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Lex Eisenhardt, Baroque guitar accompaniment: where is the bass?, Early Music, Volume 42, Issue 1, February 2014, Pages 73–84, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cas126
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Extract
The Baroque guitar makes a regular appearance on the stage in early music performance today, and has found a place in many ensembles that play 17th-century music. The observant listener will have noticed that there are two styles of playing the guitar: chord strumming (battuto in Italian and rasgueado in Spanish) and plucking in lute style (pizzicato or punteado). As far as we know, the instrument was exclusively used for chord strumming from the second half of the 16th century until c.1630. Shortly before 1600, a system of music notation was developed, the alfabeto, literally the chord ABC of the guitar.1 In alfabeto the most common harmonies appear in just one fixed position, in convenient finger patterns. Therefore, alfabeto harmony is completely uniform, with very little concern for voice-leading.2 In Sanseverino’s ‘Aria del gran duca’ (ex.1a), the rhythm of the strumming and the direction of the strums (up- or down-strokes) are indicated on a time line.3 Some of the alfabeto chords and transcription are shown in ex.1b.