8-String Guitar Blending The Repertoires Of Renaissance Late And Classical Guitar By David Harris Ienist. He has studied with Julian Bream, taught music at the university level, and performed in many prestigious concert auditoriums, including the National Gallery of Art and ‘Carnegie Hall. David recently took on a teaching assignment atthe Reuben Academy of Music in Jerusalem: Di HARRIS IS AN ACCLAIMED American guitarist and or ‘OR MANY YEARS A HUGE RESERVOIR of musical material has been left untapped by classical guitarists; this body of work consists of the many pieces written for the lute but never arranged and published for guitar. The scarcity of transcriptions is due to a ‘misunderstanding of lutes and lute tablature, and also to the inherent difficulties in arranging lute music for guitar. Guitarists interested in the music composed for any of the various types of lutes have usually been forced to learn tablature, transposition, and arranging before finally rendering the new mate- Fial accessible. But instead of changing the sheet music (and the flavor ofthe compositions) in order to broaden the repertoire, there is another approach that more and more players are taking, one that you may not have considered: Change the guitar. ‘An abundance of published material covers the inte’ history. Included among the books that discuss the lute as it relates to the evolution of the guitar ate: The Illusrated History Of The Guitar, by Alexander Bellow [Colombo/ Belwin-Mills, 25 Deshon Dr. Mel- ville, NY 11747 The Art And Times Of The Guitar, by FrederieV. Grunfeld [Caller Macmillan, 866 Third Ave., New York, NY 10022} Guitars From The Renaissance To Rock, by Tom and Mary Anne Evans (Paddington, 95 Madison Ave,, New York, NY 10016}: and ‘Musical Instruments Of The World, by the Diagram Group [Pad ington}. Also see John Dowland: His Life And Works, by Diana Poulton [University of California Press, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, 90024]; Dowiand alone is responsible for over a hundred lute com positions. An excelent source of lute music isthe extensive series fnttled The English Lute Songs, edited by Edmund H. Fellowes [Stainer & Bell, Lid, London: U.S. agent: Galaxy Music Corp., 2121 Broadway, New York, NY 10023] “The strings on a lute are typically arranged in pairs, or courses, though the single fist string is an exception, Thus, an §-course lute will actually have 15 strings—seven two-string courses plus a single first string. As is the case on a modern I2tring guitar, the {wo strings comprising a course could be tuned either in unison ar in octaves. From 1500 to about 1630 the 8-course lute became especially popular in Europe. The pitch intervals between its frst six courses Were similar 10 the tuning of the contemporary 6-sring guitar with {to exceptions: The whole register was raised a step-and-a-haf, and the major third interval (the second and third strings on the guitar) 28 GUITAR PLAYER SEPTEMBER 1979 Was shifted to the third and fourth strings. Thus, beginning with the to extra bass strings (courses, actually) and continuing through the remaining set of six, this Renaissance lute had a tuning of D. F G. C.F, A. D, and G. Except for the extra seventh and eighth strings, you ean achieve this tuning on a classical guitar simply by placing a capo at the third fret and retuning the third string the ‘necessary hal-step lower. Or, the same relative interval relationships could be gained by lowering the string guitars open Go FF fora tuning of (low to high): E, A, D, Ft, B, and E Learning to read lute tablature and adapting it to conventional ‘guitar (with the altered tuning) is fairly easy and shouldn't take long At all. However, thee are several tablature methods that you might fencounter, The lute had no consistent tuning throughout the 16th and early 17th centuries, and various tablature methods were devel- ‘oped and popularized. Lute tablature indicates not the pitch the listener isto hea, but rather the location ofthe finger placement on the fretboard. The staff lines represent stings, and the numbers or letters stand for frets or stopping places. Below ate three examples included in my Iuroduction To The Technique Of The Renaissance Lute, an unpublished method pre pared for the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. They Fepresent the most important types of 6-course lute tablature. ‘The Italian/Spanish Tablature c. 1500-1600 2nd cour Each fret is indicated by a digit 0 for open string, | for fist fet, ‘The French/English Tablature c. 1500-1630 ut course Sih coursHere each fret is indicated by aletter—a for an open string, b for the first fret, and so on (note that the letter j is omitted), ‘The Spanish Tablature Of Luys a, 1836 “The Spanish composers wrote for the vihuela de mano, a guitar shaped instrument (and direct ancestor of our contemporary clas seal guitar) with the tuning of a lute, ‘A completely different instrument, the Baroque lute, developed after 1630, Its tuning was based on a D minor chord, and by 1720 it had acquired 13 courses of strings six over the fingerboard plus seven free bass courses whose tuning varied with the composition’s key. This isthe lute for which Bach wrote four complete late suites (Line Suite No. I, Lute Suite No, 2, ete). All of Bach's lute music, arranged for guitar, can be found in Johann Sebastian Bach: Lute Music, by Edmund Wensiecki (Verlag Friedrich Hofmeister Hof- heim Am Taunus, catalog no. FHA03S; US. agent: C.F. Peters Corp., 373 Park Ave, So, New York, NY 10016 catalog no. MV4035}. Two German contemporaries of Bach, Esaias Reusner and Silvius L, Weiss, were excellent lutenst/composers who wrote for the Barogue lute, Indeed, Weiss left eleven collections of solo, ten trios, and six concertos at his death in 1780, They are in manuscript tablature, A good source of the Reusner and Weiss solo lite works is Das Erbe Deutscher Musik, a terrific and very common book found in most music libraries. (The author is Hans Neemann, and the publisher is Henry Verlag of Frankfurt, Germany.) This style of Barogue lute composition was to serve as a model for early harpsi= chord musi, especially in France, Baroque lute music must obviously be arranged for the guitar. ‘And in doing so the arranger is faced with the delicate problem of altering and omitting notes, In many cases