| | Fri Feb 16, 2007 11:50 pm | | | | Comments: 0 Views: 561 |
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Guitarra Espanola de cinco ordenes by Juan Carlos Amat was published in Barcelona, 1596. This book outlined how to tune the guitar with five courses, adding a lower string onto the four-course guitar of Spain (tuned aa, dd, gg, dd, and e). From this alteration the Baroque guitar was born and the top 5 strings of the modern guitar (e, a, d, g, b, e) were established. (Johanson, 2001, p. 24-26)
The five-course Baroque Guitar looked similar to the Vihuela but was much larger and the placement of the right hand was les rigid. Players often changed their tambour by moving their hand from the bridge area to the front of the sound hole. The waist, or curvature, on the instrument is minimal and the ornamental carving of the headstock minimal. At this point in history the Guitar is still using tuning pegs as opposed to using tuning gears that were developed much later. Luthiers decorated the guitar with wooden rosettes on the soundboard around the sound hole and paper rosettes were often placed in the sound hole in the style of its second cousin the lute.
There were two common styles for playing the Baroque guitar between 1650 and 1750. Rasgueado Style is exclusively strumming the guitar and was the dominant style through 1700. Mixed Style incorporated both strumming and the Moorish style of plucking individual strings and took prominence in the 18th century. These styles were learned from tablature in published texts that varied in layout based on culture
Bailleux's method uses French tablature and standard notation to explain the tuning of the guitar. Previously this would not have been done. Music for the Baroque Guitar was only written in tablature of which there was Italian, French and Spanish. Ignoring standard notation may have contributed to the lack of notable composers writing for Baroque Guitar.
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