Using mirrors, as in the 18th century overhead version (illustrated in the History section below), it is possible to project a right-side-up image. Another more portable type is a box with an angled mirror projecting onto tracing paper placed on the glass top, the image being upright as viewed from the back.

As a pinhole is made smaller, the image gets sharper, but the projected image becomes dimmer. With too small a pinhole the sharpness again becomes worse due to diffraction. Some practical camera obscuras use a lens rather than a pinhole because it allows a larger aperture, giving a usable brightness while maintaining focus. (See pinhole camera for construction information.)

Camera obscura box

History

The first surviving mention of the principles behind the pinhole camera, a precursor to the camera obscura, belongs to Mo-Ti (470 BC to 390 BC), a Chinese philosopher and the founder of Mohism. Mo-Ti referred to this camera as a “collecting plate” or “locked treasure room”. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384 to 322 BC) understood the optical principle of the pinhole camera.  He viewed the crescent shape of a partially eclipsed sun projected on the ground through the holes in a sieve, and the gaps between leaves of a plane tree.

The camera obscura was known to earlier scholars since the time of Mo-Ti and Aristotle. Euclid‘s Optics (ca 300 BC), presupposed the camera obscura as a demonstration that light travels in straight lines.

In the 4th century BC, Aristotle noted that “sunlight travelling through small openings between the leaves of a tree, the holes of a sieve, the openings wickerwork, and even interlaced fingers will create circular patches of light on the ground.” In the 4th century, Theon of Alexandria observed how “candlelight passing through a pinhole will create an illuminated spot on a screen that is directly in line with the aperture and the center of the candle.” In the 9th century, Al-Kindi (Alkindus) demonstrated that “light from the right side of the flame will pass through the aperture and end up on the left side of the screen, while light from the left side of the flame will pass through the aperture and end up on the right side of the screen.”

In the 6th century, Byzantine mathematician and architect Anthemius of Tralles (most famous for designing the Hagia Sophia), used a type of camera obscura in his experiments.

The Song Dynasty  Chinese scientist Shen Kuo (1031–1095) experimented with a camera obscura, and was the first to apply geometrical and quantitative attributes to it in his book of 1088 AD, the Dream Pool Essays. However, Shen Kuo alluded to the fact that the Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang written in about 840 AD by Duan Chengshi (d. 863) during the Tang Dynasty (618–907) mentioned inverting the image of a Chinese pagoda tower beside a seashore. In fact, Shen makes no assertion that he was the first to experiment with such a device. Shen wrote of Cheng’s book: “[Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang] said that the image of the pagoda is inverted because it is beside the sea, and that the sea has that effect. This is nonsense. It is a normal principle that the image is inverted after passing through the small hole.”

In 13th-century England Roger Bacon described the use of a camera obscura for the safe observation of solar eclipses. Its potential as a drawing aid may have been familiar to artists by as early as the 15th century; Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519 AD) described camera obscura in Codex Atlanticus. Johann Zahn’s Oculus Artificialis Teledioptricus Sive Telescopium was published in 1685. This work contains many descriptions and diagrams, illustrations and sketches of both the camera obscura and of the magic lantern.

Camera obscura in Encyclopédie

[Above: Camera obscura in Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers]

The Dutch Masters, such as Johannes Vermeer, who were hired as painters in the 17th century, were known for their magnificent attention to detail. It has been widely speculated that they made use of such a camera, but the extent of their use by artists at this period remains a matter of considerable controversy, recently revived by the Hockney–Falco thesis. The term “camera obscura” was first used by the German astronomer Johannes Kepler in 1604. The English physician and author Sir Thomas Browne speculated upon the inter-related workings of optics and the camera obscura in his 1658 Discourse The Garden of Cyrus thus-

For at the eye the Pyramidal rayes from the object, receive a decussation, and so strike a second base upon the Retina or hinder coat, the proper organ of Vision; wherein the pictures from objects are represented, answerable to the paper, or wall in the dark chamber; after the decussation of the rayes at the hole of the hornycoat, and their refraction upon the Christalline humour, answering the foramen of the window, and the convex or burning-glasses, which refract the rayes that enter it.

Camera obscura, from a manuscript of military designs. Seventeenth century, possibly Italian.

Early models were large; comprising either a whole darkened room or a tent (as employed by Johannes Kepler). By the 18th century, following developments by Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke, more easily portable models became available. These were extensively used by amateur artists while on their travels, but they were also employed by professionals, including Paul Sandby, Canaletto and Joshua Reynolds, whose camera (disguised as a book) is now in the Science Museum (London). Such cameras were later adapted by Joseph Nicephore Niepce, Louis Daguerre and William Fox Talbot for creating the first photographs.

Four drawings by Canaletto

[Above: Four drawings by Canaletto, representing Campo San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, obtained with a Camera obscura. (Venice, Gallerie dell'Accademia)

Camera obscura box (18th Century)

[Above: 18th Century Artist using a camera obscura to outline his subject]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura

• Smaller as their distance from the observer increases
• Foreshortened: the size of an object’s dimensions along the line of sight are relatively shorter than dimensions across the line of sight

Staircase in two-point perspective

Overview

Linear perspective works by representing the light that passes from a scene through an imaginary rectangle (the painting), to the viewer’s eye. It is similar to a viewer looking through a window and painting what is seen directly onto the windowpane. If viewed from the same spot as the windowpane was painted, the painted image would be identical to what was seen through the unpainted window. Each painted object in the scene is a flat, scaled down version of the object on the other side of the window. Because each portion of the painted object lies on the straight line from the viewer’s eye to the equivalent portion of the real object it represents, the viewer cannot perceive (sans depth perception) any difference between the painted scene on the windowpane and the view of the real scene. All perspective drawings assume the viewer is a certain distance away from the drawing. Objects are scaled relative to that viewer. Additionally, an object is often not scaled evenly: a circle often appears as an ellipse and a square can appear as a trapezoid. This distortion is referred to as foreshortening.

