Re: 10 string festival photos

Hello Michael, (Who is Tashi?...seems to be the same person...)

OK. I will take a moment to calmly and methodically attempt to fill in
the gaps. It is apparent that what seems perfectly clear and evident
to me (because I have spent a lot of time and effort into researching
these issues thoroughly) is, however, not not very clear to my
readers. Perhaps I get too passionately carried away. Perhaps it is
because there is so much information that needs to be processed.
Probably it has a whole lot to do with semantics and terminology. It
reminds me the dictionary of the "Short Dictionary of Misunderstood
Words" in Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being": how a
term, say "parades", can signify very different things to different
people, leading to miscommunications.

I want to address your question: What exactly did Narciso Yepes
"invent"? As you rightly point out, he did not invent a guitar whose
number of strings or courses add up to 10. The baroque guitar was a 5-
course guitar, the courses being pairs of strings, thus adding up to
ten strings. Then there was the Scherzer and Lacote instruments, both
harp-guitars. I suggest that we adopt the terminology of (10-stringed)
harp-guitar for these instruments, not "ten-string guitar" (definitely
not THE "ten-string guitar", with the definite article that falsely
indicates homogeneity where there is none, where, in fact, we are
dealing with instruments as distinct from each other as the violin is
to the viola or cello, despite all having 4 strings and belonging to
the same family of instruments).

1) Baroque guitars are not "10-string guitars". They are "five-course
guitars".

2) All guitars of the 19th century that have ten strings are "harp-
guitars": see Gregg Miner's site. These instrument should be termed
"harp-guitars" and further differentiated by terms such as "10-
stringed", "7-stringed", or (in the case of the Lacote/Carulli
instrument) as "Decacorde" or "Decacordo" (though perhaps the latter
will present further semantic problems for French or Italian
speakers). Note also that I suggest the use of the term "ten-stringED"
rather than "ten-string".

Now, the the first step towards saying what Yepes invented is to say
that his guitar is NOT a harp-guitar. Gregg Miner has his own reasons
for insisting on this pertaining to the fact that the Yepes instrument
has no "free-floating" or "theorboed" strings. My argument, however,
rests on more concrete points that come from the science of acoustics,
a branch of physics. Now, I am not a physicist (though I did take
physics until my first year of undergrad studies), nevertheless, as a
musician and as a scholar of the arts, I still made a thorough study
of those aspects of physics/acoustics pertaining to the phenomenon of
Resonance. I would argue that this, at least, is COMPULSORY for any
person who would consider him/herself an "authority" or "master" or
proponent of the Yepes-type 10-string guitar. That is because, by his
own admission, Yepes designed and commissioned his instrument after
putting some considerable research and thought into it, and because
his primary (not only, but first and foremost) reason for
commissioning this instrument rests on the phenomenon of Resonance.

Like you, Michael, I will not name any names, but there are some
individuals who tout themselves as "masters" of "the ten-string
guitar" and "protegees of Yepes" etc. who clearly have no grasp on the
fundamental principles behind the invention of Yepes's invention.
These individuals have been going around for the past 30 years,
publishing articles, giving workshops, publishing books, putting up
web sites that (on the surface) appear to explain the workings of the
instrument that (I argue) Yepes invented. However, when one makes the
effort to research the scientific facts about resonance as well as the
interviews and writings by Yepes, it is totally clear that the
articles and books and websites written on the topic by most post-
Yepes authors do NOT stand up to academic scrutiny. I cannot for the
life of me understand how, for example, www.tenstringguitar.com can
still publish such an unequivocally false statement as that there are
"FOUR missing resonances" on the 6-string guitar and that adding four
strings to the guitar adds those four missing resonances. I find it
shocking, especially when published evidence proves that these
individuals have read Yepes's own texts that actually give the correct
information (EIGHT weak/missing resonances; EIGHT resonances added by
the 4 new strigns). I might add that Yepes's statement is the one that
is in agreement with the laws of physics.

At this point I might as well re-attempt an explanation of the
physics, without resorting to too much scientific jargon.

