richardsweeney.com

JavaScript: how to select the first word(s) in a sentence

Richard Sweeney — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:44:21 +0000

Recently I had to figure out a way to select the first 2 words in a sentence using JavaScript. I wanted to wrap them in a class so that I could give them some additional CSS styling. I figured it’d be mad easy, but it took a little bit of head scratching until I figured out at least one way to do it.

I’ve got an HTML element with an ID of ‘niceText’ that I’m looking to grab. I’ll save the string as a variable called ‘niceText’.

var niceText = $('#niceText').text();

I’ll also save the opening and closing spans I’m going to wrap the text in as variables like so:

var openSpan = '', closeSpan = '';

Next, we’ll use the native JavaScript split method. This makes an array out of a string – all you have to do is to specify the separator that’ll be used to divide the string. In this case the separator is a blank space, so we can write:

niceText = niceText.split(' ');

Our variable ‘niceText’ is now an array of strings (go ahead and use your console to take a peek at what’s happened to our variable).

Next we’ll add the span to the start of the array using the unshift method. It you’ve ever used the push method, this is very similar except that it adds elements to the beginning of the array instead of to the end.

niceText.unshift( openSpan );

Fab. We now need to add the closing span to the array. We can do this with the splice method. If you’re not sure how this method works, do have a good read of the docs as it can come in super handy when performing array surgery!

As I want to wrap the first 2 words in my sentence, I’m going to add the closing span as the 4th item in the array. The first item is now my opening span, then comes the two opening words, then my closing span. The second value in splice indicates how many values, if any, to remove from the array. We’re not removing any, just adding, so this will be equal to 0.

niceText.splice( 3, 0, closeSpan );

Next I’ll turn the array back into a string using join. Like split, join accepts a value for the separator, only this time, the separator is what will be printed between every array item. As this is just a sentence, we want to add a space between the words, so we can write:

niceText = niceText.join(' ');

Finally I’ll add the string to my HTML element like so:

$('#niceText').html( niceText );

That’s it! Here’s the whole function.

jQuery( function($){

   /* Get the text of the element I'm after */
   var niceText = $('#niceText').text(),
      openSpan = '', closeSpan = '';

   /* Make the sentence into an array */
   niceText = niceText.split(' ');

   /* Add span to the beginning of the array */
   niceText.unshift( openSpan );

   /* Add  as the 4th value in the array */
   niceText.splice( 3, 0, closeSpan );					

   /* Turn it back into a string */
   niceText = niceText.join(' ');					

   /* Append the new HTML to the header */
   $('#niceText').html( niceText );

});

If you’re not already using jQuery in your site, it might be a bit much to add it for just this tiny function! Rather, you can simply replace

var niceText = $('#niceText').text();

with

var niceText = document.getElementById('niceText').textContent;

and

$('#niceText').html( niceText );

with

document.getElementById('niceText').innerHTML = niceText;

Grand stuff. Hope it comes in useful!

How to split your WordPress posts into two columns

Richard Sweeney — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 19:39:07 +0000

The other day, whilst merrily making a website for an ensemble called Tesserae, I needed to figure out how to display my posts in 2 columns, side by side. In this case, the posts were a custom post type biographies that I used to display the various members biographies on the site.

It wasn’t hard to do, here’s the code I used to display half of the posts:

$count = wp_count_posts( 'biographies' ); ?>

Let’s say the total number of posts is 7.

$num_biogs = ceil( $count->publish / 2 ); ?>

This would give us 4. We must round up this number otherwise, we’d get 3.5 and that’s no good!

