being performed on rather than according to the beat. This produces an offbeat effect, where the weight difference and variations in tone quality between the initial plucked note and the following, performed by the left hand alone, is emphasised and celebrated. Not only is this a case relating to time and groove, but also a similar perspective of using the various colours and natural modes of the fingers to a musical advantage in a similar, yet more subtle manner, than in the case of Corbetta’s mosaic above.
Sound has always related very strongly to its opposite, silence. This we can see in many instances, such as performance traditions where anticipation and detachments have been used to create an illusion of dynamics in instruments that cannot produce such things.
What we have seen throughout this chapter is that we can find important traces of what the historical concept of tone production might have entailed. By comparing various kinds of sources, we can draw lines between indicators hidden from plain sight and, thus, construct an idea of performance technique from a tone production perspective, focusing particularly on the right hand. In its diffuse dissemination over various sources, we see that the idea of a tone production concept for lute instruments was quite detailed and well designed, but it received little explicit attention in contemporary lute instructions. Furthermore, the closer we are to the inevitable decline of the lute, the more detailed the literature becomes, as the authors suddenly see a need for documenting and disseminating the practice. It is therefore difficult to gain a balanced, full understanding of the matter across the ages, but together with visual sources and tablatures, we can indeed get enough information to form a general idea of the matter. What is interesting to note after unveiling these practices is how they sometimes differ from today’s practices among lutenists. In the following chapter, I will look at tone production as it can be understood from today’s practices.
See ‘
Dart,
Mace,
Mace,
Dart,
Dart,
Mace,
Playford,
Lundgren,
Lundgren,
Lundgren,
Kapsberger,
Dart,
Dart,
Dart,
Mace,
Mace,
Barley,
Dart,
I have transcribed the original handwriting here as close to the original as I could manage. Due to the complexity of the text, however, I chose to use Federico Marincola’s contextual adaptation of the text into modern English for the translation. I agree with his solutions, and I find it to better convey the content to the modern reader than a direct translation from the original would have done, especially since more specialised linguistic perspectives are not the focus here, but the subject-related content of the text itself; see
Piccinini,
Piccinini,
Leppert, R.,
Ledbetter,
Dart,
Mace,
I thank Rolf Lislevand for drawing my attention to this phenomenon during private conversations.
Dart,
Dart,
Corbetta,
Corbetta,
The harpsichord is one such instrument; see
Mace,
So far, what we begin to see here is an excellent example of the balance between learning to play from a tutor and from literature. The more important the tutor is for learning the instrument, the less important the literature becomes. Warner Iversen and Michael M. Grant (2016) write, ‘You cannot really learn to play the lute using a book “tutor.” These tutors can be good references, can offer some good material, and may even help a bit with technique but no one can learn from a book tutor alone. To learn the lute you need a teacher.’
In the modern literature, we find various approaches to the subject, ranging from perspectives that start with the Classical guitar point of view, through to anti-guitar perspectives which distance themselves from the instrument entirely; and historically-informed (implicitly or explicitly) to non-historically informed perspectives (i.e. ‘take my word for it’ sort of literature). Although the lute is a centuries old instrument, it is a fairly new phenomenon and practice. The ‘modern’ lute is only about 100 hundred years old. Unlike instruments such as the violin and the flute, where some major schools have been around for ages, the lute is still part of an inventive process in the making. How we understand lute tone production today is based on this modern phenomenon and the present understanding of the historical past. What is interesting to note, as we will see, is that tone production and timbre seem to be somewhat taken for granted among many modern sources. It seems often to be the case that by following the simple steps described, one automatically produces a good tone. This is not the case, however, because a good finger motion by a properly-positioned right and left hand on a properly-strung and maintained instrument can still produce unpleasant noise, for instance, from using too much muscular power. As a result, we cannot write about sound satisfactorily. We can only resort to the use of adjectives and adverbs which are culturally and historically situated. To understand the words properly we also need to understand their context. In this respect, I will not concern myself with the morphological cultural-linguistic development of the terminological practice, but rather look at instructions on how to utilise the hands, the right hand in particular, to produce tone.
One problem with lute performance literature, in general, is the lacking Open Access tradition. Availability is restricted and performers’ access to information is much determined by their personal or institutional economy. This particularly relates to articles being scattered around various publication channels, often only accessible through subscriptions. The cause of this is, of course, financial since most lute societies are funded through their subscribers in order to maintain any sort of publication to distribute. Although many publishers make literature freely available after a certain quarantine period, often ranging from one to three years, there are still issues related to the material risking being partly, or sometimes even fully, outdated. The discourse is then often addressed collectively in a ‘public’ debate through mailing-lists, but those discourses are almost completely driven and developed by a few dedicated respondents leaving the opinions and thoughts of those silent outside the debate. Some, like myself, prefer to participate inactively in such forums to get updates on the current and past discourses, without necessarily contributing through written responses. Hence, availability of information is a clear issue for those taking up the lute through literature.
In this chapter, I will differentiate between instructions addressing the thumb inside technique, here called the
There seems to be a clear difference between various sorts of lute journal publications. Peer-reviewed yearbooks seem to be more occupied with history, manuscripts, musical notation, etc. while quarterlies and newsletters more often cover practical topics such as performance technique, often without a proper, academic peer-review process. In this literary environment, there is therefore a practice of separating theory from performance, where articles situated between those two perspectives can find themselves ‘falling between two stools,’ so to speak. Publishers aside, there are examples of websites that collect various publications for the benefit of the performer and scholar, or at least point the reader in the right direction. One good example is The Lute Society of America, which provides a list of reading materials for beginners,
As in many instances where forgotten practices are yet to be rediscovered, it is those practices that are the most different and mystical to us that receive the most attention. It is therefore no wonder that the Renaissance
The first advantage to be noticed is a definite improvement in tone, for it is now easier to play both strings in a course and to use a larger area of flesh on the fingertip, all of which produce a fuller, rounder, and more ‘fleshy’ sound. […] On the other hand, a possible disadvantage of the thumb-under technique is that the tone can lack a certain sharpness, depending on the size and shape of the fingers. This is especially true if one is accustomed to the type of tone produced with fingernails; indeed, those who play with nails will probably find this technique unfeasible.
Later, Paul Beier (1979) presents a more in-depth article on right-hand technique in the Renaissance style of playing, but he is mostly focused on the right-hand position. The finger mechanics are given little attention. We do, however, find some primary-source-based clues relating to tone production in his writing, in which the transition from thumb inside to outside is addressed in relation to lute construction and building materials. In his examples, a soft, fleshy technique tames the earlier bright instruments, and a bright, close-to-the-bridge technique compensates for later, duller instruments:
With thumb-under, the fingers were placed quite near the rose and both fingers and thumb had a great deal of contact with the strings; they struck the strings using a relatively large surface area of flesh and string. The effect of this is to produce a rather warm and luscious tone. With thumb-over, the opposite is true. The fingers strike the strings at a sharper angle with little surface area.
The changing styles in lute construction also has a considerable effect on tone. The small, high-pitched, narrow-bodied lutes of the early period were generally made with very hard woods for the ribs and have an inherently bright and piercing tone. The warm sound of the thumb-under is ideally suited to compensate for this [… and vice versa].
This point is further exemplified by Robert Barto who, in his article ‘Some 18th Century German Sources for Right Hand Placement and Fingering’ (2007), draws attention to the writings of Ernst Gottlieb Baron:
Baron states very clearly where one should place the right hand and why. He says, ‘As to the question of where to strike strings of the lute so that the tone will be powerful enough, it will serve to know that this must be in the center of the space between the rose and the bridge, for there the contact will have the greatest effect. The further toward the fingerboard the strings are struck with the right hand, the softer and weaker will be the tone — it will lose power, so to speak. However the player can certainly also move back and forth, once he has the necessary skill, when he wishes to change [the tone] and express something. (cited by Barto, in Douglas Alton Smith’s translation).
In the year following publication of Beier’s article, Pat O’Brien (1980) provides a new perspective on the subject which is more detailed. Here, he emphasises the contact point between the finger and the course, and also introduces a more ergonomic approach. By introducing the use of the weight of the arm, he presents an approach that looks outside the domain of the fingers alone and includes the upper torso in tone production. He further adds that there is a relation between the weight applied and the volume of the tone:
3) Flex index finger as deeply as possible, (toward elbow!) […] 5) arrange to contact the second [c]ourse, [
In the last lines, we also see how the nail is addressed once more. This is a clear message that the lute calls for a different approach than the guitar, as the nail should be kept away from the string. Furthermore, one should avoid bringing the nail
This new perspective of introducing mechanical details when describing and constructing a right-hand technique is also present in Ronn McFarlane’s ‘Right Arm Movement and Follow Through in Thumb-Under Technique’ (2008). He draws further attention to weight distribution, particularly the balance between the arm and the fingers. Rather than O’Brien’s use of the single word ‘volume’, McFarlane uses three: ‘weight’, ‘volume’ and ‘strength’. This focuses more attention on various facets of tone production which, in my interpretation, translate into perceived presence and ‘body’,
The amount of arm vs. finger movement affects the weight, volume and strength of your tone. More arm movement tends to create a louder, deeper and more supported quality of sound. Less arm movement (or use of the fingers alone) creates a lighter, quieter sound. Subtle gradations of the amount of arm vs. fingers can be used to great effect. It is possible to shade the sound of a scale or a long line of divisions by gradually adding and subtracting the amount of arm movement. This is much more effective than trying to strike the string harder or softer to create a dynamic shape. […] One can also shade the sound of a line by controlling the depth of follow through, which works much the same as right arm movement. A shallow follow through creates a lighter, more shallow tone and less sustain - especially when there is very little string excursion towards the soundboard. A deeper follow through usually creates a deeper, or more supported tone and greater sustain, [
McFarlane’s approach includes more descriptive language (louder, deeper, supported, quality, lighter, quieter, etc.), which is a natural development in the act of constructing a musical practice in writing. First, we acknowledge the act that has to be performed (Liddell and Strizich); then, we describe the mechanical details of that act to accommodate for the vagueness of simply saying ‘do this’ (O’Brien); and finally, we use descriptive language to nuance the mechanical process and to direct the reader to what is to be achieved (McFarlane). Parallel to this, we also take historical sources into account (Beier).
The final example is provided by Warner Iversen and Michael M. Grant in their free-to-download PDF document:
The two basic types of strokes used to set the strings in motion require the arm to move up and down from the elbow. With the pinky [
What we begin to unveil here is a level of detail and instruction that we never saw in Early Modern times (see Chapter 2). In reality, this level of detail must come from somewhere, and that is not necessarily from the past. The currently-developing canon of lute technique is therefore a modern phenomenon, a modern construct, based on modern values and practices. This is perhaps why it is significant that, for instance, the Renaissance instructions seen so far in this chapter (more examples to come), use descriptive language often utilised in guitar playing stemming from a Romantic tradition (e.g. much flesh, fullness, volume, strength, weight). This is language we do not see at the same frequency in historical sources. This creates a paradox where later language is used to describe earlier practice, and this is also the way it has to be. For language and communication to be successful, the writer and reader must have a common understanding of the language involved. What happens then is that modern lute practice, through its need to explain the unknown, creates itself as something other than historical practice. The modern sense of lute playing is not an embodiment of Early Modern playing; it is not meant to resuscitate the lute, but to reinvent it in more or less close dialogue with the past (at least our understanding of it). The thumb-inside, Renaissance practice serves as a good example, as it (at least in regard to the right hand) is so very different from modern guitar practice, and thus produces more clear material for discussion. When turning to the Baroque, thumb-outside approach, more is taken for granted and we also find fewer publications.
Instruction books are more frequent than articles. This has to do with the often, very close relationship between technical instruction and examples, etudes (practice pieces) and exemplification. Here we also see the friction between the lute and the modern guitar more clearly. Examples will be given chronologically and, for copyright reasons, I have excluded photographs and focused on the written word. Where a photograph has played a significant role, I have described it in brackets.
One of the earlier examples of instruction books treating the thumb-inside technique is the
Set the little finger on the soundboard of the lute about two inches from the bridge and as close to the first string as possible without touching it. Stretch out the thumb so it is well in front of the other fingers [… photographs display the Classical guitar, thumb out technique with the thumb seemingly 2 cm or more away from the index finger, and playing with nails on double strung courses.] The thumb moves as a unit, but most of the movement of the index finger is from the middle joint towards the tip. […] When plucking a double course (all but the top string), both strings can be played if the nails are short and if the angle of attack is correct. […] Both strings of a course are touched by the flesh of the fingers, and the nail strikes one or both of them for brilliance. Less nail will give less brilliance, and how much nail is to be used must depend on the taste of each lutenist. Nails that are too long prevent the playing of both strings of a pair and give a harsh, unpleasant quality. […] The classical guitarist have [
This is a good example of the point I made earlier, that the modern lute canon (in a wider sense) is a product of present practice in dialogue with the constantly unveiling past, rather than a re-establishing of it. As more sources, research and artistic work develop we find later efforts to present new lute schools that are more informed and reflected.
Twenty-two years later, Diana Poulton published her work
The finger nails must be short and must not touch the courses in playing. Except for one Italian teacher, Alessandro Piccinini, in 1623, this point is constantly emphasized, and even he only advocates that the nail should be gently rounded to coincide with the tip of the finger. Thomas Mace, in 1676, suggests they may be used in consort playing. The long nails of the present-day guitar player will produce an entirely unauthentic sound.
[…] The hand is held obliquely across the strings continuing the line of the arm and, in the technique now being described, not at a right angle across the strings. […] It [the supporting little finger] will lie with the side, and not the tip, touching the soundboard. Although, with this type of technique, the thumb and first finger may touch the courses across the lower end of the rose, it is not usual for the hand to be held directly over the rose as in modern guitar playing [there are examples, however; see Chapter 2].
The movement of the hand up and down the strings in order to change the kind of tone produced is only mentioned by one writer, Piccinini, who appears to have been somewhat eccentric in his time. Other writers, in describing how the little finger is laid on the soundboard use such phrases as ‘this is its constant position’ or ‘as if [it]
[… T]he thumb must always take the accented note. [… W]ith the thumb held low and almost parallel with the sixth course, it should move forward and downward as if it were going to touch the second finger; the course will then be touched with the side of the thumb and not the tip. This movement should bring the thumb to rest on the course immediately next to it […].
[…] The [index] finger should be slightly curved and the tip must be laid on the course that both strings are touched. The movement of the finger is not carried through to touch the next course.
Another contributor to the lute performance discourse is Stefan Lundgren. His first book,
THUMB UNDER: the hand and the fingers are held parallel or nearly parallel to the strings. The thumb is used to pluck the strings behind the fingers in [
THUMB OVER: the hand and the fingers are held held [
[… In Renaissance music] the alternating stroke between the thumb and forefinger dominated. Because the thumb was always the strongest, it played the first note in each pair of notes. That is how the stylistic effect ‘strong/week [sic] – strong/week [sic],’ that predominated the instrumental music of the Renaissance, came about.
[…] How the lute sounds, depends upon many things; the instrument, the strings, the tuning and the actual pitch. The surroundings also influence the sound; the acoustics of the room in which one is playing; even the temperature and humidity etc.
A very important detail in the training of a lute student is the ATTACK. This point is so necessary that it should be given extra time during the practice period.
The stroke takes place in two phases. Fig. 3 [not included here, but it depicts the ‘THUMB UNDER’ position] shows the first phase.the [
Fig. 4 [not included here, but it is similar to fig. 3 only with the forefinger slightly more bent] shows the finger just after it has left the course. Here [
One should concentrate upon obtaining a clear, clean and at the same time strong sound […].
Fig. 5 [not included here] shows the thumb in the first phase. The straight thumb has taken hold of both strings of the second course and puts on pressure diagonally downwards in the direction of the belly.
Fig. 6 [not included here] shows the thumb just after it has left the course. here [
In his following reworking of the book,
The sound of the lute depends on many things. The quality of the instrument itself, the strings, the tuning and the pitch. The environment also exerts an influence on the sound; the acoustics of the room in which one plays, the temperature etc. In spite of so many variables it is nessecary [
I have concluded that the striking technique is best learned if one divides the movement into two phases. The goal of the four-levelled exercises below (a, b, c, d [omitted here]) is to achieve a clear, clean, full and strong sound.
[…] Place your little finger with the first joint laying sideways between the bridge and the rose, approx. 2–4 centimeters away from the first string. […]
So far, he has not contributed much more knowledge about tone production than in his previous book, but a few pages later he returns to the two-phase approach of the fingers. This time, he promotes more mechanical perspectives by turning our focus to the activities of the joints. Fingers are to move into the instrument (‘exert a gentle pressure towards [the] sound-board’) which will affect the sound as the strings will move with the soundboard as it is designed to move (I return to the physics of sound in Chapter 4):
The striking movement of the finger is also divided into two phases. //
In Frank De Groodt’s very brief instructions (2001), we also learn that we should play with the flesh and make contact with both strings of each course.