Resonance is defined scientifically as: "The tendency of a system to
vibrate sympathetically at a particular frequency in response to
energy induced at that frequency." A system can be the soundboard/top/
table of the guitar, but that is NOT the type of resonance that Yepes
talks about. When Yepes talks about resonance, the "system" is a
string (not the soundboard). More specifically, we mean any of the
bass strings of the guitar. (I will clarify why the basses only in due
course.) By 'vibrate sympathetically' we mean that the system (a
string) will begind to vibrate and sound without being touched or
actively played, in response to a particular frequency. This is what
is meant by Resonance. NOT a string we pluck actively, or a particular
sound colour (timbre), even though guitarists often use the term
"Resonance" incorrectly to refer to the vibration or some other
quality of sound of a string they have actively plucked. This is
incorrect. In this latter case what is resonating is the sound-board/
top/table of the guitar, in response to the frequency generated by the
string. (Because the top has a larger surface, it can convey the
vibration to a larger number of molecules in the air than could the
small surface of the vibrating string, thus amplifying the sound. But
the soundboard will only resonate as long as the string string
vibrates and induces energy. It is resonance, yes, because the
soundboard is the system that begins to vibrate in sympathy to the
energy induced by the vibrating string, at a related pitch. And, of
course, we don not actively have to bang the soundboard to make it
vibrate. It vibrates because of the phenomenon of resonance. It is the
same phenomenon that makes another instrument, equipment or opbject in
a room rattle sometimes when we play the guitar. Resonance is also the
"buzz" extended-range guitarists often get from the lenghts of string
above the nut, yet - to my surprise - can never figure out that it is
not a "buzz" but a resonance: the length of string above the nut
acting undesirably as a tuned resonator.)

It is this latter kind of resonance on the guitar that Yepes talked
about. It is inevitable on plectral string-instruments. Strings will
act as tuned resonators. A string is tuned to a particular frequency
and as such will inevitable resonate (begin to vibrate and cause sound
without being plucked) when ANOTHER string induces energy that
corresponds to the first-mentioned string's fundamental frequency, or
any of its overtone frequencies. In practice, in reality, on a guitar,
only certain of the overtone frequencies of a string when palyed on
the fingerboard, on the treble strings, will actually induce resonance
on another string. An E-string (E2, which is the open 6th string in
Scientific pitch notation] can theoretically resonate in response to
any of E2, E3, B3 [ = open 2nd string's frequency], E4 [ = open 1st
string's frequency], G#4 [ -14cents lower than ET, i.e. flatter than
the G# on the first string, fret IV], etc. as per the Harmonic or
Overtone Series. However, because the guitar is more or less in Equal
Temperament, we can say that a string (resonator) will vibrate
sympathetically only in response to notes played on the fingerboard
that correspond to the resonator's fundamental frequency, its compound
fifth, and the first 2-3 octaves of both. The resonance will be
strongest for the lower frequencies and become increasingly weaker for
higher frequencies. (This is why Yepes added re-entrant strings and
NOT low basses as low basses will result in a bass-heavy resonance,
while Yepes wanted to place the resonance in the treble range.)

Now, I will mention that we do not consider the trebles as
"resonators" in practice because the frequencies that will induce
resonance on the trebles mostly tend to be above the range of the
guitar, and because guitarists almost constantly fret the trebles.
Fretting a string changes its vibrating length and thus raises its
fundamental frequency. Fretting a string changes the tuning of the
string, in a sense, by raising it. An E-string will resonate to E's
and B's (the compound fifth I mentioned above), but if we finger it,
raising it to F, it will now resonate with F's and C's, not with E's
and B's.

So if we consider the bass strings of the 6-string guitar, which
inevitably act as tuned resonators, we will observe that the 4th
string [D3 in Scientific pitch notation] will resonate when we play a
D4, A4, D5 or A5 on the trebles. Moreover, it will resonate in UNISON
with the frequency of the other string that has been actively plucked.
This gives us resonance when we paly D's and A's. That means that we
can play a D or an A on a treble string and change the position of the
left hand, lift the fretting finger, or mute the string, and yet there
will be almost no interruption to the sound because the D or A will
continue to be sustained by the resonance of the 4th string. I hope
the analogy between this and the use of the pedal on the piano is now
quite clear. But I should point out that it suffers less the
possibility of "muddle" or "blurring" that can happen on the piano
with bad pedalling. The difference is that the piano's pedal allows
the vibrating string as well as the other sympathetic strings to
continue to vibrate, but the guitar only allows the resonator-string
to continue the vibration. So it is a sustaining mechanism, but less
obtrusively so than on the piano: more subtle.