$biogs = new WP_Query( 'post_type=biographies&showposts=' . $num_biogs ); while ( $biogs->have_posts() ) : $biogs->the_post(); // the_title(); the_content(); etc endwhile; wp_reset_query(); ?>

And the remaining posts:

$biogs = new WP_Query( 'post_type=biographies&showposts=-1&offset=' . $num_biogs ); while ( $biogs->have_posts() ) : $biogs->the_post(); // the_title(); the_content(); etc endwhile; wp_reset_query(); ?>

Obviously this is only the PHP, and you’re going to need some HTML there to actually use this! I just floated a couple of

s side by side, then popped the first block of code inside the left-hand

and the 2nd chunk in the 2nd

You can see the finished product at http://tesserae-la.com/who/

jQuery mobile events firing multiple times and what to do about it

Richard Sweeney — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:54:50 +0000

I’m currently working on my very first iPhone app. I decided I’d build it in HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and wrap it up all cosy and warm with the amazing PhoneGap. I also decided early on to use jQuery mobile as my framework for the project, because I’m so familiar with jQuery itself. It’s been quite a ride so far and I’ve learnt a LOT!

I soon found out that dynamic content and jQuery mobile is not the easiest of pairings, but I think I’ve found a good solution to the most common problems I encountered and figured it’d be cool to share them with whomsoever might have a use for them.

One of the issues I found with my code early on was that on subsequent visits to a page, events would be fired an increasing number of times. What was happening was that I was binding events to the pagebeforeshow event – I though I had to this, because most of the content I was adding to the page was dynamic and would be updated on subsequent page visits. I did this:

$('#my-page').bind('pagebeforeshow', function(){ // Add dynamic stuff to the page here, then... $('input').bind('change', function(){ // Do something when this happens }); });

This worked for the dynamic content, although I still had to remove my inserted content on pagehide as jQuery mobile saves the page in memory, which drove me to the brink of madness on more than one occasion, but hey. On change, the input event was duly triggered on my first visit to the page (and only once, as I expected), but on my second visit to the page, the event was triggered twice, then 3 times etc. Eek!

The solution was not difficult, it just took a while to figure out. I still added my dynamic stuff to the page using the pagebeforeshow event, but I just added the event listener for my input to pageinit instead. As most of the event listeners were bound to elements that were inserted dynamically, I had to use live instead of bind. In the end my code looks something like this:

$('#my-page').bind('pagebeforeshow', function(){ // Add dynamic stuff to the page here }).bind('pageinit', function(){ $('input').live('change', function(){ // Do something when this happens }); });

That solved it. I might detail how I add and remove dynamic content to the page using pagebeforeshow and pagehide. If it might be of use to anyone, do let me know if so!

A suggested fix for the dreaded FOUT

Richard Sweeney — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:00:59 +0000

As a keen typography fan I tend to rely heavily on the use of web fonts for my sites. I generally use Typekit to deliver my fonts, but it does tend to take a little while for the browser to download and display my beautiful fonts.

I noticed that if I simply place the typkit required script tags in the header of my site, it will block my site from loading until the font(s) have been downloaded, leaving visitors with a blank screen for a second or so. With a fast connection it’s not the end of the world in my book, but recently I tried experimenting a little with how to minimize this inconvenience to the user.

First, I tried putting the typekit script tags in the footer of my document, instead of the header. This stopped the delay in the site from loading, but it also caused a ‘Flash of Un-styled Text’ (or FOUT for short), where the fallback font(s) were shown as the web fonts were being downloaded. This can look really messy, especially if you’re using fonts for which there isn’t really any suitable fallback.

It’s a common problem and I’ve seen a couple of solutions offered, but I came up with what I think is quite an elegant solution.

Typekit fonts are delivered via JavaScript that provide event listeners that can tell you whether a font is active, is loading, is inactive or has been loaded. Typekit suggest a solution on their blog at http://blog.typekit.com/2010/10/29/font-events-controlling-the-fout/, but the loading of your site can still be delayed as you wait for the fonts to download and if you put the script tags in your footer, you can still suffer the FOUT. Blurgh.