While holding the instrument, place the right arm and hand parallel to the strings near the back of the rose. […] Notes are played by alternating the thumb and index finger with an up and down motion so that the flesh of the fingertips contact both courses equally […].
Andrea Damiani’s (1999) instructions are much more detailed than De Groodt’s and they concur with many other publications as to how the right hand should be placed. What is interesting to note is the level of detail presented. Perhaps not in what is described, but in how. Included in the book, we find titles such as ‘Right-hand position,’ ‘Right-hand functions’ and ‘Sound production’; clearly, tone production has been brought to the agenda in a more deliberate manner. The writing is detailed and extensive so I will not dedicate full attention to all of the text, but rather highlight particular cues relating to sound production. First, he divides the stroke into two mechanical functions: one based on the forearm and one on the fingers:
[… I]t is important to understand that the
These two approaches are further divided into sub-actions where we find cues such as the ‘lower part of the tip’ suggesting flesh, and that the thumb should be stretched out and not bent. Damiani uses a more scientific-sounding language when using words like ‘axis’ and ‘degrees’:
[…] POSITIONING
A simple adjustment of the wrist position (in or out) and an equally small turning of the forearm will regulate the angle of
The angle between the
Furthermore, the thumb movement is not only located in the thumb, but in the whole forearm. With cues such as ‘moving towards the right leg,’ the whole body enters the tone production discourse and the weight of the arm plays a key role in producing sound:
[…] FOREARM MOVEMENT
Keeping the little finger on the soundboard […], touch the strings lightly with
Damiani then writes explicitly about the attack, i.e. the beginning of a tone. Rather than looking at spectral features, the discourse again evolves through mechanical procedures. Our attention is now brought to the contact point between fingertip and string. The instructions provided on the nails are much more detailed than previous examples. Although nails are to be avoided in producing the sound, similar to Classical guitar traditions, they can be used deliberately to support the flesh of the fingertip to provide enough friction for the plucked course. This brings previous mentions of fleshy sound into a perspective where some sort of distinction between ‘fleshy’ and ‘too fleshy’ is brought to the agenda. Where the line between the two is to be drawn is left unmarked. Some sort of cue is given when we read that ‘[t]he meaty part of the fingertip will have a negative effect on the attack,’ but how negative it is, and when the effect becomes negative, are left untold. What is interesting about this is not necessarily that it is not described, (how can we describe this in writing?), but rather that it is not even attempted. There is no descriptive language giving hints as to what is to be achieved (e.g. clean, soft, strong, fleshy, bold, etc.); it is left to the eye (
[…] ATTACK
This term denotes the contact between the fingertip and the string to obtain the best sound. It should go without saying that fingernails should be kept short so as not to disturb the touch of the fingertips. Where fingertips are particularly meaty, it will be best not to cut the nails too short, but to cut them around the shape of the fingertip to enable the nail to support it. The meaty part of the fingertip will have a negative effect on the attack.
Once the hand position has been established, rest
In relation to the lack of description of what is to be achieved, it is interesting to read words like ‘best sound.’ This provokes discursive perspectives on the hierarchy between performance technique and sound; that is, whether we are to regard tone production from the bottom-up or top-down perspective. Is the ‘best sound’ a simple, natural product of properly-executed mechanics, thus emphasising technique? Or is the ‘best sound’ in all its subjectivity, ambivalence and cultural context, the primary focus for which the mechanics are constructed and adapted to achieve, thus emphasising aesthetics? If the latter applies, can it be taken for granted? It seems as if Damiani, like many of his colleagues, prefers the bottom-up perspective, but the argument is not entirely consistent. We notice, for instance, that when speaking about the ‘[p]ositioning of
Another lengthy discussion on tone production can be found in Pascale Boquet’s writing (2008).
‘[…] Dans tous les cas: prendre les cordes avec un maximum de pulpe (donc avec le pouce plus à plat que de côté), et ne jamais le casser au niveau de la première ou de la deuxième phalange. […]
([…] In all cases: Touch the strings with a maximum of pulp (i.e. with the thumb being flat rather than on the side), and never bend it at the level of the first or second phalanx. […] [The index finger …] must be relaxed, especially at the level of the last phalanx [i.e. the distal joint], the impulse of the movement comes from the first two [joints] and the forearm. // To pluck a string, hold your finger as flat as possible, feel the two strings of the course, press the strings inward, and relax by aiming diagonally towards the elbow (the index finger should not slide along the length of the string). // The tip of the finger must always be very soft, never hooked, the finger simply folding to 90°. Paradoxically one could almost say that it is the string that shakes the finger, rather than the reverse. Equally paradoxically, to get a well-rounded, clear sound, which has ‘body’ and power, it is necessary to depress the string rather than to pull it. // Do not ‘scrape’ the rope too superficially; it gives a small sound, without body and is almost inaudible.)
A more interesting remark can be found regarding the right-hand
Ne pas éviter la différence de dynamique entre ces deux doigts [i.e. le pouce et l’index], c’est elle qui donnera du relief aux mélodies […] Enfin, ne pas hésiter à faire des mouvements très amples: un mouvement étriqué donnera un son étriqué et petit, un mouvement ample donnera une sonorité généreuse. // Bien sentir, dans ce geste, le poids de l’avant-bras. // Attention: pas de rotation du poignet, seulement un mouvement latéral descendant.
(Do not avoid the difference in dynamics between these two fingers [i.e. the thumb and forefinger], this is what will impart the contour and shape to the melodies […] Finally, do not hesitate to make very ample movements: A narrow movement will give a narrow and small sound, ample movement will give a generous sound. // Feel the weight of the forearm in this gesture. // Attention: No rotation in the wrist, only a lateral downward movement.)
In Xavier Cauhépé’s
Nonetheless, he agrees with earlier literature that the right hand should be placed between the rose and the bridge. Unlike the others, he draws attention to the strings’ tension and presents more detailed instructions on the pathway of the thumb. He also uses descriptive words such as ‘clarity’ (cf. earlier mentions of ‘clear’), but adds ‘presence’ to the discourse and asks us to consider tone production from three perspectives: 1) fullness, clarity and presence; 2) accentuation or attack where relaxation plays an important role in creating projection, leading to; 3) intensity and applied pressure:
We are convinced that lute players composing highly elaborate polyphony on their lutes, in order to emphasize the different voice entries, had to compensate the absence of timbre change in a vocal quartet through a marked stress on voice entries. From a physical point of view this strong accentual value is best obtained with the thumb outside because it balances the index, middle finger and ring finger, which is the best way to render with precision the difference in stress; this favours the independence of polyphonic parts or the stressing of a given note […]. It [i.e. the right hand] should be located between the rose and the bridge of the lute, not too close to the latter because the vibration nodes of the courses will give the string more rigidity, hence, a harder feel under the fingers […]. Remember that, on a [Renaissance] lute, the tension of each string is about 3.2 kilograms for the treble and 2.6 kilograms for the other strings. So with such light tension the pressure from the last phalange of each right-hand finger will be sufficient, even to provide each note with a wide variety of accentual weight [… If the thumb] rests on the fifth course and you draw a virtual line from the base of the thumb to the soundboard, the line will intersect the fourth course. This gives you a much better rest-stroke. Playing the thumb this way affects positively the clarity and presence of the sound. [… Y]ou apply pressure on both strings of the fifth course. [… C]heck the following points:
- a) The fullness of the note (its clarity and presence)
- b) Its accentual value (the swifter the thumb leaves the course, the more the sound is projected)
- c) The intensity (it depends on the pressure applied to each string). […]
Rather than Lundgren’s two-phase plucking approach, Cauhépé proceeds to divide the mechanical activity of tone production into three stages: 1) preparation; 2) action; and 3) return. He continues to draw attention to the mechanical process of plucking strings, similar to his earlier-mentioned colleagues, but introduces the concept of a ‘spring-like’ index finger. While his colleagues have spoken of returning the finger to its original place, this ‘spring-like’ reference also directs attention to the relaxation involved, because a spring-like effect is not achievable with muscular tension as the finger would move too slowly. Thus, with previous mentions of light pressure and this spring-like motion, we can form a practical understanding of lute technique: relaxation and balance. Tone production must balance the act of producing enough force in the right place (there are different ideas of where that might be) with the act of relaxing to increase rapidity and flexibility:
- a)
- b)
- c)
Another point brought to our attention in this section is tone consistency. Whereas we earlier encountered Poulton’s remark that it was unusual to make colour changes while playing, Cauhépé now writes about ‘using the same portion of flesh of the last phalange, exactly where you have perfect control of pressure and poise in order to release the string.’ This strongly implies tone consistency.
As with the articles, the thumb-outside technique associated with, for instance, the Baroque lute, is much under-represented in the literature. Franz Julius Giesbert, in his
Forty-seven years later, Toyohiko Satoh had his
Although there was certainly more than one standard right-hand technique throughout the history of the lute, present-day technique on baroque lute is similar to modern classical guitar technique. (See photo.) [He refers to a photograph of his own hand position.] The right hand is normally held between the rose and the bridge, with the thumb extended towards the rose. The row of knuckles forms an oblique angle to the strings, and the little finger rests on the soundboard (the main difference from modern classical guitar technique). […]
Another essential difference from modern classical guitar technique is that the RH [i.e. the right hand] thumb plays a very important part in the RH technique. The thumb is responsible for the 6th to the 13th courses, as compared to the guitar, where it normally is occupied with only the 4th to the 6th strings.
Although flesh plucking was much [
Stefan Lundgren also presented a method for the Baroque lute (1993).
[…] Place the end of the first finger on the soundboard between the bridge and rosette with the tip of the small finger resting on the lute soundboard between the bridge and the rosette about 2 centimeters (3/4 inches) away from the first course. […] With a small amount of downward pressure, move the [right hand] thumb lightly across the 10th course, coming to rest at the adjacent 9th course. […] Hold the middle finger tip [
Miguel Serdoura (2007 and 2017)
The Baroque lute’s specific sound quality, its sweetness and the rich texture of its harmonics reside in its double strings, or ‘courses.’ It takes a great deal of patient practice to pluck both strings at the same time in such a way as to produce a round, precise and beautiful sound […].
La particularité sonore, la douceur et la richesse harmonique du luth baroque résident dans le fait que celui-ci possède des cordes doubles, appelées ‘choeurs.’ Pour réussir à avoir un beau son, rond, précis, perlé, nous devons étudier avec grande précision et patience la manière de bien toucher deux cordes à la fois […].
Serdoura further contextualises the instrument by drawing attention to its limitations, which, as he comments, are obviously subjective and often based on value judgements regarding the instrument’s era. Subjectivity and values aside, the more concrete expressive limitations of the Baroque lute are bound up with its volume, which is a product of its small size, relatively low tension and many strings. Similar to Cauhépé, Serdoura also makes a point of relaxation and balance. That is, that tone production must balance the act of producing enough force in the right place (and there are different ideas of where that is) with the act of relaxing, to increase rapidity and flexibility. What is significant in this book is that the so-far standardised cause and effect mechanics are now introduced to a more subjective perspective. Using language such as ‘undivided intuition and passion can be unharnessed and we can freely express ourselves, but in such a way as to respect the lute’s natural voice, with no obstacles or extraneous influences,’ we notice attempts to show more depth and value in regard to the subject. But still we are left to judge for ourselves what this actually means in practical performance. Rhetorically, when do we reach the ‘natural voice of the instrument?’ (I return to related perspectives in Chapter 4). How do we ‘unharness’ (in the sense of removing armour) ‘intuition and passion?’ What are the ‘obstacles and extraneous influences?’ Clearly, the book format is not capable of mediating fully what tone production is, could or should be, as already discussed. This is where informed play truly comes into practice, because we cannot rely on the performer, book or source alone. We can only create our own understanding of the topic by making the best of each and taking our own informed standpoint:
Every musical instrument has its qualities and limitations. The limitations are obviously subjective, as they are often based on value judgements regarding the instrument’s era. The expressive limitations of the baroque lute are bound up with its volume. The fact that the strings are comparatively slack and come in pairs prevents the lute from having a loud sound in terms of decibels. Therefore, the lutenist must articulate his playing in order to use all expressive nuances available to him. He must seek to render some sort of speech (rhetoric) and a wide range of colors thanks to the lute’s deep body, which, with the help of double strings, creates sounds that are rich in harmonics.
The more one uses strength to pluck the strings, the less the lute will sound. This paradox should lead the lutenist to use gentleness in plucking the string.
Certain physical reflexes, such as digital agility, strength, sensitivity of touch, elasticity of arm and finger muscles, back tension, etc., must be developed so that our undivided intuition and passion can be unharnessed and we can freely express ourselves, but in such a way as to respect the lute’s natural voice, with no obstacles or extraneous influences.
Tout instruments de musique a ses limites et ses qualités. Ces limitates sont bien sûr toujours subjectives car souvent liées a un jugement porté sur une époque déterminée. La limite expressive qu’on pourra trouver au luth se situe au niveau de sa puissance sonore. Le fait que les cordes aientt [sic!] très peu de tension et qu’on les joue par groupes de deux, empêche l’instrument d’avoir un son puissant au niveau des décibels. Dorénavant, on doit donc chercher à s’exprimer au luth avec toutes les nuances qu’on peut y trouver au niveau de l’articulations, cherchant le discours parlé (rhétorique), et toute une gamme de couleurs grâce a sa caisse de résonance profonde qui, à l’aide des cordes doubles, développe des sonorités remplies d’harmoniques.
Avec le luth, plus on utilise la force sur les cordes, moins il ca sonner. C’est un paradoxe mécanique qui aura pour vertu d’adoucir le toucher du luthiste. Nous devons développer certains mécanismes corporels comme l’agilité des doigts, la force, la sensibilité du toucher, l’élasticité des muscles de nos bras et de nos doigts, la tension exercé par notre dos, etc, afin que toute notre intuition et notre passion puissent voir le jour et s’exprimer véritablement, mais en conformité avec la voix naturelle du luth, sans encombrements ni facteurs parasites.
