>
>How wonderful Michael - this is just how one has sketched it, not
>knowing if it exists! I love the word 'ficta' for the 'completion' of
>the keyboard
>
>So this is the analogue computer for the I-VIII modal system. What
>might they have done with the ficta? (in the privacy of the hours 
>between compline & matins)


And I believe that a remembrance of the secondary, added role of the 
'ficta' persists through the baroque period, and manifests itself in 
the ergonomics of the keyboards. Hence the short natural "heads" and 
awkward spaces between the sharps: the characteristics that require a 
particular forward hand/finger position on keyboards really until the 
triumph of the modern piano keyboard.

It is this mindset of the 'black keys' being secondary 'ficta', 
added-to and subordinate to the 'white keys' or naturals, which is so 
strange and difficult for those trained on the modern piano. The 
keyboard (and the music) of the latter gives the 'black keys' a 
status equal to that of the 'white keys,' which means that 'black 
keys' can be the tonal AND physical center, and the hand pushes 
itself deeper into the keys in order for the two sets of keys to 
enjoy a true equality of status.

When I play even music as late as, say, Couperin or Fischer, I play 
on the naturals and reach (up and back) if I must play a 'black key.' 
When I am playing the G-flat-Major Schubert Impromptu on my cottage 
piano, my hand positions, and the centrality of the 'black keys' as 
legimate mainstream notes, transport me into a profoundly different 
universe.

O





-- 
Owen Daly Early Keyboard Instruments
557 Statesman St. NE
Salem, OR 97301
503-362-9396
http://www.dalyharpsichords.com