Talk:Ten-string guitar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Neutrality (as usual)
2 Neutrality of this article is disputed - NPOV
3 Duplication
4 One sided article

[edit] Neutrality (as usual)

Viktor van Niekerk wrote on the Ten-string guitar page: "Today, mostly due to misinformation, ten-stringed guitars are sometimes used with different string configurations and tunings that, with respect to the true modern 10-string guitar, do not possess the same resonant properties" ref

This suggests to me that you believe one of the following statements:

that these people (using other tunings) were trying to copy Yepes (his tuning), but out of misinformation got the tuning wrong.
Or you seem to believe that once they know all about Yepes' tuning, they will adopt his tuning in favor of whatever else they used.

I think this is not true, since these people will have very particular reasons for using the tunings that they use. (Just as Yepes' had a particular reason for his tuning.) (If someone plays Ohana with a different tuning, then you can sound the alarm bells; but you cannot force your "views of the value" of a well-resonanced tuning, onto others who may have have other aims and follow different ideas... their own! And I respect for their own ideas, just as I have respect for Yepes' ideas!)

Thus what I really asked you to cite was why people using different tunings, were using different tunings as a direct result of a misinformation about Yepes' tuning.Archeoix (talk) 22:53, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

If you insist, I can bring a reference list of mis-informative publications into this, but I think it would be bad for those involved in the misinformation's creation and continuation. Basically, YES, I am saying there are people who have been interested to adopt Yepes's instrument, but out of misinformation, on the one hand, got the tuning wrong, or out of dearth of information, on the other hand, never really understood how to use the instrument appropriately, so they changed it into something totally different from Yepes's invention, but in most ways inferior to the original concept. For example, there is no explanation for the (quite extensive use) of a system that tunes the last three strings Bb1, Ab1, Gb1 (i.e. an octave too low) other than those numerous articles that have both not referenced the pitches of the tuning and described it as descending in whole steps. Janet Marlow, on tenstringguitar.com, did both these things (and now still has the latter error) because she apparently sees no difference between a major second and a minor 7th! The liner notes for the new Yepes portrait CD again commit the same error to print. Numerous publications in the 70s and 80s give the wrong tuning for the instrument, including giving the note names without referencing the pitches. No wonder people found it impractical!! The strings were absurdly low, or given in the wrong order. It is also Janet Marlow (1980. Soundboard 7(4): 151-154) who introduces the concept of "baroque" tuning (which is really the tuning of the Scherzer-type 10-stringed guitar), instead of explaining that Yepes used his own standard setup to perform baroque lute music. Of course, in this and her other articles that claim to explain the 10-string guitar, she never actually explains Yepes's performance practice, the significance of the low seventh string and how it is used in baroque music or what is really meant by "resonance". Why would she? She never studied the 10-string guitar with Yepes. She broke ties with him after the one and only time he ever heard her play it in 1981 (Boston Classical Guitar Society's Newsletter, Vol. 5 no. 1, Sep./Oct. 1997, p. 9: http://bostonguitar.info/images/Vol5No1_1997Sept-Oct.pdf ).

Let us not forget that numerous people CLAIM (in print) to have "resonance", but obviously do not understand what Yepes meant (or, really, what is scientifically meant) by resonance. If you buy Janet Marlow's so-called Approach Guide on playing the 10-string guitar, in the chapter on "Controlling Resonance", you will be misinformed that "resonance" is the vibration of the open bass strings that have been plucked by the thumb. Absolutely uninformed and misinformative nonsense. In Guitar Player (March 1982: 20), Marlow claims that 'her' tuning (which is really a system that Oscar Castro-Neves [not a 10-string guitarist; but a jazz guitarist] came up with), that this tuning, "rounds out" the "resonance" on the guitar in the same way Yepes's does. Nonsense. This is scientifically untenable.

Look, there are hundreds more examples of misinformation about the 10-string guitar. (Some of them are already listed here: www.myspace.com/tenstringguitar ) I could reference all the others too, but I have better things to do with my time. Shall we really continue this?Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 03:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello Viktor

You should not tie your decision of whether or not to continue about it, to my decision/answer (as if you're waiting for me to give the "go-ahead" for ...... hard (perhaps even unneutral) criticisms of other people. ?)

You yourself are fully responsible for what you write. It's all about the article. It should be factual and give readers information that is neutral and unbiased, but correct. (Not only that: the article should seek to represent an overview of the various people's views/involvement, rather than being judgmental, and trying to favor certain ideas.)

1) Your sentence was: "Today, mostly due to misinformation, ten-stringed guitars are sometimes used with different string configurations and tunings"

My main problem is with the word "mostly". Gismonti, Schmidt, de Castro, Frasca, ... use valid tunings. (Even Marlow for whom your hatred just seems to flow out, has the right to tune her instrument as she as chosen to do, because it is her own conscious decision. She uses her own tunings, and as far as I know she's not running around calling it Yepes' original tuning, so no misinformation here. And I don't really know if you can apply your views to Marlow. So she might have a different view of "rounding out" "resonance". There is no golden reverence. You cannot compare apple and oranges.). I doubt that artists who record things, are going to allow the tunings they used to be called invalid or misinformed (That's just your own opinion).

(Of course I know of that one Argentinian guitarist (Nes.Ben.) who claims that Yepes' tuning is something else - but that's just one person!) OK.

It is rather difficult to mix

art (as in making music, including particular performance-tunings - Gismonti, Schmidt's Bach)

with

"particular aims of sonority" (Yepes' tuning as an attempt to balance the guitars sonority)

Anyway: Either this article can go in the direction of

criticizing the various tunings (including the very real criticisms that people have with Yepes' tuning),
or the article can be taken in a direction of factually explaining things (that various VALID tunings exist: this might turn out to be a brief friendly mentioning...), without running them against each other and claiming one to be "true", whilst bashing others ("misinformation" or hiding the fact that others exist.)

(By the way: Putting the sentence about the misinformation at the very top is just ridiculous!)

2) change "true modern ten-string guitar" to "original modern ten-string guitar"

This reads like some advertisement. The "true modern ten-string guitar" (as if all others are fake). Not a balanced statement! Using "true" as a weasel word.

While I agree with you that the "original modern ten-string guitar" had an original tuning (which was its raison d’être, as you always say), there is nothing there that says that the "modern 10-string guitar" needs to be tuned like that. Indeed Gismonti and Frasca play modern 10-string guitars that are tuned differently; and Schmidt even plays his Bach recording with a different tuning.

Note: "modern 10 string guitar" does not mean "modern 10 string guitar with Yepes-tuning" Note2: this article is called "Ten-string guitar" and not "Only about select 10-string guitars"

It is obvious (by the way) that Yepes' tuning will be the main emphasis in terms of the tunings for the modern 10 string guitar anyway... (No need to artificially improve things...)

3) You wrote "Attempts to import a lutenist's performance practice, such as those witnessed in transcriptions of Bach and Weiss for the so-called 'Marlow Method', introduce stylistically impermissable augmented octaves and other compound intervals and leaps where there should be movement in 2nds."

Are you talking about the lines while they are played, or about the tuning alone?? This needs to be layed out in a more understandable way.

In particular, it seems as you're moving away from the tunig and into how works are performed. If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that a line (while playing) jumps around all over the place. Interesting. Is this due to the tuning alone, or due to the transcription, or... (in other words: How are "stylistically impermissable" intervals "INTRODUCED"?) (I cannot tell if this is neutral or appropriate right now... because the way it reads, it's just plain confusing.)

Archeoix (talk) 22:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

(By the way: I rather proud of all the "Sock-puppetry Confirmed" things that you felt the need to add everywhere. You might want to unblank your talk page, as well! I might even do it for you, if you ask me kindly.)

[edit] Neutrality of this article is disputed - NPOV

You may dispute the neutrality of this article, but these are the facts - historical, scientific and musical facts based on first-hand accounts of the persons involved in the events, empirical research on acoustics, and autograph manuscripts. These may not have appeared in scholarly print, yet, but neither have the opinions of the "references" User:Joe dario wishes to include, which are no more than the opinions of (often amateur) musicians who have no first-hand experience of the historical events in question, who cannot refute scientific facts, and who do not have access to the necessary autograph manuscripts to make an informed opinion.

Dispute all you like. These are the facts. You can express your opinions separately and know that they will have to stand up to academic scrutiny. But you cannot overwrite the facts. This is tantamount to vandalism. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 01:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

In Response to User:Joe dario's and User:Joe dario's friend's Quibbles about Neutrality

I don't recognise any issues of neutrality here as my article concerns only the instrument invented by Yepes/Ramirez - a guitar with linearised chromatic resonance, which is contingent upon its tuning. As such, your introduction of irrelevant and misleading information, rather, constitutes a biased perspective, one you wish to disseminate amongst unsuspecting readers. I refute your association of the instrument in question with guitars that just arbitrarily happen to have the same number of strings. These guitars are intrinsically different concepts, different instruments. The similarity in the number of strings is arbitrary. The similarity in appearance is arbitrary. You can build a harpsichord that looks exactly like a concert grand piano, that has exactly the same number of keys, but harpsichords and pianos remain distictly different concepts. The same holds in the difference between guitars with chromatic resonance and pseudo-lute guitars ("laudarras") or harp-guitars that happen to have ten strings but augment the guitar's imbalance of resonance rather than rectifying it. [Somewhere below you can find, I've posted, the quote by Yepes where he unequivocally distances his invention from instruments like the viola d'amore that augment certain tones' resonance while giving no sympathetic support to others - which is exactly what certain other 10-stringed guitars do that add more B, A, or D-strings. BAD-strings!)]