Later, we are asked to play close to the rose (which conflicts somewhat with the results seen in Chapter 2). Once there, Serdoura instructs us to divide physical contact between the designated finger and the courses into two steps: 1) approaching the top string, before 2) touching the lower string. We notice how he goes into more detail than his colleagues. Rather than merely speaking of the course as one entity, he also differentiates between the two strings of each course. This innovatively gives the two strings of each pair a separate function and role, combining ‘the clarity of a single string […] with the resonance of the lute’s double strings.’ Furthermore, Serdoura is the first to explicitly relate the return of the finger (cf. Cauhépé’s third phase and Lundgren’s second phase) with relaxation (‘relax the finger totally’), which is necessary to ‘produce a sound which is neither rough nor harsh’:
[…] and place your right hand at a distance of two fingers’ widths from the rose [… Photograph excluded]. […] The courses [: …] The soft outer edge of the index finger tip [
The mechanics of the finger movement […] When the finger touches the course, as described above … [Photograph excluded. …] … you will bend the first joint very slightly toward the soundboard. [Photograph excluded. …] You will then press the course down toward the soundboard, bending the strings somewhat. […] In actual fact, the mere pressure caused by the right hand’s weight is sufficient. [Photograph excluded. …] You should sense that the (very moderate) strength exerted on the course comes, not from the finger’s joints, but rather from the third (metacarpophalangeal) joint toward the top of your hand. […] The last stage in right-hand finger movement is to relax the finger totally. Its movement should be ample, in order to gain flexibility and thus produce a sound which is neither rough nor harsh. […] The thumb [: …] As you did with the index finger, you should first press the first of the two strings that form a course with the outer edge of the soft part of the thumb tip (press downward). [Photograph excluded. …] Next, turn the thumb a little (downward) in order to feel the second string. [Photograph excluded. …] The thumb should be rather straight, but the first joint is slightly bent. [Photograph excluded. …] Next, use the weight of your hand to let the thumb fall onto the adjacent course, while effecting a small movement with the first joint. [Photograph excluded. …] (Bold typeface in subheadings are removed from the original)
[…] placez ensuite la main à 2 doigts de distance de la rosace [… Photograph excluded]. […] Les choeurs[: …] L’index va d’abord appuyer sur la première des 2 cordes qui forment 1 choeur, avec le coté extérieur de la pulpe. [Photograph excluded. …] Ensuite, le doigt se tourne un peu plus (vers vous) pour sentir également la deuxième corde. […] Cette technique vous permettra d’avoir la clarité de la corde simple d’un violon et la résonance des doubles cordes d’un luth ! [Photograph excluded. …]
Mécanisme des doigts […] Au moment où le doigt touche le choeur comme décrit précédemment … [Photograph excluded.] … vous pliez très légèrement la première phalange vers la table d’harmonie. [Photograph excluded. …] Vous devrez ensuite exercer une pression sur le choeur vers la table d’harmonie, afin que la corde devienne un peu élastique. […] En réalité, il suffit d’une simple pression causée par le poids même de la main. [Photograph excluded.] Vous devez sentir que la force (très modérée) que vous exercez sur le choeur vient, non pas de différentes phalanges du doigt, mais de la 3ème articulation situé dans le haut de la main (métacarpo phalangienne). […] Enfin, la dernière étape du mouvement à effectuer avec les doigts de la main droite, consiste à relâcher le doigt, sans aucune force. Celui-ci devra faire un mouvement ample, pour avoir de la flexibilité, ce qui donnera une sonorité qui ne sera ni raide ni dure. […] Le pouce[: …] Tout comme l’index, vous devez appuyer d’abord sur la première des 2 cordes qui forment 1 choeur, avec le coté extérieur de la pulpe […]. [Photograph excluded.] Ensuite, le doigt se tourne un peu plus (vers le bas du luth) pour sentir aussi la deuxième corde. [Photograph excluded. …] Quand vous jouez les derniers choeurs, do, si et la, vous devez plier un peu plus la première phalange du pouce [i.e. through the distal interphalangeal joint] afin de ne pas trop crisper ni le poignet ni la paume de la main droite. [Photographs excluded. …]
Other authors bring the Baroque guitar into the lute discourse. James Tyler for one, in
Right-hand technique is essentially the same for the baroque guitar as for the [Baroque?] lute. Most players held their right hand in a position with the thumb slightly extended toward the rosette and the little finger resting on the soundboard about two inches in front of the bridge, except when they played strummed chords. […] Few technical instructions are provided in the music sources for baroque guitar […]. But it seems as if the traditional, lute-like technique described above survived not only through the Baroque period, but also, as Fernando Sor’s Méthode pour la Guitarre (Paris, 1830) attests, through the Classical. It is therefore recommended that Sor’s excellent detailed instructions, which include several diagrams, be studied by all guitarists, even those specializing in the baroque instrument. […] As many contemporary lute sources verify, most lutenists and guitarists of the Baroque period did not play with fingernails. This apparently held true during the Classical era as well […].
Finally, Kind (2014) provides another detailed description of the righthand technique which he links to tone production. Unlike most of the other examples here, this book is only published as an e-book, in Kindle format. Kind provides no historical account or foundation for his methodology, nor does he position his lute-playing approach among other artists and traditions. The sole focus is how to utilise the Alexander Technique based on his own personal account. He focuses on the mechanical aspects of playing too, but his main focus lies more in the execution of music from an ergonomic perspective rather than a sound production perspective. Another difference is that, while most of his colleagues focus on how lute performance should be done, Kind often takes the perspective of why it may not happen and what the performer (possibly) is doing wrong:
If the performer is incapable of producing volume without a harsh tone, then something is wrong with the right-hand technique. This usually happens because the performer is hooking the strings with the middle joint of the fingers and, as more force is applied, the strings slap against the fingerboard. The strings should be struck and not hooked. The finger moves through the course from the main knuckle of the right hand, aiming for the back of the palm instead of hooking the finger into itself. In this process there is some curling in the middle joint, which helps move the finger into the palm at an even reflexive rate. The movement needs to be executed at a naturally reflexive speed so that excessive tension is not caused by trying to force the finger to go faster through the course. You can only move as quickly as your reflexes allow, so you need to trust your reflexes. […] With the execution and return of the stroke being reflexive, excessive tension is avoided at high tempos and the quality of tone is clear, losing any hint of sounding labored.
Kind also emphasises a similar spring-effect to that we have seen before. Through descriptive words such as ‘fuzzy or indistinct’ and ‘controlled sound,’ he joins the same linguistic pathway as many of the earlier examples given here. Note how he asks us to achieve a balance in tone production between the thumb and the fingers:
The action of the fingertip is very important to tone production. The fingertip needs to give backward. If not, the sound will be harsh. Find a position that allows the finger the freedom to strike from the main knuckle and to give at the tip. Imagine the fingertip as a harpsichord quill. As the finger goes through the course like a door on a hinge, allow the fingertip to give backward like the quill of a harpsichord. Giving at the fingertips is the mechanism behind volume control. No matter how softly the performer plays, the speed of attack should not lessen. If the attack slows down, then the tone loses its quality and becomes fuzzy or indistinct. Something is also lost rhythmically, because, if the attack is slowed, then the exact point when the course is released becomes indistinct. Since the speed of attack is not changed, then something else has to change to reduce volume, and this should be the fingertip. I think of the fingertips as guitar picks. When I want a louder sound, it is like using a stiffer pick, and for a softer sound, a more flexible one. The fingertips are allowed more flexibility, backward as the performer produces softer and softer sounds. If the speed of attack is maintained at a reflexive rate, then the release of the notes is precise. Because fingertips give only so far, their release at a high speed maintains the integrity of the note. When using the thumb, allow it the freedom to break downward from the first joint, and do it as reflexively as the fingers. The sound produced by the thumb bending at the tip is a more controlled sound and closer in quality to that produced by the fingers. Imagine the reverse of shooting marbles with the thumb. When shooting marbles, the thumb tip pops out of the index finger to shoot the marble. Let the thumb do the reverse. With the extra control afforded by the thumb tip, the performer can avoid the danger of overpowering treble production with the superior strength of the thumb. If a stronger, fuller sound is desired, then the thumb is used as a single unit whether playing free or rest stroke […].
We start to see that there is indeed some consensus on how to play the lute in the various books and articles. Obviously, the book genre has been dominating the discourse. This is particularly true as much of the literature is driven by a mechanical understanding of the subject which needs a certain amount of space to unfold properly, with all the necessary pedagogical aids. It is possible to assume that online sources could provide enough space (arguably infinite space, in fact) to have a similar discourse unveiled, also including audio-visual material. Indeed, we do find several online sources treating lute music manuscripts, but surprisingly few direct themselves explicitly towards tone production. Those of interest in the present context are those sources where we can both see and hear how tone is produced. I will name a few of them here to exemplify.
Stefan Lundgren, mentioned several times above, provides a website called
David van Ooijen also presents his perspectives on tone production on his YouTube channel. Among numerous films of performed music, we find three films directed at playing technique. The notable film related to the right hand is a sort of recorded ‘slideshow,’ with interchanging texts, photographs and audio-visual material. In the transcription below we find instructions that conforms with earlier presented literature. Here we are asked to play both strings of each course with all fingers:
This is about making a good tone on your lute. Make sure you feel
Elisabeth Pallet presents a lute tutorial on her
Apparently, most of the literature mentioned in this chapter is in agreement (with few exceptions). This is highly interesting. Clearly, the Renaissance lute has been given most attention and the Baroque lute has been comparatively left more aside. When comparing the treatises to the material unveiled in Chapter 2, we notice how much has been added to the discourse according to modern taste and logic, and that the Renaissance sources are closer to the historical sources than the later Baroque lute instructions (cf. placing the hand between the rose and the bridge in most modern literature versus close to the bridge in historical sources). Modern practice, then, is distinct from historical practice not only in temporal location and situation, but also in their parallel development with each other, without necessarily being equally related at all times. Based on everything that I have discussed so far, and from what the science of interpretation has taught us through time, this is no surprise, but what is noticeable is how much modern literature gives an authoritative impression of the past. What I mean by this is that we can easily get the impression that what is described in present instruction books is how it actually was. We soon get a comforting sense that, by following the text of the authors (whoever we choose to follow), we are indeed learning historically-correct practices rather than modern interpretations and re-contextualisation of historical sources. Here, we can further identify two strands of literature. Firstly, the ‘this is my opinion regardless of (explicitly presented) history’ approach; and secondly, the ‘this is a historical stance without problematising or openly re-contextualising in relation to modern play’ approach.
From a publisher’s perspective, it is also interesting to notice how the presentation of these materials does not get the same amount of editorial attention as other literature traditions. Several examples of the literature presented here are self-published, with spelling mistakes and linguistic inconsistencies (in addition to what has been shown in this chapter) that a larger publication machinery would have edited out. This is not interesting
What is often offered are truths, codes of conduct in which the receiver is to have a certain understanding of the theme to gain a new ‘correct way of doing things.’ It is an offering from one musician to the other, and it is practical in the sense of the performing conditions rather than the sonic. There is little criticism amongst the sources. Even if Poulton and Serdoura, for instance, provide good historical foundations for their arguments, they only present sources which seemingly support their school of thought. There seems to be no tradition of constructive thinking where a ‘truth’ is built piece by piece, but rather a manner of stating ‘the proper way’ and which selected sources support that practice. There is suspiciously little contradiction presented. ‘The finger is to be placed here’ one source may state boldly, but on the grounds presented in the previous chapter we see that practices were varied within the assigned epochs, as well as between them. What happens is a pedagogical upbringing into ‘my way of doing things’ rather than giving the reader different perspectives from which they can form their own, informed approach. In this way, they also speak to a certain social group. This is where it becomes interesting to see how some literature uses the Classical guitar to guide the performer over to the lute, based on previous experiences and common bases of knowledge. Others seem to deliberately reject speaking about the classical guitar, to show that this is, indeed, something else. It is a practice of its own, not to be confused with the modern guitar. Not talking about the guitar is also a way to distance oneself from it; ‘the guitar is not even part of the lute discourse, because ….’ Already at this level, the reader is being guided towards a certain understanding of the relation between modern and historical practice, and how we approach it today (according to each individual author). (Of course, when looking at the publishing tradition critically, I also acknowledge that this book that I am writing also offers a certain world view based on my perspective on matters and is, in this respect, no better than others.)
One of the greatest obstacles to writing about tone production, as we have seen, is the nature of literature itself. It is troublesome to write about and ‘read’ sound because we cannot ensure that the reader understands our words exactly how we intend. Signs and signifiers are culturally and linguistically dependent, and words can be understood differently by various readers, even when resorting to onomatopoeia. Rhetorically, what timbre and tone colour does ‘BAAAANG’ have? How loud is it? Is it a positive sort of sound, such as a balloon exploding during children’s play at a party? Or the more alarming sound of a gas explosion? This is, of course, an old discussion in theory, treated by prominent authors such as Barthes, Derrida and others, but it presents important perspectives to tone production mediated through literature. Here we find a prominent difficulty in our discourse; we have to ask ourselves what is
Both the Early Modern period and the present time have witnessed the introduction of new sound ideologies. The harpsichord made its entrance in the Early Modern period, around the same time that tone production became richer in transients and ‘metallic’ (see Chapter 2), and the modern Classical guitar appeared, which made a kind of stance against the popular and folk music approach, which again preceded today’s lutenists. Here we find two very different aesthetics which set the standard for what we perceive as tone production and, as written in some of the sources above‚ ‘beautiful sound.’ This is a particularly important distinction, as Early Modern musicians seem to have dedicated themselves to the prevailing musical tradition of using the contemporary instruments at hand, while modern musicians often attempt to grasp a larger historical timeline using various techniques and instruments, from different countries. (Seen from a historical perspective, the interest in reconstructing the past anew is rather a modern phenomenon.) How we relate to this information when constructing our own informed sense of tone production will be treated in Chapter 5, but first it is necessary to look at tone production from a physical perspective with the aim of gaining an understanding of how lute sound is constituted by physics and material selections.
Liddell and Strizich,
Liddell and Strizich,
Barto,
In my experience, this is a term sometimes used by musicians (myself included) to describe a tone that activates its full harmonic register (according to the context) and that can be heard over distance in a concert hall. A tone with insufficient ‘body’ will appear weak and is only heard by the first few rows of the audience.
Iversen and Grant,
See for instance ‘John Mills Discusses Tone Colour on the Classical Guitar,’ YouTube video, 1’28’’, posted by ‘
See for instance ‘Andrés Segovia demonstrates different timbres of the guitar,’ YouTube video, 2’04’’, posted by ‘
Buetens,
Poulton’s addition.
Poulton,
Lundgren,
De Groodt, F.,
Damiani,
Damiani,
Damiani,
Damiani,
Damiani,
Damiani,
Boquet,
Boquet,
Boquet,
Volume II of the same work (2010) makes no new points on the mechanics of tone production, but focuses more on advanced fingering; see
Cauhépé,
Cauhépé,
Cauhépé,
Lundgren,
Lundgren,
The book was initially presented in French in 2007, but appeared in a translation in 2017. I have chosen to present both the published English translation and the French original here.
Serdoura,
Serdoura,
Serdoura,
Serdoura,
Kind,
Lundgren,
van Ooijen, D., ‘Tone Production on Renaissance Lute,’ YouTube video, 56’42’’, posted by ‘Lute Lessons,’ 13 May, 2012, URL:
‘
—Albert Einstein
Although it is always interesting to know what historical sources have to say, and what our present colleagues think, about matters concerning tone production (see Chapters 2 and 3), there is one aspect that we can only find out on our own: how can our own instrument sound good to us according to our own taste? This is not a matter governed by historical instruments but by our own ability to treat the modern instrument at hand, and make it sound in a manner that is not only pleasing to us but also projects well in a certain space. The lute is known as a soft instrument, but with the right treatment — i.e. playing technique, placement of the performer, instrument selection, instrument set-up and choice of music — it can in fact be heard easily in surprisingly different contexts, even without using microphones (which I return to in Chapter 6). The present chapter will take a more physical turn than other chapters in this book, because the very foundation of a sounding instrument has to do with its construction and performance, i.e. its physics. Understanding the physics of an instrument is the key to understanding cause and effect, which in turn provides a more empirical foundation for conceptualising sound; it also provides us with the necessary tools for self-development and problem solving. To separate topics for the sake of clarity, I will leave psychological perspectives on how we perceive, like and develop tone production until Chapter 5, where the physical aspects presented here will be compared to the historical (Chapter 2) and modern (Chapter 3) directions already presented.
Being a musician is, in part, being an artist of perception and physics. When we play a tone, we initiate a chain of reactions among air particles (to take a normal musical performance as an example) that a listener perceives and feels in a certain way. In order to understand sound and tone production, it is vital to understand that there is much more to sound than just air waves being produced to create music; in fact, ‘soundwaves’ is just a figure of speech. To me, at least, there is indeed a greater poetry in physics than just a transportation of sound from performer to listener; understanding the nature of sound makes that ‘transportation between A and B’ something dynamic, (partly) controllable and, in fact, something living. It can become part of the instrument and part of the performer, who can actively use physical principles to create music that mediates what they as performers intend to mediate. By understanding how sound actually works, the lutenist is left with the opportunity to make informed decisions in their tone production and form their own concept of ‘good’ sound — ‘this sounds like this because …’ or ‘to get the sound I want I have to do this,’ for instance. Deep knowledge of how things work can alter tone production to being something more than a habit; it can become a form of design or sculpting. Informed play, as I presented earlier, is thus more than simply reading sources and literature; it is also knowing what you are working with, how to affect the sound and how it develops over time. Furthermore, it helps to better understand sound biologically, i.e. as something developing over time, perceived as the sum of all its actions and reactions. The physics of lute sound is very concrete, very definable and therefore exemplifies the biological development of sound, before we, in later chapters, introduce more subjective concepts, such as psychological perspectives and sound recording, as well as drawing lines back to past chapters.
Understanding how lute instruments, or any other instruments for that matter, produce sound, requires a basic understanding of the physics and mathematics of sound development and propagation. In this section, I will focus on basic sound physics, addressing some fundamental features which will serve as the starting point for later discussions in this chapter.
