Status Report: 12 August 2002

Minor changes to report; a few corrections here and there and continued format changes . . . More to come soon. The big news is that the baroque guitar page is up and running.

Gary

Status Report: 9 November 2001

I've made one major design change: no more watermark background. The trend in library Web pages is not to have a textured background as it makes it more difficult to see the text, especially for people with visual disabilities. Also: no more blue titles--they look too much like hyperlinks!

I'll be making more cosmetic changes in the near future, including shortening some of the pages that seem to go on and on. I'd also like to add some type of grading feature to help lutenists or guitarists hunting for repertoire; truthfully, a good percentage of the music here is of historical value only and will not be appropriate for the concert stage. Have patience and I will be adding more substantial information in the near future--including another page devoted to 17th century guitar music (my dissertation topic and an area where I have a good bit of unpublished research to contribute).

Gary

Status Report: 31 July 2000

Major changes! As you can tell by my e-mail address, I've accepted the position as Head of the Music Library at Appalachian State University. My Web page moves with me, so please update your links.

Gary

Status Report: 21 March 2000

I've begun Attaingnant 1529 and have acquired microfilms for several of the Phalèse editions.  Also, I'm going back and entering the thematic indices for the Bossinensis books, one of which will hopefully be ready by the end of the week.  I had thought of including only the solo works from these books, not the songs for voice and lute, but the system of transposition used is so important and complex that I think a complete index of the lute parts is necessary.  I have omitted the voice part because it is in standard notation.

Status Report: 15 February 2000

I've added some notes about the lost Schlumberger tablature, as well as easier to read and understand tables for the German tablature charts (see, for example, the one for Judenkünig's first book).  I should have complete information on both Judenkünig tablatures shortly and have started checking the microfilm of Attaingnant 1529.  I've also added further notes to the Phalèse 1568 thematic index.

Status Report: 5 February 2000

The Phalèse 1568 thematic index is now about 90% complete. I now have 20 tablatures and 329 incipits online.

Status Report: 20 January 2000

I'm about half-way through the Phalèse 1568 thematic index.  This tablature should prove useful in finding concordances, since a good deal of its pieces are taken from earlier repertoire.  I envision the best method for searching as opening two browsers to the page, one with the piece in question and another to look through for possible matches.  I assume an ability to read in both Italian and French tablature--sorry to any non-lutenists, but it is the most reliable way of conveying the original music.  I have taken the liberty of "translating" German tablature into Italian tablature . . . I'm a purist, but German tablature is just too different visually to be of much use in comparing pieces. 

Another change: since I have a search engine now, I've decided to take out the line breaks in the title page information (the "/" marks).  This should make title searching more reliable.

Status Report: 14 January 2000

I'm currently working on Phalèse 1568.  It's a long book with alot of pieces, so it may take several days . . . I've ordered the microfilm for several other Phalèse books.  I only work with facsimiles or microfilms when entering the detailed information for this page;  this avoids repeating errors from modern editions and keeps me dealing with the originals as much as possible.

I've also begun to add information about available facsimiles for these works, something I've wanted to do for some time.  Other changes: a new search engine, which searches only my site, and, as you can now see below, I've decided to "archive" past updates rather than replace them.  

Status Report: 30 December 1999

As the end of the year and of the 1900's draws to a close, I feel the need to pause for a little reflection about this page.  I began writing it in 1995 in an era when the Web was in its infancy.  Everything was written with HTML tags and laboriously transferred to the main server (by FTP), a process which usually took overnight.  Any type of graphic slowed things down to a crawl, so my primary concern was the information itself. 

Things have changed considerably in the last five years--now it seems everyone has a Web page.  The old days of HTML markup have all but passed and Web-weaving is almost as easy as using a word processor (I still rely on old-fashioned coding when things get complex, however!).  Most current pages are laden with fancy graphics; I have added a few (including a much-needed home page icon), but the overall look is still rather spartan and will remain so.  The page is at its heart an annotated bibliography of text and tablature--an informal and sometimes personal guide to the repertoire.

This act of "self-publishing" has its rewards and its drawbacks.  Rewards include the ability to reach a large audience very quickly, without having to haggle with editors and publishers.  The drawbacks are, of course, that editors and publishers perform very useful and vital roles in polishing academic research before it reaches the broader public--they can keep scholars from making fools of themselves.  Still, the freedom to write about whatever one wishes in whatever manner is convenient is intoxicating; it is research forever "in progress" and moving, sometimes at an agonizingly slow pace, toward a more and more complex Web of information.

It was this non-linear, "web" concept that attracted me to hypertext scholarship.  I have tried to start a Web as broad as a general instrument designation (e.g., the vihuela in the sixteenth century) and as narrow as an individual dance from an obscure tablature.  It's a mammoth project and may never really be completed, but nonetheless I've learned much along the way that will help in future projects.

Why should anyone trust the information here?  After all, if I wanted I could call day night and make up silly and misleading information that could fill pages.  The answer, I suppose, is accountability.  Accountability towards Duke University--for which I work and from which I received a Ph.D. in musicology.  This is not just a personal Web page, but a part of the Duke Library Web site: having an "edu" after the address means I'm not selling anything and have nothing to gain from fabricating information.  But I am also accountable as a scholar and librarian and take those responsibilities very seriously.  Finally, I've received enough E-mail from around the world to know that someone out there will be reading critically what is said here and will call attention to any errors.

So pardon the sometimes less-than-perfect prose and the not-so flashy format and hopefully I'll have much more to bring to the page next year . . .