My objective is to present the historical, scientific and musical facts that have been (and continue to be) obscured by misinformation. My objective is to present reliable information to musicians, guitarists and composers, for them to judge for themselves the musical and scientific logic of Yepes/Ramirez' invention, its advantages and applications. This has very little do do with an arbitrary addition of just any number of strings tuned any which way. You may have your own biased reasons for not wanting the public to be properly informed. (Your career and reputation may even depend on it.) It is your right to express your opinions and disseminate your points of view. What you are concerned with are different instruments altogether and you should, by all means, provide information about them in the appropriate context. However, since this is an encyclopaedia, only information that is truly of historical significance is appropriate. This means discussions of the Romantic 10-string guitar and the Modern 10-string guitar of Yepes/Ramirez are valid. Other, personal opinions of individual's who have not contributed anything of historical significance to the world of the guitar are not appropriate in the context of an encyclopaedia and should best be left for their personal web pages, discussion groups, or myspace.

To summarise, I refute any issue of neutrality. I refute your arbitrary equation of two conceptually and sonorously disparate instruments that exist for different reasons, that require different techniques, that have different and incompatible original repertoires, that have totally opposite resonant properties. I fully endorse and encourage you to create your own article/s to discuss your points of view, where appropriate. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 01:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC) 04:16, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

User:10String guitar has unfortunately removed the following edits: [1]... So the NPOV tag is placed here because any edits that present a broader view on the 10 string guitar are reverted by User:10String guitar (with shouts of vandalism). This does not mean that "10String guitar"'s edits are wrong - the information is correct. However "10String guitar" is keeping the information about the ten-string guitar too strictly limited to the way it was used by Narciso Yepes (In a way I can sympathize with "10String guitar", because for many years Yepes' has been somewhat sidelined - as has the understanding of the 10-string guitar). So I hope that this article will provide not only this information about Yepes this, Yepes that... but a broader view including: strings used, alternate tunings, etc. To summarize: the neutrality tag was placed on the page because:

The very authoritarian feeling of "10String guitar"'s edits, where you can either follow Yepes or "go to hell" [User:Joe dario's opinion. Anyone can play whatever instrument they like. I only object to covering up the facts with opinions. Even so, you are entitled to your opinions, but express them in an appropriate way, in an appropriate context. This does not mean overwriting the article in question with opinions.]
In the article's current form: Yepes (and his ideas) is exclusively tied to the ten-string guitar in the article - No other views are included. [False. You don't see the "Note on Other Types of 10-stringed Guitars? Feel free to expand on it rather than deleting and altering articles that are correct, on topics you know very little about.]
The article does not highlight the distinction between the "ten-string guitar" as instrument and the different tunings that can be used. (This is important, even if Yepes was the first player [and preferred a specific tuning]; since time does not stand still and innovations continue) [User:Joe dario fails to realise that the tuning of the Modern 10-string guitar defines it as an instrument! It is its very reason for being and without it, this is an entirely different instrument. Also, I refute the claim that regressions to more primitive (already extant) tunings are "innovations".]
Many of the attempts to making the article more accessible have been removed by "10String guitar" e.g. that the 10-string guitar is a variant of the classical guitar, the strings used, some opinions by players (David Norton,...), references, etc. [In other words, according to User:Joe dario, only "classical" musicians can use the instrument? A piano is a piano, whether it is used for classical music or popular music. Classical musicians have no exclusive rights to acoustic guitars with nylon strings. Also, "classical" is a misnomer. What is "classical" about it? Is it Graeco-Roman? Or perhaps a neo-classical guitar. Or does one just play music from the "classical" (really, neo-classical) period on such an instrument? I could go on. Suffice it to say, you add nothing of significance, but you would completely rewrite an already thorough and correct article, turning it into the same nonsense people can already read online on misleading "tenstringguitar" websites. In addition, an encyclopaedia article is not the place for the opinions of historically unimportant players. Present the facts about historically significant instruments (1. the Romantic 10-stringed guitar, 2. the Modern or Yepes 10-string guitar) and leave it at that.

The edits that tried to rectify the situation (were deleted by "10String guitar", but) can still be seen here: [2]
- Joe dario 10:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC) Italicised entries by Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 01:43, 9 April 2008 (UTC) 05:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

A lot of Yepes related info has now been moved here: Modern/Yepes Ten-String Guitar - Talk page has some info -> [3] Archeoix (talk) 13:45, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

This is not a constructive edit, Archeoix. Add subsections expressing your ideas, if you wish. But do not vandalise the page as it is by rewriting information that does not suit your personal opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.11.2.196 (talk) 13:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Duplication

Since this article includes a duplication of what can be found here: Modern/Yepes Ten-String Guitar it should be shortened and a link to the duplicate's main article (the one above). Archeoix (talk) 18:13, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The duplication tag ([4]) has been removed Archeoix (talk) 18:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] One sided article

Some thoughts [5] Archeoix (talk) 20:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

This article seems very one-sided and pushy as far as Yepes etc. are concerned.

The Modern Ten-String guitar is not a historic instrument.

The Modern Ten-String guitar has many different tunings.

This is the present confusion brought on by dearth of information, or otherwise the ubiquitous availability of disinformation, or people playing Romantic 10-string guitars that look like modern 10-string guitars. But the fact is, the modern 10-string guitar was invented by Narciso Yepes and it has ONE STANDARD tuning. As an instrument, it is defined by the resonant properties of a SINGULAR TUNING (that is to say, tonal envelopes that are consistent for all notes of the chromatic scale), based in knowledge of physics. The number of strings is 10 (no more, no less), NOT because of historical instruments whose strings arbitrarily and coincidentally happen to add up to the same figure, but because Yepes consciously chose to add only those strings that by their singular tuning would add the EIGHT missing/weak resonances: C for C and G, A# for A# and F, G# for G# and D#, and F# for F# and C#. Yes, that's EIGHT, not "four" as tenstringguitar.com would like to misinform readers[6]. (Don't you think that if the idea was to supply open strings for every bass note, Yepes would have had the common sense to invent a more suitable instrument with 9 diatonic basses (from A2toG1) on which all lute music and Bach could Really be done with a lutenist's performance practice? [And Janet Marlow's supposed 7 notes of the scale don't count because they are NOT a scale. Since when does a scale move by augmented octaves and other leaps rather than 2nds?) No. Yepes added only the strings that would give the wanting resonances and none that add redundant resonances (those the guitar already has). Necessarily this means a different technical approach from the lute. Actually it is just the performance practice of every other competent 6-string guitarist: to stop/finger the basses. Thus, the second defining characteristic of the modern 10-string guitar PROPER is that having the lowest string as 7 reduces the number of strings required to play lute music, by stopping/fingering the low basses on 7. You don't want to do that? Then WHY play a 10-stringed instrument??? If it's not for playing Romantic 10-string repertoire, or for the interpretative refinements offered by Yepes's instrument, or for its repertoire (Ohana, Maderna, Balada etc.), then why play on 10 strings? If it's about having open basses all the time, if it's about playing lute music, why play an instrument that is not suitable to the performance practice you want to impose on it? Why butcher the music by introducing transpositions and melodic intervals of the bass line that no self-respecting baroque composer would have written? Why limit yourself to ten strings?? At least Anders Miolin had the intelligence to discard the 10-string guitar in favour of a 14-stringed instrument with proper diatonic basses for the whole scale.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 23:38, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Proof:

*e' - b - g - d - A - E - C - A♯ - G♯ - F♯ - the tuning most preferred by Yepes
*e' - b - g - d - A - E - B - F♯ - C♯ - G♯ and various other tunings - see http://www.tenstringguitar.com/tuningsforthe10string.html

Be honest. You mean (for the last 4 strings) B - F# - C# - G#1. A totally redundant B, which is playable on 5 fret II, 6 fret VII, and adds no resonance that is wanting, and is useless in terms of making the low basses available as stops that are not available as open strings, hence the augmented octaves we find in its transcriptions where there should be minor 2nds. And the 10th string that is lower than any note you will find in lute music (except Bach).

And still other tunings are used:
*e' - b - g - d - A - E - D - C - Bˌ - Aˌ  see [7]
*e' - b - g - d - A - E - D - Aˌ - C - F  see [8]
*http://www.cathedralguitar.com/MoreThanSix2.html
*Stephan Schmidt's tunings used esp. for Bach - see [9], [10] (partially mentioned in the article)

And tell me, what tuning does Stephan Schmidt use to play the concerto and 12 other pieces by Ohana, or other original 10-string guitar music, Maderna etc.? Yepes's, of course! Let's not be 'selectively honest'.