Perspective drawings typically have an -often implied- horizon line. This line, directly opposite the viewer’s eye, represents objects infinitely far away. They have shrunk, in the distance, to the infinitesimal thickness of a line. It is analogous to (and named after) the Earth’s horizon.

Any perspective representation of a scene that includes parallel lines has one or more vanishing points in a perspective drawing. A one-point perspective drawing means that the drawing has a single vanishing point, usually (though not necessarily) directly opposite the viewer’s eye and usually (though not necessarily) on the horizon line. All lines parallel with the viewer’s line of sight recede to the horizon towards this vanishing point. This is the standard “receding railroad tracks” phenomenon. A two-point drawing would have lines parallel to two different angles. Any number of vanishing points are possible in a drawing, one for each set of parallel lines that are at an angle relative to the plane of the drawing.

Perspectives consisting of many parallel lines are observed most often when drawing architecture (architecture frequently uses lines parallel to the x, y, and z axes). Because it is rare to have a scene consisting solely of lines parallel to the three Cartesian axes (x, y, and z), it is rare to see perspectives in practice with only one, two, or three vanishing points; even a simple house frequently has a peaked roof which results in a minimum of six sets of parallel lines, in turn corresponding to up to six vanishing points.

In contrast, natural scenes often do not have any sets of parallel lines. Such a perspective would thus have no vanishing points.

A cube in two-point perspective

History

Early history

The earliest art paintings and drawings typically sized objects and characters hieratically according to their spiritual or thematic importance, not their distance from the viewer, and did not use foreshortening. The most important figures are often shown as the highest in a composition, also from hieratic motives, leading to the “vertical perspective“, common in the art of Ancient Egypt, where a group of “nearer” figures are shown below the larger figure or figures. The only method to indicate the relative position of elements in the composition was by overlapping, of which much use is made in works like the Parthenon Marbles.

Systematic attempts to evolve a system of perspective are usually considered to have begun around the 5th century B.C. in the art of Ancient Greece, as part of a developing interest in illusionism allied to theatrical scenery and detailed within Aristotle’s Poetics as ‘skenographia’: Using flat panels on a stage to give the illusion of depth.^[2] The philosophers Anaxagoras and Democritus worked out geometric theories of perspective for use with skenographia. Alcibiades had paintings in his house designed based on skenographia, thus this art was not confined merely to the stage. Euclid‘s Optics introduced a mathematical theory of perspective; however, there is some debate over the extent to which Euclid’s perspective coincides with a modern mathematical definition of perspective.

By the later periods of antiquity artists, especially those in less popular traditions, were well aware that distant objects could be shown smaller than those close at hand for increased illusionism, but whether this convention was actually used in a work depended on many factors. Some of the paintings found in the ruins of Pompeii show a remarkable realism and perspective for their time;^[3] it has been claimed that comprehensive systems of perspective were evolved in antiquity, but most scholars do not accept this. Hardly any of the many works where such a system would have been used have survived. A passage in Philostratus suggests that classical artists and theorists thought in terms of “circles” at equal distance from the viewer, like a classical semi-circular theatre seen from the stage.^[4] The roof beams in rooms in the Vatican Virgil, from about 400 AD, are shown converging, more or less, on a common vanishing point, but this is not systematically related to the rest of the composition.^[5] In the Late Antique period use of perspective techniques declined. The art of the new cultures of the Migration Period had no tradition of attempting compositions of large numbers of figures and Early Medieval art was slow and inconsistent in relearning the convention from classical models, though the process can be seen underway in Carolingian art.

Reconstruction of the temple of Jerusalem

[Above: 15th century illustration from the Old French translation of William of Tyre's Histoire d'Outremer. There is clearly a general attempt to reduce the size of more distant elements, but unsystematically. Sections of the composition are at a similar scale, with relative distance shown by overlapping, foreshortening, and further objects being higher than nearer ones, though the workmen at left do show finer adjustment of size. But this is abandoned on the right where the most important figure is much larger than the mason. Rectangular buildings, and the blocks of stone are shown obliquely.]

Giotto attempted drawings in perspective using an algebraic method to determine the placement of distant lines. The problem with using a linear ratio in this manner is that the apparent distance between a series of evenly spaced lines actually falls off with a sine dependence. To determine the ratio for each succeeding line, a recursive ratio must be used.^[6]

One of Giotto’s first uses of his algebraic method of perspective was Jesus Before Caiaphas. Although the picture does not conform to the modern, geometrical method of perspective, it does give a considerable illusion of depth, and was a large step forward in Western art.

With the exception of dice,^[7] heraldry typically ignores perspective in the treatment of charges, though sometimes in later centuries charges are specified as in perspective.