My solution is to (and bear with me here before you scream ‘but what if JavaScript is disabled!’) hide all the text elements in my CSS by setting their opacity to 0, so as to completely avoid any FOUT. I do this like so:

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, ul, ol, dl, span, a { opacity: 0; -webkit-transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in; -moz-transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in; -o-transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in; transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in; }

Obviously you may well have more elements of text that should be hidden, such as blockquotes, cites etc. I’ve also added some CSS3 transitions, so that when the web fonts have finished loading they’ll fade in smoothly (this in itself is really quite a nice effect) rather than just being spat out! I then added the following to my CSS:

.wf-active h1, .wf-active h2, .wf-active h3, .wf-active h4, .wf-active h5, .wf-active h6, .wf-active p, .wf-active ul, .wf-active ol, .wf-active dl, .wf-active span, .wf-active a { opacity: 1; }

The .wf-active class is added to the tag of my document via JavaScript when the font has finished loading. If we set the opacity here to 1 then our web fonts will be displayed and not our fallback fonts.

The problem with this method is obviously that it relies on JavaScript. If users view the site with JavaScript disabled, the wf-active class won’t be added to the tag and the fonts will remain invisible. My solutions is to add the following to my document head after our other CSS files have been included.

This will overwrite our previous declaration where we set the opacity to 0 and therefore make our fallback fonts visible to the user without JavaScript.

The other problem with this method if the Typekit fonts are not available, or if the browser does not support web fonts. In this case, you could also use the .wf-inactive class which Typekit adds to the tag in either of these cases and set the opacity to 1 like so:

.wf-inactive h1, .wf-inactive h2, .wf-inactive h3, .wf-inactive h4, .wf-inactive h5, .wf-inactive h6, .wf-inactive p, .wf-inactive ul, .wf-inactive ol, .wf-inactive dl, .wf-inactive span, .wf-inactive a { opacity: 1; }

As far as I can see this pretty much covers all bases, but I may well have missed something here and am very happy to have this pointed out to me!

Easy PayPal Custom Fields Plugin

Richard Sweeney — Fri, 06 May 2011 12:41:50 +0000

I’ve just my first WordPress plugin that uses custom fields to make creating a PayPal button super-easy.

I wanted to learn more about PHP and the inner workings of WordPress and I also needed a solution for my clients to add PayPal functionality to their sites without having to remember complicated shortcode syntax. Whilst shortcodes in WP are a fantastic feature and are easy to implement for the developer, I find they can often confuse my clients who often can’t even find square brackets on their keyboards!

Having said that: In order to have full flexibility on the placement of this mystical button, you can select to insert it at the top or bottom of a post or – via a shortcode – anywhere you like in the post.

On the settings screen, the user can select on which type of post (including custom post types) the plugin should be displayed. It’s also possible to enter default settings which can subsequently be changed for individual posts where necessary – this might come in for sites with multiple users.

The button is also customizable with 2 themes to choose between (dark and light) with custom text for the button, or it’s possible to simply display a regular large or small PayPal button (either ‘Buy Now’ or ‘Donate’).

The plugin will encrypt your PayPal username so that it can’t be harvested for spam by the evil spam robots of Mordor.

This plugin is created for WordPress 3.x and currently only supports ‘Buy Now’ and ‘Dontate’ functionality. Download it via the WordPress plugin repository.

Please don’t forget to rate the plugin if you like it and if you feel generous enough to lend a few shillings towards further development I would be most grateful.

Update: I’ve managed to fix an issue where WordPress would suddenly remove the PayPal info attached to the post and the button would disappear. I’ve updated the repository with the fixed version – if you’re using an older version I strongly recommend that you update as soon as possible!

Screenshots:

The Options Page

Adding the button to a new post:

Obbligato bass instruments in 17th century Italian instrumental chamber music

Richard Sweeney — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:07:45 +0000

Today, it’s practically a given that the continuo part in 17th century Italian instrumental chamber music will be doubled by a bowed bass (or other bass) instrument. Is there any evidence to support this practise?

In 17th century Italian music, the continuo instrument is often unspecified, but where it is specified (for example in the books of Castello) it is the organ, and where another instrument is suggested it is the harpsichord, or spinetta.

