#techandtone

[frankwallace]

Thumb Songs 1 & 2 | from Sketches I

I will let this tutorial video on thumb technique speak for itself. Here’s a quick overview of the principles involved:

The thumb has three joints and is closely tied to the position and movements of the wrist and arm all the way to the root of the clavicle and the sternum in the front, the shoulder blade in the back

The subtle adjustments of those bones and joints allows the thumb to play either rest or free stroke and achieve a great variety of timbre and dynamic.

As with all the beginning pieces in Sketches I, I have designated that melodies are played rest stroke and accompaniments are free stroke. The purpose is to clearly define the multi-layered aspects of all music. It prepares one to be more conscious of the role each note, each voice, and each texture has to do with creating a compelling and intelligent performance.

These same principles greatly inform the rendering of polyphonic works as well, those works which are at the root of our precious five centuries of guitar/lute heritage. Those specific techniques are explained in my blog Polyphonic basics | how to make voices clear | Part I and will be more deeply explored in a coming video/blog.

Download a PDF of Thumbs Songs 1 & 2 from Sketches I

Purchase the Sketches I edition here.

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Save the date, please…

It is with great delight we announce that our dear friend and colleague Bob Ward and the Boston Classical Guitar Society will present a concert in my honor this October 25th. The concert of my compositions will feature Bob with Alex Dunn playing Duo Sonata #1; Chris Ladd, guitar and Ása Guðjónsdóttir, violin, on Gryphon, Violin Sonata #1, David William Ross on Cyrcles, Sonata #3, Daniel Acsadi playing Débil del Alba and more.

The concert will be held at the First Lutheran Church at 299 Berklee St. in Boston. Pre-concert talk will begin at 7:30, concert at 8pm. Hope you can make it.    —Frank

Thumb Songs 1 & 2 | from Sketches I was originally published on FRANK WALLACE

[frankwallace]

I'm taking lessons again, from myself...

Am I Ready?

I am in a phase when I am learning music I wrote from September 2019 to January 2020. It’s a blast. I want to record soon, but am I ready? Never, of course! But my time is limited and so I struggle to look deep and deeper into my expressive capabilities. As always I want this to be my best ever…yeah, yeah, it’s a silly notion, but it’s there. How can I do it?

Let’s go Deeper

I go to great lengths these days to make sure my expressive markings are clear and thorough on my new compositions. In my early years as a composer, coming out of two decades of focusing on early music that had no marking whatsoever, I was committed to the idea that the performer had total freedom, and total responsibility to be intelligent, responsive to the musical language, etc. Tempo, dynamics, etc. were not to be ignored, but rather puzzled through and creatively crafted.

Along the way, I became aware that modern players need guidance  particularly when they don’t have a lot of time to prepare a score. Large guitar ensembles or even smaller chamber groups need assistance, and so I changed and started to enjoy the ability to finely craft what I was doing. Improvements in Finale software made it gratifying when listening to a few of the more authentic midi sounds of flute, English horn, cello and violin.

I have also been working intensely on a pamphlet to guide students and professionals in the special techniques  and demands of polyphonic music. Some of these ideas (presented in Polyphonic Exercises) are very useful in crafting dynamics and many expressive devices as well. I have some personal concepts of particular markings, such as when I write mezzo piano I mean to play sul tasto. Fortes I generally intend to be more ponticello to enhance the quickness and drama of louder notes, chords and passages. There is more resistance in the string closer to the bridge and the natural response of the hand is to meet that resistance with more force. As always, these are just guidelines. a starting point for true inspiration in performance.

In this example, I use one of the suggestions I make in Polyphonic Exercises: on each crescendo I move from sul tasto to sul ponticello to enhance the growth and expressive potential. So at the beginning of the second measure, the high A is played with my a finger close to the bridge, while my thumb is extended far to the left, over the sound whole, so as to be soft both timbrally and dynamically. The two staccatos in the third measure contrast markedly with the legato that follows on exactly the same notes and the staccatos that follow need to be very clear.

sample of expressive marks from Of the Spheres

Teaching Myself

So, all that is written into the score. Am I doing it? NOT! That’s where the teacher comes back — the teacher being me the composer! Telling me the performer what to do. But I often ignore or alter the markings myself! Come on — the composer is not God, certainly he couldn’t mean all these things literally! Sometimes this leads to a change in the concept and I do alter markings, but often I simply need to pay attention. So “going deeper” is no big mystery, it’s just a refinement of attention to be totally present in the sound I am making now. If it’s soft, how soft? Go softer. Should it be a pianissimo, or just a piano. If mezzo piano is sul tasto, what is pianissimo? That’s a rhetorical question for you, but my opinion is that it can be whatever you want, determined by the gesture, the phrasing, the musical intention. Extreme sul ponticello can be used for a very light free stroke that does NOT meet the resistance, but rather passively submits to it. What timbre might be most supportive of the dynamic, the mood, the intent.