Renaissance : Mathematical basis

Perspective study of a vase

[Above: Perspective study of a vase by Paolo Uccello , Galleria degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni ]

Prior to the Renaissance, Alhazen (al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham, d. ca. 1041 AD), in his Book of Optics (Kitab al-manazir; known in Latin as De aspectibus or Perspectiva, written in 1021), explained that light projects conically into the eye.^[8] Alhazen’s geometrical, physical, physio-psychological optics resolved in this the ancient dispute between the mathematicians (Ptolemaic and Euclidean) and the physicists (Aristotelian) over the nature of vision and light. He also showed that vision is not merely a phenomenon of pure sensation (namely what results from the introduction of light rays into the eyes), but that it involves the faculties of judgment, imagination and memory.^[9] Alhazen’s geometrical model of the cone of vision was theoretically sufficient to translate visible objects within a given setting into a painting, and this was also supported by his experimental affirmation of the visibility of spatial depth; hence of offering a proper ground for the idea of perspective.^[10] Moreover, Alhazen presented a geometrical conception of place as spatial extension (a postulated void), and he refuted the Aristotelian account of topos as a surface of containment. Alhazen’s mathematical definition of place was more akin to Plato’s notion of Khôra or Chora as ‘space’, yet conceived on pure geometric grounds to facilitate the use of projections.^[11] In all of this, Alhazen was concerned with optics, with vision, light and the nature of colour, as well as with experimentation and the use of optical instruments, and not with painting as such. Conical translations are mathematically difficult, so a drawing constructed using them would be incredibly time consuming. However, what Alhazen named a cone of vision (makhrut al-shu’a’) corresponded also with the idea of a pyramid of vision, hence, offering a model that can be more easily projected in orthogonal drawings of side views and top views that are needed in the geometric construction of perspective.

By the 14th century, Alhazen’s Book of Optics was available in Italian translation, entitled Deli Aspecti. The Renaissance artist Lorenzo Ghiberti relied heavily upon this work, quoting it “verbatim and at length” while framing his account of art and its aesthetic imperatives in the “Commentario terzo.” Alhazen’s work was thus “central to the development of Ghiberti’s thought about art and visual aesthetics” and “may well have been central to the development of artificial perspective in early Renaissance Italian painting.”^[12]

In about 1413 a contemporary of Ghiberti, Filippo Brunelleschi, demonstrated the geometrical method of perspective, used today by artists, by painting the outlines of various Florentine buildings onto a mirror. When the building’s outline was continued, he noticed that all of the lines converged on the horizon line. According to Vasari, he then set up a demonstration of his painting of the Baptistery in the incomplete doorway of the Duomo. He had the viewer look through a small hole on the back of the painting, facing the Baptistery. He would then set up a mirror, facing the viewer, which reflected his painting. To the viewer, the painting of the Baptistery and the Baptistery itself were nearly indistinguishable.

Soon after, nearly every artist in Florence and in Italy used geometrical perspective in their paintings,^[13] notably Masolino da Panicale and Donatello. Donatello started sculpting elaborate checkerboard floors into the simple manger portrayed in the birth of Christ. Although hardly historically accurate, these checkerboard floors obeyed the primary laws of geometrical perspective: the lines converged approximately to a vanishing point, and the rate at which the horizontal lines receded into the distance was graphically determined. This became an integral part of Quattrocento art. Melozzo da Forlì first used the technique of upward foreshortening (in Rome, Loreto, Forli and others), and was celebrated for that. Not only was perspective a way of showing depth, it was also a new method of composing a painting. Paintings began to show a single, unified scene, rather than a combination of several.

Melozzo - fresco at Loreto

[Above: Melozzo's usage of upward foreshortening in his frescoes at Loreto]

As shown by the quick proliferation of accurate perspective paintings in Florence, Brunelleschi likely understood (with help from his friend the mathematician Toscanelli),^[14] but did not publish, the mathematics behind perspective. Decades later, his friend Leon Battista Alberti wrote De pictura (1435/1436), a treatise on proper methods of showing distance in painting. Alberti’s primary breakthrough was not to show the mathematics in terms of conical projections, as it actually appears to the eye. Instead, he formulated the theory based on planar projections, or how the rays of light, passing from the viewer’s eye to the landscape, would strike the picture plane (the painting). He was then able to calculate the apparent height of a distant object using two similar triangles. The mathematics behind similar triangles is relatively simple, having been long ago formulated by Euclid. In viewing a wall, for instance, the first triangle has a vertex at the user’s eye, and vertices at the top and bottom of the wall. The bottom of this triangle is the distance from the viewer to the wall. The second, similar triangle, has a point at the viewer’s eye, and has a length equal to the viewer’s eye from the painting. The height of the second triangle can then be determined through a simple ratio, as proven by Euclid. Alberti was also trained in the science of optics through the school of Padua and under the influence of Biagio Pelacani da Parma who studied Alhazen’s Optics (see what was noted above in this regard with respect to Ghiberti).

Pietro Perugino - Christ handing the keys to St Peter

[Above: Pietro Perugino's usage of perspective in this fresco at the Sistine Chapel (1481-82) helped bring the Renaissance to Rome]

Piero della Francesca elaborated on Della Pittura in his De Prospectiva Pingendi in the 1470s. Alberti had limited himself to figures on the ground plane and giving an overall basis for perspective. Della Francesca fleshed it out, explicitly covering solids in any area of the picture plane. Della Francesca also started the now common practice of using illustrated figures to explain the mathematical concepts, making his treatise easier to understand than Alberti’s. Della Francesca was also the first to accurately draw the Platonic solids as they would appear in perspective.

