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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
 Posted - 12/01/2004 : 05:00:50 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Bill Neubauer
And speaking of Open G, wasn't that also sometimes called "Spanish Tuning"? So couldn't one speculate that the Vaquero's guitars might have already been tuned to...Taro Patch?  Sorry, maybe I shouldn't think out loud.
The use of the term Spanish for open G is a reference to the Henry Worrall tune, "Spanish Fandango," a parlor guitar piece in that tuning. Likewise, the use of Vastapol and Vestapol for open D refer to "Sebastopol" which Worrall wrote in open D.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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Kapila Kane
Ha`aha`a
USA
1051 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2004 : 9:12:49 PM
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First off...so glad that my essential question was evident, amidst my tendency to ramble!
And you folks are better than all the professors of music here.
One of the many subservient questions for me is, "how did people in far flung places get their tuning pitch(s)?"
I assume pitch was mostly relative...probably varied a fair bit. But like most camp-fires, it's most important to be in tune with the herd...or at least yourself.
I assume keyboard instruments came over with missionaries in rather short order...which might have encouraged some univeral tuning pitches...
AND in the process of conversion, missionaries probably gave boodles of music lessons, coaching in voice, keyboard, and/or music notation (and reading)--in addition to the 3 R's--and other didacticism.
But in the process of sharing religion and civility...they must have gotten some return lessons in spirituality and Aloha.
I'm honored to sit in on some great discussions here at T.U.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure that the initial sound of creation was not the mythical "OM", but surely was an open G chord...
Even my car key reminder is a G tone.
So, what's a great "Hawaiian History 101" resource?
Thanks, Gotta go square up the hedges.
G |
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Kapila Kane
Ha`aha`a
USA
1051 Posts |
Posted - 12/01/2004 : 9:19:06 PM
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Make that "Universal tuning pitches..."
GeezIhate to proofread...but if you don't, you'll never work in Taropatch again. Maybe Dogpatch. |
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Konabob
`Olu`olu
USA
928 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 07:10:27 AM
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Oddly enough, Gordon, Debashish Battacharya performed with Ledward in Waimea last month. At the beginning of the "Indian" portion of the program, he spoke about the custom in his country of beginning each concert with a simple 4 string drone instrument, the Tamboura. It is tuned to an open G chord, and that is all it does... he said it represents the initial sound of creation, and it is played to 'clear the air' so that everyone can tune in, relax their minds, and merge with the performance. Think about that next time you are tuning up in front of an audience...
Aloha,
-Konabob |
Konabob's Walkingbass - http://www.konawalkingbass.com
Taropatch Steel - http://www.konaweb.com/konabob/
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=Konabob2+Walkingbass |
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Kapila Kane
Ha`aha`a
USA
1051 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 8:04:54 PM
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I'd like to claim some sort of mystical wisdom, Bob...
but seems like I hit the truth by accident sometimes.
And of course some of my sure-fire truths ain't always right...
Amazing...
G
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Lawrence
Ha`aha`a
USA
1597 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2004 : 8:50:58 PM
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"univeral tuning pitches... "
Well at least you didn't say "UniViral pruning stitches"
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Mahope Kākou...
...El Lorenzo de Ondas Sonoras |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2004 : 04:15:01 AM
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Sarah bought a book called "Shakespeare's Songbook". It is a scholarly tome meant for her brother who is a theater director and Prof. at Santa Barbara. I scanned it yesterday. Among other things, the author has established the melodies of the songs associated with Will's writings. They were all "popular" tunes known to his audience from just being there - some tunes were used for many lyrics, although many of the lyrics were "composed" for sale (a big business at the time); the melodies were mostly "folk" tunes.
The most common key of the *sung melody* is F major, the next most common, about 1/3, is in G major, and a small number is in C major. The melodies all have a narrow range and all but a very few are contained within the single octave of the standard staff. Looking at the range, C is the lowest (because of the lowest C note, below the staff), F is in the middle (the first space on the staff) and G is the highest (the second line on the staff, but some notes in G melodies are below the low G, but still in the staff (E and F#). So, this was the "normal" singing range in the mid 1500's in England, and it probably is today. In addition, there were "Ground Bass Melodies" that were used for accompaniment of the melodies (to be improvised upon, too) - they have Italian names. 4 are in F, 2 are in G, and 1 is in C, all major.
The instruments used were the guitar, the cittern (steel stringed like a bozouki) the orpharion/bandora ( a knobby shaped Aoud-like instrument - steel stringed), most for the lute, and some for the harpsichord/virginal (which is a keyboard, but plucks the strings with "jacks").
So, the conclusion I draw is that, in European music after the Renaissance, the normal range of the human voice determined what the key of the song would be and, hence, the accompaniment. And, the tunings used, would "naturally" be consonant with the melodies.
I know for a fact that Kevin very often uses Taro Patch tuned down to F. So, Kevin could fit right in with the folks in 16th century England :-)
...Reid |
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Auntie Nancy
`Olu`olu
USA
593 Posts |
Posted - 12/03/2004 : 05:05:03 AM
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Aloha Reid,
Did the instruments of the time have a much wider range?
auntie - |
nancy cook |
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Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 12/05/2004 : 11:27:36 AM
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Nancy, about the range of those old instruments, it depends upon what tuning you think they had and what scale length you think they had. Most stringed instruments had frets made from lengths of gut tied around the neck. Most had only eight frets, so I suspect that they were positioned for each note in an octave. Of course, the notes selected would depend on the key of the scale they were using. So, they were obviously not using the chromatic scale. There were some instruments that had more than eight frets, but no more than nine or 10, and usually the first fret was a zero fret, so the luthier did not use the nut to position the strings both vertically and horizontally . One book I have says that the tuning of the lute was GCFADG (with no authority given). I am pretty sure that the low G was the same note as the fifth string in Taro Patch. This is a sort of C tuning. Playing the C scale would have been very easy. All you would have had to do was finger across the fretboard on the second and fourth frets, except for the third string where the fingering was on the second and third frets, and on the F string, where only the second fret was fingered to produce G. the bottom two strings would have allowed an alternating bass, and the open fifth, fourth and third strings would give the F chord, the IV chord in the C scale. That would mean that the lute had two octaves across the fretboard and one other octave down the fretboard, for a total of three octaves. So that's not much less than normal guitars of the present.
Note that the intervals were pretty much the same, 44344, as in "common tuning", which is 44434, and common tuning is a sort of A tuning. But who wants to play in A? :-)
... Reid |
Edited by - Reid on 12/05/2004 11:30:25 AM |
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Kapila Kane
Ha`aha`a
USA
1051 Posts |
Posted - 12/07/2004 : 8:41:07 PM
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Probably the fiddler...
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Bill Neubauer
Aloha
USA
34 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2004 : 4:03:48 PM
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Aloha, Raymond;
I really liked your response to my questions. It made me realize the really "important" things about "facts". My panama is off to you for your eloquence.
Bill  |
Kika Pila |
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RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2004 : 7:35:40 PM
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| Mahalo nui |
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