this proves fatal, and the ‘composition becomes substandard and clearly not what the com- poser intended, All these problems have plagued guitarists for many yeats, and some players have tried learning lute—but which lute, the early Renaissance instrument, or the big I3-course Barogue lute ted (0 a D minor chord? Also, let us not forget the vibuela de mano, Clearly the interested person cannot afford to buy all these instru= ments and learn the different techniques foreach, "The serious guitarist, wishing to advance his or her repertoire and education, might think about adding mote strings to the las- sical guitar. Remember, as musical standards advance in other instruments, the guitar must advance or be relegated toa secondary station, Ako remember that the original guitar had four courses, and by 1720 it had five. Only much later was the sixth string added, ‘converting the instrument to the one we think of today as she guitar. ‘The String guitar is thus a current manifestation of an old approach, that of adding strings to increase the repertoire. If the sister of the conventional six strings is to remain atthe standard tuning, the new strings would be D (seventh), and B (eighth); the eighth string could be a Cas well, if it etter suits the composition, Thus, the &-tring guitar’ tuning for either Baroque lute music (:canseribed from the original Drm tuning) or standard guitar music 's (low to high): Bor C), D, £, A, D, G, Band E ‘Then, to play Renaissance lute musi, lower the Gto F®, match- ing the intervals to those of the higher pitched Renaissance lute which, as wee noted, is tuned (low to high): D, F, GC, FA, D. and G. IF you'e playing Renaissance (as opposed to Baroque) lute tablature on a standard G-string, make sure that youve made the ‘tuning alteration, shifting the @ down a alf-step to F'#; Renaissance Conte SEPTEMBER 1579/GUITAR PLAYER 298&-STRING GUITAR lute transcriptions for guitar aren’ very authentic if they don't have the open FH Speaking of strings, the gauge you use for your sixth (bass £:) will do just fine forthe extra seventh and eighth strings as wel 14 like 10 point out an additional advantage to the 8-string auitar, When you play rest strokes, or apoyando, you support the A bcourse vila right-hand fingertip against the next string, the one below the string, Where the particular figure begins. On a conventional instrument, ‘you can’ play an authentic apoyando beginning on the sixth tring, Since there is no lower string on which to rest the hand. However, on ‘an String this problem is obviously eliminated; thus you can play true apoyando, and this enhances your tone, Plus, with the B bass, {you now have a four-octave range. My own 8-string instrument, built by James Boyce {Box 608, North Falmouth, MA 02556], is essentially a classical gutar with a ‘The Eaditors of Guitar Player Magazine bring you... 400 pages of the most significant coverage of guitar and guitar playing from 1] years of GP. Packed with photos, ‘The Guitar Player Book is the most comprehensive volume ‘on guitar ever produced — with history, design, instruction, ‘equipment, accessories, techniques —and more than 100, important artists who have given the guitar its life and expression, We also include a detailed index and an intro- duction by Les Paul. You can purchase The Guitar Player Book for $9.95 by calling our TOLL-FREE number 800-821-7700, Ext. 805 to charge to your VISA or MASTERCHARGE. Or send in your check or money order to: GPI Publications Box 615, Saratoga, CA 95070 Published jointly by Grove Press and Guitar Player Magazine (da 75e postage # handing, California residents add 6Se sales tax ‘Allow 6 08 wooks for delivers) 30° GUITAR PLAYER SEPTEMBER 1979 A Peoure hte modified neck, bridge, and bracing. The top is western red cedar, the sides and back are Brazilian rosewood. While the frst 8-ting ‘that James built for me had flamenco-type wooden tuning pps the current guitar has a slotted headstock and regular classical nen, Some of the features are: a Honduras mahogany neck, a rosewood bridge, an ivory nut, and an ivory saddle, There's an additionat piece of ivory-a plate—located inside the body and underneath he bridge to keep the strings from digging into the bridge. The finger board construction is unusual: it has. J rosewood center stip tat covers the steel neck rod, and the rest is ebony. Luthier James Boyce comments: “The bracing is definitely di ferent than a standard guitars. 1 used different woods on the bast. side and trele side. The hardest wood is way up on the treble ie land as the braces go across the wood gets softer. The width of the Fingerboard at the nut is approximately 2). I tried to keep ita small as T could. I made the strings closer topether—lke you find fn certain Tutes, oF maybe a ‘Ss ja77 guitar | A tot of makers would build a guitar like this ona custom basis, but then again a lot of them would be afraid of i, too. Ive bull five—two for David, and the others for people who were inluencef by hearing him in concert. The 8-string instrument offers the classical guitarist many advantages. There are at last 200 concert lute pieces that ae added to the repertoire, and these may’ be played with the beautiful and distinctive bass fines intact, Another thing—guitar transcriptions have gotten ridiculously expensive in recent years. Now, having taken the little time required to lear Tute tablature, you can simp 0 t0 a good! music library and photocopy the lute transcriptions in books at hardly any expense. Again, lute tablature isnot difficult master. and the guitarist can save hundreds of dollars over a period ‘of years by photocopying lute tablature at libraries instead of buying ‘guitar transcriptions. All Renaissance lute music is playable from tablature onthe & | string, and Baroque music is also much easier to arrange and pay Tone is improved, and the range of true apoyando figures isin creased. In my opinion, the 8-string guitar is no more dificult i | play than the 6-string, and itis certainly easier to play than the lt Eentury lute, Plus, transporting a single instrument is obvious ‘much more convenient than lugging around three oF four of them, So the S-string is a logical modification of the G-string classic, guitar, one that can make your life a litle easier, save you som ‘money, and substantially increase your repertoire