Re: Lute tablature

[Laura Conrad]

>>>>> "David" == David Raleigh Arnold <address@hidden> writes:

    Taco> About your Dowland edition: EVERY luteplayer prefers the
    Taco> lutetablature to some modern notation. A tablature part
    Taco> should exist in every dowland edition.
    >> 
    >> Well, dra obviously disagrees with you,

    David> Not at all.  I was simply pointing out that all you have to
    David> do to get the lute tab for Dowland is to use letters
    David> instead of numbers, leave off the stems, and include
    David> notation *also*.  

And a lute player who was reading the tab would be able to get the
stem information from the keyboard part?  That seems unlikely, but I
would be willing to believe that lute players don't really figure out
the rhythm from the stems.

    David> The advantage is not only that it would be accessible to
    David> more people but also it could have the highly desirable
    David> feature of omitting the stems from the tablature.  While
    David> the notation does take up vertical real estate, so do the
    David> stems. 

Vertical real estate isn't my problem; convincing a lute player to
play with me is.  If leaving off the stems makes it harder for a lute
player, I don't want to do it.

I'm not under the impression that the stems are all that big of a
problem.  Rune couldn't remember how to do it off the top of his head,
but surely a staff with the lines invisible and the note heads (all on
the same pitch) invisible (OK, and all the stuff like clefs and key
signatures not printed) would do it.  

-- 
Laura (mailto:address@hidden , http://www.laymusic.org/ )
(617) 661-8097  fax: (801) 365-6574 
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