Perspective remained, for a while, the domain of Florence. Jan van Eyck, among others, was unable to create a consistent structure for the converging lines in paintings, as in London’s The Arnolfini Portrait, because he was unaware of the theoretical breakthrough just then occurring in Italy. However he achieved very subtle effects by manipulations of scale in his interiors. Gradually, and partly through the movement of academies of the arts, the Italian techniques became part of the training of artists across Europe, and later other parts of the world.

Present : Computer graphics

3-D computer games and ray-tracers often use a modified version of perspective. Like the painter, the computer program is generally not concerned with every ray of light that is in a scene. Instead, the program simulates rays of light traveling backwards from the monitor (one for every pixel), and checks to see what it hits. In this way, the program does not have to compute the trajectories of millions of rays of light that pass from a light source, hit an object, and miss the viewer.

CAD software, and some computer games (especially games using 3-D polygons) use linear algebra, and in particular matrix multiplication, to create a sense of perspective. The scene is a set of points, and these points are projected to a plane (computer screen) in front of the view point (the viewer’s eye). The problem of perspective is simply finding the corresponding coordinates on the plane corresponding to the points in the scene. By the theories of linear algebra, a matrix multiplication directly computes the desired coordinates, thus bypassing any descriptive geometry theorems used in perspective drawing.

Types of perspective

Of the many types of perspective drawings, the most common categorizations of artificial perspective are one-, two- and three-point. The names of these categories refer to the number of vanishing points in the perspective drawing.

One-point perspective

one-point perspective

One vanishing point is typically used for roads, railway tracks, hallways, or buildings viewed so that the front is directly facing the viewer. Any objects that are made up of lines either directly parallel with the viewer’s line of sight or directly perpendicular (the railroad slats) can be represented with one-point perspective.

One-point perspective exists when the painting plate (also known as the picture plane) is parallel to two axes of a rectilinear (or Cartesian) scene — a scene which is composed entirely of linear elements that intersect only at right angles. If one axis is parallel with the picture plane, then all elements are either parallel to the painting plate (either horizontally or vertically) or perpendicular to it. All elements that are parallel to the painting plate are drawn as parallel lines. All elements that are perpendicular to the painting plate converge at a single point (a vanishing point) on the horizon.

one-point perspective example

Two-point perspective

Two-point perspective can be used to draw the same objects as one-point perspective, rotated: looking at the corner of a house, or looking at two forked roads shrink into the distance, for example. One point represents one set of parallel lines, the other point represents the other. Looking at a house from the corner, one wall would recede towards one vanishing point, the other wall would recede towards the opposite vanishing point.

Two-point perspective exists when the painting plate is parallel to a Cartesian scene in one axis (usually the z-axis) but not to the other two axes. If the scene being viewed consists solely of a cylinder sitting on a horizontal plane, no difference exists in the image of the cylinder between a one-point and two-point perspective.

Two-point perspective has one set of lines parallel to the picture plane and two sets oblique to it. Parallel lines oblique to the picture plane converge to a vanishing point,which means that this set-up will require two vanishing points.

two-point perspective

Above: Walls in 2-pt perspective.
Walls converge towards 2 vanishing points.
All vertical beams are parallel.

Three-point perspective

Three-point perspective is usually used for buildings seen from above (or below). In addition to the two vanishing points from before, one for each wall, there is now one for how those walls recede into the ground. This third vanishing point will be below the ground. Looking up at a tall building is another common example of the third vanishing point. This time the third vanishing point is high in space.

Three-point perspective exists when the perspective is a view of a Cartesian scene where the picture plane is not parallel to any of the scene’s three axes. Each of the three vanishing points corresponds with one of the three axes of the scene. Image constructed using multiple vanishing points.

One-point, two-point, and three-point perspectives appear to embody different forms of calculated perspective. The methods required to generate these perspectives by hand are different. Mathematically, however, all three are identical: The difference is simply in the relative orientation of the rectilinear scene to the viewer.

three-point perspective

Four-point perspective

Four-point perspective, also called infinite-point perspective, is the curvilinear variant of two-point perspective. As the result when made into an infinite point version (i.e. when the amount of vanishing points exceeds the minimum amount required), a four point perspective image becomes a panorama that can go to a 360 degree view and beyond – when going beyond the 360 degree view the artist might depict an “impossible” room as the artist might depict something new when it’s supposed to show part of what already exists within those 360 degrees. This elongated frame can be used both horizontally and vertically and when used vertically can be described as an image that depicts both a worm’s- and bird’s-eye view of a scene at the same time.

As all other foreshortened variants of perspective (respectively one- to six-point perspective), it starts off with a horizon line, followed by four equally spaced vanishing points to delineate four vertical lines created in a 90 degree relation to the horizon line.

The vanishing points made to create the curvilinear orthogonals are thus made ad hoc on the four vertical lines placed on the opposite side of the horizon line. The only dimension not foreshortened in this type of perspective being the rectilinear and parallel lines at a 90 degree angle to the horizon line – similar to the vertical lines used in two-point perspective.

Zero-point perspective

Because vanishing points exist only when parallel lines are present in the scene, a perspective without any vanishing points (“zero-point” perspective) occurs if the viewer is observing a nonlinear scene. The most common example of a nonlinear scene is a natural scene (e.g., a mountain range) which frequently does not contain any parallel lines. A perspective without vanishing points can still create a sense of “depth,” as is clearly apparent in a photograph of a mountain range (more distant mountains have smaller scale features).

