Renaissance and Baroque Guitar Author(s): Shelagh Godwin Reviewed work(s): Source: Early Music, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Jan., 1976), p. 85 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3126043 . Accessed: 09/02/2013 21:15 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
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This content downloaded on Sat, 9 Feb 2013 21:15:41 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
us clinically examine our experiences and observations, be ever mindful of the transience and fallibility of eminence and authority, and above all, let our utterances always be reflections of intelligence.
purpose of the buzzers found on the bass strings of the muselaar, the type of virginals with jacks plucking at or near the mid-point of the strings. The tone of the muselaar is usually described as hollow, a result that one would expect MICHAEL ZADRO, Facultyof Fine and Perfrom a plucking point that would tend formingArts,StateUniversityCollege,New Paltz, to eliminate the even-numbered harNew York,NY 12561. monics from the tonal spectrum. The buzzers would fill-out and increase the Buzzerson lutes sound of the lower strings and perhaps and fiddles thus produce a better tonal balance With reference to the letter in the last over the instrument as a whole. The Early Music from Djilda Abbott and fact that the buzzers of the Tambourin Eph Segerman regarding buzzers on de Bearn require very nice adjustment lutes and fiddles, there is at least one to be effective is reflected in the fact renaissance instrument on which their that the buzzers of the muselaar are use has survived into modern times: usually fitted on a sliding bar; this may the string drum, still used in the be so that they can be drawn off when Basque Provinces as the Tambourin de not required, but may also be simply so B6arn or Tsountsounia. This instru- that they can be easily adjusted for the ment, which has the form of a zither maximum effect. It is possible also, though more (there is a picture on p. 17 of Early Music,Vol. 1, no. 1), but which is used hypothetical, that the same purpose as though it were a drum or drone lies behind the snare on a skin drum. tabor, has a row of heavy wire staples, In several areas, the snare is so adjusted one over each string, set close to the as to produce a long drawn out buzz, nut at the upper end of the strings. rather than the quick snap to which we When I started to reconstruct one of are accustomed in the modern orchesthese instruments (for details of which, tra; the early tabors and other drums see Early Percussion Instruments and may well have been adjusted for a buzz. Making Early Percussion Instruments, Having written this, I am now forthcoming from OUP) my first wondering whether we have been misthought was that these were to hold the judging the effect of the harp (or buff) strings down and to prevent them from stop on the harpsichords of the later jumping on the nut under the blows of periods. What would happen if it were the heavy beater. Listening to records adjusted so that the strings were lightly of Basque performers (I was not lucky touched instead of being hard pressed? The only other string drum that I enough to see one of these in use during the IFMC Festival there in 1973) know of, the Hungarian Gardon,' does and experimenting, made me realise not buzz, though the combination of a that the purpose is quite different. If heavy pizzicato, strong enough that the the staples are set so that they just string rebounds against the fingertouch the strings, they produce a buzz, board, with beaten strokes, may be an a buzz so rich in upper partials that the adaptation of buzzing. Curiously volume produced is at least doubled enough, in Hungary, it is the hurdy(an assessment by ear; it would be gurdy' that buzzes; there is a wooden interesting to test the sound with wedge set under one of the drone analysing equipment) and is consider- strings which produces a strong ably prolonged. buzzing sound. I do not recall seeing a I would suggest that this increase of device in pictures of medieval or renaisvolume and of sustaining power, rather sance hurdy-gurdies, but I must than a change of tone, was the main confess that I have not looked with that purpose of the buzzers on this instru- in mind; we do tend to see only what ment and on the lutes and fiddles men- we are looking for. tioned in the original letter. I would JEREMYMONTAGU,7 Pickwick Road,Dulfurther suggest that this was also the wichVillage, London SE217JN.
Footnotes
'Bilint Sirosi, Die Volkmusikinstrumente DeutscherVerlagfiir Musik,LeipUngarns, nd, pp. 59-63(asTrommelbassgeige). zig, I Ibid., pp. 50-7 and plates 3 and 4 (as Drehleier).
Renaissanceand baroque guitar Readers of the fascinating articles on the five-course renaissanceand baroque guitar by James Tyler and Donald Gill (EM, October 1975) will be interested to know that Gaspar Sanz's Instruccion de musicasobrela guitarraespanola(1674) is being published in three issues of The GuitarReview,together with two further volumes of Sanz's music, published in 1675 and 1697. M. Rodrigo de Zayas, who has prepared this new edition of Sanz's music, has outlined the composer's life, work, and the instrument for which he wrote in an article in The Consortno. 31 (July 1975), in which he also describes his system of transcribing rasgueadoand punteadotablature. He has reached the same conclusion as Mr Gill on the stringing of five-course baroque guitars for Sanz'smusic. The same issue of The Consortalso contains correspondence between M. de Zayasand Mr Robert Spencer on the relationship between the lute, the vihuela and the guitar. SHELAGH GODWIN (Editor, The Consort),
14 Chestnut Way,Godalming, SurreyGUYITS.
When is a cornett not a cornett? I was worried to read in your magazine that Christopher Monk thought that there was nothing wrong to play the cornett (zink) with a trumpetmouthpiece. In my experience this only makes the cornett sound like a trumpet, and surely the one reason to struggle with the difficulties of this instrument must be to reproduce the sound of the cornett. Unfortunately for us, almost all the 'cornett' playing on disc is by trumpet-players using trumpetmouthpieces and trumpet-articulations; no wonder that many conductors believe that the trumpet is an acceptable substitution for the cornett (the violin is more suitable nine times of ten). Fortunately there are some young 85
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