Re: 10 string festival photos

Good day,

Thanks for the response.

Viktor, lots of information. It's clear you have an extraordinary
love of the 10 string guitar, that's great! Reading through your
info. it's clear you are a great fan of Yepes as well. Personally, I
don't find the repertory written for 10 string guitar inot nteresting
enough to invest in one, at least a modern guitar. If I played Mertz
well enough, I would consider a Scherzer style 10 string.

The "repertoire" you mention being a lot of large-scale works by Bruno
Maderna, Maurice Ohana and Leonardo Balada (among others). Not
everyone's cup of tea (personally I love it, as I love and play all
periods), but we have to note that here we have three of the leading
figures of the art music of their time, the Beethovens of their time
rather than the Mertz's, writing for the guitar BECAUSE of the 10-
string guitar and the passion they had for it and for Yepes. This is
remarkable. The only comparison in the guitar world is what Bream
(also a wonderful musician) accomplished in attracting the attention
of the leading English composers of the 20th century to write for the
guitar. So I would not dismiss this music. But to each their own.

However, we also have to realize that Yepes invented this instrument
not specifically for expanded compositional possibilities, but for
expanded interpretative possibilities with regard to the standard 6-
string guitar. We can compare the possiblities that the pedal gives to
the piano, on a smaller scale, but also more than that because the
piano does not suffer the inherent imbalance of resonance that the
guitar is subject to. So it is also for Sor and Tarrega etc., for
INTERPRETATION. You mention Mertz. I agree, ideally Mertz must be
played on a Scherzer type 10-stringed HARP-guitar. BUT we can also
play a lot of Mertz as originally written using a scordatura (mis-
tuning) on the Yepes instrument. By that I don't mean to say re-
stringing to the so-called Romantic "tuning" (or, rather, string
configuration). Rather, we can lower the 10th (F#2) to D2, if
necessary, and lower 7 (C2) to either A1 or B1, and fret any C2's that
might come up. Not a universal solution, but there is only so much
music one can play in one lifetime, so it is still very good. I know
an excellent German 10-string guitarist (who uses only the standard
modern string configuration) yet plays a large number of Romantic harp-
guitar pieces. 7 (C2) can also be raised to D2, which opens all 7-
string guitar repertoire to us. And of course the lute music is also
possible for those with the chops (and this was Yepes's secondary
reason for inventing the instrument), so none of this is excluded from
the "repertoire".


I play a 13 string guitar ( Dresden) that I designed specifically
for baroque music, and I tune it in D minor tuning, so I can read from
the tablature without bothering with transcriptions, using the correct
fingerings and play it the way it was meant to be played. The basses
are longer than the fretted strings and therefore can be thinner than
a typical 10 string guitar bass strings.


[Thinner than the basses on appropriated modern instruments that are
tuned as if they were harp-guitars, you mean. The Yepes instrument has
no "thick" strings; even the very low 7th string, which is the
thickest, is special in that it is made from a gold-coloured alloy
that allows it to be tuned up to D2 and down to A1. It is only
slightly thicker than a 6th string.]

You would be interested to know Yepes had an instrument exactly as you
describe your Dresden and mentions it in an old interview in
Soundboard as "sleeping at home" because he never uses it. I'm not
trying to dismiss it! We are in absolute agreement that if the
intention is to read from tablature, immitate lute fingering or
lutenists' technique of playing the basses open, then an instrument
with 8 stepwise basses from A2 to A1 is COMPULSORY. I also agree that
claims made by 10-stringed guitarists that they play baroque lute
music as written and "as the composer intended" can often not be
substantiated because there is (in bad transcriptions) a lot of
transposition of individual bass notes happening (when a note is not
available at the correct octave as an open string) that results in
totally uncharacteristic melodic intervals between bass notes that no
self-respecting baroque composer would have resorted to unless there
was absolutely no alternative. (As I'm sure you agree, a different
octave of a note cannot be substituted in early music because this
music was not written merely according to vertical/harmonic
principles, but -very importantly- according to horizontal rules/
aesthetics of melody and counterpoint.)