*Egberto Gismonti, Dominic Frasca also play the Modern 10-string with their own tunings (this fact is included in the article!)

Yes, but the difference is, I don't see Dominic publishing method books and making web sites with Yepes's pictures on it trying to convince the world to adopt his [Dominic's, as opposed to Yepes's] way of playing the guitar by some twisty-turny recourse to the Master [Yepes]. In a sense, Dominic doesn't play '10-string guitar'; he doesn't play '6-string guitar'. Dominic Frasca plays MUSIC. I have his recordings and respect his work very much. No one will confuse his 10-string playing with 'the standard', just as no one would confuse his 6-string playing with anything traditional. It is an outsider aesthetic, not a desire to colonize.Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 00:40, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

*[11]

In fact Yepes' preferred tuning seems to be rather rarely used today (or at least not more than any other tunings), and I think this article is trying to cover up that fact!

Look, this is an encyclopaedia. It is appropriate for a reference book (or web site) to include information that is factual and/or of historical significance. You open any encyclopaedia or dictionary of music and tell me which 10-string guitarists, say, the Oxford Dictionary of Music, deems (at this moment) historically significant enough for inclusion in a reference book. This is the Romantic 10-string guitars and their composers, and Yepes's 10-string guitar. There is already enough shameless self-promotion of certain individuals' ideas in their own web sites that unethically hold a monopoly on the term "tenstringguitar".

There is also a book on the Modern Ten-String guitar and it would be great to include it in the bibliography:

Playing the Ten-String Guitar: An Approach Guide for Guitarists (Paperback) by Janet Marlow ASIN 1599752611, ISBN 1599752611 DearJonas (talk) 19:57, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Janet Marlow's method booklet is not worth mentioning here or anywhere else as the approach taught therein is nothing more than a detriment to the instrument's reputation. Though its promotional material makes sure to link it to the name "Narciso Yepes" (with such terms as Yepes's "protegee" -- though if anyone can truthfully claim that, it is Godelieve Monden), this method actually has zero to do with Yepes's performance practice (which is far more refined and not simply about playing open basses as often and mindlessly as possible, just damping with the wrist, and so on). So if it does not teach anything about Yepes's method, it leads me to question whether its author actually knows anything about Yepes's method. Furthermore, this method booklet and its transcriptions of Bach and Weiss show a total lack of musical understanding as far as baroque style is concerned. (It is based on a false premise: that [according to Steve Bastien] the 7 basses create the heptatonic scale, which really they do not because a scale is, after all, not composed of compound intervals.) It is not permitted to introduce into baroque music augmented octaves and compound intervals where there should be step-wise movement. (Observe the augmented octave followed by a minor 7th in the bass-line of the first three bars of Marlow's transcription of a Courante by Weiss. A2-G#1-F#2 is NOT equivalent to A2-G#2-F#2.) No one with an iota of musical knowledge or sense of baroque style could take this seriously. It is a joke, but at the expense of the instrument. The DVD of this method book also makes no reference to the fact that what it teaches is limited to Marlow's OWN method, string configuration and tuning. It unethically does not mention that this is neither the string configuration, nor the tuning, nor the performance practice used by Narciso Yepes (whose coat-tails, however, are ridden straight from the opening credits). Similarly, Narciso Yepes's pictures and name appear all over tenstringguitar.com despite the site's total dearth of information on the TRUE acoustical logic behind his invention, or on his performance practice). Why does tenstringguitar.com give false and misleading information about Yepes's "tuning": that it supposedly adds (only) "four missing" resonances? Is it ignorance? Or is it a deliberate attempt to obfuscate and, ultimately, to destroy Yepes's instrument? And there exist today so many uninformed "tunings" precisely because certain individuals have been working to obfuscate, mislead, misrepresent. It is NOT because these "tunings" are an improvement (or "evolution") that they are so widely used, but because there was never any reliable, scholarly information about the modern 10-string guitar available anywhere, so people had to try to make sense of it for themselves - the confusion (until recently) is understandable. But now the truth about both the acoustical and technical concepts informing the modern 10-string PROPER is available and there is no excuse for people like Janet Marlow still to state falsely that Yepes's tuning only adds "four" missing resonances to the guitar[12], or Leyenda168 to claim that Yepes-style tuning only has two re-entrant basses, or Jouni Stenroos to claim Yepes couldn't have played Bach with his standard string configuration, etc. Two decades ago it was all rumor and heresay, and confusion with 19th century ideas, lies and misinformation (and propaganda against Yepes). But now the information is available and there is no excuse for continuing to deny it. Yet the misinformation continues. Even the latest Yepes CD from 2007 was published yet again with notes indicating the wrong string configuration, with everything an octave lower or higher than it should be. I don't have time to discuss the same issues over and over again. I paste my existing texts below as a response. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 21:40, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Glossary of Terms

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

"Baroque" tuning: (The same as Romantic tuning.) A misnomer. A string configuration of a guitar with ten strings that enables it to be tuned in a way that (it is claimed) approximates the tuning of the baroque lute. I add "approximates" because it is impossible to tune an instrument with ten strings exactly as an instrument with thirteen (or in some cases fourteen) courses. In this sense, numerous other "tunings" of guitars with ten strings can equally be said to approximate that of the baroque lute, including the standard string configuration of the Modern 10-string guitar that can be tuned in such a way that the open string pitches correspond to some of those of the baroque lute. For some decades this red herring, "Baroque" tuning, was mistakenly believed to be a prerequisite for the performance of baroque lute music on a guitar with ten strings. However, as the autograph manuscripts of Narciso Yepes's transcriptions of baroque lute music prove, this assumption was false. (As a matter of fact, Yepes, who performed a substantial amount of baroque lute music, used the standard string configuration exclusively.) The earliest overt association of this "tuning" with the term "baroque" (that I've been able to find in print) is in: Marlow, J. 1980. "Notes on the Ten-String Guitar". Soundboard 7(4): 151-154. Here this term is introduced as a "concept of tuning [intended] to satisfy guitarists interested in baroque lute music". (If there is an earlier source for it, I'm interested to know. It is certainly not "baroque", but the tuning of the 19th century Scherzer-type 10-stringed guitar.)

Damp: (verb). To check the vibrations of a string by touching it in some way. In this context used predominantly with regard to the silencing of a sympathetically vibrating string, or a vibrating open string.

Envelope: A change of amplitude, frequency, or timbre during a tone. The characteristic way in which the intensity of a note changes through time. The envelope of, say, an F4 played on a treble string of the guitar is usually an immediate attack followed by a very rapid decay after the stopping finger has been moved or the string has been stopped at a different fret. (See stop.) In contrast, an E4 would (because of resonance from strings 5 and 6) have a completely different envelope, one with a very gradual decay, or damping, of the amplitude. The aim of the Standard tuning of the Modern 10-string guitar is to achieve consistency between the envelopes of all twelve tones of the Western chromatic scale. While experiments with new soundboard materials and construction, and experimental bracing patterns may result in guitars with ever greater volume and sustain, it is only through the implementation of appropriately tuned string resonators that the shape of the envelope, in particular its decay, can be linearized for the entire chromatic scale even after the vibrating string has been damped or stopped at another fret.

Fundamental: The lowest pitched partial in a tone.

Harmonics: Frequency components of a complex tone that are positive integer multiples (greater than 0) of a fundamental frequency. Guitarists have sometimes used the term "harmonic" to refer to a resonance induced on a "sympathetic" string.

Harp-guitar: According to its proponents, a guitar with at least one "free floating" or theorboed string (i.e. a string that cannot be stopped; that does not run over a fingerboard). Such instruments commonly feature a number of extra strings descending (or ascending) diatonically, as in D2-C2-B1-A1. A problematic term since, by definition, the strings on instruments from the harp family run perpendicular to the soundboard, not parallel, as in the case of so-called harp-guitars. Unlike lutes, the string-holders and bridges of all true harps are vertical, not horizontal, and the plane of their strings is always perpendicular to the soundtable, not parallel. Perhaps a more appropriate term would be derived from the lute, like "theorbo-guitar". (See laudarra.) Both period instruments with ten strings that were used in the 19th century, including the Decacorde, were harp-guitars.

Helmholtz system of pitch referencing: Middle C is indicated as c', the note below it as b and the note above it as d'. An octave lower these notes are B-c-d, another octave lower BI-C-D. [It is understandable that some individuals unfamiliar with the system have assumed, incorrectly, that the Standard tuning descends in a whole-tone scale from 7 to 10, misreading C-Bb-Ab-Gb as meaning C-BbI-AbI-GbI. Actually there is a re-entry after the 7th string. Thus, on the Modern 10-string guitar proper, 7 or C is correctly the string with the lowest pitch, and not 10.] (NB: The note written as Middle C in sheet music for guitar is, of course, not C4, but C3, since the guitar is a transposing instrument.)

