Re: Like this tremolo - Recuerdes

On Mar 3, 9:49�pm, David Raleigh Arnold <darno...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 03 Mar 2009 09:16:12 -0800, JonLorPro wrote:

Sure it does, because a piano can deliver on the purely compositional
incentive

There is nothing pure here.
The proposed hypothetical involved voicing the contour of a chord
progression without consideration of instrumental requirements.
Comparably, that is pure.

What is salient is the comparative free reign given to a train of
thought found in an expanded or alternative medium.

JLP's law? It is not irrelevant that Tarrega's guitar, AFAIK, had
six
strings.

No law, just an observation- and a pretty obvious one at that. I'd be
reticent to put my stamp on it- that would be like trying to take out
a patent on air.

The relevency of Tarrega's guitar having had six strings is exactly
the point.

But a more important ideal to me is *not* to have more strings.
As an ideal, that in itself is an extra-musical consideration, though of
course it has musical consequences.

That doesn't pass a logic test.

Yes, it does. It is the logical result of proposing a negative as a
positive premis, and of propounding a tangential consequence as
primary. But I don't think you really meant to suggest that your
active desire is defined by disablement from extending the compass
below a tonic on the sixth string, and you want not to be able support
cadences on fifth string tonalities at the octave below, as later
Renaissance lute players did because they could, or that you wish not
to have the facility of combining reach to the upper and lower ranges
in one position. And though you do perhaps find your preferred
characteristic balance betweeen possibility and practicality in our
tuning system to have been attained to at six strings, it is that
particular balance you find ideal, not the fact of its realization
having become manifest at strings six in number- unless you go in for
number mysticism of a Pythagorean brand.

You are ascribing to the keyboard a quality of musical "purity" which
it does not possess. It is not an accident that "Art of Fugue" was
not written for keyboard.

As far as the specific musical gesture being discussed, it does
possess it. Broadly speaking you are right- there is no instrumental
medium that does not somehow technically inform and corral facility of
thought, but piano does come closer to purity than many. And your
example is apt. The "Art of Fugue", taken as representing a purely
intellectual enterprise (though musicologists aren't of an accord as
to what were Bach's "intentions") is, in fact, playable on the
keyboard.

I think you are overstating the case when you cast it as limitations
vs. (what? freedom?) instead of gain and loss. At the very least, you
lose simplicity, and that ain't nothin'.

It's no overstatement to speak of instruments' limitations, because
they have them. Its may not be as interesting to discuss what
instruments can't do as what they can, but this arose from your
suggestion that if Tarrega could have written a low "F" in m. 9 of
RdlA, he would have. Of course, neither of us knows that he had a
momentary wistful longing to do so as he was composing the piece, or
if, as seems more likely, he didn't even give it a thought. What seems
most likely to me, though, is that if it did occur to him he didn't
exult in "I'm glad I can't do that!"

I agree with you about gain, loss, and simplicity. I know whereof you
speak; I've played eleven string for many years, but I never stopped
playing six. But you were wise to qualify simplicity with "the very
least", 'cuz simplicity isn't the only factor. It would be simpler to
play ukulele. Or just one string, as per Sanz's comment that he had
"seen some people accomplish things on one string for which others
would need the range of an organ." (and , for more personal
information, I used to be pretty good on washtub bass). Simpler yet is
not to play at all. Simplest would be not to live.

I played it with tiami tremolo on the banjo for years, and of course
the open fifth string was the bell. It didn't take long for it to
occur to me to cross the thumb when I tried it with tremolo on guitar....

Cross pollination! Did you ever make note-for-note transcriptions for
guitar of bluegrass banjo pieces? Probably not, since you had a banjo
to use- but that can be fun. I did that with a couple of things a
long time ago, but now I don't even remember what pieces they were, or
if I used an open tuning.

...The flamenco tremolo
is much better for that tune than tami.

I dunno- that was default tremolo with one friend of mine, for
Recuerdos, Limosna, et al, and I've tried it. It makes me impatient,
moves too slowly. I've no doubt it can be done well, but for me the
melodic contour comes through better with pami.
.

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