From: yarrowp@mscd.edu
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 1998 08:57:31 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: RE: minstrel: modern instruments
To: minstrel@pbm.com
Reply-To: yarrowp@mscd.edu
Message-Id: <vines.vng8+RVt2qA@Bansrvr3.mscd.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Sender: owner-minstrel@rt.com
Precedence: bulk

>From: "Keith Savage" <keithsa@MICROSOFT.com>, on 9/30/98 3:51 PM:

>Anyway, to be less oblique (and hopefully less offensive), as a discussion
>topic how do people feel about the use of modern instruments from both the
>general performance and competition perspectives?

From my point of view, it depends entirely on *how* they're used, and why.  
I'd rather hear someone playing a nylon-strung harp in the old style than 
someone playing a gut or wirestrung harp as if it were a modern orchestral 
instrument, for example.  I suspect (though I don't play guitar) that your 
guitar might make a better substitute for a lute or one of the early 
ancestors of the guitar than it does for a harp.

It can be difficult to find (or afford) historic reproductions of 
instruments.  There are very few people who will object if you have a 
Baroque style recorder and wish to play Renaissance music upon it.  (Things 
may change if you try to make it in the academic or early music HIP 
community.)  Most of us would rather see and hear a wooden recorder than a 
plastic one, but I, for one, would rather hear the plastic recorder than 
none at all.

In a competition setting, if you can explain *why* you're using a modern 
instrument, and how you've adopted your performance practice to make that 
instrument a viable substitute for a period one, I won't mark you down.  
Mind you, I may give an extra point to the person who has gone out and 
found or built a more appropriate instrument . . .  But only if that person 
is playing it appropriately.  (Let your guitar be a substitute for a lute, 
if you will.  But please don't get a lute and treat it as a substitute for 
a modern guitar! Urk!)

Vivien


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this list, send email to majordomo@pbm.com containing
the words "unsubscribe minstrel". If you are subscribed to the digest version,
say "unsubscribe minstrel-digest". To contact a human about problems, send
mail to owner-minstrel@pbm.com