Whilst I don’t think it sounds bad to have multiple continuo instruments accompanying a sonata, I have never found any evidence to support this approach. It’s clear from surviving music that the most common continuo instrument for 17th century Italian chamber music was the organ. There is no evidence to suggest that the continuo (keyboard) part was doubled by any other instrument – this includes the theorbo!

Evidence!

I think it’s fundamentally wrong to, lacking any evidence, simply assume that the continuo part was doubled by any other instrument. Nonetheless, this has become an accepted part of modern practice. And it pisses me off. We shouldn’t just accept earlier assumptions about historical performance and that what we hear on recordings to be historically correct!

I feel that doubling the continuo part gives it undue importance for this repertoire. The continuo parts rarely if ever contain thematic material, rather serve to support the solo parts. As a continuo player myself, I know this is no ‘minor’ role, but nor should it have too much attention drawn to itself.

Ok, enough already. If it is the case that the continuo part was not doubled, when is it appropriate to use a bowed bass instrument? The answer I believe is simply: When there is an obbligato bass part.

Obbligato Bass Parts

There are TONS of sonatas with obbligato bass parts from the 17th century. Frescobaldi (amongst others) even writes sonatas with more than one obbligato bass part. Fontana is good example – he lists the cornetto and violin as possible soprano instruments and the bassoon, theorbo and ‘violino’ as potential bass instruments for his sonatas. These bass instruments should only play when there exists a part for them, they are not mentioned or intended to be ‘continuo’ instruments. In fact, no mention of any continuo instrument is made, and we can assume this to be the organ, or harpsichord.

The Role of the Theorbo

This is another article in itself, but I’d like to mention here that the theorbo isn’t suggested as a continuo instrument for instrumental music in Italy at all in the first half of the 17th century. (There are 2 exceptions, which in fact aren’t really exceptions… Rossi and Marini, where the theorbo is listed as the only bass instrument [ie. without organ]. Here however the theorbo part is both a continuo and obbligato part, equal to the other solo parts). However, the theorbo is mentioned as an obbligato bass instrument by many composers of the period including Frescobali, Uccellini, Marini, Turini, Corelli, Sanmartini, Pittoni, Cazatti, Cavalli, Guierierro etc. etc. It seems clear to me that the theorbo, whilst an unlikely continuo instrument for this repertoire, was frequently employed as an obbligato bass instrument.

For what it’s worth

My advice: Don’t use a bowed bass (or any other bass instrument, including the theorbo) unless there is an obbligato bass part. If you have a group with theorbo, organ and violone, find a sonata with 2 obbligato bass parts, or take it in turns to play sonatas with obbligato bass parts.

I must stress that my ramblings refer only to 17th century Italian instrumental chamber music. We shouldn’t apply the same rules to secular vocal music for instance, where the theorbo was a hugely popular continuo instrument and the organ was seldom used.

Violone: 8 foot or 16 foot?

Finally – ‘violone’ is a really confusing term that meant different things at different times in different places. However, we can be pretty darn sure that for 17th century chamber music – including and especially for music by Biber and Schmeltzer – that ‘violine’ implies a bass instrument that plays at 8 foot pitch. Bibers’ battallia for instance has 2 ‘violine’ parts, each clearly intended for an instrument that plays at 8 foot pitch. I have no doubt that 16 foot instruments existed at this time, but their role in chamber music is doubtful at best.

In short, if historical accuracy is your bag, I recommend not doubling the keyboard part, if not – happy doubling!

Open historical music blog

Richard Sweeney — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:57:19 +0000

I’m in the process of planning a website where people can freely share knowledge and musings on all aspects of historical performance. All would be welcome to contribute and all articles free to access for all.

Articles don’t have to be as strictly written as for say a masters, PHD etc and ‘musings’ or thoughts on whatever floats your boat – as long as it relates to historical performance – would be welcome. Articles would also be freely commented upon by all and sundry, so as to encourage healthy debate. All in all, much like my own blogging on issues relating to music.

Research has for too long been a closed community with limited access to information. The Internet can help to promote a more open approach, to make information freely available to everyone (which is where it belongs).