Laudarra: From the Spanish laud (lute) and guitarra. A misnomer as applied to the Modern 10-string guitar proper, one that emphasises the secondary reason behind the Modern 10-string guitar while disregarding the primary reason of resonance and linearized envelopes over the chromatic scale.

Marlow tuning (Marlow Method): Formerly this used to be D2, C(sharp)2, G(sharp)2, F(sharp)2 [from string 8 to 10]. Presently it is an altogether different string configuration: B2, F(sharp)2, C(sharp)2, G(sharp)1. Whatever the merits of this system may be, it must be stated that it is categorically unsuitable for a tasteful and stylistically authentic performance of baroque (lute) music. The aesthetic problem is the introduction of stylistically inappropriate melodic intervals (augmented and compound intervals) in the bass line, concomitant with problems of voice-leading. The cause of this problem is the octave transposition of numerous individual bass notes that are placed on the available open strings, without regard for the original melodic intervals, voice-leading, or register of the original bass note/s, or of the aesthetic rules underlying the composition of baroque music. The technical cause of these problems is the string configuration that makes it impossible to stop the lowest string (which would otherwise render the bass notes in the appropriate register) while stopping the trebles. The idea behind this system was supposedly to have the 7 notes of the heptatonic scale available as open bass strings [more like a harp than a guitar]. Unfortunately this "scale" does not follow step-wise, but leaps about randomly. For example, the so-called Marlow C-tuning actually delivers this "scale": C2, D3, E2, F2, G1, A2, B2 [strings 9, 4, 6, 8, 10, 5, 7 - in that order, which must surely be a nightmare to damp individually]. Of course, this sort of "scale", made up as it is of leaps of compound intervals, is simply not suitable for baroque music. Instead of having 7 as the lowest string (in which case the left hand fingers could stop the lowest string to form a true scale, with the basses in the appropriate register), this configuration introduces a wholly redundant B2-string. That is, it introduces no resonance that is wanting, while B2 can already be stopped in high or low positions on the fingerboard, on 5 (fret II) and on 6 (fret VII). I therefore see no musico-aesthetic, technical, or acoustic justification for the existence of this string configuration.

Modern tuning: See Standard tuning.

Overtones: Harmonic components in a tone that are pitched higher than the fundamental. A string will resonate in sympathy (in unison) with its overtones. Guitarists have often used the term "overtone" to refer to resonance induced on a "sympathetic" string.

Partials: Individual sinusoids that collectively make up an instrumental tone; also called components. Observing that a string, say C, will resonate strongly when tones are played (on adjacent strings) that correspond in frequency to the C-string's partials 1-4, 6 and 8 (in Helmholtz notation: C, c, g, c', g' c), guitarists have sometimes used the term "partial" to refer to resonance induced on a "sympathetic" string.

Re-entry tuning: A string configuration where a string of wide diameter is suddenly followed by a string of considerably smaller diameter. For example, a re-entry occurs between the 7th or C-string of the Standard tuning and the 8th or B-flat string, which are a minor 7th apart, string 7 being the thicker and lower-sounding of the two. In Marlow method the re-entry occurs between the 6th and 7th strings (7 has the highest pitch of all the Marlow basses, except string 4), while there is no re-entry present on 19th century 10-stringed guitars.

Resonance: The tendency of a system (like a string) to vibrate sympathetically at a particular frequency (the fundamental or its overtones frequencies) in response to energy induced at that frequency. For example, the A-sharp (Bb) or 8th string of the Modern 10-string guitar (which has Bb and F overtones) will vibrate in unison with Bbs and Fs when they are produced on adjacent strings.

Romantic tuning: In the 19th century, the standard tuning of the most widely used harp-guitar with ten strings: e'-b-g-d-A-E-D-C-BI -AI [in Helmholtz pitch reference notation]. (See "Baroque" tuning.) The tuning for which most of the original 10-stringed guitar repertoire of the 19th century was written. Over the past two to three decades, proponents of this system have appropriated instruments designed to be Modern 10-string guitars. This has led to the confusion of two conceptually and sonorously disparate instruments with (for the most part) incompatible repertoires and technical approaches. [Or, I should say, some of the Romantic 10-string repertoire can be successfully transcribed for Modern 10-string guitar, while the inverse is not true. Another point to consider is that Romantic 10-string guitar music, in many examples, requires the left hand thumb (indicated by the sign ^) to come around the back of the neck and stop the 6th string, usually to produce basses such as G(sharp)2. This becomes problematic if you are using a Modern instrument in Romantic tuning since you are no longer dealing with a harp-guitar and the LH thumb does not have access to the 6th string.]

Scientific/American system of pitch referencing: Middle C is indicated as C4, the note below it as B3 and the note above it as D4. An octave lower these notes are B2-C3-D3, another octave lower B1-C2-D2. (It is understandable that some individuals unfamiliar with the system have mistakenly assumed that the Standard tuning descends in pitch from 7 to 10. Actually there is a re-entry after the 7th string. Thus, on the Modern 10-string guitar, 7 or C (C2) is correctly the string with the lowest pitch, not 10 (Gb2). [NB: The note written as Middle C in sheet music for guitar is, of course, not C4, but C3, since the guitar is a transposing instrument.]

Scordatura: 'Mistuning', abnormal tuning of a string instrument to obtain special chordal effects or extended bass range. (Occurs most often, with reference to Standard tuning, as the raising of string 7 from C2 to D2, or the lowering of this string to B1 (or, less commonly, A1).

Standard tuning: e'-b-g-d-A-E-C-Bb-Ab-Gb [in Helmholtz notation]. The original tuning of the Modern 10-string guitar as conceived by Narciso Yepes. The singular tuning of the last four strings which catalyses linearisation of dynamic response for the entire chromatic scale by eliciting exact sympathetic resonance. The string configuration for which the majority of original compositions for Modern 10-string guitar have been written, including the works of Maurice Ohana, Bruno Maderna, and Leonardo Balada. (Sometimes referred to as Modern Tuning, Yepes Tuning, or Resonance Tuning.) [See my other blog for a detailed discussion.]

Stop: (verb). On string instruments, 'stopping' means the placing of the fingers on a string, thereby determining the length of portion of string which is to vibrate. A characteristic of the Modern 10-string guitar as conceived by Narciso Yepes is that most tones lower than the E2 of the open 6th string (i.e. Eb2, D2/Db2, C2, B1/Bb1) are not consigned to their own open strings (as on harp-guitars), but formed by stopping the 7th string (which can be lowered from C2 to B1 or A1). (For the act of silencing a vibrating string, see damp.)

String configuration: Often incorrectly called "tuning". The arrangement of strings of various diameters. For example, Romantic "tuning" and Marlow "method" are not scordatura (or different tunings) of the same string configuration, but totally different arrangements of strings of various diameters. Where Marlow string-7 has a diameter smaller than that of the normal 5th string, the Romantic string-7 (at least, not on period instruments from the 19th century, but appropriated modern instruments) has a diameter greater than that of the normal 6th string. Where Romantic string-10 has the greatest diameter, the Standard-Modern string-7 has the greatest diameter.

"Tuning": A misnomer as used regarding guitars with ten strings; for example Romantic "tuning", so-called baroque "tuning" (a double-misnomer), Marlow "tuning", etc. Not synonymous with scordatura, this is not simply a case of tuning the strings in a manner other than the standard, but such a drastic re-tuning as to require a totally different method of stringing (different string order and/or strings of different diameter) compared to the standard string configuration.

Unison: Tones sounding at the same pitch. The resonances produced by the bass strings of the Modern 10-string guitar with the tuning D3-A2-E2-C2-Bb2-Ab2-Gb2 are intended to sound in unison with any tone of the chromatic scale played on the instrument's treble strings.

[edit] FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Are the additional basses ever played or do they just resonate?

All seven basses act as tuned resonators, and all seven basses are actively played. One need only open the sheet music of Maurice Ohana’s Si le jour parait... to see that all the strings are played by the right hand, while string 7 is frequently stopped by fingers of the left hand. In pieces like T.E. Fleming’s Solis - Prim, in fact, all strings are played by both the right and left hand fingers. In addition, Narciso Yepes’s autograph manuscripts, like that of the "Suite" (or Sonata) II by S.L. Weiss, show that Yepes even stopped notes on the 10th string. His reason in this example (from the last page of the Giga) has to do with avoiding dissonant "bleeding" of one bass note over another when playing a melodic interval of a minor 2nd, A2 stopped on 10 to G-sharp2 on the open 9th string (rather than the open 5th string followed by the open 9th string). [I myself stop notes on the 9th and 10th strings in various works, from Sonatas by Adam Falckenhagen, to Granados’s 5th Spanish Dance, to contemporary works by Stanley Glasser and others.] Furthermore, pieces by Bruno Maderna and Leonardo Balada feature 10-note cluster chords.

Why is 7 the lowest string and not 10? Why is there a re-entry in the tuning of the modern 10-string guitar?

There are two reasons. One has to do with resonance, the other with technical considerations.