It seems to me Yepes was more concerned with theresonanceeffect,
than the practical effect. I am more concerned with the practical
effect of having the right amount of strings to play baroque music on,


To an extent I agree that Yepes was not terribly concerned with
"practical effect", as you put it, because he had a phenomenal
technical facility and it made no difference technically to him
whether he played a bass open, fretted with a finger, or even fretted
with the left-hand thumb brought forward and onto the fingerboard like
cellists sometimes do. But I think any world-class concert guitarist
is capable of adopting these techniques and expanding guitaristic
techniques of playing fretted basses beyond the 6th string. And in
this expansion of guitaristic technique to the 7th string I think
Yepes was entirely practical and put a lot of thought into that 7th
string. Because it is normally C, it gives the lacking resonances for
C's and G's, but it is also easily retuned to D2 or to B1 or to A1
opening the 7-string, harp-guitar, or lute repertoires respectively.
And because that lowest string is 7 and not 10, it can always be
fretted easily enough while the trebles are fretted to give the other
chromatic or diatonic bass notes that are not available as open
strings. This was brilliant and practical and for the life of me I
cannot comprehend why anyone would want to take away this enabling/
empowering practical consideration of 7 as the lowest string. Moving
the lowest string to 10 reduces the number of basses that are
available as stops and limits the player predominantly to open strings
when the trebles are being fretted.

I know I am stepping on toes here AGAIN. But I really think some
people have not thought this through carefully. I'm talking about (non-
harp-) 10-stringed guitars, of course, and not your Dresden guitar,
which I think is probably a much better solution for people who want
to play lute music on the guitar. But Yepes wanted to (and I want to
and others want to) be able to play most of the repertoire from early
music through to contemporary works on one instrument, an instrument
that has equalized resonant response across the chromatic octave. This
use of one, multi-purpose instrument is also a practical
consideration: we cannot all afford multiple expensive instruments;
concert artists with many international engagements cannot (most of
the time) afford to, or risk, travelling with multiple instruments,
which are also a practical inconvenience when one is on one's own
travelling internationally. Then there is also the matter of work
ethic: the modern 10-string guitar as invented by Yepes demands a
certain work ethic. It is not easy, but it compensates you for its
difficulties by opening many doors. As Narciso once said to a student
(my teacher): "You have entered a room with many doors." And (I am
sorry to go on about Yepes as if I were high priest of the cult of
Yepes, but this is my education and this is what I am able to talk
about and maybe someone at least might find it useful or interesting)
I cannot help but quote Yepes as saying: "To those who raise
objections about the difficulties of palying it, I would reply that
the ten-string guitar has presented me with problems and still does.
It has impelled me to deeper, more creative research. I have never
flinched from effort when that effort is meaningful. I would add also
that the kingdom of art is opened only to those who do not flinch
before the honest labour of deep concentration." (1973)

Of course, it makes no sense to play lute music in a very technically
difficult way and spend a lot of time transcribing and transposing it
and solving technical and fingering issues if you mainly/only play
baroque music. Then, as I said before, a 13- or 14-string guitar is
compulsory. But if you are in the habit of playing diverse programmes
and have a large/diverse repertoire, then that is where the modern 10-
string guitar comes in.

and of course the side effect of the D minor tuning creates quite a resonance.

Yes, it does, but it is not CHROMATIC, so there is still not entirely
a total balance. You might find yourself playing a chromatic note
(which is ubiquitous not only in modern music, but especially in
baroque music) and find that it sounds a little dry, not quite as
spicy as you might like it to be. I'm not putting it down, but I point
out that this is the difference. It is not about having a helluva
resonance; the modern 10-string guitar is about adding the EIGHT
resonances that are lacking on the normal guitar, no more, no less, in
order to come as close as possible to a sonorously balanced yet
playable guitar on which all chromatic notes of the treble strings are
equally rich and sustainable by means of resonance. That is, in stead
of having rich and sustaining E's, A's, B's and D'd (like pedalled
notes on the piano), together with eight dry notes that die the the
moment you let them go (as non-pedalled notes on the piano not held
down by the finger).