Although sound is often represented using waveforms, it is vital to understand that sound is not actually propagated in waves in the traditional sense, often represented by a line going up and down around a centre line in an illustration; this is merely a mathematical way of describing air behaviour in terms of pressure changes over time. To fully understand sound propagation we must start elsewhere, outside the realms of mathematical representations and within the realms of relationships. The air surrounding us is full of small particles; without particles, we would find ourselves living in a vacuum. To put it simply, each individual particle has its natural, preferred place in a three-dimensional space. When a tree falls, creating a loud noise, it displaces the air particles, forcing them to leave their preferred space. When displaced, they get ‘homesick’ (figuratively) and try to go back home with such a force that they go too far the other way, and so it continues in an oscillating manner with less force each time (due to friction, etc.) until the air particles stand still in their resting place. This is, of course, a figurative manner of describing the process. When only considering one single particle the concept is easy enough to understand; it is almost like bungee jumping. But when that single particle moves, it collides with other particles and a complex chain of reactions is set in motion; hence the analogy of relationships, because everything happens as cause and effect, where everything depends on and relates to each other. Already here, then, we can perceive the biology perspective since each particle development creates actions and reactions that, in sum, produce complex air particle movements that we, through our auditory systems, perceive as sound. Indeed, this cause and effect is so powerful that it is also perceivable in silence. Consider, on one hand, the discomfort we perceive when there is no sound at all (such as in Microsoft’s silent chamber), and on the other hand, deaf composers being able to experience music through vibrations. The concept of sound is both something very concretised (through physics) and abstract (through cognitive and metacognitive perspectives), and it relates so strongly to its opposite, silence, that its impressive impact is inevitable whether it is ‘there or not.’
We can speak of two important sound features: firstly, the force, i.e. how far away from ‘home’ the particles are (its amplitude); and secondly, how many times per second they move back and forth (its frequency). Starting with amplitude, the sound pressure level can be measured using the traditional unit for pressure, namely pascals (Pa). The human auditory system can normally perceive sounds starting at a level of approximately 0.00002 Pa ranging up to 100 Pa, where our hearing begins to become seriously impaired. A measuring scale between 0.0002 and 100 naturally presents difficulties in practise, due to the vast amount of levels in-between. To make this range more convenient and easier to handle, it is normal practice to employ a mathematical approach called logarithms, employing the decibel unit (dB) rather than pascals. The basic principle of logarithms serves sound physics very well, in that it makes the range between 0.00002 Pa to 100 Pa more manageable and also better represents our perception of amplitude. Basically, in logarithms, what we are asking is how many of the same number we need to multiply to reach another number. For instance, 2 × 2 × 2 = 8, suggesting that we need to multiply three 2s to reach 8. This can be expressed as
As seen above, we can express a range of values stretching from 20 to 10,240,000,000,000 using only 10 numbers. If we say that 0.00002 Pa is 0 dB, we will find that 100 Pa is 133.97 … dB, which is an easier range to deal with.
There is a good reason why I talk about logarithms, pascals and decibels in a book treating the lute. This is because understanding the difference between linear and logarithmic thinking provides the entire foundation for how we work with sound, how it is represented in illustrations and (later in Chapter 6) how we can use sonic features to sculpt our tone production throughout a music-production context, ranging from live performances to recording sessions. This is where the traditional, mathematical representation (i.e. Fast Fourier Transform or FFT) of sound actually becomes valid, because it describes the amplitude’s development over time (see
Shifting focus to frequency, the distance from one positive peak to the following positive peak is called one wave length, period, or full cycle (usually described in mathematics as λ; see
But there is much more to sound than the two-dimensional aspect of frequency and amplitude represented by the FFT graph. Sound does not propagate directionally, like a laser beam, but rather hemispherically (see
In fact, there is a logic to this decrease of amplitude over distance that can be formulated as double the distance equals minus 6 dB (2 × d = – 6dB). Changing listening position from 16 to 8 metres distance produces the same amplitude increase (in decibels) as from 4 to 2 centimetres. This, in turn, means that one will experience less difference in amplitude when moving around far away from the instrument than if having the ear moving around right next to the soundhole. Conceptually, this is important when discussing lute sound production because it gives us points of departure to better understand lute sound propagation over distance and, together with frequency and amplitude, we are in fact given the tools to talk about physical processes and use a common language to further develop the biological cause and effect phenomena that sound propagation really is.
It may be easily forgotten that technology does not only imply objects with electrical cords. The lute itself is a form of technology, and the lute sound as a concept begins already at the level of the lute instrument as a physical entity. This means that choosing a certain lute is also to choose a certain framework and foundation for sound. We notice, for instance, how instruments built in the 1970s and 80s are designed using a different ideology than certain instruments built today. This relates to how the frequencies in its tone are balanced (common adjectives used in this sense are often ‘rich,’ ‘feeble,’ ‘mellow’ or ‘rich on transients’), the thickness of the lid and the back of the instrument, the spacing between the lid and the strings, to name just a few of the differences.
The designs of various sorts of lutes are very much bound up with historical findings, as luthiers (i.e. lute builders) mostly seek to bring to life older authentic lutes rather than develop new instruments (one exception are the
Historically, Wachsmann et al. informs us, the arched backside of the lute consists of an odd number of thin strips of wood
If we look at the individual parts of a lute we realise that it actually consists of multiple oscillators made of different materials, densities and tensions that create lute sound as they work together (see
Thomas Mace (1676) makes a great point of the synergy between instrument, strings and moisture. He emphasises the necessity for keeping moisture at an acceptable level to keep the instrument in shape, ease the handling of it while playing and, most interestingly, improve its tone production. Mace lays down seven good reasons for storing the lute properly:
And that you may know how to
This is the
As, First, for the
2dly. It will keep your
3dly. You will find that it will
4thly. If you have any
5thly. It will be a great
6thly. It will prevent
Now these six considered all together, must needs create a
I have now done with
Yet
Therefore care must be taken that
Let
Various sorts of wood are often categorised as
Wood undergoes several stages of humidity during its journey from a tree to becoming part of an instrument. The first is when it is newly cut from the tree (called the ‘green state’), when it contains both bound water (trapped within the cells) and free water (liquid in pores and vessels). During exposure to air, it will immediately begin losing free water, without contracting or changing its dimensions given that the bound water is still intact. When all the free water has evaporated from the wood, it reaches its fibre saturation point (FSP), when it will begin to lose its bound water and reduce its volume; the green state now turns into a drying state. The bound water will, however, not be at a lower percentage than the surrounding humidity and temperature (i.e. relative humidity; RH). If the RH is 50%, the bound water of the wood will be 50%, where the percentage represents the weight of the water as compared to its oven-dry weight (i.e. 0% bound water). This point of stabilisation between RH and value below the FSP is called the ‘equilibrium moisture content’ (EMC), and it will change in accordance with the surrounding air temperature and RH. According to
What can be learned from
If one is unfortunate, the climate can result in the wood bending as it shrinks, in relation to the original centre of the tree from which it came. According to Tim Padfield, this can be seen clearly in crackled, wooden antiques from China, where both wood and lacquer have dried out and shrunk over time, but at different rates, resulting in a crackled surface. This is because Chinese lacquer is applied at high relative humidity to speed up the hardening process, while in the present, it might be exposed to the modern, temperate indoor climate.
Strings also react to the surroundings, of course, and choosing the right strings for an instrument is vital for how the instrument sounds; indeed, Descartes and others spoke of the strings as the ‘nervis testudinis’ (‘nerves of the lute’).
Pitch for 60 cm mensura (in this case, gut) | Reference a’ = 392 Hz | a’ = 415 Hz | a’ = 440 Hz |
---|---|---|---|
g’; tension: 38 N | 0.46 | 0.43 | 0.41 |
d’; tension: 32 N | 0.56 | 0.53 | 0.5 |
a; tension 30 N | 0.73 | 0.69 | 0.65 |
f; tension 30 N | 0.9 | 0.85 | 0.8 |
Pitch for 60 cm mensura (in this case, gut); a’ = 440 Hz | Nylgut | PVF Carbon | Gut | Nylon |
---|---|---|---|---|
g’; tension: 38 N | 42 NNG | 0.35 | 0.41 | 0.46 |
d’; tension: 32 N | 50 NNG | 0.42 | 0.5 | 0.57 |
a; tension 30 N | 66 NNG | 0.55 | 0.65 | 0.73 |
f; tension 30 N | 79 NNG | 0.68 | 0.8 | 0.91 |
Historical strings are somewhat difficult to discuss in terms of tone production. The climate then and now is very different and the diet of animals has also changed, which again affects the quality of the guts. It is therefore not productive, from a performance perspective, to spend much time discussing earlier manufacturers across Europe (which was a relevant theme to discuss at the time, of course). I will rather direct attention to instructions regarding tone quality and ensuring the quality of strings.
There are several interesting remarks regarding strings to be found in the more practical sources. Vincenzo Capirola (c. 1517) describes how gut strings are thicker at one end than the other and how it matters which way they are put on.
Sapi che le corde sono fare de budeli de castroni: Et il cao del buclo sempre, e piu groso che in fin: […] Et replico come le se die ligar sul lauto, El contrabaso, et bordon, liga dal cao grosso, El tenor, mezane, sotane, vi ligade dal cao sottil […] Nel bater la corda da veder, si sono bona, et iusta, per meter sul lauto, batila con la man destra per che anche nel sonare tu bari dal segno cun la man destra. Et fa che el cao longo, zoe el piu dela iavera stia nela man Zaneba, et la corda che son iusta bura do filli seguenti da un cao a laltro, et sapi, liga il cao piu iusto dal scagnello, Ancora sapi che si la[ ]corda te burase tre filli, o, g. Seguenti da[ ]un cao a laltro, faria ancora asai bona corda, Ma advertisi de aconpagnar sempre la sua conpagna de guela instesa bota zoe silabura .3. fili metili apreso unaltra da .3. fili, et cusi fa corda che non par false […] Et si per sorte diro le mezane, o sotane no sacordase, et che fuse iuste, muda la corda da cao apie che forsi tacordara per la rason sopradita, per che ogni volte in le corde sotil non si puo cusi veder qual sia el cao piu groso, o piu sotil da ligar sul scagnelo, che per q[u]esta rason anche non fa[ ]corda. Et etian sapi a mudando la corda da cao a pie tacordara per [que-?]staltra causa che sara insta la corda dann cao che dal[ ]altro, ac etia sapi che nel ligar che fai la corda si lasasti inver il cagnelo in deo che corda falsa per sorte, non acordaria che te faria poi tuta la corda dalsa, cava mia la corda et rebatilla dare[ ]cao, et va provando, et facendo experientia […] Et le mezane, et sotane, si per caso una fuse piu graseta del[ ]altra, meti sempre la grosa de sopra. Et etiam sapi che una corda falsa apreso de una insta mai tacordara, ma piu tosto de false aun […] per che come il tasto, e piu propinguo a[ ]le corde, le corde adir cusi arpiza, et par mior el lauto […].
(The strings are made from the gut of
John Dowland’s essay brings other perspectives to the agenda in Robert Dowland’s
Ordinarily therefore wee choose
Now because Trebles are the principall strings wee neede to get, choose them of a faire and cleere whitish gray, or ash-color, and take one of the knots in your hand, but let it not be too small, for those give no sound, besides they will be either rotten for lacke of substance, or extreame false. Also open the boutes of one of the ends of the Knot, and then hold it up against the light, and looke that it be round and smooth: but if you discerne it to be curlie, as the thread of a curled Cypris, or horse hayre, (which you may as well feele as see) then refuse them, although they be both cleere and strong, because those strings were not well twisted, and therefore will never be true on the Instrument. For trying the strength of these strings, some doe set the top of their fore and middle finger on one of the ends of the Knot, which if they finde stiffe, they hould them then as good; but if it bend as wee say, through a dankish weakenesse, then they are not strong. Some againe doe take the end of the string between their teeth, and they plucke it, and thereby if it breake faseld at the end, then it is strong, but if it breake stubbed then it is weake. This Rule also is houlden for the breaking of a string betweene the hands. The best way, is to plucke out an end of the string (if the seller will siffer you, if hee will not affare your selfe that those strings which hee sheweth you are old or mingled,) and then looke for the cleernesse and faults before spoken, as also for faseling with little hayres. And againe looke amongst the boutes, at one end of the Knot, that the string be not parted, I meane one peece great and another small, then draw it hard betweene your hands, to try the strength, which done, hould it up againe against the light betweene your hands, and marke whether it be cleere as before; if it be not but looke muddie, as a browne thread, such strings are old, and have beene rubbed over with oyle to make them cleere. This choosing of strings is not alone for Trebles, but also for small and great Meanes: greater strings though they be ould are better to be borne withall, so the colour be good, but if they be fresh and new they will be cleere against the light, though their colour be blackish. […]
The good strings are made at Rome or about Rome and none that are good are made in any other place, except the great strings and octaves that are made at Lyons in France and nowhere else. They attribute that to the climate and to the waters. The strings are made of sheep’s and cat’s guts, and are twisted with a great deal of art. To be good they must be clear and transparent, smooth and well twisted, hard and strong; and new they are preserved in a white paper dipped in oil of almonds, or in a hog’s bladder. They endure no moisture nor any excessive heat no more than the lute, but they will have a temperate air and place (but of the two the moisture is the worst). When they are open their goodness is known thus: holding the two ends in each hand and striking the string with the middle finger, if they part in two only; or if being laid upon the lute they do not jar. If the two strings can be made of one bunch they will agree the better; but it is hard to find two good strings of a length, therefore you must choose them as near as you can to the same bigness. The string must not be full of knots or gouty or rugged, nor be bigger in one place than in another. […] You must then have always by you a pretty good store of good strings and be very exact in preserving them. You must put them to the lute with curiosity. Observe the bignesses of them and put no false ones; they become false several ways — if they be old, if they take air, if they be yellow, and (in one word) if they do not come from Rome.
In
The reason why we use but one second [[string]] is that the two seconds [[if combined to a single course]] will seldom agree, that the second of the two squeaking [doth] smother the other strings. Besides the cadence that is made upon the treble and the second is not so clear if there be two seconds.
Also agreeing with the main arguments presented here, Thomas Mace (1676) provides a lengthy discussion on where to find the best strings. His discussion of various sorts of strings stretches over several pages, but I am rather interested in a passage where he draws attention to the storage of strings, which concurs with
[…] they [i.e. the strings] may be very
Which, when you have thus done, keep them in
Forget not, to
What we learn from the historical sources is that strings are not just strings. Choosing the right strings for the right occasion and maintaining them properly according to the selected material (an idea which applies to any material from any period of time), are crucial not only for a good tone, but also for keeping the strings in tune. Indeed, it is noticeable when playing with gut strings, at least in my experience, that after a while they become impossible to tune well. They may be fairly much in tune based on open strings but become ‘false’ in higher registers, and I have made similar observations using other materials as well, although not always equally as obvious. Today’s strings, nonetheless, are different from what was used then, for reasons already stated, so the natural progression of this argument must therefore lead us to modern practices, to see how they relate to the historical sources.
Luthier Martin Shepherd (2017) describes how attempts at manufacturing historically-informed strings are still in their infancy. Nylon strings ruled the early years of the twentieth-century lute revival, utilising plain nylon for the trebles and silver wound with a nylon floss core for the basses. For obvious reasons, nylon produces quite a different sound than gut, which is probably the reason that those interested in lute instruments delved into gut-string manufacturing as more original sources were unveiled and made available. As many lutenists in the early stages of the revival were trained Classical guitarists, which is often the case today as well, it is worth noting that lute courses were often strung in unisons. This may have had to do with the lack of available historical sources at the time, as well as the octave stringing being an undiscovered, traditional novelty that may have sounded strange to many Classical guitarists.
It seems that the wound strings receive the most attention from modern string manufacturers. Mimmo Peruffo (2008) points out a difficulty for modern string manufacturers, which is the transition from one string type to another (e.g. nylgut treble to silver wound in the basses, or any other combination) and as a result, the middle register is particularly difficult to solve. There are also difficulties related to octave courses where often a non-wound and a wound string are placed together to form one single course. Modern synthetic stringing has not yet been able to develop an appropriate string type for the mid-register; one possible approach to the issue, as Peruffo suggests, is to use aluminium wound strings and carbon strings to smooth the transition. He comments, ‘The string maker has very limited leeway indeed: putting together a good set of gut strings for the lute looks more like a tricky narrow path than a wide and easy highway.’
Because of the large quantity of metal wound on the gut core they were employed on instruments with a short string length but requiring a low tuning, e.g. violoncello da spalla, 5th double bass string &c.
These three types identify interesting developments, where the close wound seems to have been the general
medium or high twist gut core.
round metal wire winding.
no silk ‘padding’ between core and metal winding.
metal wire of silver, silvered copper, pure copper or its alloys (brass).
different gut/wire ratio than the modern wound strings.
While the modern equivalents are characterised by:
flat metal winding.
stiff, low twist core.
silk ‘padding’ between core and metal winding.
employment of modern alloys like tungsten, nickel, &c.
metal-biased gut/wire ratio.
Hence the acoustical differences are quite noticeable and interest [
This example demonstrates both that historical and modern strings seem to be different, but also that there is a need for them to be different. Given the conditions in which they are made, as well as the modern sense of what a good tone is, which is still highly related to much later musical practices, a simple remake would not be preferable today. This is further supported by the fact that we cannot know for sure all the necessary details from reading primary and secondary sources, nor the exact, original conditions of the very old, preserved strings which have been subject to the test of time.