Other varieties of linear perspective

One-point, two-point, and three-point perspective are dependent on the structure of the scene being viewed. These only exist for strict Cartesian (rectilinear) scenes. By inserting into a Cartesian scene a set of parallel lines that are not parallel to any of the three axes of the scene, a new distinct vanishing point is created. Therefore, it is possible to have an infinite-point perspective if the scene being viewed is not a Cartesian scene but instead consists of infinite pairs of parallel lines, where each pair is not parallel to any other pair.

Foreshortening

Foreshortening refers to the visual effect or optical illusion that an object or distance appears shorter than it actually is because it is angled toward the viewer.

Although foreshortening is an important element in art where visual perspective is being depicted, foreshortening occurs in other types of two-dimensional representations of three-dimensional scenes. Some other types where foreshortening can occur include oblique parallel projection drawings.

Figure 1: Foreshortening

Figure F1 shows two different projections of a stack of two cubes, illustrating oblique parallel projection foreshortening (“A”) and perspective foreshortening (“B”).

This technique was often used in Renaissance painting.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(graphical)

Theorb

From notes by Lynda Sayce www.theorbo.com

Timbre and Volume

The theorbo produces a sound roughly comparable in volume to a classical guitar, but relatively stronger in the bass and weaker in the upper register. The exact timbre will depend on the individual instrument and on whether or not its player uses nails. Nails will produce a harder-edged attack, flesh will produce a softer-edged sound, which is not necessarily softer in volume. Because its voice is relatively soft in modern terms, the theorbo will not suit every musical situation. It combines especially well with voices, with other types of plucked instrument, with other historical instruments, of course, but also with smallish ensembles of almost anything if handled sensitively. It can even make an effective contribution to a symphonic score if the texture and orchestration are suitably light.

Range and tuning

The theorbo is normally tuned in A, but some players, especially in continental Europe, tune their theorbos in G. If you are writing for a specific player it would be advisable to check which tuning they use, otherwise the A tuning was historically more common, and is more widespread today.

A typical theorbo has 14 courses, some fretted and some not, and a re-entrant tuning, which means that its fretted strings are not arranged in pitch order, as on a guitar or violin. Historically, the fretted courses were double (and are so indicated on the tuning chart below) but most modern players use single strings there.

A theorbo in A is tuned:

Its range is GG – a’. Some instruments will have a high b’ but this is not usually very accessible.

A theorbo in G is tuned a tone lower than the theorbo in A. Its range is FF – g’. Some instruments will have a high a’ but this is not usually very accessible.

Chromatic capability

Historically, only the first six strings are fretted. Modern theorbos sometimes have more fretted strings but it is safest to assume only six. These strings (the ones preceding the double barline in my tuning examples) are chromatically fretted, like a guitar, and available notes range from the open string pitch to a minor 7th above.

The 8 lower strings are diatonic only, and are typically tuned to the white notes of the piano keyboard. These can be adjusted for different keys – for example, the F string can be tuned to F sharp, the E string to E flat, etc. – but they cannot be retuned during playing. If you are not writing tonal music you could specify which notes you want in this register, but it is not advisable to tune these strings more than a semitone above or a tone below their normal pitch.

Locating and combining fretted notes

The theorbo’s characteristic tuning means that many notes can be found in several places on the fingerboard, and the combinations are restricted only by the reach of the player’s hand. The theorbo varies in size, but is basically a large instrument, so it is safest to restrict chords to notes falling within a 4-fret stretch, and to use even this stretch sparingly in the lower positions. You can download a map of the theorbo’s fingerboard here. This is for a theorbo tuned in A, with two re-entrant strings.

Swedish lutenist Jonas Nordberg performs the Prélude and Allemande from the Suite in a minor for theorbo by Robert de Visée.

Tommie Andersson talks about the Theorbo

Rolf Lislevand performs Chaconne by Robert de Visée

Hieronymus Kapsberger (c.1580-1651) - L’Arpeggiata

Right hand techniques

The strings are plucked somewhat like those of a guitar, but with two important differences. The hand is steadied by placing the little finger on the soundboard, which limits the flexibility of the ring finger. Also the thumb has to manage all of the unfretted basses, and frequently plays the fretted strings too. The terrifically high speeds which some classical guitarists can attain are not possible on the theorbo, partly because it is a much bigger instrument and takes longer to speak, and partly because most theorbo players pluck with the flesh of the fingertip, not with the nails, and this takes longer to register on a string.

Typical textures are:

• Plucked chords of two or three notes, including no more than one of the unfretted basses

• Spread chords of up to six notes (one note per string!) on the fretted strings. An unfretted bass string may be added. Chords can be re-iterated and rolled in a variety of ways. Chords lying on adjacent strings may also be brushed rapidly downwards with the thumb

• Running single line passage work. This is best restricted to the fretted strings, which puts these lines in the baritone and tenor registers. Players will generally arrange the fingering so that as many notes as possible fall on different strings, giving a harp-like effect which we call ‘campanellas’. Considerable speed is possible in these registers, especially if plucked notes are combined with left-hand slurs. Single lines on the unfretted basses need to be much slower, since these are all plucked by the thumb only

• Strumming is possible, including elaborate strumming patterns borrowed from the baroque guitar, but the required notes within chords must lie on adjacent strings. Strumming is not always practical on very big theorbos, because the size of the body limits the movement of the player’s arm

Dynamic variations

The right hand is also responsible for dynamics. A complete gradation of dynamic is possible, ranging from a mere whisper of sound to a strong fortissimo. To pluck loudly, the fingers require more registration on the strings, which means some speed must be sacrificed. Basically the theorbo can be played fast OR loud, but not both simultaneously.