If you might be interested in contributing to this idea, go ahead and get in touch. I’m still in planning stage at the moment, but ideas are most welcome!

An 18th century theorbo

Richard Sweeney — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:53:19 +0000

Choosing the right continuo instrument for the job is something that I have spent a large amount of time thinking about and a revelation about a (relatively) new theorbo has prompted me to write down some of my thoughts and observations about this very subject.

The first lute I owned was a 13 course ‘baroque’ lute in d minor tuning. As it was the only instrument I had in the beginning, I learnt to play both solo repertoire and continuo on this lute. After a few years, I bought a small English theorbo (a meagre 78cm) that I used in Italian tuning (that is to say in A with the top 2 courses at the lower octave). A few years later I upgraded to a more realistic (or historical, depending on your degree of fanaticism) Italianate theorbo with a string length of 88cm. That was better, but on occasions, if found this instrument couldn’t really make the kind of sound I wanted, especially for 18th century repertoire.

I wanted something with a brighter tone, something with more bite than the standard theorbo. I decided what I needed was an archlute. I got one, great. Problem solved..?

Old habits

When I studied in London, I often read that the archlute gradually replaced the theorbo in the 18th century as the tessitura of the bass lines went progressively higher. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not exactly true…

If we look historically at where and when the archlute was really popular, we must look to Rome. In Rome we have tons of mentions of the archlute (as well as loads of obbligato parts – way more than we find elsewhere) in the 2nd half of the 17th and the first half 18th century, give or take a few decades. Corelli, Stradella, Colista, Lonati and many more all wrote obbligato parts for the archlute, as did Händel whilst in Rome. So why was the archlute so darn popular in just Rome of all places?!

It seems as though pitch is the answer. We know now that the ‘standard’ pitch in Rome at this period was low – really low. Somewhere between A = 360 and A=392.

Most of the surviving Roman archlutes have really big bodies and long string lengths (somewhere between 72 – 77cm). The vast majority of the instruments people play on today have much shorter string-lengths and smaller body sizes – with good reason: with a top string (especially in gut), there is a physical limit to how the top string on a lute can be tuned before it breaks.

At this relatively low pitch, in order to produce any kind of decent sound on the theorbo, you need a pretty massive instrument (sure enough some of the largest surviving theorbos are indeed from Rome). Where the theorbo has many disadvantages at this lower pitch, (very long string lengths, a less bright tone, etc) the archlute on the other hand gains hugely by having a longer string length and a larger body that still remains relatively easy to play.

The result will be a really big lute with a big sound and plenty of bite – especially if you play with nails, which seems to have been the norm in Italy at this time (see my earlier post about this). The problem is that an archlute at this pitch is pretty useless nowadays, with our modern pitch standard of A = 415. Unless you want an archlute in F .Try playing a Händel opera on that, go on I dare you…!

Tecchler

The archlute I commissioned (from the very gifted Ivo Magherini) was a copy of a big Roman instrument made by D. Tecchler in 1725. Ivo and I talked a lot about trying to retain the original body size, but then, like the majority of modern copies of archlutes, we decided that it would be better to scale the whole thing down a bit. We ended up with a stopped-string length of 68cm (that worked just about ok at A = 415) and a body around the size of a French small theorbo in D. It was a great lute and certainly packed a punch.

Although the copy was a great one, I think that with scaling down both the body size and string length, we lost just a bit too much oomph. In fact, being perfectly honest, although the brightness of a good archlute is almost always a very pleasing sound, I’ve never really heard or played one that had enough depth or quantity of sound to compete with a theorbo.

The ‘d minor theorbo’

It was around this time that I started considering a theorbo in d minor tuning. I spoke with Ivo about potential models and we decided to take it to the max and make a copy of the beautiful and rather massive 18th century theorbo by Schelle, currently hidden away from mortals in the basement of the museum in Nüremberg.