Martin Shepherd also addresses the mid-range problem when he draws attention to the matter of dimension and elasticity. As strings become thicker the lower the pitch is, to preserve a suitable working tension, they also become less elastic and the sound becomes more and more short-lived and out of tune. He gives an example: ‘The sixth course of a lute is two octaves below the first course, and even when strung at a much lower tension still has to be about 3–4 times thicker. This increase in thickness as you go down into the bass creates a problem […].’ One measure to address this issue is to put more twist in the string during production, but that only provides sufficient effect to a small degree, about which scholars, luthiers, performers and string makers disagree. Some have experimented (and continue to do so) with loading the gut strings with metallic salts to double the density of unloaded gut strings. Although certain historical paintings suggest the use of this method through the colour of the strings, it is less certain whether the literatureconcurs. Loaded strings would cause them to become, for instance, a reddish colour, while Mace et al. above emphasises that the strings should be clear. Yet, because the holes on the bridge through which the strings are attached are not bigger than they are on surviving instruments, the loaded gut string concept presents itself as a plausible theory. Otherwise, the strings would either be too big to fit the holes, or the tension would be as low as half of what is accepted nowadays as common-sense practice. The pitch can, of course, be set higher in general, but then we will meet problems with the first course suddenly becoming too thin, and the differences in the bass-string diameter are still not large enough.
Moving on, beyond the level of understanding the strings themselves, we also find their internal relationship; that is, how they are matched and tuned together — their temperament.
Temperament, that is, how we tune instruments and intonate tones according to various principles and traditions, is a vast subject and any attempt to fully cover the topic in this context would seem somewhat unrealistic and unnecessary. Yet, temperament is crucial to tone production because it decides how multiple tones performed simultaneously and in relation to neighbouring tones and harmonies are both perceived and how their tone develops over time. In fact, much of an instrument’s sustain, tension and richness of overtones are decided by its temperament.
Temperaments can be seen in two ways. The first is when playing monophonic music where we have more freedom in choosing temperament. Because we only consider the tonality horizontally, there are fewer consequences for the overall tonality. Local adjustments can be made within a set tuning by either moving the frets or changing the pitch by pulling or slacking the string with the finger. In polyphonic music, however, the selected temperament produces greater consequences because it has to function vertically over a period of time. This is one of the main reasons why the repertoire of certain instruments historically is often based on a few selected keys in close relation.
Set aside from historical points of arguments, traditions and various ideologies of aesthetics, the selected temperament relates directly to sustain and resonance. A good example here is Pythagorean tuning versus modern Western equal temperament. Western equal temperament divides every semitone into 100 cents, making it easy to calculate (1 semitone or 1 fret on a guitar = 1 × 100 = 100; 5 semitones or 5 frets on a guitar = 5 × 100 = 500). Pythagorean tuning, however, is strictly mathematical and based on the natural proportions of harmonics. If a string is represented by one whole, that is the full length of the string, we find the first harmonic (
Order | Example pitch of a = 440 Hz | Multiplication | Relative interval from preceding tone |
---|---|---|---|
f0 | 440 Hz | (unison) | |
880 Hz | octave | ||
1320 Hz | fifth | ||
1760 Hz | fourth | ||
2200 Hz | major third | ||
2640 Hz | minor third | ||
3080 Hz | subminor third | ||
3520 Hz | supermajor second |
By choosing to play in Pythagorean tuning, we have the major benefit of an increased sustain, because the overtones of the string and the instrument align better, in theory, with the temperament. This is conditional upon the luthier properly matching the materials and components of the instrument (consider earlier discussion of the mass-spring system and lute sound as the sum of its components). In
Semitones | Pythagorean (in cents) | Western equal temperament (in cents) | Difference (in cents) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 90.22 | 100 | 9.78 |
2 | 203.91 | 200 | 3.91 |
3 | 294.13 | 300 | 5.87 |
4 | 407.82 | 400 | 7.82 |
5 | 498.04 | 500 | 1.96 |
6 | Aug. fourth: 611.73 | 600 | 11.73 |
dim. Fifth: 588.27 | 11.73 | ||
7 | 701.96 | 700 | 1.96 |
8 | 792.18 | 800 | 7.82 |
9 | 905.87 | 900 | 5.87 |
10 | 996.09 | 1000 | 3.91 |
11 | 1109.78 | 1100 | 9.78 |
12 | 1200 | 1200 | 0 |
The crucial relationship here can be found between the fifth and the thirds. If we were to stack five pure fifths on top of each other from a reference note, such as ‘C’, we would reach an ‘E’. Compared to similarly stacking two octaves and a pure third above each other, we would still go from ‘C’ to ‘E’, but the pitch would be different. At a time when the scientific measuring tools we have today were unavailable, this difference was used as a subjective measuring reference and we call it a
What we can learn from this development, in order to understand tone production conceptually, is that tuning has no right or wrong configuration. It is dependent on personal preference, and historical and cultural contexts. Moving outside Western society, we find clear examples of more complex temperaments in the Far East, the Orient and Asia, and for anyone trying to learn Turkish music, for instance, one soon realises the challenges of intonating when an octave is divided into 53 commas. A conceptual understanding of tuning and temperament is, then, also a matter of cultural understanding and ear training according to that specific culture. When further considering the matter of sustain and resonance, we understand that culture is also a part of the instrument’s resonance and temperament. Instruments that seem to have been performed in more resonant acoustics seem to have had a stronger attack and shorter sustain, making them sound clear in large halls or their equivalent. Instruments that seem to have been utilised mostly in dry spaces, including several folk instruments such as the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, the keyed fiddle and the hurdy gurdy, had the resonance built into the instrument by utilising sympathetic strings. Modern plucked instruments also have a much higher string tension and thicker materials which, together with shortened sustain and less apparent activation of unaligned overtones, makes them duller and often louder (depending on the performer) than their historically-distant counterparts.
Temperament, however, is not all that affects sustain, resonance and tone production. It is also important to include performance technique and instrument set-up when developing a concept for tone production. Regarding the left hand, the point at which one places one’s fingers between two frets actually makes a difference. If the fingers are placed off centre, it can be difficult to press the string all the way down on the fretboard, which in turn affects the string’s movement. This can result in shorter sustain and slightly-altered pitch, especially when the distance between the fretboard and the string is high (see
This is not necessarily true on all instruments. I have made observations that, in addition to modern Classical guitars and their relatives, the steel string instruments of old are less determined by the centre position. On my own
Beyond the placing of the left-hand fingers, old frets cause various problems as well. First of all, they can become dry and loose, making them move around uncontrollably when the left hand moves up and down the fretboard. Secondly, when fibres break and the frets get rough and ‘hairy,’ the frets make unwanted contact with the vibrating string, causing noise as they disturb the trajectory of the string. Finally, unevenly-worn frets cause uneven heights, which in turn produce uneven tensions between strings, also affecting intonation and sustain; this means that a perfectly-tuned instrument, with all the frets correctly positioned, may still be out of tune because it has old frets (see
Although there are several matters contributing to how a lute instrument performs physically, it has to be said that most of them take place during the construction of an instrument. Except for matters concerning humidity, geography and temperature, there is little one can do about the construction of a finished instrument other than make physical alterations to it, or to buy another instrument. It is indeed relevant to understand how the instrument behaves and why, in order to understand how sound develops in a certain context, but what is even more important for the practicing performer is to understand how it is affected by, and behaves, in an acoustical space. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, understanding a single particle’s behaviour is simple enough, but when a multitude of particles are considered in relation to each other it all becomes highly complex.
A large portion of what shapes the sound of a lute in an acoustical space has to do with reflection. When sound impacts with a surface at a certain angle it will reflect at a corresponding angle. This means that if sound approaches a wall from an angle of 22° from the left, it will project from the surface at an angle of 22° to the right. But not all sound is reflected. All materials absorb sound to various degrees, some more than others, which means that some sound is not reflected, but passes through the surface into the material. Painted concrete, for instance, absorbs around 10% at 125 Hz and 7% at 1000 Hz, while ordinary window glass absorbs around 35% at 125 Hz and 12% at 1000 Hz, leaving painted concrete as the most reflective material of the two.
the lute is a closet instrument that will suffer the company of but few hearers, and such as have a delicate ear; for the pearls are not to be cast before the swine. As I answered once to a gentlewoman that told me the lute was a heavy music: I answered that her ear was heavy, and that a violin was most fit for her […] for the cabinet rather than for a public place.
This was quite a rude remark, comparing the noblewoman to ‘the swine’; particularly when considering Leppert’s argument that the violin was a popular instrument for the lower classes in the seventeenth century, ‘who used it principally to accompany dances.’
The 1
Again; tis observable, That all
Here, Mace touches upon one of the core arguments of this book as he speaks of a
The
The
[…]
The
2
3
4
5thly, The Musick will be Equal to all alike.
Note how Mace presents perspectives similar to those of Rogers, such as having a small audience and giving sound an uninterrupted, free passage. Mace goes further, however, commenting on how the acoustical space affects tuning and that a proper space for music does not differentiate the tone qualities among the auditors; it is perceived alike by all. Mace’s argument here is somewhat different than mine in the sense that Mace speaks of constructing a space for music, while I am concerned with tone production in an already-existing space, be it perceived as good or bad. But what we can draw from his discussion is the aim of controlling tone quality and musical expression, to the extent that the musicians are not hindered, neither by instruments and acoustics, nor audiences, in their mediation. Mace’s passage on acoustics is quite extensive compared to other topics discussed in
As sound is propagating and reflecting inside a room, some sound is obliged to fit the room’s dimension in such a manner and angle that it bounces back and forth between two fixed points. This causes some frequencies to become amplified and some to be attenuated or even cancelled, according to the principles of phase and comb filtering mentioned above. Such behaviour gives rise to a phenomenon called
Room modes are not only an indicator of what sounds subjectively good or bad in a room, or what frequencies are strengthened or weakened, but they can also be used in reverse engineering. In an interesting study by Hassan Azad, attempts are made to recreate historical acoustics to learn more about how music could have sounded. Azad studies the music room of the Safavid palace, Ali Qapu in Isfahan, Iran, and finds that it has quite intimate acoustics despite its large construction (see
The reverberation time was nearly low in all configurations. This means that Ali Qapu has been so suitable for intimate music especially Iranian ballad which is a part of Iranian traditional music performed in that era. […] In spite of high proportion of the room volume to the audience between 8 to 103 per person, the presence of cut-outs brought about low reverberation time to serve the function of the room as a host for speech and intimate music.
In this chapter, we have moved from the instrument-centric to the external and we have now reached a point where the musical instrument takes part in an acoustical environment. Tone production, both seen as a physical, theoretical phenomenon and as a concept, has now become part of an external space and so we must also consider how we as performers and audience members relate to tone production from psychological perspectives. The following chapter will introduce some key perspectives, mainly from social psychology, from which we can contextualise the historical texts (Chapter 2), the modern interpreter instructions (Chapter 3) and the physics of tone production (Chapter 4), to reach a better understanding of how we subjectively and socially form our own concept of proper tone production.
For those interested in a historical discourse on the development and history of the lute; see
See
Mace,
The type of wood used for the ribs does not seem to have been standardised and depended on what was available.
Wachsmann et al. suggests that the practice came into use ‘possibly to cover pre-existing wear;’ see
Wachsmann,
Mace,
Mace,
We can read in
The Wood Database,
This is because the parts of the gut used for strings are naturally thicker at one end than the other; see:
Dart,
Dart,
Mace,
Larson,
Aquila,
Shepherd,
Further reading on the luthier-related topics presented so far in this chapter includes:
Playford, C
Dart,
Mace,
Dart,
Dart,
Leppert,
Dart,
Mace,
Mace,
‘
—Robert Conklin
After reviewing issues related to historical evidence, collegial influence and how an instrument performs and constructs its sound, it is now time to relate them to the core of musical experience — humans. Psychology, naturally, is a very extensive, time-consuming subject and concept to treat. My focus will be dedicated to the concept of tone production as a means of self-expression, within a social-psychological framework. The reason for choosing these two disciplines, among all available psychological perspectives, is because they both contribute pragmatic and easily-grasped concepts on how we relate to each other. Both provide perspectives that, without having formal degrees in psychology, can put tone production into other contexts than the traditional, historical-to-present translation of musical sources. ‘Self-expression’ places tone production into a context emphasising the personality inherent in tone construction, i.e. how a tone is not only produced to sound ‘good’ (regardless of whom it is intended to sound ‘good’ for), but how it can also be part of producing an idiolectic sound quality, one that people recognise as a specific artist’s sound. In a book treating how we can conceptually understand tone production, this is an important part of the argument. When channelling our knowledge of a historical and artistic practice to an audience, we are bound to put some of ourselves into it, as we become the medium in which the concept of tone production is mediated and realised. Social psychology, in my view, functions as a kind of meta-science, relating a vast majority of disciplines (e.g. neurology, behaviourism and applied psychology) to direct attention to human behaviour as a directly social activity, which also makes it apt to apply to studies outside of Psychological Studies without much effort. The chapter is organised from a broad perspective working its way towards a more focused one.
Several studies treat musical texts by discussing and analysing ornamentation, interpretation and tablatures,
Interestingly enough, we do not have to perform a bodily act ourselves in order to reach a certain cognitive state. In neuroscience, there is a specific body of research focusing on mirror neurons and mirror systems. Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry and George R. Mangun (2009) write that ‘[t]he intimate link between perception and action is underscored by the fact that our comprehension of the actions of others appears to depend on the activation of the neural structures that would be engaged if we were to produce the action ourselves.’
Katz presented a paper in 1960 suggesting four motivational functions during the formation of an attitude. Firstly, attitudes can have a
Secondly, attitudes can have a
The
Finally, the
Other theories create a bridge from attitude formation to attitude application. Zajonc’s
Furthermore, exposure does not only shape our preferences and anticipation. By being exposed to stimuli that we are either consciously or unconsciously aware of, and that we are either punished or rewarded for doing, we are engaging in
Whatever the function, attitudes towards tone production, whether modern or historically perceived, are formed in tension between inner and outer perspectives, or between opposing practices or groups, or between good and bad experiences. They are also formed through exposure, anticipation and experience. When constructing a conceptual understanding of what tone production is within a historically-distant practice, performed today, it is vitally important to acknowledge this point. Attitudes and ideologies, formed by social interaction and stimuli exposure, set a framework in which our self-expressive acts are perceived, interpreted and understood. This places a major emphasis on how a performer presents their tone production within a certain context and how they acknowledge the link between self-expressive acts, attitudes and embodiment. Our attitudes set the framework in which our self-expressive acts are perceived and perhaps also understood. This is where the quality of tone production is judged and it is highly individual; embodiment represents the effect caused by self-expressive acts and other bodily performances that become more or less internalised, both within the musician and the audience. Returning to mirror neurons, as pointed out by Gazzaniga et al. (2009), we see how attitudes and embodiment can present themselves differently, according to the level of expertise and motor repertoire: ‘Interestingly, the extent and intensity of the activation pattern [as related to mirror neurons] reflect the individual’s motor repertoire. Skilled dancers show stronger activation in the mirror network when watching videos of familiar dance routines compared to unfamiliar dances.’
As a self-expressive act, tone production is an important part of how we perceive a performance; it is part of a communicative process in which the audience, as well as the performer, understands the performance from a certain context, and in which the performer’s competence and aesthetic values are judged. In 2007, Mitchell S. Green presented a full monograph focusing on self-expression where he discusses in detail the problems surrounding the subject. Green formulates twenty
A self-expression shows a thought, feeling, or experience.
A self-expression shows one’s thought, feeling, or experience.
A self-expression is not a type of statement.
A self-expression is a signal.
A self-expression may be involuntary, voluntary, or both voluntary and willed.
A self-expression can be seen at once [as] spontaneous and voluntary.
Although one can express only those states of ourselves that can be shown, it is an open question just what this class includes.
A self-expression is characteristically, but not exclusively, directed toward an audience.
A self-expression may be directed towards an audience that is distinct from the object of the state expressed.
Self-expression falls into overt and non-overt varieties.
We can express ourselves by means of ‘sayings in our heart’.
Self-expression is as sensitive to how an action is carried out as it is to which action is carried out.
One can express oneself in a voluntary act without intending to do so.
Like other acts, attempts at self-expression may or may not be successful.
What is expressed, in self-expression, can be known by introspection.
Self-expression need not take routinized paths.
Self-expression is distinct from expressiveness.
Corporate expression is, when successful, expressive.