Left hand techniques

Left hand techniques on the theorbo are virtually the same as on the lute or the guitar, except that some allowance must be made for the longer string length and larger stretches involved. Note that the left hand stops only the top 6 strings of the theorbo: the low bass strings cannot be fretted, partly because they are too long to reach, and partly because there is no fingerboard directly under them.

Slurs in both directions are very successful on the theorbo, but need to fall within the reach of the hand; a 4-fret stretch is the maximum practical reach. Slurs to or from an open string are possible from any fret on that string.

Slides also work well, but need to be quite fast because of the instrument’s limited sustain. Note that because of the theorbo’s frets, these will sound as slurs rising or falling through several successive semitones, not as a smooth microtonal glissando.

A huge variety of left hand ornaments is possible. Players expect to add a lot of left hand ornamentation – mordents, appoggiaturas and trills of various types – to the theorbo’s historical solo repertory, so adding them in the context of a modern piece should cause no problems.

Vibrato is regarded as an ornament in baroque music, not as a indispensible aspect of sound production, as it is on many modern instruments. It is effective on a theorbo but only with single notes, not with chords. Of course it can only be used on fretted notes, not on open strings. It is a subtle effect which works best on the upper frets (those nearest to the theorbo’s body) but it can also work in lower positions. Although vibrato will slightly alter the pitch of a note, it is impractical to request extreme pitch-bending. This is only effective on theorbos with high actions (unpopular with many players!) and nylon strings. Gut strings are quite likely to break if you try this.

Non-historical and extended techniques

Harmonics

Natural harmonics (those occurring at the main node points of the strings) are quite effective on theorbos, especially those at the 12th fret (an octave above the open string) and the 7th fret (a twelfth above the open string). Artificial harmonics, of the kind commonly used on classical guitar, are not practical because they rely on moving the right hand along the string at 12 frets’ distance from the stopping finger, and reaching this far around the theorbo’s body is not always possible. Notating harmonics in theorbo music can be problematic, because many players will not have used them (they do not occur in the historical repertory). A verbal instruction in the score, explaining how you have notated them, may be advisable.

Microtones

Although these are theoretically available, since the theorbo has movable frets, in practice they are rather difficult to use. Moving a fret affects all six fretted strings, which may not give the desired effect. Tying additional frets in between the normal ones is a possibility – I use this measure very frequently to obtain chromatic notes in some of the more extreme historical temperaments. However, these frets take time to set up, require some practice to use, and are only completely trouble-free on very large theorbos. On smaller theorbos (the majority today) the microtonal frets are simply too close together to put a finger between them.

Non-western scale systems

Approximations to a variety of non-western scales can be achieved on the theorbo. Modes with western interval sizes but with non-tonal intervalic patterns can be very successful. Modes with non-western interval sizes, such as many Arabic modes which require three-quarter tones, are less successful, even with a shuffling of the frets, because the interval patterns do not always repeat at the intervals between open strings. Of the Javanese gamelan scales, a fairly good approximation of the pentatonic Slendro scale can be achieved simply by omitting certain notes of the western scale; however, the heptatonic Pelog scale simply does not work on a theorbo. I’m afraid I don’t know anything about Indian scales and their feasibility on the theorbo. If you do, please get in touch!

Extended and avant-garde techniques

Rather a limited palette here, I’m afraid. Theorbos are expensive and fragile instruments, and theorbo makers have long waiting lists. If you include techniques which require striking or scraping the theorbo (even with fingers), or putting anything in it or on it, you are likely to have difficulty persuading anyone to play your piece, simply because of the risk of damaging the instrument. Sliding things like bottlenecks or guitar slides along the strings doesn’t work particularly well, because gut strings are relatively rough. Some dramatic timbre changes are possible. A muted pizzicato-like sound can be achieved either by fretting exactly on the frets, or by partially damping the strings near the bridge. Another effective way of changing the timbre is to thread a small piece of paper loosely between the strings, which can give a very striking buzzing effect, rather like a bray-pin harp. Some clarity of pitch is lost. This effect is quick and easy to set up, and only a few seconds are required to add or remove the paper. Different papers give different sound effects, and the exact positioning of the paper can also radically affect the sound. I’m sure composers will find other ways of using the theorbo, but if you are a composer thinking along these lines, please bear in the mind the extreme fragility of the instrument.

Amplification

Composers’ thoughts frequently turn in this direction, partly because of the ability to cancel out disparities in the dynamics of different instruments, and partly because of the possibility of adding electronic effects. Amplifying a theorbo is easy and effective. The two main ways are via a free-standing microphone, or via a contact microphone fixed to the instrument. Free-standing microphones are often of higher quality than contact microphones, and leave the instrument completely untouched and the player unencumbered with cables. The disadvantages are that they are sometimes too sensitive to players’ movements, and may pick up extraneous noises such as shuffling feet, creaky chairs and page turns. If you go for this option, the most successful place to put the microphone seems to be above the theorbo and slightly to the player’s right, which is the way the theorbo will normally face. The optimum distance will depend on the microphone, but close-miking will pick up a lot of finger- and string-noise. With a contact microphone, the best place seems to be on the soundboard rim, a couple of centimetres from the edge and just to the bass side of the centre joint in the soundboard. Unfortunately this is also where many players will want to rest their right arm, so some care is needed to find a spot where the arm will not interfere with the microphone. I stick my microphone to the soundboard with a double layer of double-sided sticky tape. This needs to be removed by very slowly and gently pushing the microphone sideways, NOT by pulling upwards, which will tend to tear out bits of soundboard wood. The lead from the microphone will probably need to be tied to the theorbo’s endpin, to stop the combined weight of the microphone, lead and plug from pulling the microphone off the soundboard. This microphone will only amplify sounds from the instrument, not from the player’s feet, score or nearby colleagues, but the attached lead can be inhibiting. Also any movement of the cable may lead to crackling noises; good quality leads and plugs are essential.

