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From:
Sheridan Haskell <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Sheridan Haskell <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 16 May 2013 11:33:53 -0700
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On May 14, 2013, at 9:03 AM, Bob Moody <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> If one truly listens to an instrument AND the room where the instrument lives, the instrument and room will reveal how it wants to be played.   Well said, Leonardo.  
> 
> The point is to make beautiful music.  All else is but a means to this end. I say this while listening to the wonderful Hill, Norman and Beard in Holbrook on Organlive.  
> 
> ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I'm not sure I can follow this line of thinking within the context of historically informed performance. I often hear the historical legitimacy of a certain technique determined by how well it sounds and/or feels to us moderns. 

The thinking as I understand it can be expressed as:

A technique that is historical will sound/feel good.
The technique that is in question sounds/feels good.
Therefore, the technique is historical.

Some of you may recognize this as the fallacy of affirming to the consequent:
If X, then Y.
Y.
Therefore, X.

As in:
All dogs have fur.
It has fur.
Therefore, it is a dog.

If I have made a strawman, I apologize but as I see it, some of the responses I've seen on fingering in here can be presented this way:
A technique that is historical will sound/feel good.
"Modern fingering" in Bach sounds/feels good.
Therefore, Bach must have used "modern fingering."

And some can be put as this way:
A technique that is historical will sound/feel good.
"Ancient fingerings" in Bach sounds/feel good.
Therefore, Bach must have used "ancient fingerings".

There's also this item which is not the fallacy of affirming the consequent but to me its first premise seems unreasonable because is what is "good" may be different from person to person and therefore cannot be used to determine what is historical or not.

A technique that is not historical will not sound good.
Complete use of "ancient fingerings" in Bach do not sound good.
Therefore, Bach did not completely use "ancient fingerings."

However, if a technique does not feel well as opposed but not to sound well (i.e. it makes a passage significantly more difficult than an alternative technique), maybe that's a stronger argument for its nonhistoricity since humans are just about physically the same as we were 300 years ago. But perhaps it's not the technique that should be changed but some other parameter of the music such as tempo (e.g. maybe you're trying to play the piece too quick). But this raises another question: should fingering define the tempo, or should the tempo define the fingering?  We do after all have numerous tempo accounts of the 17th and 18th century that can give one fairly objective data about tempos. If one or more contemporary sources indicate to play a certain sort of piece at 120 bpm but with ancient fingerings you can only get to 90 bpm, should you conclude that the composer must have used modern fingerings or that he must have used ancient fingerings and just tended to play his pieces slower than what sources indicate?

I'm not arguing that Bach didn't use modern fingering (I'm rather undecided on that at the moment). I'm just not following some of the logic used by some to justify the use of modern or ancient fingering
because to me it's little different than this line of reasoning I've heard from some modernist string players:

A technique that is historical will sound/feel good.
Continuous vibrato on string instruments sounds/feels good.
Therefore, string technique during the baroque must have included continuous vibrato.

This of course is something we know to be false.



..........................................................................
Sheridan Haskell
sheridanhaskell.wordpress.com
twitter.com/zRows






..........................................................................
Sheridan Haskell
sheridanhaskell.wordpress.com
twitter.com/zRows






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