Resonance: Just as the higher overtones of a vibrating string become increasingly inaudible, the higher resonant frequencies of a string elicit increasingly weaker resonances. The standard tuning of the modern 10-string guitar’s additional four strings is C2, Bb2, Ab2, Gb2 [from 7 to 10] and not C2, Bb1, Ab1, Gb1 because this [the standard] configuration places the most efficient resonant frequencies in the range of the treble strings, rather than the bass strings.

Technique: I would argue that, aside from resonance for all notes of the chromatic scale, the other defining characteristic of the modern 10-string proper is Yepes’s ingenious decision to use the tone of C for string 7 and to make this the string with the lowest sound. Why? For one reason, a C-string (C2) can be raised to D2 [for the 7-string music by Coste and others] or lowered to B1 or A1 (giving the full bass tessitura of the 13-course baroque lute). [Unfortunately, most string manufacturers still don’t realise that this is how the instrument has actually been designed to work and, to my knowledge, only Aranjuez’s 7th string is manufactured specifically to cope optimally with this scordatura.] The second (and very important) reason why this lowest string is number 7, not number 10, is because the guitarist should be able to stop it (to form the bass notes that are not available as open strings: G2, F2, Eb2, D2, Db2...down to Bb1) while, at the same time, stopping the trebles, playing chords, arpeggios, or other voices with the left hand on the trebles. This would, of course, be very awkward and often impossible if 10 were the lowest string instead of 7. In such cases, the solution (transposition of single bass notes to open strings) would be the one we observe in the published transcription for the Marlow Method of "Suite" VIII (London Ms.) by S.L. Weiss, where, instead of hearing a smooth bass line moving by steps (A2 to G-sharp2 [minor 2nd] to F-sharp2 [major 2nd]), we hear erratic leaps of augmented octaves [A2 to G-sharp1], minor 7ths [G-sharp1 to F-sharp2] and such stylistically inappropriate melodic intervals -- certainly augmented and compound melodic intervals are not permitted in baroque music, and the minor 7th only under certain conditions. Of course, instrumental music from the baroque period – the "daughter", in the words of Johann Mattheson (1739) – must conform to the motherly precepts of vocal music, in which "everything is beautifully graceful and flowing", not leaping about in augmented octaves and other compound intervals.

Would it not be simpler to do away with the re-entry by switching strings 8 and 10?

[This would result in a descending and then ascending tuning as follows: E4, B3, G3, D3, A2, E2, C2, Gb2, Ab2, Bb2]

No. The original configuration is a conscious invention that Narciso Yepes did not settle on without a considerable amount of though (not to mention considerable musical experience and knowledge). The musical and technical logic behind it is thorough. What Yepes must surely have been aware of is that, when playing a descending line, with each descending step the higher note must be damped or else the line becomes muddled, while ascending lines are not equally susceptible to this phenomenon. So the technical reason for not inverting the order of the strings is that the thumb naturally damps the higher string (say 9 or Ab2) after sounding the lower (say 10 or Gb2) and coming to rest on the higher string. Of course, the other way around the string could also be damped, by the knuckle-side of the thumb, just a millisecond before sounding the next string, but this approach is unnecessarily technical and never quite as smooth or legato. Also, the suites of Maurice Ohana, Leonardo Balada, and other composers’ works, in fact the majority of original compositions for the modern 10-string guitar, have been written with the standard string configuration in mind and contain, among other things, fast arpeggios across the basses or across all ten strings, which would be impossible to play correctly if the order of the strings is unnecessarily changed.

What tuning did Narciso Yepes use to play baroque lute music?

For aesthetico-acoustic reasons, as much as possible the standard tuning in which 7 or C2 is the lowest string. However, when he has basses lower than C2, it is due to a scordatura of 7 (and NOT a so-called "baroque" tuning, which is really another string configuration and does not exist, as such, before it is "made up" by others in the late-1970s).

What those individuals who refuse to accept these facts seem to overlook are three things:

ONE, that scordatura can be applied (as Yepes did) to either 7 alone (which can be raised to D2 or lowered to B1 or A1) or to both 7 and 6 (which can be lowered to D2), while the tones between the two are stopped on 7.

TWO, that one tuning need not apply to all parts of a multi-movement work; for example, 6 can be in D2 for the initial movement/s, then later raised to E2 between movements.

THREE, that even on the 10-string guitar some minor changes are still necessary when playing baroque lute music written for instruments with 13-14 courses. In fact, it is in keeping with the performance practice of baroque musicians like J.S. Bach to adapt a composition to the instrument at hand. Quasi-religious reification/deification of the text is a thoroughly modern mentality that has nothing to do with authenticity in baroque music. Having said that, any changes need to be made within the space of what is stylistically appropriate and for the period!

Yepes played a considerable amount of baroque lute and keyboard music (by Bach, Weiss, Straube, Falckenhagen, and many others) most of which is not available on CD or in print. (I am fortunate to have access to some of these arrangements, either as transcribed by Yepes’s long-term students Fritz Buss and Godelieve Monden, or in Yepes’s own autograph manuscripts.) What is evident is that there is no one key that opens every door, no one tuning that makes all baroque lute music immediately accessible on the 10-string guitar. [Though having 7 as the lowest string is of the utmost importance!] What is required is careful consideration of the various possibilities; often, appropriate transposition of the entire piece (this is more often than not a tone or semitone up when dealing with transcription from baroque lute to modern guitar); appropriate scordatura, not just for technical simplification, but when it is a technical necessity (most often this is 7 lowered to B1); where necessary, stylistically informed changes (for example, rather transposing an entire phrase of the bass line to maintain the correct voice-leading and appropriate melodic intervals, instead of transposing individual bass notes, unless at appropriate points such as unisons or octaves); and, finally, careful and conscious fingering (as opposed to the perfunctory use of open strings concomitant with ill-considered octave transpositions of individual notes).

This video shows Yepes performing two movements from Bach’s Suite in E minor BWV 996, with a scordatura of 7 to B1: Prelude and Bourree (His performance practice of stopping all the low-basses on string 7 is evident and undeniable.)

What tuning did Yepes use to play/record the Suite [London Ms. II] by S.L. Weiss? (Transposed to E major)

E4, B3, G3, D3, A2, E2, B1, A-sharp2, G-sharp2, F-sharp2

Source: Yepes’s autograph manuscript showing his transcription, tuning and fingering (all in his own handwriting). [Excerpts from the manuscript can be viewed in the photo album section.]

All notes between E2 and B1 are fingered on string 7. G-sharp2 and F-sharp2 basses are not mindlessly played on open strings, but sometimes open, sometimes stopped on 6, and other times stopped on 7 - always with thought for aesthetic effect, always considering the musical context, consistency of timbre, purity of line, and damping to avoid dissonances (for example, the minor 2nd between A2 and G-sharp2, which are not just perfunctorily played on open strings for the sake of simplicity).

Where can I get the correct bass strings for the instrument? Where can I get the special 7th string?

http://stringsbymail.com/sublist.asp?tCat=1&tMan=2&dMan=Aranjuez&tSer=207&dSer=10+string+guitar

This is an excellent online shop that I’ve had many good transactions with when I’ve been unable to find the correct strings at local shops in various parts of the world. The link takes you straight to the Aranjuez basses, which are the only ones I can endorse as being constructed with an understanding of the special properties required of the 7th string. [Note, I endorse these out of my own free will and get no sponsorship.]

[edit] *The correct Standard Tuning (as invented by Narciso Yepes):

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

The standard tuning of the modern ten-string guitar is (from string 1-10):

eI - b - g - d - A - E - C - Bb - Ab - Gb

(as written in the Helmholtz pitch notation system) which can also be written enharmonically as:

eI - b - g - d - A - E - C - A-sharp - G-sharp - F-sharp

In the so-called Scientific pitch notation, or American system, the tuning is written (from 1-10) as:

E4 - B3 - G3 - D3 - A2 - E2 - C2 - Bb2 - Ab2 - Gb2

NB! In both pitch referencing systems the octave starts on C. Thus, correctly, string 7 or C should be that with the widest diameter and lowest pitch, not 10. String 8 is a minor seventh above string 7, not a whole tone below it. Numerous authors, apparently not au fait with these systems of notation, have misrepresented the instrument’s tuning in print. It is thus no surprise that numerous guitarists have also adopted erroneous string configurations in order to tune one or all of strings 8, 9 and 10 an octave lower than they ought to be.

Since the guitar is a transposing instrument, we notate its tuning (that is, for all the strings) an octave higher than they actually sound:

Why this peculiar tuning? Why play a 10-string guitar?

The reasons for adopting the modern 10-string guitar are purely musical, and the first of them is that the guitar (in its other forms) is not properly balanced. There is no equilibrium, because of the 12 notes of the scale, only four - E, B, A, D - have significant resonance. If you play one of those notes on a treble string and then stop it at another fret or damp it with your finger, you will hear the same tone being sustained by resonance from one or more of the bass strings. But if you play one of the other eight tones of the scale, and do the same, the sound dies immediately. What this shows you is that the envelopes of the different tones are not consistent. However, on the 10-string guitar, one has the same resonance for all 12 tones.