I have no problem with those who play 10 string guitar. However
I've debated with many fanatic 10 string players who insist they can
play baroque lute music on them in particular Weiss. This is just not
the case, as you are aware of.


I'm not aware. I play Weiss on my ten-string, whole suites even. Of
course it is not possible to play everything by Weiss, or to play it
exactly as written, but why should we? We need not be able to play
Weiss's entire oeuvre, but the 10-string opens much of it,
particularly the London Manuscript. But we have to transpose,
absolutely, and do a lot of problem solving. But it is POSSIBLE to
play baroque lute music, even paly it in an informed way. That doesn't
mean playing the "original" key though. Why should it? This could
become an endless ramble, but to touch on just a few points: 1) D-
minor today is not equivalent to D-minor (or the various D-minors) of
early music. 2) In Equal Temperament (as on the piano and guitar)
there is no different character or affect between keys as there is on
instruments that use other forms of intonation where the chromatic
intervals are not all equal. 2) If a piece was written for an
idiomatic key on the lute (D-minor), there is no reason why it should
not be played in an idiomatic key on the guitar (E-minor). This too is
being "authentic" and "faithful" to the "original" idea of the
composer. 4) Transposition was standard practice (i.e. "authentic") in
the baroque period: see Bach's own transcriptions of the same work for
violin or cello, lute or harpsichord, organ...always adapting the
music and the key to the new medium.

Of course, none of this is a criticism of the Dresden, but a defense
of the modern 10-string guitar. (Though I defend ONLY transcriptions
and playing on it that "does not flinch from effort", for I find it
vomitable when individuals misuse the instrument to butcher music --
eg. introducing stylistically unfaithful transpositions of individual
bass notes or dissonances from over-ringing basses into baroque
music.)


My way of thinking is if you are going to go through all the trouble
and expense to play a 10 string, why not go for one more string and
get an eleven string?

Or why not just get 14 strings? I am being totally serious. With
basses descending diatonically down to G1 you can even do all of
Bach's lute works and everything ever written for the baroque lute
without having to finger or transcribe/transpose anything. That is
valid. I agree 100%. Why play a 10-stringed instrument if you do not
either comprehend or care WHY it has TEN strings and not 11, or 13 or
9? It has 10 strings because adding 4 strings to the guitar (not more,
not less) and tuning them a very specific way (C, A#, G#, F#) adds
ONLY the EIGHT resonances that are very weak or entirely missing on
the guitar (C, G, A#, F, G#, D#, F#, C#) while adding NO REDUNDANT or
repeated resonances. They have to be 10 strings and they have to be
tuned that way and that is (in terms of the laws of physics) the only
way we can ahve a guitar that still ahs its normal tuning but that has
chromatic resonance, that is balanced in the way the strings as tuned
resonators respond to a note palyed on another string. THAT is the
reason for playing a TEN-string guitar. Otherwise, (unless we are
talking about a Scherzer type period instrument or a Decacorde) it
doesn't make sense to have that particular number of strings - as you
correctly point out. If people don't care for the singular sonorous
properties of Yepes's invention, they should be playing 13-string
guitars because they are not doing themselves or the baroque music any
favours being limited to ten strings. Yepes also had a 13-string
guitar, as I already mentioned, and he most certainly could have added
7 extra basses to the 6-string guitar back in the early '60s when he
started theorizing about his ideal instrument, and having 13 strings
would have made a lot more sense in terms of playing baroque lute
music. But that was not the point of this instrument, or not the only
point, not the primary point.

Thanks for the interesting discussion.

All the best,
Viktor

.

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