Dramatic performances, when expressive, need not involve self-expression.
It is an empirical question where self-expression is found in the animal kingdom, and of its ontogenesis in any given species.
According to Green, a self-expressive act can both show one’s feeling or just a feeling in general. It does not need to be a statement but is rather a signal, independent of whether it is in fact conscious or unconscious, willed or unwilled. In the context of tone production, then, it is not necessarily the case that when speaking of tone production as a self-expressive act we are also speaking of mediating a statement. It is merely a signal that may or may not be perceived. What is particularly interesting is that Green suggests that self-expression is distinct from expressiveness and that dramatic performances, when expressive, need not involve self-expression. The self-expressing perspective on tone production is therefore theoretically useful as it does not presume that communication of a certain message arises and that the delivery from performer to audience is clear, but it assumes more directly that tone production functions as a signifier of something regardless of it being understood by others, or even by the performer themself. According to Green, this is one of the main features of self-expression, that is, that self-expression is distinct from communication. Self-expression is about showing someone an inner state, for instance, that does not rely on anyone perceiving it (a state Green calls
Where A is an agent and B a cognitive, affective, or experiential state of a sort to which A can have introspective access, A expresses her B if and only if A is in state B, and some action or behaviour of A’s both shows and signals her B. […] According to this characterization, all self-expression involves showing one’s emotional, cognitive, or experiential state.
In the above statement, there is a clear correlation between feeling something and performing an act which transfers the feeling from the internal to the external. Green presents three categories of showing:
One thread that unites the above three forms of showing is knowledge: Evidence enables those who are shown the things mentioned above, and who are in the right circumstances (being empathetic, being in the right perceptual location, possessed of the right conceptual resources or background knowledge, etc.) to know some fact, some object of perception, or how some emotion, mood, or experience feels. Showing is thus a stronger relation than indication, in two ways. First, showing, unlike indication, is a ‘success’ notion: One can only show facts (showing-that), or real things (showing
What is being brought to the agenda here is important; that is, that self-expressive acts do not need to be true in the sense of showing, but they can also be manipulated to indicate something that is not true. By indication, we can create signals meant to give the perceiver the possibility of understanding a signal without the necessity of it being a true emotion, thought or knowledge. In fact, this is what professional actors deal with on a daily basis: ‘[S]elf-expressions are often produced with a strategic aim over and above that of manifesting the cognitive or affective state of their producer,’
From this perspective, it is also noticeable that self-expression can be conventionalized in several ways, either through a
If tone production is a self-expressive act, and part of an attitude and embodiment apparatus enabling us to situate ourselves socially, it is easy to argue that a book treating Early Modern tone production on lute instruments cannot only look at physicality and physics (Chapter 4), modern performance practice (Chapter 3) or historical evidence (Chapter 2). It is equally important to consider how our sociability and interaction within a certain context forms a concept of what we think proper tone production can and should be. Whatever historically-informed performance we present to an audience, that particular performance takes place today — it is designed, rehearsed, presented, improvised, perceived and understood today. As such, any performance of Early Modern music, and any attempt to understand that music’s social function and location (tone production then being part of that practice) partakes in a dialogue between present and perceived past in which the ‘social’ functions as a filter in which all previous material is compartmentalised into meaning and understanding. Social psychology is therefore an effective perspective to address such issues, in which the more complex self-expressive acts, embodiment and attitude formations discussed above can join forces with earlier chapters, to create a functional model in which tone production can be understood.
In 1986, Doise proposed to divide social psychology research into four main approaches to analysis: 1) The
First, people use music as a means of developing and negotiating interpersonal relationships. One’s musical preference can define which social groups one does and does not belong to, and this is particularly clear in the case of teenage music preferences […]. Secondly, an increasing body of evidence shows that people use music as a means of regulating their mood, and that this is mediated by the immediate social environment in which listening takes place. This can explain patterns of musical taste and preference which are linked with specific listening situations and social circumstances […]. We suggest that one of the primary social functions of music lies in establishing and developing an individual’s sense of identity, and that the concept of
Following this argument, music making, or more specifically, tone production, can be used to develop and negotiate interpersonal relationships when a practice is used by more than one person to define a social group (those playing close to the bridge versus those who do not, for instance). It can also be used to illustrate a mood, by actively changing position to alter the tone quality, or affecting or contradicting the mood by a certain
Various disciplines within psychology theorize the self differently. In social psychology, the
In reviewing these social psychological perspectives of the self, one soon thinks of the Freudian concept of
To reduce the spread of AIDS, for instance, campaigns for condom use have naturally framed the persuasive messages in terms of safe-sex and the dangers to be avoided, which involve a prevention focus and anticipating undesired endstate [i.e. we are asked to think of what we should avoid by using a condom]. But at the critical moment when condoms will or will not be used, the partners are more likely to be in a promotion focus and anticipating desired endstates [i.e. what we want to achieve by the act]. Thus messages with a promotion focus on anticipated desired end-states might be more effective (e.g. condom use promotes a caring relationship).
This remark is interesting because it draws attention to how approaching consistency at both ends of a communication can establish a better rapport. If we were to present our tone production through a performance to an artist we admire, that interaction would probably have an immense effect on our perception of our own practice, according to how we are met. If the admired artist meets us in a preventive manner (‘don’t do this; avoid this way of producing a tone’) or a promotive (‘try this; this will help you convey what you tell me you wish to convey’) we will gain quite different understandings of the situation, which again affect our attitude towards the artist and ourselves. What’s more, they also affect how we embody that situation. Rhetorically, do we get a feeling of having failed in our mission, or are we given the sense of learning how to master it even better, and how does this affect our hormone production? Robbie Sutton and Karen Douglas write:
People behave towards others in ways that help them validate their perceptions of self. This may be reflected in who we choose as friends. For example, if you think of yourself as outgoing and sociable, it helps to have friends who think the same of you.
In this quote, we clearly sense the importance of considering social interaction and group construction when discussing tone production as a self-expressive act. In fact, it also draws attention to how we often seek to be part of social groups where our self-perception corresponds to what other group members think of us; that is, we seek conformity between the interior and exterior. In developing a tone production, then, it is not only a matter of establishing one’s position within a certain context, but also of feeling acceptance of that said context by conforming the actual self to situations where one feels a positive response from others. An important part of this process has to do with
The drive for self evaluation concerning one’s opinions and abilities has implications not only for the behaviour of persons in groups but also for the processes of formation of groups and changing memberships of groups. To the extent that self evaluation can only be accomplished by means of comparison with other persons, the drive for self evaluation is a force acting on persons to belong to groups, to associate with others.
This is a very important apparatus when developing a concept of tone production. We compare our tone concept to others to know what we want, or do not want, to achieve and what we do or do not like; we look back on past documentation (recordings, videos and other means of documenting) to feel proud of where we have come; and we use comparisons to feel more secure, or insecure, about the choices we make as performers.
There is no denying that self-expressive acts and tone production are highly related to identity, which can be seen as the perceived result that arises from the performance of people’s self-concepts. Stan Hawkins writes in
identities are performatively constituted by the artist’s expression, and […] there are important links between music reception and identity […]. In my research into identity formation in pop music, it has become more and more evident that pop culture forms a site where identity roles are constantly evolving to fit social needs.
Hawkins touches on a critical point. By our self-awareness, self-consciousness, regulatory activities, comparisons and impression management, we construct identities that are constantly evolving to fit certain social needs. We performatively constitute our identities through our actions and self-expression, which again reveal something about us, regardless of whether it is perceived or not. Identity is about what a person is or is not, and how a person’s identity relates to other identities through sameness or difference, i.e. we can assert that we belong to a certain group identity, but that very group identity can be quite different from another. ‘[T]he dominant group must set itself apart from that it is not, in order to seek that which it wishes to be.’ Hawkins points out that identity and binarism, however, do not automatically go hand in hand: ‘identity might be considered as flexible and free-floating and not divided into clear cut groups: women and men.’
Self-expression and identity are two separate things. The first takes the position of the object’s acts while the latter takes the position of how those acts, in sum, are perceived. We can then speak of identity as an effect of self-expression rather than a genuine substance; this effect is constituted upon an interplay between symbols and fantasy: ‘a most effective way of comprehending identity is by disconnecting it from an “essence” and perceiving it as a dramatic effect rather than an authentic core. […] Music can profile identities through us mapping the symbolic with the imaginative.’
So far, I have separated self-expressive acts and identity from the historical discourse, focusing more on the present than the past. In dealing with the past, however, we are constantly met with the dilemma of interpretation. If we are to build our identity, our concept of tone production, social positioning and understanding of our self-expressive acts properly in
[i]nterpretation, in the sense relevant to hermeneutics, is an attempt to make clear, to make sense of an object of study. This object must, therefore, be a text, or a text-analogue, which in some way is confused, incomplete, cloudy, seemingly contradictory — in one way or another, unclear. The interpretation aims to bring to light an underlying coherence or sense.
Taylor’s statement can at first seem somewhat straightforward, but there are numerous problems to be found, making the relation between text and interpreter far more complex. Taylor writes that:
[a] successful interpretation is one which makes clear the meaning originally present in a confused, fragmentary, cloudy form. But how does one know that this interpretation is correct? Presumably because it makes sense of the original text: what is strange, mystifying, puzzling, contradictory is no longer so, is accounted for.
The question is, then, to whom does it make sense? My standpoint is that we cannot
Notice how Taylor touches upon an important aspect of hermeneutics: ‘Even if there is an important sense in which a meaning re-expressed in a new medium cannot be declared identical, this by no means entails that we can give no sense to the project of expressing a meaning in a new way.’
For if the primary concern of hermeneutics is not to discover an intention hidden behind the text but to unfold a world in front of it, then authentic self-understanding is something which, as Heidegger and Gadamer wish to say, can be instructed by the ‘matter of the text’. […] To understand is not to project oneself into the text but to expose oneself to it; it is to receive a self enlarged by the appropriation of the proposed worlds which interpretation unfolds.
If we either expose or project ourselves onto the text, we are also presented with an intricate hermeneutical problem within the written text itself. Take, for instance, a seventeenth-century description of a performance practice. First of all, it is the subjective account of another; we cannot know if this account would be representable if we ourselves were there to see the same event being described. The writer becomes the interpreter of that event. Second, we interpret that interpretation. Third, meaning can be lost between languages. From the seventeenth-century French language to modern French and from there to English, for instance. In my case, I am neither a native English speaker, nor French, German, Spanish nor Italian. Fourth, as I previously mentioned affordance, we quickly see how a single signifier affords differently among people living in the same period, but also across the centuries. Furthermore, this present book will again be read and interpreted by someone else. What we see here presents a huge problem (see
Ricoeur argues that writing is more than a fixation of discourse; it presents a threefold autonomy ‘with respect to the intention of the author; with respect to the cultural situation and all the sociological conditions of the original text; and finally, with respect to the original addressee.’ The text as a signifier is something else, has another destiny, than the original intention of the author.
To draw this chapter to a close, self-expressing places tone production into a context emphasising the personality inherent in tone construction where we can produce an idiolectic sound quality, one that people recognise as ‘our sound’. Our bodies function in a way that what we do also receives a physical reaction, not only within ourselves through embodiment, but also in others through empathic cognitive systems (among others). Tone production as a self-expressive act is not something that is directly related to historical practices alone, but historical practices can be used to situate oneself within the social context the performer wishes to be judged; they can be used to position oneself within a socio-political construct. They function within a synergetic relation between conventions of self-expressive acts, attitude formation and embodiment.
Tone production as a self-expressive act can then enable us to address a certain social, historical or academic practice by the mere action of producing a tone on an instrument, providing the audience with signals for them to perceive (or not) where we unveil our aesthetics, identity and training. Tone production is not necessarily a product of any sort of historical enquiry, or deliberate relation to other colleagues’ practices, but rather a matter between me and the external public self-consciousness and public self-awareness. We compare our tone concept to others to know what we want, or do not want, to achieve and what we do or do not like; we look back on past documentation to feel proud of where we have come; and we use comparisons to feel more secure, or insecure, about the choices we make as performers. Tone production can also function as a dramatic effect to consciously or unconsciously elaborate our identities. As a self-expressive act, it is performative in that both sides of an aesthetic, interpersonal connection can understand it. When judging someone’s tone production, we must ask: whose understanding of tone production it is; in what context that tone production has come to be; the function of that said approach to tone production; and what that tone production says about the one performing it. Traditionally, it would be possible to say that this book could very well have begun and ended with Chapter 2, possibly also Chapter 3. But we have also seen the importance of getting our feet properly grounded by asking how things function physically as a chain of reactions. Lastly, what this chapter has shown is that a concept of Early Modern tone production for lutenists is not only about historical practice and evidence, or who has the strongest authority within music performance. It has rather to do with who we are; who we want to be; who we wish to be acknowledged by; what social formations we wish to be accepted in; and so on. Tone production is as much about historically-informed practices and respect for the past as it is about self-expressive acts, attitudes, social relations and embodiment. This latter understanding of the topic becomes even more intriguing when we look at tone production on a technological level, where bodily, physical and social interaction are superseded by recording mediums.
Such as:
Carney,
Gazzaniga,
Sutton and Douglas,
Sutton and Douglas,
Sutton and Douglas,
Gazzaniga,
Green,
Green,
Green,
Green,
Green,
Green,
Green,
Green,
There seem to be different terminological practices concerning the points that Douglas and Sutton wish to address by their use of self-concept and self-schemas. For instance, North and Hargreaves employ self-systems and self-concept respectively, where their self-concept seems to be equivalent to Douglas and Sutton’s self-schemas; see North and Hargreaves,
Sutton and Douglas,
See for instance:
Higgins,
Sutton and Douglas,
Higgins,
Higgins,
Sutton and Douglas,
Music’s role as a social phenomenon and as a marker (both as a unifier and divider) has been widely addressed by musicologists, especially since the end of the twentieth century (to name only a very few:
Festinger,
Hawkins,
Hawkins,
Taylor,
Ricoeur,
Taylor,
Ricoeur,
Ricoeur,
‘In short, the work decontextualises itself, from the sociological as well as the psychological point of view, and is able to recontextualise itself differently in the act of reading. It follows that the mediation of the text cannot be treated as an extension of the dialogical situation’; see Ricoeur,
See, for instance,
Let us now transcend the action of producing and perceiving a tone to how we document and mediate it through technology. For the twenty-first century lutenist, technology is ever present. When we play at a concert, someone places a microphone before us; we record music that we try to get published by a label; we make home recordings that we share through online networks such as Sound Cloud, YouTube or Facebook (the list could go on). To this day, much has been written on the recording process, but there are still considerable holes to fill within academia. Handbooks treating the recording process and mixing
The lute makes a particularly interesting case here because it has such a feeble, crisp and weak tone, making it quite troublesome to record well. The dynamic range is restricted in such a way that the clear tone and the noise produced upon playing (such as breathing, the changing of hand positions, and noise from the chair while moving around) are difficult to separate; sometimes in quieter passages the noise can overpower the clear tone and attract more attention. The strong, quick attack that comes directly upon plucking a string and the much weaker and quickly dying tone that follows present other problematic issues; for instance, when setting proper recording levels that are strong enough to produce a good sound without having the signal exceeding its maximum level. Moist or dry environments can affect the thin woodwork of the instrument in a manner that alters the tuning and tone quality of the instrument to a greater degree than other instruments associated with the Early Music genre (see Chapter 4). In a post on the
[…] Recording the lute […] can be a musician’s worst nightmare, and lutenists can be the bane of an engineer’s existence. Since the lute is so quiet, a recording engineer’s tendency is to place a microphone close to the instrument so as to cancel out extraneous noise that can filter in, even in the controlled environment of a recording studio. There is typically a protracted negotiation between the lutenist and the engineer that involves a great deal of experimentation with microphone placement and, likewise, a great deal of whingeing on the part of the musician. The engineer wants the mic closer, the musician doesn’t like the intimidating, nervous-making thing so close, nor the presence of string noise and breathing in the recorded result. Money is spent and no one is happy. The best solution is to record in a very live, resonant space that is relatively quiet and allows both musician and engineer to relax and capture a pleasing natural sound with the mic at a comfortable distance.
Recording in old churches with their conducive atmosphere, high ceilings, hard surfaces and spacious resonance – the preferred venue for lute recordings – can be nearly impossible because of noise from building mechanical systems, traffic and routine neighborhood activity. […] If ventilation systems aren’t running, the space is probably either cold and damp or hot and stuffy, affecting the sound of the instrument, tuning stability of the strings and concentration of the lutenist. […] Then there is the sometimes bizarre, unfocused sound resulting from the lutenist’s refusal to allow the microphone to be placed so close that finger noise or breathing might possibly be detected. What is heard is more of the room echo and less of the real instrument and the musician’s interpretation. This is not happenstance, it is a choice on the part of the lutenist and producer. […] But the manufactured perfection listeners have come to expect in recordings of lute music is not the same as what one actually encounters attending a live concert, with human beings reacting to music being performed by other human beings.