After Narciso Yepes (1927-1997) had already achieved international fame as a concert artist of the first rank, he reached the point where the 6-string guitar no longer sufficed for his needs. For one, he felt that he was "cheating" his audience by compromising the music of Bach through the transpositions and changes in voice-leading imposed by the limitations of the 6-string guitar. However, more significantly, he was "disturbed" by the irregularity of resonance on the guitar, the consequence of an inherent flaw of its tuning. Four notes in particular (E, B, A, D) sounded full, enriched by sympathetic vibrations from the bass strings, while the other eight tones of the chromatic scale were without the same lustre and sustain. Yepes’s idea to correct this imbalance - a guitar with fully chromatic string resonators created in 1963 in collaboration with José Ramirez - followed a strict musical and scientific logic.

Upon adding four bass strings tuned a very specific way - C, Bb, Ab, Gb - the same resonance is elicited by each of the notes that make up the fingerboard’s sonorous catalogue, by taking advantage of the natural resonant frequencies of the bass strings, which produce unison, sympathetic vibrations when their corresponding notes are played on adjacent strings. In other words, the seven bass strings act as tuned resonators (string resonators or sympathetic strings) that sustain and enrich the sound. That is not to say that the additional strings are not actively played. They are indeed also stopped by left-hand fingers and sounded by the right-hand, as required by the musical context. However, as resonators, each string responds to its unison, fifths, and their octaves. Thus C resonates with Cs and Gs; Bb resonates with B-flats and Fs; Ab resonates with A-flats and and E-flats; and Gb with G-flats and D-flats, thus completing the string resonance for the twelve tones of the chromatic octave.

This does not mean a break from nor lack of respect for the admirable instrument of tradition, the repertoire and technique of which transfer easily to the new instrument without alteration (though with expanded technical and interpretative possibilities). Unlike some new guitars constructed from non-traditional materials or designs, the 10-string guitar is not basically different in sound colour, or timbre, from the traditional 6-string guitar. It does, however, offer extended tonal and dynamic ranges, greater and more consistent sustain, and greater consistency of timbre across the chromatic scale. Imagine a piano without a pedal that suddenly acquired one, what new possibilities in the enrichment of sound this means.

This result could be termed "resonance linearized over the chromatic octave" since any of the 12 tones can now receive the same sympathetic support from a bass string (or string resonator). As such, the envelope of tones (their "shape", timbre, sustain, decay) is now consistent over the entire chromatic scale. This is, in a certain sense, similar to the piano’s equal timbre of tone and its ability to sustain by means of the pedals. Similarly, just as a pianist has the option to employ pedal or not, to allow sound to sustain or to damp it, the competent 10-string guitarist is able to execute complete control, sustaining or stopping notes as the Music (rather than the limitation of the guitar) dictates.

To those who object that it is too difficult, or "impossible", to do so, Narciso Yepes always responded that "If I have resonance, I can stop it. But first I must have it. You see, the problem is not in the [new] guitar, but in the player." With respect to the traditional 6-stringed guitar, this chromatic resonance and equal timbre of tone are intrinsically absent, but also equally unachievable with any tuning of a guitar with 10 strings other than the tuning discovered by Yepes.

Resonance is thus the primary reason for playing the modern 10-string guitar, but it is not the only reason. "If the guitar is to the lute what the piano is to the harpsichord - that is, a new expression of an old instrument -" said Yepes, "then, I should be able to take a piece of music composed for the lute and play it directly on the guitar, without making any [alteration] in the text, just as a pianist can play a harpsichord work of Bach or Scarlatti. This cannot be done on the six-string guitar, because the lute had more than six strings, especially during the Baroque period. At the same time, having the expanded range of the 10-string guitar makes it possible for me to approach [more faithfully] the music of Albeniz, Falla and other Spanish composers inspired by the guitar, but who composed for the piano."

Thus, it now becomes possible for the guitarist to play Bach and repertoire written for the Baroque lute without deleterious transposition of individual bass notes or compromises to voice-leading. The performance practice followed by Yepes (in particular when dealing with Baroque lute music) was occasionally to employ scordatura ("mistuning") of the 7th string (the one with the lowest pitch), lowering it to BI or AI (that is, B1 or A1 in Scientific pitch notation).

A ubiquitous misconception (also rife among 10-string guitarists) is that these additional strings are intended to simplify the execution of bass notes by playing as many of them as possible on open strings (as on the lute or "harp"-guitar). However, this approach is not consistent with the performance practice of Narciso Yepes. Actually, he played all notes between the tones of the open 6th and 7th strings as stops on the 7th string, not on individual open strings. (Appropriate scordatura of strings 6 and/or 7 would be applied, as required by the music.) This is evidenced in autograph manuscript sources indicating his own fingerings for works such as those of Bach or Weiss. His fingerings also show an implementation of the open (and stopped) strings 8-10 that, however, never becomes gratuitous or perfunctory. (A bass Gb will frequently be executed with a full barré at II, rather than the open 10th string, out of consideration for nuance in tone and interpretation, or damping.)

Furthermore, aside from the fact that the instrument opens up more of the lute and keyboard repertoire, with less compromise, it also enables new possibilities for original composition. Some of the 20th century’s greatest composers, recognising the significance of Yepes’s development, have composed substantial works for the new instrument - among these, Bruno Maderna, Maurice Ohana, and Leonardo Balada.

Of course, the final reason is that, if you have a 10-string guitar, you have within it a six-string guitar; but if you have only six strings, you do not have 10. You have all the advantages and none of the disadvantages. All six-string repertoire is playable on the new instrument, with expanded interpretative possibilities. The new instrument also offers the guitarist the possibility to voice numerous "impossible" chords as originally written by non-guitarist composers such as Bach, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Rodrigo, Ponce, Mompou etc. - once available only in versions compromised by the limitations of the 6-string guitar - now possible as written in the urtexts.

However, considering how much the modern 10-string guitar has been misrepresented and misunderstood, it is very difficult to find a well-made 10-string guitar, and the number of poorly made ones on the market can lead many guitarists to assume that those instruments are bad because they have 10 strings. No - they are bad because they have been built by bad luthiers, or otherwise by good ones who have not understood the tuning of the instrument and how it is meant to function. While there may now be other luthiers constructing good 10-string guitars, it is predominantly the Ramirez and Bernabe shops that have been associated with fine 10-string guitar.

For a Glossary of terminology related to the 10-string guitar, FAQs, and other discussions, see my other blog.

Note: I emphasise correct Standard Tuning since this information is ubiquitously misrepresented in the overwhelming majority of other web pages and publications. Be it maliciously, or due to lack of information, or simply the snow-balling effect of both, I will not guess at the cause, but the effect of this obfuscation of the truth is neither progressive nor constructive.

The instrument in question is not by definition a guitar whose number of strings is ten. (That there existed before 1963 other guitars with ten strings is a purely coincidental and arbitrary numerical similarity between conceptually and acoustically different instruments with different performance practices.)

What it is, by definition, is a guitar with consistent envelopes and resonance for all tones of the chromatic scale over the trebles (a refinement that is to the advantage of music from any period, not just the modern), as well as a guitar that features an extended bass range accessible predominantly as stops, not only open strings.

(This last definition is in keeping with the performance practice of guitarists - as opposed to lutenists. Since the instrument obviously does not have 13 strings, it necessarily has to provide the possibility of stopping the lowest bass to form the "missing" basses. The practice of the lutenist cannot be successfully transferred to an instrument with fewer strings. In addition, on the modern 10-string guitar proper, the number of additional strings are limited to four because these - tuned a specific way - add only the eight missing or weak resonances [C, G, Bb, F, Ab, Eb, Gb, Db] without introducing any additional, and thus redundant, resonances that would make the first definition invalid by re-introducing an element of resonant imbalance.)

[edit] The Ten-string Guitar, Defended Against its Devotees

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

There exist numerous types of period instruments with the same number of strings, including the Lacoste/Carulli ’Decacorde’ and the 10-stringed guitars used, in the 19th Century, by such players as J.K. Mertz: all of which are, really, types of harp-guitars.

These are in no way antecedents or precursors of the modern 10-string guitar of Yepes whose raison d’être is linearised string resonance over the entire chromatic octave. Since, on these instruments, the tunings of the additional strings (usually descending diatonic basses, such as D2, C2, B1, A1), normally augment the already extant imbalance of resonance on the guitar rather than rectifying it, they should be recognised as conceptually (and acoustically) disparate from the modern 10-string guitar. Moreover, the additional strings on these "Romantic" 10-stringed guitars are intended only to be played by the right hand thumb, while the additional strings on the Modern 10-string guitar: 1) are intended to function as resonators, 2) can be played open, and 3) can be played stopped (to facilitate new fingering possibilities and otherwise impossible chords).