However, we only have this phenomenon on 4 notes (and their various
octaves) on the 6-string guitar. I've said that we have D and A from
string 4. We will again have A from string 5, as well as E on string
5. Play the open E-string and immediately stop it. (This is the way
Yepes illustrated it. The way tenstringguitar.com gives it - i.e.
listening for the lenth of decay/sustain - is incorrect.) When you
play and immediately mute the 1st string's E, you will hear that it
still continues. Now mute the 6th string. The E still continues to
sound. That is because the A-string also acts as a resonator for E's.
Finally, we can guess that the 6th string is a resonator for E as
well, but also for B3 [ = 2nd string], and B4 (string one, fret VII).
Try the highest B, making sure to mute also the 2nd string, and you
will notice how the resonance becomes weaker for higher frequencies
(and why Yepes made his extra string resonators C2, Bb2, Ab2, Gb2 and
not super-low bass strings). [Incidentally, C2, the 7th string, is the
lowest string in sound. The pitch referencing notation begins each new
octave from C. So string 8 is a minor seventh HIGHER than string 7,
not a whole step lower, thus the "re-entry" that some people refer
to.)

So the 6-string guitar has very resonant E's, A's, B's and D's and by
that (again) we are NOT talking about the resonance from the
soundboard, but about string resonance. These four notes have a longer
sustain because their vibrations are carried over to other strings and
thus can be allowed to sustain even after the vibration that initiated
the sound has ceased. (Resonance from the soundboard cannot do this in
any significant/comperable way.) These four notes thus have a
different "envelope" from other notes: they don't (or don't have to)
decay as rapidly; they vibrate on more than one string, which makes
their sound colour more complex, richer, more pleasant in the same way
that a violin section of an orchestra somehow sounds more pleasing to
the ear than a solo violin.

The other EIGHT notes of the chromatic scale, however, do not induce
any significant resonance by comparison. An F or an F#, when played
and muted on the first string will decay instantly when muted. It will
naturally be inclined towards staccato sound whereas the E jsut below
it will naturally tend towards legato. The good 6-string concert
guitarist is constantly having to adjust for this imbalance by
dampening the resonant notes and trying to overcome the lack of
sustain on the other eight notes. And many guitarists do this
admirably! But this is not something any pianist, violinist or
flautist needs to put up with because most instruments do not suffer
the same imbalance. So we have to ask, is it worth it, to go to all
this trouble to try to get a beautiful cantabile sound by constantly
having to compensate for resonant, sustaining sounds on the one hand,
and drier, more clipped sounds on the other? The pianist can get
straight to the music without these troubles.

And now I get back to the question: What exactly did Yepes "invent"?
By his own admission, he said, he did not invent a guitar with ten
strings. (Refer to his text "Ser Instrumento".) Having ten strings is
not the point. The number is unimportant. It could jsut as well have
turned out to be an 11-string guitar, or a 9-string guitar, if the
physics were different, or if the standard guitar were tuned
differently. I should also point out that the 10-stringed harp-guitars
were not prototypes or precursors of Yepes's guitar; neither were
concepts liek the viola d'amour. Yepes has rejected the comparison to
the viola d-amour in a printed interview from 1978. The viola d'amour,
had a flaw in its tuning, said Yepes, because it added tuned
resonators in the form of strings that were tuned in such a way that
only certain notes had resonance and others had none. He goes on to
say that this is exactly contrary to his invention. By this logic then
also the Scherzer ten-stringed harp-guitar is contrary to Yepes's
invention because it adds strings tuned D2, C2, B1, A1, which (save
for the C-string and the F#-resonance from the B-string) only further
imbalances the resonance of the guitar by adding more resonance for D,
E, A and B.

What Yepes invented was not a guitar with ten strings. What he
invented represents something more along the lines of what it meant to
the piano when the pedals were invented. It is not a new instrument.
It is still a guitar. But it is a guitar that no longer lacks
resonance for the eight notes of F, F#, G, G#, A#, C, C# and D#. It is
a guitar with an equalized response in terms of its resonance and the
envelopes of notes across all 12 notes of the chromatic octave, NOT
only for the first string, but for all notes of the all the treble
strings.

String 10, F# (Gb), resonates with plucked F#'s and C#'s (or
enharmonically with Gb's and Db's).
String 9, G#, resonates with G#'s and D#'s...
String 8, A#, resonates with A#'s and F's...
String 7, C, resonates with C's and G's.