On the technological journey from sound waves to electric currents to binary digital information, back to electric currents and back again to sound waves,
One considerable difference in the recording of ‘Popular’ music
One does not have to investigate much before realizing that there is a gap between what is produced on the recording
Although recordings of Early Music perhaps wish to capture a ‘natural’ performance, placing the listener in the audience, they get edited and polished beyond naturalness. In addition to the mixing traditions previously mentioned and the performer’s aesthetic agenda, this may perhaps have something to do with market criteria. Mixing engineer Dave Pensado comments (although in a different context than Classical music), ‘Back when radio stations ruled the world, if you did a mix you only had to compete against other songs in the genre you were working in […], but now, in 2012, you have to compete against everything.’
There is a tension, then, between technology, performance and scholarly contributions that we must not fail to consider. Alan Moore states in his book
On the one hand, an expression is valued because its production appears to rest on the integrity of the performer, an integrity that is read as secure, as in some sense comfortable. On the other hand, an expression is denigrated because that integrity appears, from the viewpoint of the critic, to have been compromised […] the commonest attribution to the term ‘authentic’ in relation to music refers to the maintenance of the origins of a performance practice.
On hearing an Early Modern CD, we perceive the musician’s presentation of historical music. We listen to their attempt to interpret the written material, channelled through their personal subjectivity and integrity. The critic, then, does not actually criticize the ‘authenticity’ of that performance solely based on the written material it interprets (be it literature or a musical score), but rather based on the performance of that material as interpreted by the musician. Also, the lute tablature used to denote the lute repertoire I am concerned with here, by its very nature, is even more open to interpretation than regular staff notation and leaves much of its realisation to the integrity of the performer. The question of ‘authenticity’ is thus strongly connected to the musician’s own historical understanding of baroque music tradition and the performance as presented on the CD. Moore further directs our attention towards two schools of addressing ‘authenticity.’ On one hand, we find ‘authenticity’ as ‘purity to practice,’ and on the other, ‘authenticity’ as ‘honesty to experience.’ In extension of the latter, Stephen Felds argues (cited by Moore) that ‘authenticity only emerges when it is counter to forces that are trying to screw it up, transform it, dominate it, mess with it.’
[M]eaning is not embedded in the music listened to, but is discovered in the act of listening, and I can see no reason why attributions of authenticity that are, after all, an aspect of meaning, should fall into a different class. This means that any analysis that claims that a particular song, or a particular performance, is authentic must be regarded with suspicion. […] ‘authenticity’ is a matter of interpretation that is made and fought for from within a particular cultural and, thus, historicized position. Like all meanings, it is ascribed, not inscribed.
‘
The question of authenticating the performer, then, must be addressed at the intersection — the dialogue — between performer and recording, in the relation between the sum of technological production and, to borrow Philip Auslander’s terminology, musical persona.
Jack Martin and Tom Jessell state in
The first stage of lute sound transformation is through the microphone, a so-called transducer, where periodic pressure waves are converted into electric currents. When sound reaches the microphone, it makes the membrane inside of it move according to the pressure waves it perceives. Through electrostatic (condenser-type microphones) or electromagnetic (dynamic-type microphones) principles, an electric current is generated that reproduces the sound by alternating the electric current. Obviously, the design of the membrane plays an important part in the sound it produces. A dynamic microphone membrane is heavier to move than a condenser, making the response to the sound it perceives somewhat slower. Another factor to consider in terms of microphone design is its characteristics (i.e. at what angle from the centre of the microphone it perceives sound). Omnidirectional microphones perceive an equal amount of sound from all around, no matter the angle; cardioid microphones perceive most from in front, which decreases in proportion to the increase in the angle from the centre, receiving next to nothing from behind (depending on the particular microphone); bi-directional microphones perceive sound that reaches them from behind as well as from in front, but not from the sides.
These characteristics can be used close to the instrument for more direct sound, placed at a distance to record the acoustics of the room, or in pairs to record stereo. As soon as multiple microphones are in use, one risks phase problems such as comb filtering; this is especially important to consider when using pairs of microphones in stereo configurations, as they are often relatively closely spaced (see Chapter 4).
A microphone will also inevitably perceive the environment in which it is placed. The closer to the instrument, the more of the direct instrument sound is captured; the more distance from the instrument, the more the room is heard. Also, the closer the microphone is placed to the instrument, the more its timbre is altered, as all instruments project different frequencies in different directions. Additionally, the characteristics are crucial when setting the ratio between instrument and room sound. An omnidirectional microphone facing an instrument will capture more of the room than a cardioid microphone would in the same place. Further, the microphone actually perceives more noise from the environment than what we hear upon listening in the same situation, as our minds emphasise the sounds they find most interesting (and that is usually not noise, for instance, from lamps or the refrigerator). This means that the sound forwarded by a microphone is a distorted version of the internal balances of the auditory scene when compared to how we perceive the environment where the microphones are placed; however, when listening to the sound recorded through the microphones, we perceive the noise in the same way as the microphone picked it up. Of course, some of the noise we hear on a recording may stem from the equipment’s self-noise; I will return to this matter very soon. It becomes clear, then, that microphones, and the way they are treated, are considerable contributors to recorded lute sound. If we were to admire a recording of lute music, finding the sound of the lute precious, we would perhaps ask ourselves: ‘Wow, that sounds nice! Which lute is it?’ but perhaps our enquiry would be more properly expressed by ‘Wow, that sounds nice! What lute
In the end, a mixing engineer (whether they are also the artist or the producer) works by modulating electric currents. The dB measured by LED’s or a VU meter on their analogue mixer is not actually dB SPL (sound pressure level) but in fact dBv (voltage).
It is not always easy to grasp directly how these basic functions can, for example, select frequencies (as we see in an EQ for instance), morphing them into a new sound. To give an example of how this can be done we can turn our focus towards a very simple EQ circuit that can be applied in speakers, recording equipment and playback hardware. At first, we can construct an easy low-pass filter (i.e. low frequencies are passed and higher frequencies are attenuated) by placing a resistor in series with a non-polarised capacitor; the capacitor builds up and stores voltage exponentially over time and a resistor reduces voltage. It is in the relation between these two that we can construct a cut-off frequency (see
C is the capacitance in farads, R is the resistance in ohms (Ω) and
The fact that sound is now processed as electric currents presents us with some potential problems; electromagnetic and electrostatic energy may enter our circuits and produce noise that we did not intend to record in the first place. Also, each piece of equipment we use produces some level of self-noise (information in so-called ‘specs’ normally accompanies equipment to inform the buyer of these conditions for that specific product). Recording hot levels (i.e. recording at the highest possible volume without disturbing the signal, making the physical wire hotter) is one way to deal with self-noise. Increasing the volume when recording makes the recorded signal much louder than the noise — increasing the so-called signal-to-noise ratio (S/N ratio); the low amplitude noise can later be cut off, perhaps by using a gate (i.e. a tool where all sound below a certain dB level is silenced; of course, not without more or less affecting the frequency construct of the recorded sound). If the recorded signal is too low it blends with the self-noise and becomes next to impossible to separate without severely compromising the sound; so, we see that the S/N ratio is in fact important to consider. The question we must ask then is: how does increased amplitude upon recording affect the captured sound? Allow me once more to employ some basic physics. Newton’s second law of motion (F = MA) teaches us that acceleration is proportional to the force that is applied to it.
So, the question then is, what happens when lute sound enters the digital domain? The keyword here is pulse code modulation (PCM).
So, when entering the digital domain, the sound segment gets partitioned horizontally (sample rate) and vertically (quantisation; bit rate) into binary code (i.e. 0s and 1s). Human hearing can perceive frequencies as high as roughly 20 kHz (i.e. 20,000 cycles per second), so we can understand that proper PCM coding is crucial for the design of lute sound. In order to cover the full range of human hearing we would perhaps believe it to be sufficient to divide the sound horizontally into 20,000 fragments per second to cover every cycle; however, each cycle consist of both positive and negative amplitude and therefore needs two readings per cycle (one for positive and one for negative). As a result, we must divide the sound segment into at least 40,000 segments per second to cover the full range of human hearing (see
Now, let us consider amplitude quantisation (measured in bit rate). Bit rate tells us the vertical density of the grid upon which an individual sample can be locked (as seen in
A final issue that we must address when discussing digital recording is jitter. An analogue to digital converter (ADC) or digital to analogue converter (DAC), for example, employs an internal clock to control when a signal is to be converted. When that internal clock signal does not correspond to the periodicity of the original signal, we get jitter. Jitter can affect both the time domain and the amplitude domain and result in noise, popping sounds, phase problems and altered frequency representation; it can be caused, for instance, by electromagnetic interference, as well as non-corresponding clocks between multiple equipment. To deal with this, many studios and software employ a master clock to control all other clocks; it can function both within the computer and control outboard hardware.
This second transformation of lute sound is perhaps even more clear than the previous one, as it deconstructs sound (or rather the electric representation of sound) into fragments that are described by numbers. For some recordings — more frequently in other genres than lute music — the story ends around here. The digital sound file is uploaded to free-to-use online services, such as YouTube and Sound Cloud, or sold through services such as iTunes and Amazon; broadcasting and different sorts of sound compression now become an issue, but, as stated earlier, I will only consider the physical CD. Before the music reaches the listeners, in this latter scenario, it must be attached to a physical format that can be distributed and sold; I will now look into that process — the third transformative process — to see how lute sound is affected by this technology.
A CD is an optical disc that must follow IEC standard 60908 for Compact Disc Digital Audio (CDDA, often classified as Red Book CD). The part of the IEC standard for CDDAs (I will keep referring to them simply as CDs) that is interesting for us in this chapter is that a CD must incorporate a 44.1 kHz sample rate and a 16-bit rate standard. This means that high resolution projects (i.e. those with a higher sample and bit rate than those demanded by CDs) must then be converted into 44.1 kHz and 16-bit format (recall the Nyquist Sampling Theorem mentioned earlier; 44.1 kHz means that it can replicate pitches up to 22.05 kHz) using a converter that can be either hardware, stand-alone software or integrated into a sampling program (such as Cubase, Logic or ProTools). Before a master is forwarded to the manufacturer, error correction must be performed using a dedicated program for this task. This is to ensure that the CD will be read properly when it is duplicated by the manufacturer; the error rate cannot exceed 3%.
The audio CD, then, delivers an audio data stream of 1.4112 Mbits per second (44,100 Hz × 16 bits × 2 channels [i.e. left and right stereo channel] = 1,411,200 bits/s); note that this is only the pure audio stream, not including the sub code and channel data (these contain information about index, track numbers, etc. that I will not concern myself with here). We have now, in this third transformation, reached a high level of abstraction, where the original lute sound has been transformed multiple times into chunks of bits (i.e. 0s and 1s) delivered at a rate of 1.4112 Mbits per second.
The human auditory system (as represented by the outer and inner ear, the brainstem and the cortical structures associated with auditory information) localises sound by using three distinct methodologies. The first detects small differences in time between the two ears, called Interaural Time Difference (ITD); if a sound reaches the right ear slightly before the left, that sound is perceived as being located on the right side. The second method detects level differences between the two ears, i.e. variation in amplitude or sound-pressure level. This is called Interaural Level Difference (ILD). According to the ‘duplex theory’ it has been suggested that ITDs are used to localise low frequencies and ILDs are used to mentally place high frequencies. The third methodology detects variations in frequency content, or spectral cues, as caused by acoustic shadows provoked by the outer ear, or pinna, as well as the head. Each of these methods have their own designated pathway through the auditory system. Other contributing factors that help to localise sound are, for instance, sight and sensory detection. If one hears a sound in close proximity but one cannot see it, it probably comes from behind. Similarly, if one stands in front of a loudspeaker with one’s eyes closed, one will feel the sound pressure generated by the speakers on one’ s body.
These situations clearly exemplify that space perception in real life is something other than it appears in music production. What appears to be an authentic space in which we perceive a source of sound may, in fact, be constructed out of several digital reverberators from competing manufacturers that all contribute to the sound production. As an example, American mixing-engineer Dave Pensado illustrates in a YouTube video how he uses three different types of digital reverbs on a single voice recording, that are panned, i.e. placed at different locations within the one sonic space.
To give an even more technical example, consider a standard, uncompressed stereo WAV file format (44.1 kHz, 16-bit, linear PCM). In the part of the file where the actual sound data is stored, we find each sample presented chronologically (i.e. Sample 1, Sample 2, Sample 3, etc.). It is interesting to note that each sample consists of four bytes, where the first two are the sampled sound on the left side and the last two are the sound on the right side (see
Let us review our findings. First, we may say that lute sound moves from concrete to abstract and back again. In real life, sound consists of propagating periodic pressure waves, in which the particles of matter contract and expand. In an electric circuit, the electrons behave quite differently. They do not expand and contract in the same manner as pressure waves; rather it is the voltage that forwards the sound information by altering its amplitude. (As such, it is only now that Fourier spectrums start to resemble reality more than just being a presentational system.) At a third stage, this current enters its third phase, being the digital realm. Through a two-dimensional process (partitioned first horizontally and then described vertically), sound is being kept, processed, and communicated as 0s and 1s. Sound is now approaching its most abstract state. Following this, at the CD manufacturer, the digital sound is joined by additional data (such as channel data and sub codes) and physically coded into the disk. When the CD is put into a music player of some sort, this entire process is performed in reverse, only to reach our ears once more as sound pressure waves.
Secondly, in this pathway there are numerous possibilities for not only tone modelling, but also the appearance of direct errors in sound representation. At the microphone level, the transient response may misinterpret some high frequencies approaching it, depending on how slowly it reacts, as well as occurrences of self-noise provided by the circuit within the microphone. Self-noise is present throughout the analogue parts of the recording chain, but the electrical currents may also be subject to electromagnetic and electrostatic noise from outside the recording equipment. This includes wrongly-matched polarities (i.e. positive and negative conductors) within the equipment setup and grounding problems; at the digital level, jitter becomes a real issue as well as proper coding, decoding, and conversion; finally, moving towards the industrial press, data processing errors are often at work (this is, of course, part of the job for both manufacturers, producers and mastering engineers to minimise). These are just some of the possible errors in sound representation that we may encounter.
What, then, can we make of this? First of all, different stages of the transformation process present us with various considerations and approaches — what is problematic in one instance is not so in the next. Secondly, all stages of this modelling of lute sound consist of complex, intertextual considerations that incorporate not only maths, physics and technology as we have seen, but also aesthetics, representation and tradition. Behind the sound of the lute, as it is being heard during playback, lies numerous decisions, both intentional (by decision making during the entire recording process) and unintentional (the inner workings of technology that one has to deal with). We can present this process schematically:
vision (desired effect) —> available material (from instrument to equipment) —>
knowledge of how to utilise that material —>
the inner workings of all the equipment involved (determined by manufacturer and tradition) —>
creative production and problem solving —>
dealing with unforeseen effects (such as code failure, jitter, electric noise) —>
verification, manufacturing and duplication —>
playback ≠ vision, but = finished, fixated sound
Recorded lute sound, then, appears as a dialogue between instrument, electricity and digital code — a dialogue that aims to reproduce sound true to its original, but which inevitably provides its own contributions to lute sound. The most obvious example of this is the ADC and the DAC, that break the signal into somewhat accurate pieces, only to rebuild the signal from these fragments rather than restoring it to its original. One may easily argue, and perhaps rightfully so, depending on the system employed, that the incoherencies between original and processed signal are not audible to the human ear; but the fact remains that the audio leaving the electric circuitry, or digital code, is something other than the sound originally produced by the lute. On this basis, I argue that it would be erroneous to draw a direct parallel between sound being recorded and sound being heard through a stereo, without taking into account the multifaceted process in-between. Although I have focused on the recorded CD, this same argument can be applied to other instances of music reproduction and sound reinforcement, such as live performances. When incorporating microphones in a live performance, some of the direct sound from the lute is heard while some is heard from the speakers (lute concerts rarely reach the same volume levels as rock stadium concerts). The musician, then, does not only need to consider the sound produced by their plucking of the strings on stage but also what version of their sound comes out of the speakers, blending with the acoustic timbre and reaching the audience. In the twenty-first century, then, a musician must acknowledge this dialogue between technology (whenever and however present) and instrument, in order to ensure a performance that is in line with the musician’s intent.