That is not to say that these early instruments should not be used by period practitioners to play the music of, say, Ferdinando Carulli or J.K. Mertz. Indeed, it is most appropriate to use these instruments for this music. However, a problem arises when modern instruments, visually similar to the Ramirez/Yepes 10-string guitar, are appropriated to be strung in the manner of the 19th century, with diatonic basses. From my experience, this sort of hybridised guitar (that looks like a modern 10-string guitar, but is not) is neither truly well adapted for playing 19th century multi-string guitar music (which requires the theorboed configuration, both for reasons of sound and technique), nor is it really any better adapted for lute music than the modern string configuration. Unlike the new interpretative possibilities offered by the linearised resonance of the Yepes tuning, a modern type 10-string guitar with "Romantic" tuning does not add anything to the interpretation of 6-string guitar music (except the need for more damping of over-ringing tones of E, B, A and D), and it cannot, at all, be used to play the great 10-string guitar works of Maderna, Balada, and Ohana.

Still more systems of stringing/tuning have recently been introduced. Some are even touted off as "evolutionary development[s]" following from and "furthering the meaning" of Yepes’s ideas (which have, unfortunately, been misunderstood or disregarded). Based on many years of theoretical research and practical experience, it is my conclusion that these developments have little or no grounds to such claims, acoustically or aesthetically. To change the manner in which the modern 10-string guitar is strung and tuned is to dispense entirely with the instrument’s primary raison d’être (even, chromatic resonance) as well as a number of its most ingenious technical features (such as placing as 7th, rather than 10th, the string with the lowest pitch).

The results are not novel and no improvement on the foundations already established by Yepes. They simply introduce technical ’crutches’: tricks that resolve difficulties (and obviate thought) at the expense of the music, which is stylistically mangled in the process. I refer particularly to baroque (lute) music played on the 10-string guitar with individual bass notes transposed intermittently up and down by octaves (rather than transposing the entire phrase of the bass line), for the sake of using open bass-strings as frequently as possible, resulting in stylistically inappropriate melodic intervals, problems with voice leading, and general disruption of the bass line. (Unfortunately, in art there are no short-cuts that lead anywhere except culs-de-sac.)

For some this is good enough, but I cannot imagine elite musicians being satisfied with such. This is truly "progress" in the wrong direction; there is no point in reinventing the wheel as an oval.

[edit] Defending (against) the Importance of (bass range over) Resonance

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 22:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC) (a response to Jouni Stenroos's statement that the significance of resonance is an opinion and that most "10-string guitarists" prefer other tunings)

An argument that has been made against "the balanced resonances" of the 10-string guitar is that (although the "[f]acts are straight") its "importance is a personal opinion" and that "[m]any 10-string players prefer more bass range over the resonances."

As someone who implicitly ’believes’ in "the importance of balanced [chromaticised] resonance", I should like to respond to the above statements.

First, let us consider the Facts:

1. That the primary purpose behind the invention of the modern 10-string guitar of Yepes is resonance linearized across the 12 notes of the chromatic octave. 2. That the secondary purpose behind its invention is extended bass range to facilitate more faithful playing of lute and keyboard music. 3. That the bass strings act as tuned resonators. To put it simply—forgoing a lengthy acoustic explanation of resonance and the overtones of vibrating strings—(4) resonates strongly with D [and A], likewise (5) with A [and E], (6) resonates strongly with E and B, likewise (7) with C and G, (8) with A-sharp and F, (9) with G-sharp and D-sharp, and (10) with F-sharp and C-sharp. [In other words, the harmonics corresponding to the open strings’ octaves and fifths produce the only resonances that are pronounced enough to be of significance. Four strings tuned a specific way are required to compensate for the missing or feeble resonances, which are eight in total, not four as stated in some unscholarly and misleading (con-)texts:

4. That chromatic string resonance is present as a direct consequence of the singular tuning: e’ b g d A E C A-sharp G-sharp F-sharp. 5. That the above is not a matter of opinion, but that it is based on laws of physics/acoustics and can be mathematically and empirically proven.

These facts belong to the category of Truth. However, I aim to refute the categorisation of "the importance of the balanced resonances" as a Belief—a subjective, "personal opinion of the writer". [A tacit ’individual’ is implied before "writer", as in belonging to the margins rather than consensus. I shall return to this in a moment.]

While the above judgment repudiates the Truth of this importance (and by extension disclaims its epistemic foundations) it is ironically unaware of its own, self-deprecating argument. In other words, let us not forget that this statement ("the importance of the balanced resonances is a personal opinion of the writer") also belongs to the category of Belief as a personal opinion of its own writer. It refutes nothing, but undermines itself as the proverbial pot that calls the kettle black.

Let us also bear in mind that the ’opinion’ (that resonance linearized over the chromatic octave has interpretative advantages and therefore aesthetic significance) is an ’opinion’ that has been shared by a number of highly respected musical figures, persons with significant experience, who’ve been highly trained and/or possess a high degree of knowledge/skill, including the late Bruno Maderna and Maurice Ohana. Ask any concert pianist whether s/he would deem acceptable a piano whose pedal mechanism is damaged in such a way that only tones of E, B, A, and D resonate/sustain, and the answer will universally be an emphatic: NO! Even guitarist Stephan Schmidt, whatever tuning he may have used to record Bach (and I emphasise the difference between recording and live performance), without any doubt, predominantly uses the Yepes tuning of the 10-string guitar in concert. His reason for playing the instrument is, after all, to have access to the works of significant 20th century composers, like Messrs Maderna & Ohana, who wrote their music specifically for Yepes’s instrument because of its chromatic resonance. And, it goes without saying, as an authority there is Narciso Yepes himself: the most musically and otherwise erudite concert guitarist of his generation, an already brilliant mind sharpened by studies with such luminaries as Nadia Boulanger, Vicente Asencio, Walter Gieseking, and Georges Enesco.

For some [and I include myself here] this recourse to authority is sufficient to establish as Truth the aesthetic significance of chromatic resonance [though this is hardly the sole basis for my own ’opinion’ on the matter].

In contrast, a statement such as "Many 10-string players prefer more bass range over the resonances" is recourse not to authority, but to majority. It is an argumentum ad populum, a fallacy of logic that states Truth is the opinion of the majority, or Truth is what the masses believe. (Another eyeless uroboric worm devours its own backside.)

In addition, this argument also contradicts its author’s previous statement that the "[f]acts are straight". [Now I’m being facetious, but let’s see it through.] The fact given (above) as number 2 is that Yepes’s 10-string guitar already offers an extended bass range in addition to chromatic resonance. [This comes straight out of the article in question, which is drawn almost verbatim from Yepes’s own press materials, recital programmes and interviews.] In other words, extended bass range and chromatic resonance (i.e. Yepes Tuning) are not mutually exclusive.

On a more practical level: if one has a correctly built instrument (for example, Ramirez or Bernabe), and one uses a correctly manufactured 7th string (that is to say the 7th by Aranjuez and not LaBella or Hannabach), and one lowers the 7th or C string to B1 or A1 [in Scientific/American pitch notation], and one has a technique approaching [or surpassing?] that of Yepes, then one ought to be able to have access to the full extended bass range, without completely re-stringing the instrument. Though one would, like Yepes, have to finger many of the additional low bass notes. It is, after all, expected of any 6-string guitarist to do the same, rather than resorting to the technical crutches of harp-like open strings.

Finally, let us not forget, the purpose of having "more bass range" (for playing lute or keyboard music) is to be, in our capacity as guitarists, more faithful to the composer’s musical Ideas—to approach a more formally and stylistically accurate representation of these Ideas—than is possible on the 6-string guitar. If a 10-string guitar does this, while also offering the extended interpretative possibilities of chromatic resonance—the possibility of more rounded phrasing, greater sustain and cohesion, extended dynamic range, greater evenness of timbre, the possibility of playing slow pieces at an appropriately slow tempo without running out of sound, and other interpretative subtleties (think of the benefits of the piano’s various pedals)—then the existence of the 10-string guitar on the world concert stage is fully justified, even [dare I say?] as the Standard. (It has the potential.) However, if a 10-stringed guitar is used for neither of these purposes—when that uroboric telos of extra basses merely for the sake of extra basses rears its ugly head—...well, this is, after all, the general misconception that the guitar world holds about the instrument—and the reason why (despite being promoted by great players like Yepes and Schmidt, or in another incarnation, by Carulli, Mertz, Regondi, Coste et al.) the instrument itself remains in the margins of the margins.

[edit] Miscellaneous notes and Quote of Yepes distancing his invention from tunings like those of Romantic 10-string guitars

Here [Yepes’s autograph of the Weiss Suonate II – excerpts posted in my site’s photo album] there is a scordatura of 7 to B1, so the tuning becomes:

E4-B3-G3-D3-A2-E2-B1-A#2-G#2-F#2

7 is the lowest string (8 is the highest of the additional basses). All low basses are played on 6 and 7. (His approach to Bach and other baroque lute music is the same.) Open strings 8-10 are used (as you can see in the excerpt from the Bourree), but not mindlessly as "cheapo" tricks to compensate for a weak technical facility. G#s and F#s are often played on 6 or 7, not open, depending on the musical context, out of consideration for purity of line, consistency of timbre, and to avoid dissonances between open A and G# basses. (This is naturally avoided on the lute by using rest-strokes of the thumb, but when A is 5 and G# is 9 one cannot do as lutenists do, or risk ruining the music.)

