The lute lesson for a young English gentry lady (electroacoustic sound-work)
The following commentary discusses
the third creative output I produced as part of this research project: an
electroacoustic sound-work entitled: The lute lesson for a young English
gentry lady. This work was developed in connection with the third chapter
of my PhD thesis, which reconstructed aspects of Margaret Board’s lute lessons and
related musical and technical accomplishment. After my album of pieces
exclusively from the Board lute book was completed, I reflected that there was a
key component to the Board lute book that I had not yet captured or expressed
in a creative form. I had represented the lute book as a source of music but
had not demonstrated it as material evidence of a pedagogical process. I had a
feeling that there were, figuratively speaking, two ‘sides’ to the lute book. This
thought is what eventually led to the idea to create this additional work in
relation to the Board book: to better reflect, and therefore do greater justice
to the manuscript and its creator.
The sound-work was created using a
collage of audio fragments, all relating to the learning of the Renaissance
lute. These include readings of informative and entertaining quotations from
surviving early modern English lute tutor books (discussed and referenced many
times throughout this thesis), pedagogical duets and lessons sourced from printed
tutor books and pedagogical lute books, audio clips from my own lute lessons
with Jacob Heringman, audio clips of my own private practicing, and clips of
some extraneous lute sounds (tuning, adjusting strings, plucking open strings, shuffling
music pages, etc.). The resulting work offers an insight into the early modern
English lute lesson that is both creative and highly informative about many
pedagogical practices. The readings express historical advice pertaining to the
holding the lute, the naming and plucking of the strings, theoretical terms
such as the gamut and its application to the lute, and the practicing of time
keeping. This primary source information is woven with examples of my own
performance practice which demonstrate the lessons given, as well as expressing
further aspects of pedagogy that can only be learnt by ‘doing’.
During the composition process I observed
many parallels between the source material and my own lute lessons, and I found
the overall concept to be a successful way to demonstrate the clear connection
between the advice given by lute tutors and the performance practice they
describe. For instance, as can be heard in the audio fragments from my own lute
lessons, I often take the lead and am assertive in asking for what I would like
my tutor Jacob’s attention and ‘ear’ on. This is simply a reality for me at
this stage of my development and level of ability as a lutenist, but it is also
curiously reflective of the dynamic between students and their tutors in the
early modern period, where the power dynamic favoured that of the student (as
discussed on pages 120-1). Furthermore, presenting key quotations alongside a
musical (or otherwise auditory) demonstration of the quotation ‘in action’, heard
immediately on the instrument, lends itself to a better communication and
understanding of the primary sources. My approach to the sound work was to
communicate some aspects of playing the lute that are hard to articulate in
language, and offering some insight into the way my experience as a performer
and learner has informed my musicological research.
Audio incorporated into the sound-work
00.00 – Reading from Robert Dowland’s Varietie
of Lute Lessons (1610).[1]
00.47 – Reading from The Burwell Lute
Tutor (c.1670).[2]
01.06 – Reading from Burwell.[3]
01.33 – Audio extract of ‘Plaine song for
two Lutes’, from The Schoole of Musicke (1603),[4]
performed by myself.
02.07 – Reading from Thomas Mace’s Musick’s
Monument (1676).[5]
02.25 – Reading from The Schoole of
Musicke.[6]
02.47 – Reading from The Schoole of
Musicke.[7]
03.51 – Reading from Burwell.[8]
04.28 – The Schoole of Musicke.[9]
04.38 – Audio extract from my lute lesson
with Jacob Heringman, including ‘Tw lesons to be plaid with tw lowtes’ from the
Folger lute book.[10]
05.01 – Reading from Varietie of Lute
Lessons.[11]
07.07 – Reading from Varietie of Lute
Lessons.[12]
07.33 – Audio extract of my private practising
of ‘A galyerd by Rossesters’ from the Jane Pickering lute book.[13]
09.20 – Reading from The Schoole of
Musicke.[14]
09.38 – Audio extract from my lute lesson
with Heringman, including ‘Anne Markham’s pavan’ from the M.L. lute book.[15]
12.58 – Reading from Musick’s Monument.[16]
16.27 – Reading from Musick’s
Monument.[17]
16.53 - Audio extract of my private
practising of ‘A galyerd by Rossesters’ from the Jane Pickering lute book.[18]
23.32 – Reading from Musick’s
Monument.[19]
25.55 – Reading from The Schoole of
Musicke sig.[20]
[1] Thomas
Robinson, The
Schoole of Musicke (London, 1603), sig. Bv. (‘He/him’ adapted to ‘she/her’
and ‘man’ to ‘woman’).
[2] Dart, "Miss Mary Burwell's Instruction Book for
the Lute," 16.
[3]
Ibid., 17
[4] Robinson,
The Schoole of Musicke, sig. Ev-Er.
[5] Thomas
Mace, ed., Musick's Monument; or, A remembrancer of the best practical
musick, both divine, and civil, that has ever been known, to have been in the
world divided into three parts, Early English Books Online Text Creation
Partnership (London: T. Ratcliffe, and N. Thompson, 1676), 45.
[6] Robinson, The
Schoole of Musicke, sig. Br.
[7] Ibid.,
sig. B2v.
[8] Dart, "Miss Mary Burwell's Instruction Book for
the Lute," 16.
[9] Robinson, The
Schoole of Musicke, sig. Br.
[10] Bayldon, US-Washington Folger-Shakespeare Library,
Ms.V.b.280 (olim 1610.1) f. 2v.
[11] Dowland, Varietie
of Lute Lessons, sig. C2r.
[12] Ibid.,
sig. Br.
[13] Jane
Pickeringe, GB-London, British Library, Eg.2046:
f. 26.2.
[14] Robinson, The
Schoole of Musicke, sig. Br.
[15] M.L., GB-London, British Library, Add.38539: f. 28v-29.
[16] Mace, Musick's
Monument, 80.
[17]
Ibid., 76.
[18] Pickeringe, GB-London, British Library, Eg.2046: f.
26.2.
[19] Mace, Musick's
Monument, 75.
[20] Robinson, The
Schoole of Musicke, sig. H2v.