You will notice that adding these 4 strings tuned this singular way
Yepes managed to supply all eight missing resonances without adding a
single redundant resonance. In other words, none of these strings
gives a resonance twice, and none of them gives additional resonance
of D, E, A, or B, which the guitar already has from strings 4-6. Thus,
the lack of resonance has been taken care of - all notes now have the
same resonant response (which can be used, or muted depending on the
musical context) - but no additional imbalance of resonance has been
introduced.

Had Yepes added more strings, they would ahve introduced more
resonances that are already present. More strings would also have
complicated dampening. On Yepes's guitar, if you want to dampen a
single resonance, you need only touch one string to stop its
vibration, without disrupting other vibrations. But if you have the
same resonance on multiple strings (a further criticism I have against
the system introduced by Janet Marlow) then you must either use
multiple fingers to mute one resonance, or you must mute all resonance
with the wrist. While this is sometimes fine, it is rather crude.
Yepes's own dampening techniques are far more refined and accurate.

Also, Yepes managed to find a way to add only the minimum number of
strings required to give all eight missing resonances. That is because
of the singular tuning that was a stroke of genius. More strings
require more structural reinforcements (which as you know have their
disadvantages in terms of volume) and more strings require more
dampening. However, Yepes added all eight missing resonance to the
guitar by adding the minimum number of additional strings. This was,
indeed, very practical and totally brilliant and totally contingent
upon the unique tuning of the four strings.

If you change the tuning of a string, you take the resonance away from
2 notes of the 12 in the chromatic scale and you add redundant
resonance to 2 notes that already have resonance. Sometimes Yepes did
this, because sometimes there are higher-level musical reasons:
lowering the 7th to B1 or A1, for example, to have the full bass range
of the baroque lute. But these were temporary scordatura (mistunings).
In contrast, when someone appropriated a modern Yepes-type 10-string
guitar for tuning in the Romantic manner (as per Scherzer), or in the
manner of Janet Marlow and others, it is rather disingenuous of these
individuals to use the name, image and reputation of Yepes, his
reasons for inventing his guitar, or the logic behind it, to bolster
their own reputations. By changing the manner in which the strings are
configured and tuned they cut the cords, giving up the right to ride
the coat-tails of maestro Yepes's reputation. Anyone who claims the
resonance argument as justification for playing a 10-string guitar but
does not use the standard tuning is being less than honest: As an
indisputable fact of physics, a 10-stringed guitar tuned any other way
than 7-1- as C, A#, G#, F# CANNOT and does not possess the properties
of linearized resonance response over the chromatic octave for which
Yepes invented his particular instrument. Some people may claim this
(having the same or better "chromatic" resonance) in various articles,
interviews and websites, but it cannot be proven true in accordance
with the laws of physics that govern our existence on this planet.

Yepes's invention is inseparable from the singular, unique tuning of
the 4 strings he added. What he invented was a guitar with linearized,
chromatic string resonance. NOT a guitar with ten strings. This is,
frankly idiotic. Who would add 4 keys (or 4 octaves) to a piano and
claim that s/he has invented a new instrument??? No. His invention was
nothing as banal and facile as simply adding strings to the guitar,
and this is why he said that he did not invent the "ten-string"
guitar, that guitars with 10 strings existed before. What he invented
is something far more significant than simply adding some extra
strings that can be tuned willy-nilly.

That is not to say he did not have secondary reasons for wanting more
strings. Of course, he also wanted to have an extended bass range,
which the 7th string gives, especially when one understand the way in
which he intended for it to function and when one has a string made
from the correct material (the Aranjuez 7th). And there are many many
technical possibilities that the instrument opened up, as well as
compositional possibilities and the possibility to play more of the
lute repertoire more faithfully.

I think that is enough for now. Not sure whether this has clarified
things. I often feel like people simply cannot take in anything they
read anymore. But if I have to get on my soap box and repeat it a
million times, that's fine too. I am confident that the information I
give is correct and NEEDED to undo the misinformation people have been
fed for decades when it comes to Yepes's guitar. I also know that it
will take time for the things I am saying to sink in because people
have been living and breathing the misconceptions for so long it is
really difficult to even get beyond the misconceptions of what
"resonance" really is and that we are talking not about actively
plucked strings, nor about vibration of the soundboard, nor about
timbre or sound colour or volume of sound (or not just that).