Notation

Notation is a particularly thorny issue. Historical theorbo repertory is written in either tablature (solo music), or figured bass (continuo parts). Present-day composers may not be familiar with either system, these notations may not suit the type of piece composers want to write, and some theorbo players are not fluent readers of other types of notation. If you are writing for a specific player it is worth checking what notations he or she is happy to read. If your composition is one which could be effectively put into tablature, many players will do this anyway for their own convenience, and may be willing to make a tablature part for publication. Intabulation (the process of writing a piece down in tablature) means that fingerboard locations of notes are specified, and players working from tablatures do not have the same freedom to choose their own fingerings that they would have when playing from staff notation. Therefore, if a tablature part is provided, it is useful to provide a staff notation part as well. This will also be useful to any other performers involved in the piece, who may not read tablature.

Historical theorbo parts in staff notation are usually continuo parts which are mostly written on a single staff in the bass clef, with clef changes (typically into tenor or alto clefs) where the bass line is high. Some obbligato parts in operas and oratorios are written entirely in the alto or tenor clefs, using the highest register of the instrument. Today, since many theorbo players have been trained initially on the classical guitar, the octave treble clef is more widely read than the old-fashioned C clefs. A keyboard-style staff with treble and bass clefs is sometimes useful for wide-ranging parts, though a single staff is more compact and thus necessitates fewer page turns, which are awkward for the theorbo player. In general it is wise to avoid unusual clefs or layouts, to make sure that the intended octave is clearly specified, and to add verbal instructions for any unusual techniques which your piece may require.

Continuo accompaniment (which virtually all theorbo players can do) is essentially an improvised art within a fairly confined structure. The composer specifies the bass line and sometimes some or all of the harmonies to be played above it, but the voicings of the chords, sometimes the harmonies themselves, and the entire texture of the accompaniment are decided by the player and will be at least slightly different in every performance. Theorbo players are therefore quite used to taking part in the compositional process to some extent, but generally within the framework of musical language from around 1600 to around 1750. A modern aleatoric or partly aleatoric work may require detailed verbal explanation, and theorbo players may be quite unused to improvising in a modern idiom.

It is helpful to the player to indicate the required tuning of the diapasons at the head of the piece. Cues to other parts, verbal instructions regarding tempi and other essential performance information, are all welcome and helpful.If you are using the theorbo to accompany song, it is extremely helpful for the player to have the full text of the song and the singer’s part, with a translation into a widely-known language, if it is not already in one.

Concierto en Mahón. Obras de Kapsberger: Arpeggiata, Capona y Ciaccona

Jan Van Hoecke is a Belgian recorder player. In 2006 he obtained his masters degree – with the highest distinction – under the guidance of Bart Coen at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Jan attended master classes with teachers like Gerd Lünenbürger, Maurice Van Lieshout, Eva Legène and others.

Jan is very interested in performing historical as well as contemporary music. He underwent further training in contemporary music from Bart Bouckaert, Tomma Wessel and Antonio Politano. Since 2009 he is teacher at the Conservatory of Lausanne (Switzerland).

For further info, please visit Jan’s website

Fantasia 1 by  G. Ph. Telemann (TWV 40)

Partita: 1 Allemande  (BWV 1013) by J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

Sound Affairs is delighted to welcome Spanish lutenist and theorbist Manuel Minguillón to this exciting project.

Manuel Minguillón was born in Madrid, Spain, where he obtained a double bachelor degree in guitar performance and early plucked instruments. Minguillón perfected his skills under the guidance of master lutenist Hopkinson Smith in Basel, Switzerland. Afterwards, he completed a Master’s Degree and Doctorate in Early Plucked Instruments with the world renowned lutenist Paul O’Dette at the Eastman School of Music, In New York.

Minguillón has performed as both soloist and ensemble player in several countries including Spain, Italy, France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Poland, Portugal, Canada, Mexico, USA and United Kingdom, having appeared in Festivals and Concert Halls in these countries. He is a founder of the vihuela Duo Deleitiae Musicae with Jesús Sánchez with which he plays throughout Europe and North America. Minguillón’s performances have been broadcast by various national radios such RNE of Spain, RTP of Portugal and BBC. Manuel currently lives and works in London, United Kingdom, where he is in high demand as both continuo and solo player. He collaborates with ensembles such us Gabrieli Consort & Players, The King’s Singers, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Charivari Agreable, Saraband Consort and The Little Baroque Company. He has recently recorded the newly discovered Pachelbel Vespers with the King’s Singers and Charivari Agreable, and also Monteverdi Vespers with New College Oxford Choir. He is a member of the multidisciplinary research group The Hispanic Baroque where he is researching the baroque Tonos Humanos in Spain.