Ultimately, the performer has all power, and she is right, the composer is NOT GOD, simply a human trying to do the best they can at the moment. But those highly pondered markings should not be totally ignored and can in fact be used for real inspiration and contemplation. They should inspire the desire to always be searching for deeper truths about the music and ourselves. All in all, I’m going deeper into the endless subtleties that are possible in music, on the guitar, in the mind, the concept, the execution. Following instincts can be good, but sometimes the mental process can examine new possibilities and lead to creative solutions as well.

I’m taking lessons again, from myself… was originally published on FRANK WALLACE

[frankwallace]

Polyphonic basics | how to make voices clear | Part I

In my video/blogs about Single String Etudes I, I repeatedly spoke of rest stroke on melody, free stroke on accompaniment. We discussed the essential roll of the arm adjusting to aid the angle of fingers so that thumb can play rest stroke easily while the fingers use free stroke, and vice versa. The end was to balance melody and accompaniment and allow the music to sing. But what about when there is no accompaniment, only other melodies! This is called polyphony – multi-voiced. The same techniques can be used to accomplish our goal of independent melodies.

It’s not a mystery

The simple exercise in Part I of this video is the result of many years of pondering the technique of polyphonic playing. It’s not a mystery, it is a skill that can be learned. One that will greatly enhance your musicality and make music more fun to play in general. In this video I discuss how to smoothly and artfully use this technique to create a continuous interplay between voices, one rises while the other falls. The basic exercise is written out in this document along with several musical examples that will be demonstrated in a coming video: download Polyphonic Exercises and Examples now and get acquainted with the concept and musical examples, which will be presented in Part II.

  The technique coming up, but first…

The Back Story

In a guest blog for This Is Classical Guitar, I wrote several years ago  about the origins of guitar music:

Where did Narváez’s music come from? Why did he write what he wrote and from what traditions did he emerge? The vihuela de mano repertoire commonly played on the modern guitar is but a tiny portion of the extant repertoire. Seven books by seven different authors contain roughly 700 pieces. Of that, at least half are arrangements (intabulations) of choral repertoire. Most of the rest are fantasías in the choral, or polyphonic style. The few sets of instrumental variations called diferéncias are in fact quite rare and dance music is virtually non-existent.

I was immersed in this music as singer and instrumentalist for 25 years. I developed both a fascination for and deep respect of the music. Much of it is extremely difficult and esoteric by most standards. It is contemplative, and was probably mostly played for the self or a small gathering in a resonant chamber where the soft vihuela could sing robustly and normally short lived notes hung in the air much longer.

A central feature of 16th music is the art of imitation. It is the essence of most large works such as masses and motets by such greats as Josquin des Prez, Palestrina, Gombert, Tallis. And these works are the model for most vihuela repertoire. [The one exception, Luys de Milán, appears to have been less educated in this high art, but, nevertheless, had a flamboyant and effective style of his own.]

An example, the tenor sings a phrase and then the basses sing the exact same relative notes at a different pitch and so on. Even in a choir, if these imitations are not clearly delineated, the piece has little meaning. The dynamic and articulate shaping of the phrase must be nearly identical in all parts.

So how do we do it

Here lies the rub for vihuelists or guitarists playing any such repertoire. How do we make one voice grow (get louder) as another falls (gets softer)? Like this…

As described in the video, if one uses three combination strokes, all the various dynamic combinations can be accomplished. It is crucial to think only about each individual combination at first, before trying to make music. They are: 1) finger loud rest stroke with thumb soft free stroke; 2) finger and thumb equal free strokes; 3) finger soft free stroke with thumb loud rest stroke.

The precise direction of each movement is essential: free strokes are directed slightly upward, away from the string only barely touching it to make a thinner, lighter attack; rest strokes are planted firmly into the rest string in a downward effort to excite the top of the guitar and get not just loud, but solid full tone.

Of course, with growing skill, one can adjust in countless ways to vary angle and timbre, and more subtle gradations of dynamic and attack. The end result is not just a series of unconnected chords, but smooth flowing crescendos and decrescendos at the same time.

Part II will demonstrate this technique in the pieces attached in this document – download Polyphonic Exercises and Examples now and get acquainted with the concept and musical examples.

Polyphonic basics | how to make voices clear | Part I was originally published on FRANK WALLACE

[frankwallace]

Vibrato is making love to your guitar; don't always move one speed. #techandtone

[frankwallace]

Melody should always be rest stroke - sad that it can't be!  #techandtone