Further applications of the linearized resonance Yepes brought to the
guitar have to do with phrasing, for example. What do you do when the
most intense note/s in a phrase fall on "dry" (secco) notes while the
least intense ones fall on the resonant E, A, B or D? How do you
phrase? How do you create a TRUE cantabile sound? You'd have to make
dull, square phrases, or really underplay and mute the resonant notes
in order to bring out the dry ones. But when each note responds the
same, YOU are in control of the phrase, not the instrument; YOU can
shape it.

I'm not saying anyone who palys this type of guitar is inherently a
better interpreter because of the instrument. This does not even have
to be taken as a defence of Yepes's interpretations. If you hate them.
So what? That doesn't mean that the instrument is faulty. It has
enormous potential and I am certain that, in future, a very great
musician will still come along who will adopt this instrument (seeing
its logic and its POTENTIAL) and take the guitar to heretofore
unimagined levels of refinement.

All the best,
Viktor


Yes Viktor, I have not read your interview , but I shall. I'm
referring to when I made the Dresden, I corresponded with the
brilliant fellow who hosts the Cathedral guitar site devoted to the 10
string guitar. I shall not mention his name. He very quickly
informed me that lute music doesn't sound good on guitar, and went on
to explain that anything I could do on 13 strings he could do on 10.
I learned very quickly that to my amazement a number of 10 stringers
were quite threatened by my idea, far more so than 6 stringers.

Six stringers thought "way cool", and the 10 stringers thought " OH
crap I've been out done". I've noticed this trend even amongst some 8
string players ( I won't mention his name but he lives in NYC, has a
couple of dogs and plays a Hippner guitar) who also informed me that
he glanced through some Weiss and felt he didn't need to bother with
all those extra bass strings because he could realize everything on
just 8. He went on to mention Weiss was a third rate composer. He
later saw the light, thanks to my relentless laying out of the facts.

I run up against this kind of arrogance and all the time. I'm used
to it.

Goran Sollchor is more my cup of tea than Yepes. Goran has an
eleven string that is quite versatile. With the addition of one extra
string added to the 10 string guitar he opens up a whole new universe
of possibilities beyond Yepes.

You stated Yepes primary reason for playing the 10 string guitar was
to make up for, or complete the harmonic overtones, and the secondary
reason was to play baroque music. I'll refrain from using the word
"invent" as the 10 string guitar was "invented" a hundred years
earlier. What exactly did Yepes "invent"? In my mind he popularized
it, rediscovered it etc. Invent it he did not.

Anyhow, as you stated Baroque music was Yepes secondary reason for
playing this 10 string guitar. The fact that by adding at least one
more string brings it up to par with a 11 course baroque lute in which
most all baroque music was composed for up until about 1718 or so,
makes much more sense! If you then add 13 you can play much of
Weiss's later more mature sonatas, and play complete sonatas, not just
his Greatest hits, not to mention Bach's own version of his lute
suites. I have Both the London and Dresden MS in facsimile form.
Throughout the MS one can see how Weiss after adding 2 more strings to
his 11 course lute went back and added additional bass notes to his
earlier sonatas that were clearly written for 11 courses. So much of
Weiss can be played on 11 strings. With 11 strings you can keep the
first 6 string in standard guitar tuning as well if you like, but
still have the perfect range in the basses.

Now concerning the tunings. If Yepes idea is to complete the
overtone series, why can't you do the same thing with an 11 string?
One important feature of the diatonic bass tuning say as on a baroque
lute tuned in D minor, is the very natural way of dampening the bass
strings, and MOST importantly the natural flow of the thumb. Most of
the time you are using the bases in such a manner that you are going
up or down the basses in a step wise fashion, this very naturally
allows the player to dampen, or more importantly to position ones
thumb for the next string to strike. You cannot do this with an
alternative non diatonic tuning!

I would venture to say that there is no music on this third rock
orbiting the Sun, that puts more demand on the thumb than Weiss's
Sonatas! Unless you are familiar and thoroughly mastered Weiss's
sonatas there is unfortunately no way you would know just how
important the flow of the thumb is in this tuning.

Quite frankly I find the Yepes tuning to be rather dry sounding as
compared to the D minor tuning, and of course this is subjective. It
would be very difficult for me to pronounce one or the other superior
in this regard.

All this having been said. I would love to hear some of your
performances. You seem quite passionate in what you are doing, and
again I salute you for you open mindedness and expanded way of
thinking. If only more guitarists would think like you we might see a
trend of more virtuoso players in this realm.

All in all Viktor we are debating over one string. As my sister in
law always says " What's another bucket of water when your already
drowning"

All the best,
Michael

.

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