Of course, without having at least 8 step-wise descending bass strings (which a 10-string guitar does not have) it will never be possible to approach baroque lute music on the guitar thinking as a lutenist or harp-guitarist does. This is what folks using the Marlow Method try do and the results speak for themselves: one cannot claim to have all the notes of the scale on open strings if this "scale" is made up of compound intervals; it is stylistically unacceptable to play A2, G#1, F#2 [augmented octave, minor seventh] when the (baroque) music calls for a smooth, step-wise descent in the bass: A2, G#2, F#2 [minor 2nd, major second]. (The reference is the bass line of the Courante published in the Marlow Method book.) Augmented and compound melodic intervals are simply not permitted in this style.

Yepes, of course, knowing such things, had the option to have a guitar with more than 10 string (and he did, but he never used it [See the Yepes interview in “Soundboard”). Alternatively (as he chose) one could have 7 as the lowest string on which the other basses could be stopped (i.e. 'fingered') (not all the time, but most of the time), reducing the number of strings required to play lute music. It is, after all, simply an extension of the traditional guitarist's approach: to stop basses rather than depending on an open string for every bass note.

Of course, Yepes's reason for not having any more (or any less) strings than 10 has to do with the singular tuning he discovered that introduces only the EIGHT missing resonances [C, G, A#, F, G#, D#, F#, C#] and none that already exist on the guitar [i.e. E, B, A, D]. [You can stop asking for references when it comes to these things which are facts of acoustics you can find in most acoustics textbooks. A system/string has certain resonant frequencies. When a note is played on string X corresponding to these resonant frequencies on string Y, string Y will begin to resonate in unison with the note produced on string X. The strongest of these resonances correspond to the octave and the fifth of the open string. Every higher octave of these becomes weaker. Other resonant frequencies like the compound major 3rd are negligible because the resonant frequency and the tempered note of the fingerboard are not the same, so the resonant response is considerably weaker than that of the octaves and fifths. A 6-string guitar's bass strings resonate with D and A (4), A and E (5), E and B(5). The envelopes of these tones are grossly inconsistent with the envelopes of the other 8 tones. I include resonance for G as being wanting because normally the trebles are stopped and one cannot rely only on resonance from the G-string. So eight tones do not have the same resonance, the same timbre, same envelope, same sustain as E, A, B, D.

Yepes CONSCIOUSLY adds only 4 strings tuned a singular - the only way that adds those 8 missing/weak resonances and no redundant resonances. 7 gives C and G, 8 gives A# and F, 9 gives G# and D#, and 10 gives F# and C#.

Yepes explicitly distances his invention from the viola d’amore (see Yepes, Narciso. 1978. "The 10-String Guitar: Overcoming the Limitations of Six Strings". Interview by Larry Snitzler. Guitar Player 12(3): pp. 26, 42, 46, 48, 52) and by extension his argument distances his new guitar also from the Romantic 10-string guitar:

Yepes: "Many people have said to me that this [the ten-string guitar] is the same principle as that used for the viola d'amore . . . . But there was a problem with that instrument: the tuning - of both the bowed strings above and the sympathetic strings below was [centred on the tones of D, A, and F] and the F was either sharp or natural, depending on whether the key of the piece was D major or D minor. Thus, when you played a D, you had not only the sound of that one string, but also the sound of all the other Ds on the instrument, so you had a very big D! But, when you played G, for example, you had absolutely nothing in the way of resonance. My idea of the 10-string guitar is exactly the contrary - to provide sympathetic vibration for the notes that do not have this kind of reinforcement on a normal 6-string guitar." (Yepes 1978: 46)

The Romantic 10-stringed guitar has the exact same problem as the viola d'amore. We already have excessive resonance for D, E, B, A from the 6-string. Now a D-string is added (more resonance for D; more resonance for A), a C-string is added (which is good), a B-string is added (the F# there is good, but B resonance is already present), and finally another A-string (with its resonance for A and E). The result is an instrument that has an even greater imbalance between the resonance of tones like E, D, and A, and the FIVE tones that still have next to nothing in the way of resonance: F, G#, A#, C#, D#.

The fact that Yepes mentions in interviews that other 10-stringed guitars have existed has more to do with proving that six strings were never the norm than with saying his instrument is synonymous with any guitar that has 10 strings. You CANNOT reconcile the above statement by Yepes against the viola d'amore's tuning with the resonant properties of guitars that add D, B, or A strings that augment an already existing imbalance of resonance.

We also cannot take seriously such fictitious claims as "appropriate resonance" or "appropriate keys". When a note appears in a piece of music, it is appropriate. It is appropriate to have the possibilities to sustain it or stop it, to bring it out or tone it down, as the MUSICAL context dictates, not the limitations of the guitar. And practically no music can avoid containing some of the tones that do not have resonance on guitars tuned another way than the correct tuning of the modern 10-string guitar. Take the so-called "appropriate" key of E-major. A romantic 10-string guitar will not have the same resonance for G#, C# and D# as for the other tones of the scale. This is like a piano on which certain tones sustain automatically while others never sustain; certain keys strike three strings while other keys strike only one string. The harpsichord and piano have "chromatic resonance" and these are the instrument that have set the standards in the concert hall, NOT the guitar. It is utterly small-minded and unmusical to reject balance, purity of timbre, interpretative nuance as being 'not that important.'

I will also mention here the anecdote often told of Julian Bream playing a 10-string guitar. (There was a photograph of this instrument in a 1996 or 1997 edition of "Guitar Review" and if I recall correctly off the top of my head, Colin Cooper also threw in this little bit of propaganda against the instrument in the Yepes obituary he wrote. It has been stated (and photographs show) that the young Bream played a 10-stringed guitar. It has also been said that Bream rejected the instrument, finding somehow problematic or less expressive. What no one ever bothered to notice was that this was clearly a harp-guitar and tuned a very different way from Yepes. In other words, a different instrument. I would not be surprised to find that the proper modern 10-string guitar has often suffered in its reputation because of mistaken identity. It certainly is not in the instrument's best interest for any conscious musician, composer or critic to hear a baroque lute suite played on a 10-stringed guitar that introduces melodic intervals of augmented octaves and minor 7ths where there should be 2nds!

Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 04:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

And yet...I just notice, we still get such deliberately misleading information as this, from earlyromanticguitar.com (some years after I had informed them that these statements are untrue):

"Modern 10-strings, popularized by Narciso Yepes, have frets on all 10-strings. According to John McCormick, "The "Yepes" tuning is intended for the purpose of utilizing the extra strings mainly as sympathetic ones. They are tuned as follows: 7- C below the 6th E, 8 - A#, 9 - G#, 10 - F#. None of these are [sic] normally fretted with the left hand. They are all intended to resonate when other strings are played, similar in principle to the baroque Viola D'amore which employed seven bowed strings with seven sympathetic strings under them." Other players point out that the extra bass strings are often played open or fretted."

[Who the heck is John McCormick and who made this guy the authority on Yepes? Naturally his word trumps mine...oh, and the autograph manuscripts of Yepes, and the interviews and other texts, and the original compositions written for Yepes's instrument, and the teachings handed down to me via Fritz Buss (who had studied with Yepes between 1960 and the 1980s). Of course, John McCormick knows better!]

In fact, contrary to what John McCormick says, ALL of the strings are actively played and even "fretted". Just actually have a look at the original repertoire by T.E. Fleming (teeming with stops on all 10 strings), Leonardo Balada, Bruno Maderna, Maurice Ohana. Yepes stops (fingers) the 10th string in such pieces as Granados' 5th Spanish Dance and the Giga of the 2nd Weiss Suonate. And as Yepes himself has stated in print, his invention is NOT similar to the viola d'amore, but, of course, Len Verrett would know better about Yepes's instrument than Yepes himself, right? I raised this with Len years ago, yet the same sentence is still there.

I've been sharing information and knowledge with the 10-string community for years (information no one else, not even certain so-called Yepes students) have had access to, and yet all I've received has been arrogant certitude that the modern 10-string guitar is just about so many open bass strings, tuned willy-nilly and played open without a second thought, and anything to the contrary cannot possibly be true. We still find deliberately misleading information on guitar168.com, tenstringguitar.com, earlyromanticguitar.com, and numerous individuals' personal web sites. 'Deliberately' because these false statements remain online (in some cases, they've been online for years), despite the evidence to the contrary that I've brought to these individuals' attention.

I will not waste my time on these individuals and endless debates anymore, but they willcertainly be addressed in a more formal medium. Viktor van Niekerk (talk) 05:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Ten-string guitar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Neutrality (as usual)

[edit] Neutrality of this article is disputed - NPOV

[edit] Duplication

[edit] One sided article

[edit] Glossary of Terms

[edit] FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

[edit] *The correct Standard Tuning (as invented by Narciso Yepes):

[edit] The Ten-string Guitar, Defended Against its Devotees

[edit] Defending (against) the Importance of (bass range over) Resonance

[edit] Miscellaneous notes and Quote of Yepes distancing his invention from tunings like those of Romantic 10-string guitars

Views

Navigation

Interaction

Search