For further info, please visit Manuel’s website

Development

The masque tradition developed from the elaborate pageants and courtly shows of ducal Burgandy in the late Middle Ages. Masques were typically a complimentary offering to the prince among his guests and might combine pastoral settings, mythological fable, and the dramatic elements of ethical debate. There would invariably be some political and social application of the allegory. Such pageants often celebrated a birth, marriage, change of ruler or a Royal Entry and invariably ended with a tableau of bliss and concord. Masque imagery tended to be drawn from Classical rather than Christian sources, and the artifice was part of the Grand dance. Masque thus lent itself to Mannerist treatment in the hands of master designers like Giulio Romano or Inigo Jones. The New Historians, in works like the essays of Bevington and Holbrook’s The Politics of the Stuart Court Masque (1998), have pointed out the political subtext of masques. At times, the political subtext was not far to seek: The Triumph of Peace, put on with a large amount of parliament-raised money by Charles I, caused great offence to the Puritans. Catherine de’ Medici’s court festivals, often even more overtly political, were among the most spectacular entertainments of her day, although the “intermezzi” of the Medici court in Florence could rival them.

Further info at Wikipedia

Leonardo da Vinci and the masque

From BBC Radio 3 

To coincide with the National Gallery’s major exhibition “Leonardo: Painter at the Court of Milan” which will include some of the best known paintings by the great “Renaissance Man”, we reveal a lesser known, but equally astonishing aspect of his work in Milan: his splendid pageants, masques and parades which he designed and directed as Master of Ceremonies. Charles Nicholl, Leonardo’s biographer, is fascinated by these transient masterpieces, which are equally important to the development of Leonardo’s work and which the artist carefully describes in his own writing. There are also vivid eye witness accounts. In this programme he re-imagines the most brilliant, Il Paradiso, in its original setting at the Castello Sforzesco inMilan.

These ephemeral, insubstantial creations maybe dwarfed by the perennial celebrity of his paintings, but they contain in miniature that mix of art and science, of visual flair and mechanical ingenuity, which is typical of him. Comments in his notebooks sometimes suggest they were a distraction from more serious work, but distraction is a key mental process in Leonardo, a finding of unexpected new avenues to explore, and these trivial-seeming divertimenti have their own fascination; they are a counterpart to the profoundly dramatic quality of works such as the Last Supper.

Notable masques:

Il Paradiso (Leonardo da Vinci) 1490

The Masque of the Planets (Leonardo da Vinci) 1490

The Masque of Blackness (Ben Johnson) 1605

Oberon, the Faery Prince (Ben Johnson, Inigo Jones) 1611

The Triumph of  Peace (James Shirley, Inigo Jones) 1634

The Fairy-Queen (Purcell) 1692

The Masque of the Red Death (Edgar Allen Poe) 1842

Other links:

Elizabethan Masques

Michelangelo portrait

To view works by Michelangelo online click here

Barnaby Dicker

Barnaby Dicker is a filmmaker and scholar. He holds a doctorate in avant-garde cinematography. In his films he explores thresholds of legibility and liminality and links between structure and process.

In 2004, he worked with Sound Affairs creating a number of short videos for the Raw Goods tour that year. His film, Devolution (2008), a collaboration with Barber, has been shown at shown at Bath Film Festival (2008), Sŵn Festival,Cardiff (2008), ‘Film House’ at the National Museum of Wales, Aberystwyth (2008), AVPhD,Newport (2008), Framework Social,Swansea (2008) andWestDeanCollege,Chichester (2010).

He designed the opening credits and “inter-titles” for the British feature film Crossing Bridges (Mark Norfolk, 2007) and a script of his was recently filmed by Cardiff-based director Jon Rennie (The Cursed Mirror, 2010).

Barnaby is Visiting Lecturer at Royal Holloway, Universityof London and Universityof Wales, Newport. He has contributed to Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, the Journal of Media Practice and more recently to the edited collection, The Popular Avant-Garde.

Andy Howitt

Andy was born in Fife, and danced with Fife Youth Dance Company before going to the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance inLondon. He went on to work with a number of dance companies including Transitions Dance Company, Diversions, Scottish Opera, Scottish Dance Theatre and Dundee Rep Dance Company before being appointed Dance Director for Tag Theatre Company.

In 1999 Andy became Artistic Director of YDance (formerly Scottish Youth Dance) and in recent years has created a number of dance productions especially for young people.

Andy Howitt & Craig McKnight 'Out of This World'

He has collaborated on numerous projects with composer Charlie Barber, including Out Of This World (a large-scale project about the ‘lost’ opera of Igor Stravinsky and Dylan Thomas) and BreakBeats with breakdancers and the piano/percussion duo Raw Goods.

He has also worked with choreographers David Dorfman (USA), Lloyd Newson, DV8 (UK) and Vincente Saez (Spain).

Andy has also appeared as the mystery guest on the BBC One panel show, They Think It’s All Over! and with Tam Cowan on Offside dancing the Archie Gemmill Goal.

He has also choreographed works with the St Magnus Festival, MacRobert, Maiden Voyage and the Company of Angels.

Currently, he is the Artistic Director of Citymoves, the dance agency for North East Scotland.

Choreographer Andy Howitt talks about creating a dance work based on Archie Gemmill’s World Cup Goal

Archie Gemmill’s classic World Cup goal lives again as modern dance - The Independent