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Vincenzo Galileo about glued frets etc.

Updated 12.10.95.

In the Usenet newsgroup rec.music.early somebody wrote:

"There is very little historical evidence for using the split frets, however. And there is (I think) even less forthe small glued-on auxiliary frets that lutenists sometimes use to correct individual notes."

There is one important source, which shows that inequal fret positioning and glued-on auxiliary frets wereused in 16th century lutes:

Vincenzo Galilei wrotes about them in his 'Fronimo'in 1584. He is actually very much against the use ofthem. So there must have been those who used them! Otherwise there would not have been any reason tooppose them thru many, many pages!

Some clips (from the translation of Carol MacClintock, American Institute of Musicology, Hanssler-Verla

1985) (starting on page 155):

Eumatius[the student]: ... Also, how does it happen that you do not use frets that are spaced byunusual inequality of intervals, and some other little frets that take away the sharpness from the majthird and tenth, as I have seen used by some universally known, skilful men, from whom I understanthat both are exceedingly necessary and useful.Fronimo[the teacher]: [Opposes strongly with many words. Explains the reason why they do that:] .They will respond (if they know) that singing and playing, particularly on the harpsichord and organthe Tone is divided into two unequal parts and consequently is found as a major and a minorsemitone. It is therefore reasonable, even necessary to use it on the Lute also. [After referencing toancient 'distributions of strings' Fronimo continues his ideas:] ... but the unlearned ... [cannot] play o

sing other intervals than those of they have cognizance. Not only that, but they believe there is nothigood apart from their knowledge and conviction. Now you must know that the distribution on the luis one thing, that on keyboard instrument another, and singing is different from both; that is, the toneand semitones are of different measurements. ... Their variations cause the diversity of the affetti.[Fronimo goes on explaining the use of same frets for different purposes, sometimes you would needmajor sometimes minor semitones.]Fronimo(page 162): ... Now I come to the matter of tastini[little frets], which lately some people seto introduce in order to remove some of their sharpness from the thirds and major tenths (as they tryto persuade those who are more foolish than they). [Then Fronimo refers to Galileo'sDialogo dellaantica e della moderna musica.] ... the Tones and the major and minor Thirds have the same measurin all places, on the strings and between the frets. [Then he points out that those using the tastinidonot know much about theory, they just want to hear 'marvels'.]

Galileo seems to fight for the usability of different keys and different sized instruments?

In my lutes I use unequal fret spacing - depending of the key, and tastinifor the first fret of 4th string. Sodo have a famous opponent! :-)

Arto Wikla

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23.3.08 alileo about glued frets

Page ttp://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/wikla/mus/fronimo.html

[Addition in 18th August 2005: All the "Il Fronimo"is on-line in the web! The link!]

My other pages: Homepage / Music page

http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/~wikla/music.htmlhttp://www.cs.helsinki.fi/~wikla/http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-58217