RobMacKillop wrote: ↑Sun Dec 09, 2018 8:27 am
Good luck! And thanks for including my tutorial video early on - I'm pleased at least one person listened to it!
The only negative I have for you is the use of that low C. You might like it, but Sor didn't. He was dead against multi-string guitars. In using the low C, you have joined the long, long list of players who think they know better than Sor, and happily change what he wrote to suit their own musical taste. Might I suggest that, as a student, you first learn to understand Sor better, and only after youve done that should you reinterpret the studies your own way? I'm being tough on you here because I think you are doing a good thing, and I'd like to see you do it well. When I added low notes from my eight-string, it was within the eight-string tradition of the generation after Sor, but your whole website is devoted to what Sor wrote, is it not?
But keep it up! You have a long way to go, with lots of beautiful music ahead of you. Always remember what Sor said: A guitarist who is a harmonist, has advantage over one who is not.
Thank you Rob, that is a good point which I hadn't given much thought to before going ahead and giving it a try. As a curiosity can I ask where you found info on what Sor thought of extra strings on guitars? I'm curious because I don't feel like there's a lot of easily accessible info on the topic in general other than that Mertz was known to play something like 10 strings though he didn't tend to publish things like that for general consumption. And that there's a very tiny bit of Legnani published that seems to indicate down to a low C. And there may be moments in general that seem to me like they're screaming for it though it's not written. Example Legnani Caprice #1, the bass line going to the last chord is descending all the way down to G and then E on the 6th string and then with only a 6 string guitar we have to go back up to C on the 5th string which doesn't maintain the direction of that bass line. So I'm pretty confident about adding the 8th string in that spot unless somebody chimes in to disagree.
I will say that I'm not necessarily shoothing to be a stickler for doing things exactly the way Sor intended down to the last detail. For example I know that Sor's method explicitly says to only sparingly use the a-finger in specific cases. On that point while practicing I tend to give it a quick try with only p/i/m, but often I will go ahead and make the choice to use all four for some technical facility and especially if it doesn't seem to detract from the actual music. And I imagine some other guitarists of the time did use the a-finger and maybe even did so while playing Sor's written music.
Adding in extra low notes where they were never written in obviously is a little different in that it is taking the liberty to change the score, and I know some folks are of the mind that as interpreters we don't really have the right to do that.
And what I meant when I started to practice with those low strings was to use it as a way to slowly train myself to incorporate the extra strings where it seems reasonably tasteful. Not necessarily trying to "defend" anything here either, but just putting in my thoughts as part of the discussion.
Another thing I'm actually considering is trying to use the 7th string open D in place of down-tuning the 6th string to D in some pieces. I've even seen that idea suggested in some forum or facebook post by Scot who built my guitar. This obviously won't work if the score calls for fretted notes which happen to come into reach in some upper position because they've moved up two frets.
Once again I consider that an activity mainly to practice reaching for the lower string, and not necessarily a suggestion that a piece "should" be played that way.
All that said, the ones I've posted so far are already pretty much the pieces where I've bothered to try that in the Sor studies, and many of the other ones in the queue I tend to play as written as far as the notes go.. not that many are in C major anymore and I haven't been super adventurous about tuning to other notes.
Anyway thanks for the comments and thanks for stopping by to listen also!
. I see also that you have a new guitar, an ancient model with some extra bass strings. It seems to have a good sound. Enjoy it!