The d minor theorbo is an instrument described by both Baron and Weiss. According to Weiss, this type of theorbo was identical to the Italian theorbo, with the only difference being the tuning. The tuning is identical to that of the ‘baroque’ lute, minus the top string. The top string (d) is a single course, with unison double courses for the 2nd, 3rd & 4th courses and octave courses for the 5th, 6th & 7th courses (as on a ‘baroque’ lute).

Then, we’re on to the big guns: the diapasons. Courses 8 – 13 (or 14) are single diapasons tuned to either GG or even FF. My copy of the Schelle has string-lengths of 85 / 170cm, with 13 courses, but space for a 14th. 85cm is pretty much the max string-length for a top string of D at A=415.

The point I’m trying to make here is that I think that this is the ultimate continuo lute for 18th century music (and late 17th too!). I think it’s an excellent alternative to the archlute and an instrument that I would really encourage players to try (then you can make your own minds up!). The sound is really big, bold and bright. It really carries in ensemble, primarily thanks to the rather massive body and the bass is awesome, but the sound still retains the character of a lute.

A d minor theorbo is really just a massive lute, which is really what I reckon a big archlute should sound like. The problem if we scale them down too much, they just end up sounding like small lutes.

Weiss

In a letter Weiss’ wrote to Mathesson regarding the lute as a continuo instrument, he remarks that the lute is well suited to accompanying solo cantatas as well as trios and quartets. He’s talking about chamber music. Weiss goes on to say that the theorbo is much better suited to playing with large ensembles as the lute can easily be overpowered. If one plays on small archlutes in larger ensembles, we won’t stand to produce much more sound that a decent ‘baroque’ lute, which according to Weiss, just doesn’t cut the mustard. No sir.

An idea for a modern, historical archlute

There is one further alternative worth mentioning here, but this one is a little difficult to justify historically… What about a proper, full-sized archlute tuned as a ‘baroque’ lute, that is to say in d minor? It’s unlikely that Roman archlutes were ever tuned in this way, but it would enable us today to play on a really big instrument and thus enjoy all the benefits!

Finally, if you’ve never played continuo in d minor, then you’re really missing out! It’s a fantastic, versatile tuning that may admittedly take a little getting used to, but once you’ve got your head around it, you’ll find it can cope with almost any key you can throw at it (within reason of course!).

Here’s a few pictures of this handsome beast!

‘The best way of play’

Richard Sweeney — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:50:15 +0000

Around 13 years ago after my end-of-year recital as a student studying classical guitar in Dublin I ceremoniously cut off the fingernails on my right hand. I had decided to become a lutenist! I preferred the music, there was more of it and the possibility of far more social music making made my choice an easy one.

Approximately 5 years ago, I decided let the nails on my right hand grow. Was I intending to take up the guitar once more and shun the lute?! The answer is no – I had decided to play the lute with nails.

At the time I didn’t consider the controversy I would cause by this decision and even today I find there is often confusion regarding the authenticity of this approach. Like most people, I hate to be judged at all, but as someone for whom historical accuracy has always been of the utmost importance to, I didn’t want to be accused of historical heresy!

So, what’s the deal? Modern guitarists play with nails, lutenists don’t (or at least shouldn’t) – right?! Let’s think about that assumption for a minute: When the 20th century lute revival began, lutes were often lightly constructed and strung with very low tension strings. A modern school of lute playing evolved, where lutenists tended to play with a technique radically different to that of the modern classical guitar. Many of the pioneers of lute playing utilized a historical technique detailed in several 16th and early 17th century sources, where the thumb of the right hand is placed inside the hand (not stretched outside the fingers, like modern guitar and harp technique). The string is then plucked using the flesh of the finger only.

In the early days of the revival, this was really what differentiated guitarists from lutenists. A generation or two later and we’re in a position to re-think the assumption that there is only one appropriate historical performance technique for the lute. Whilst the technique described above is indeed a historical technique, it is in fact only suitable for the music of the 16th and early 17th centuries and it is only one of several different historical approaches. As the lute acquired more and more strings, this technique was gradually and universally dropped in favour of the technique of playing with the right hand thumb outside of the hand which facilitated in reaching the additional bass courses – Dowland himself changed his technique to the more modern ‘thumb out’ mid-career.

That’s all well and good, but the question remains: Can playing the lute with nails be considered a valid historical performance technique for historical plucked string instruments?

In his Intavolatura di Liuto e di Chitarrone (1632) Alessandro Piccinini advocates the use of fingernails on the right hand. In fact, some of the advanced performance techniques he describes in his book I don’t think are really possible without fingernails. One such technique is where the nail of the index finger plucks the string back and forth alternating with the front and the back of the nail in rapid succession.

Francesco Corbetta, the Italian guitar teacher to the King Louis 14th of France played with fingernails. As recorded by Adam Ebert in his Mémoires of 1723 ‘having had the bad fortune of breaking a nail, [Corbetta] was unable to play at the Festival with his consort’. In Gaspar Sanz’s Introducción de Musica sobre la guitarra (1674), the licenciado S. Alfonso writes ‘There are some who play with the nails, who ravish the senses, and others who grate the nerves’. The following picture shows that yet another guitarist, Domenico Pellegrini also played with nails.

Thomas Mace in his Musicke’s Monument of 1676 writes ‘…take notice, that you Strike not your Strings with your Nails, as some do, who maintain it the Best way of Play, but I do not, and for this reason ; because the Nail cannot draw so sweet a sound from a Lute, as the nibble end of the Flesh can do’. Mace obviously had a preference for playing without nails, but it’s also clear that it was not uncommon to play with nails.

Silvius Leopold Weiss, probably the most famous lutenist of his generation, travelled to Italy in the 18th century where he both saw and undoubtably played with many Italian lutenists. In a letter to Matheson regarding the lute and theorbo Weiss writes that the archlute and theorbo in Italy are ordinarily played with nails. Weiss – like Mace – expresses a preference for playing without fingernails, adding that that when heard at close range, the archlute and theorbo played with nails can sound harsh. Regardless, the fact remains that Weiss’ writings imply that it was in fact the exception and not the rule to play the theorbo and the archlute without nails in Italy in the 18th century.

I want to stress a couple of things at this point. Firstly and most importantly I’m not saying that it’s more correct to use this technique that any other historically justifiable performance technique – a point already indirectly made by both Weiss and Mace! My only goal is to demonstrate that playing with nails is a valid technique for historical plucked instruments. Secondly, I think it’s worth pointing out that this playing style is very different to modern guitar technique! I was a classical guitarist for several years before I played the lute and I played with nails. I also played the lute for many years without nails, so I figure I’m qualified to compare the styles!

If you’d like to hear what it sounds like when I play the theorbo with nails you can have a listen to the audio samples at http://richardsweeney.com/lute/

The pros and cons.

Over the past several years of playing with nails I’ve made some interesting observations. I’m not trying to persuade anyone to change their technique and I’m certainly not saying that it’s better to play with nails that without. I’m also sure that the results of changing techniques will vary for person to person, but for those of you that are interested, here are some of my experiences since I started playing with nails.

The pros.

1. I can play faster. The ‘thumb-out’ technique has a reputation of being a little slower that ‘thumb-in’, but I can play much faster than I could before by using less of the flesh of my finger in the stroke and more of the nail in faster passages. If I employ Piccinini’s trick (actually it’s not just Piccinini’s trick really, the same technique is described in several 16th century Spanish vihuela sources too) of using the same finger to play fast passages, I can play really fast. It is however a bit difficult to control this and string crossings I find almost impossible!

2. I can play (a bit) louder. Using fingernails also makes the sound I produce brighter which tends to carry better in ensemble (this is all debatable I know – please remember this are just my own experiences!). Personally I find the theorbo benefits greatly from a brighter sound, but a lightly constructed lute played with nails can sound a little harsh if one is not careful. Most of my instruments are built by Ivo Magherini who doesn’t shy away from using a decent amount of wood and I think these instruments tend to sound great with nails.

3. I don’t get calluses on my fingers anymore! When I want to give a bit more, I can use a bit more nail and a bit less flesh thus saving my poor fingers.

4. Another interesting side-effect of playing with nails is that I find historical arpeggiation on the theorbo – as dictated in the theorbo books of Alessandro Piccinini and Girolamo Kapsberger – much easier to pull off with nails, in fact I would almost go so far as to say that they only really work with nails. This is all subjective though and may well be as a result of that nobody really takes historical arpeggiation on the theorbo seriously. Now that’s a post in waiting right there! Where I often struggled in the past to play Kaspberger’s prescribed right hand fingerings I find that they are greatly facilitated with nails. Kapsberger makes no mention of nails or lack thereof.

5. I find the strumming patterns of the baroque guitar to be considerably easier with nails and I also much prefer the sound now! This is all down to personal taste of course!

The cons.

I look ridiculous! I’m constantly ridiculed by my long-suffering 12 year old daughter Miah for polishing my nails in public (sorry Miah – such embarrassing parents..). Nails can be a pain to maintain and they can break. Once, whilst browsing through music for sale at the lute society stall at the early music exhibition in Greenwich in London I was asked if I was a curious guitarist…

As with every assumption regarding modern-day ideas of historical techniques, let’s not rest on the laurels of the pioneers! As historical performers it is our responsibility to question everything we hear, see or do. Let’s encourage people to find their own way and let’s learn to love and embrace the limitations of historical performance!

Update:

Thanks to Diego Cantalupi - http://www.diegocantalupi.it/ – for sending me the following images of Filippo Della Casa (1737–1810).

Non-interpretation of baroque music

Richard Sweeney — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 10:44:01 +0000

Something I’ve been thinking about for some time is the aspect of interpretation in baroque music. Todays big stars are conductors, directors, singers and musicians – all interpreters of baroque music. But how different this is to the 18th century! There were singers and musicians who were stars of course, but the famous directors of the 18th century also wrote and performed their own music. They didn’t have to ‘interpret’ it, they just played it!

With today’s famous directors and conductors we hear countless different interpretations (what’s more we have recordings of these interpretations) of the same repertoire. 17th century opera in particular is, in my opinion, a real victim here to the pursuit of interpretation, where it’s almost taken for granted that directors will add extra instrumental ritornelli etc. to the existing music. In my experience Cavalli tends to suffer more than others – people particularly like to add instrumental parts to sections of recitative (one particular Belgian gentleman with a penchant for the recorder comes to mind).

By adding ritornelli and composing extra instrumental parts as well as by devising ever increasingly elaborate continuo scorings there seems to be a desire to create the ultimate ‘interpretation’ of a piece of music. I even played a Händel opera once where the director had even written extra viola parts for some of the arias!

I think this approach is out of place in any genuine pursuit of historical performance.

Let’s imagine a performance of a Cavalli opera in 17th century Venice. A small wooden theatre with several singers and a band composed of 2 violins and a bass violin, 2 theorboes and 2 harpsichords (we know from records that Cavalli used on many occasions a band just like this). The violins played the ritornelli. The theorboes and harpsichords accompanied the singers who just sang the music and doubtlessly added some (bad-ass) ornamentation.

In other words, they just played – and sang – the music.

Surely the ultimate goal of the historical performer is to try to recreate the music as it was heard in its original context?! If that’s the case then why do we so rarely hear Cavalli played with appropriate instrumentation in all it’s glorious unadulterated form?

I guess I’m talking about a kind of interperative-minimalism here. Get the right kit, get the right technique, play the music and see what happens! Take a step back and enjoy the music for what it is. Let Cavalli speak as vividly to us today as he did in the 17th century. Let’s forget big egos and new recordings of Händel’s Messiah. Hey, let’s even forget our preconceived ideas about what the music ‘should’ sound like!

Baroque music just needs good musicians to come alive – interpretation as in the 17th and 18th centuries could be added in the form of ornamentation, let’s not re-write the music to suit our ideals.