According to my line of argument, recorded lute sound is the sum of the processes involved in its formation; it consists of multiple instances, all contributing a specific transformation. If we consider recorded lute sound as an isolated event, we can follow the evolution from generated sound into electric current; from electric current partitioned into approximated fragments described digitally; transferred from the pure digital realm into physical realisation of code imprinted on optical discs; restored into electric currents from these fragments through interpretation of digital data; reaching a stage of sound once more. This is again why I propose a term like biology in the title of this book, as recorded lute sound is something that evolves over time, not necessarily a fixed description of a present state. Also, these technological transformations are an active part of an aesthetic process, just as each individual part of an organism plays a significant role in what we perceive as that organism. Although I have taken the CD as my case, I think that whatever the format used for preserving a recording (or whenever technology is present in a performance), we must take into account in our evaluations (as scholars, performers or producers) the internal processes that constitute the whole — the biology of lute sound — rather than skipping ahead of technology and only thinking of what the musician performed, where it was recorded and how the recording sounds. We must stay critical to the entire process, both the parts that are deliberate (playing, microphones, mixing) and those that inevitably follow the process whether we like it or not (circuitry, digitalisation, errors).
Returning to the hypothesis mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, that performers can no longer consider their authenticity as detached from, or independent of, the production process, we see how the recording process presents numerous aspects to consider also in a cultural context. Lute recordings, or any other recordings for that matter, function as signifiers that are perceived by listeners, and from those signifiers they read a cultural debate: ‘This is a recording from the 1970s or 2000s,’ ‘this sounds professional or amateur,’ or perhaps, ‘this sounds like an authentic or inauthentic Baroque recording.’ By being aware of the biology of a recording, the performer may be permitted to gain further control of the recording as a signifier and, thus, also better communicate the initial vision. Additionally, the scholar may be more prepared not only to differentiate between performer or performance and technology, but also to address the gradual development from one to the other, or perhaps better formulated, the dialogue between them. On a recording, recording technology takes the role as a hidden instrument, or perhaps the filter through which we perceive the music. Is it really fair, for instance, to judge a musician’s tone in a recording if the microphone used to capture him or her was not, in fact, the most suitable? Perhaps what we hear is not the tone of the instrument but rather a misinterpretation made by recording equipment. Similarly, a bad tone can be improved on by adjusting frequencies and dynamics, making the instrumentalist sound better than they might do alone without any microphone. Clearly, this has become practice in much of the vocal music of more recent times, where having a microphone has become part of the vocal technique, and the singer sings in a fashion that demands a microphone in order to be heard. In such cases, recording technology has in fact become part of a musician’s aesthetics. This can also be seen in the often-complex composition of technologies incorporated by the electric guitarist, used for the purpose of finding that unique sound. For the Early Music performer, then, embracing technology during the stages of planning and recording can enable more coherent and successful communicative results than a mentality that musicians should do their thing while the technicians do theirs.
Such as
To name only a few: Hawkins,
See for instance
Such as
This post can be read in full at:
Or more materialistically: From sound to microphone, through cables, into the recording machine, through an AD/DA converter, into the DAW (Digital audio workstation), transformed to a ‘master’ of some sort (physical or virtual), and finally into the industrial press machine.
Generally, I am careful in using terminology such as ‘classical’, ‘rock’, etc. due to their wide adoption and the spectrums of assumptions accompanying them. I have nonetheless decided to use such terminology in this essay for the sake of clarity.
Zagorski-Thomas,
The
Paradoxically, after achieving best possible sound, the recording quality is reduced by half or sometimes even a fourth of its resolution to fit on a CD.
Zagorski-Thomas,
Within all analogue recording equipment, sound is processed as electrical currents. Recording ‘hot’ signals is a popular metaphor of maintaining a high level of electrical currents within the equipment through the recording process, making the physical wire within the electronic circuits reach a higher temperature (hence the use of the word ‘hot’). This terminology has come into use also when using digital equipment as a signifier of the same recording mentality (note, there are wires in digital equipment as well). Some positive outcomes of this mentality result in increased dynamic range and better signal-to-noise ratio (i.e. the distance in volume between the inherent noise of music recording equipment and the recorded sound. Put simply, the greater the distance between sound and noise, the less the noise is heard during playback).
The term ‘headroom’ can be interpreted in several ways. In this case I refer to ‘headroom’ as a metaphor of the perceived sonic space upon listening. This means, for example, that by modifying the frequency range, as well as reverberation, one can create an illusion of situating the recorded instruments in a more spacious room (especially on the perceived vertical axis).
Especially since cerebral regions activated by listening also appear to be active while remembering music; see BBC ‘Musical Minds: Imagining and Listening to Music (Excerpt),’ [YouTube video] 2009. Retrieved 31 July 2012, URL:
Camilleri,
Although I did indeed participate in a concert once in Oslo where the piano soloist asked the audience if she could do her performance of a certain piece again as she did not believe she played it well enough the first time.
Pensados Place ‘Into the Lair #42 - Working with Bass and Kick Drums.’ YouTube video, 10’53’’, posted by ‘Pensado’s Place,’ retrieved 10 August 2012, URL:
This process differs from another important method called
In some dance genres the dynamic range gets compressed to a volume difference (between the loudest and the quietest sound) of between 2 or even 1 dB.
Thus, we understand better why it is important to maintain a proper signal-to-noise ratio (see Note 8 for explanation) during the recording process in order to minimize perceived noise at later stages of the production.
The AAC format follows the same principles as the famous MP3 format, using algorithms to extract all ‘unnecessary’ information (at least according to the algorithms) from the original sound file, making the new version take up less memory space and processing power.
Moore,
Keil, C., and Feld, S.,
Of course, I frequently meet with opposing opinions as well. I recently had the good fortune to perform Antonio Vivaldi’s concert for two flutes in C major together with a famous flute player who, right before we entered the stage, amusingly said to me: ‘Vivaldi is dead. We can do whatever we want.’
Moore,
Moore,
We see how Zogorski-Thomas’ hi-fi criterion, referred to earlier, of reproduced sound being identical to its source, suddenly must be regarded from other perspectives.
‘In the first area, we find a single item, archiphonography, which is concerned with relationships occurring at the highest, most abstract level. Paraphrasing Genette, it consists in the entire set of general categories—types of discourse, performing styles, musical genres—from which emerges each singular phonogram;’ Lacasse,
Lacasse,
When speaking of electricity there are four parameters that we deal with:
I will not go into detail on the function of these controls as it is not directly important for my line of argument; for more information on what mixers are and can do; see Huber and Runstein,
Obviously, the manufacturer does not wish people to see what is inside without breaking it, so I can only refer to what I saw through my investigation.
The equation has, of course, been much refined, by Albert Einstein among others, since Newton first presented it, but this is beyond the realm of this chapter.
To be more exact,
‘The
National Instruments,
Huber and Runstein,
Schnupp,
Pensado’s Place, ‘Get Great Vocal Reverbs Using Three Mono Sources - Into The Lair #84 (Pensado’s Place),’ YouTube video, 5’03”, posted by ‘Pensado’s Place’. Retrieved 31 March 2014, URL:
What can we make of it all? The discourse has passed through several perspectives throughout the book, to present the arguments which are based on the following investigative chronology (here revised):
Historical foundation and interpretation of the building blocks (historical research and literature studies).
Present practice (and practise) and the past/present discourse (literature studies, artistic research and observation).
The instruments at hand and their construction and function (hard sciences, e.g. mathematics and physics).
How social context takes part in shaping the discourse (psychology and other strands of the humanities, group focus).
How we use tone production, based on the social context, to self-express (psychology and other strands of the humanities, individual focus).
How we capture and present our tone production through technology (technology, media studies and other relevant fields of study).
Clearly, it is more common to discuss the methodological review in the introduction of a book, but in this case, the methodology was in the making as part of the process of writing this book. To join academic and artistic practices successfully is not an easy task. To be interdisciplinary and not parallel disciplinary is not always equally clear. We need to balance in-depth studies with meta-discussions, and our familiar field of study with the unfamiliar. In this book, I set out to combine an academic approach with an artistic one. The result can, in some respects, be said to have failed, as it does not include any dedicated artistic products (such as films, recordings or concerts), but this was not my original intention either. The format is the book, and therefore literature sets the natural framework for the evolving discussion. What I wished to do, however, was to present an academic argument that included artistic practice in its
Biological pathway | ||
---|---|---|
Academic pathway | Artistic pathway | |
1. Historical foundation and interpretation of the building blocks. | 1. We build an expectation and understanding of tone production through perceiving others. | |
2. Present practice (and practise) and the past/present discourse. | 2. We learn from others how to play (tutors, lecturers, colleagues, etc.). | |
3. The instruments at hand and their construction and function. | 3. We gain practical experience which we use to interpret literature and sources. | |
4. How social context takes part in shaping the discourse. | 4. We position ourselves within the collegiate through the practice we develop. | |
5. How we use tone production, based on the social context, to self-express. | 5. We find our own expression, grounded in our achieved position. | |
6. How we capture and present our tone production through technology. | 6. We are perceived by the audience who cast their judgement on our practice. | |
One of my intentions when writing this book was to better understand lute tone production from a biological point of view and its morphological aspects. Through this understanding, we are better equipped to not only understand tone production as a phenomenon, but also to contribute to new perspectives of lute performance and place ourselves within the very process of artistic development.
We can find important traces suggesting that the idea of a tone production concept for lute instruments was rather detailed and well designed, but it received little explicit attention in historical lute instructions. This concept naturally changed over time. It would seem that the closer to the decline of the lute, the closer the ideal of tone production approached the increasingly more dominant harpsichord. And, as this shift in preference took place, we see an increase in lute instructions in which more detailed information is given, seemingly to regain knowledge and ‘proper conduct’ among contemporary lutenists. The earlier, Renaissance stages of lute tone production is less well covered in primary sources. Although paintings are numerous and detailed, we can never truly rely on them as evidence. True or not, they do convey an idea of how they wanted to mediate sound, because indeed, as we have seen through Leppert’s arguments presented in Chapter 2, visual representations of musical practice and practise are also visual representations of sound. I used visual works of art to unveil rhetorical trends in how musicians were portrayed. From this perspective, it became evident that the concept of tone production went through a morphological process, from placing the hand close to the rose to closer to the bridge; the hand position went from nearly parallel with the strings to a high arched wrist, making the fingers more directed straight into the instrument. The body posture also changed according to the shifting ideology.
Regardless of the trends we can see, it is still not possible to know for certain and with authority what the lute sounded like. Visual works of art, literature and tablature, then as now, all lack the ability to produce sound. In this respect, it is interesting to see how much detail we find in modern lute tutors. The development of modern handbooks seems opposingly proportionate to the historical publishing. While we find very little instruction on tone production in the Renaissance, modern scholars and musicians have produced a greater quantity of instructions, while in later times where we find detailed literature (like that of Burwell and Mace), we find fewer modern contributions. There seem to be several possible reasons for this. Firstly, the valuable motivation of theorising the unknown, unfamiliar and mystical. Secondly, the Baroque lute technique’s closeness to the modern Classical guitar, making it easier to deduce by logic — it is simply more familiar as a concept. Thirdly, from my personal impression there seem to be more ‘Renaissance lutenists’ active today than ‘Baroque lutenists,’ making the publishing market related to the Renaissance repertoire more lucrative (for which there are several possible reasons which I will not treat here). The trend in modern performance instruction seems to follow a certain ideological morphology:
‘My way of doing things.’
The mechanics of plucking (from which proper tone production seems to be a natural result).
Descriptive language to ‘fill in the blanks’ of what is to be achieved by the mechanical actions.
Within this structure we find two ways of relating to the primary sources:
The ‘this is my opinion regardless of (explicitly presented) history’ approach.
The ‘this is my historical stance (without necessarily problematising or openly re-contextualising to modern play)’ approach.
With such a level of detail in today’s publications (particularly those following the mechanical pathway), it is interesting to question where that knowledge comes from when it is apparently not an obvious part of the original sources. Following this, we understand that modern practice is separate from historical practice, and that they develop parallel to each other without necessarily being equally related at all times.
Despite much of modern literature’s authoritative presentation of past practices, where we easily get the impression that what is described in present instruction books is how it actually was, we are rather witnessing modern interpretations and re-contextualisation of historical sources. Often self-published in some form or other, the personalised statements and approaches presented are more or less directly transmitted from the author to the reader, following a traditional master-student pedagogical approach, i.e. the learned presents a methodology that the learner is to follow. There seems to be little room for criticism, especially within the author’s own practices, and they rather address sources that seemingly support their own approach while speaking to a certain social group. Whatever our position, we must remember that Early Modern musicians dedicated themselves to the prevailing musical tradition using the contemporary instruments at hand, while modern musicians attempt to grasp past and lost practices (in the sense that we cannot call Mouton or Corbetta to ask them what they meant), using various techniques and instruments from different countries.
What we can relate to, however, is the instruments at hand today. By moving from the instrument-centric to the external, we are better able to understand the tone production process at the level of the instrument itself, its design and maintenance, and how it interacts with the surroundings. Tone production, both seen as a physical, theoretical phenomenon and as a concept, has through physics, craftsmanship and theory now become part of an external space that is very much part of the present; it concerns the here and now more than the past. It is a tool for musical expression in a present practice. At this level of the discourse, we are able to make a stand in the past-present, authentic-unauthentic debates; and we make that stand through the instrument we choose to use. Our craft is strongly determined by the tools and how we take care of them, develop them and change them over time.
Deciding on an instrument, string types and acoustic environment does not solve the equation. Tone production is still in the making, because such decisions take place in a social context, in a relation between group and individuals, self and other. When speaking of tone production as self-expressing, I placed it in a context emphasising the personality inherent in tone construction where we can produce an idiolectic sound quality, one that people recognise as our sound. Through phenomena such as embodiment and empathic cognitive systems (among others), tone production as a self-expressive act is not only perceived and understood by the audience, but it is also felt. Tone production cannot, therefore, be strictly something that is directly related to historical practices alone, but historical practices can be used to situate oneself within the social context the performer wishes to be judged; they can be used to position oneself within a socio-cultural construct.
Tone production can address certain social, historical or academic practices and unveil our aesthetics, identity and upbringing. It is a matter between myself and the external public self-consciousness and public self-awareness. We judge ourselves through comparison, between ourselves and our colleagues, through our own development as musicians, and through the recognition we get for our actions and who we get it from. Tone production can also function as a performative, dramatic effect to consciously or unconsciously elaborate our identities. A concept of Early Modern tone production for lutenists is, then, not only about historical practice and evidence, or who has the strongest authority within music performance, but who we are; who we want to be; who we wish to be acknowledged by; what social formations we wish to be accepted into; and so on.
This is why recording technology becomes relevant in an Early Modern discourse, because we do not only perform our music to audiences where we have the possibility of elaborating our practice through presentation; we also record albums. When an album is released, especially digital releases where booklets are often unavailable, we are left defenceless to the judgement of the listener. The recording process therefore presents numerous aspects to consider. Through a biological understanding of a recording as part of the tone production process, the performer may be permitted to better communicate the initial intent. Recording technology is the hidden instrument, the filter through which we perceive the music. In much vocal music of more recent times, it has become practice to use a microphone as part of the vocal technique, where the singer sings in a fashion that demands a microphone in order to be heard. But much of Early Modern music has remained at a distance from the modern, electronic technology — ‘Let technicians do their thing.’ By including technological considerations in our tone production process, we can enable more coherent and successful communicative results.
Clearly, there is not one true concept of Early Modern lute tone production, only competing concepts; concepts that resonate and create friction between one another, and concepts that constantly develop, mature and change. A biological understanding of the matter can help unveil and relate to this ideological, pedagogical and aesthetic flux. It is at the very nexus of this flux where informed play becomes important. Informed play is not a truth, nor a proper conduct; it is a conceptual understanding of a biological morphology that positions and presents the performer in a manner of their own choosing. From this position, the performer can shout to the world: ‘this is me and my new approach.’ They can remain undetected by conforming to already-accepted practices or any variation in-between. The point is not where the position is taken or how it actually sounds, but that an informed decision is made in which the performer feels confident with their own practice and can make an account of the ‘how, when and where’ of their personal expression. If tone production is a way to self-express, it must also preserve the self in its expression. Personally, I find this to be a true treasure for future lute performance, regardless of where the lutenist positions themself between social groups, academic affiliation or in questions relating to authenticity, HIP (i.e. Historically Informed Performance) or some sort of post-HIP. This is because, in a world of selfies, hashtags and life-tracking (such as pulse watches, step counters and workout log apps),
See, for instance, Jill Walker Rettberg’s book on the subject: