The collective Ranieri thread?

[crisscross]

There's at least three mandolin players on this board, who are currently working their way through "L'art de la Mandoline" by Silvio Ranieri. That' s why I thought, instead of opening up a new thread for every soundfile of one of the exercises included in the book, maybe we could share our redordings, insights, comments and questions in one collective thread for all things concerning Ranieri...

I'll start with a recording of exercise 20.
https://soundcloud.com/tele1310/ranieri-20
It is a tremolo study with full length tremolo notes, legato tremolo and tenuto tremolo.
To tremolo the whole duration of the note doesn't seem to be much of a problem, but the tenuto notes I play seem to be a little too short. But if I try to play them a bit longer and still do a little pause before the next note, this one comes too late.
Any ideas how to approach those tenuto notes prctice-wise?

[Rob MacKillop]

Yes, a collective thread is a good idea. I'll add my previous one here, for the record.

Ex 20 - you play it well, I think. I can't help you with the tenuto duration - I just try to do something that still fits the flow of the piece. I like how you include the teacher's part on guitar. Of course, it should be tremoloed on a mandolin, but it's hard for a student to do that! The original is mezzo forte throughout, with no indications for crescendos or decrescendos, no ralls, etc, and your performance matches that. Many of the studies do otherwise, so it is useful to have a study where the challenge is to keep things absolutely steady throughout. Well played, sir.

[Rob MacKillop]

So, for the record, here is the video I placed in another thread. Ex. 26:



And Ralf Leenen playing Ex.3 from Book II



Ex.24 Book II



Any others out there?

[derbex]

Good idea -here's 61 again https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-hoylan...dagio-study-61

On the tenuto notes all I can say is that I have been missing a stroke at the end to get the gap, so they are too short. When I play with a mandolin orchestra* they seem to leave a bigger gap than I do.

* It's more a gathering -but several of the players do play in mandolin orchestras.

[Hany Hayek]

Though I would tell you that parts III and IV are now available on imslp.
http://imslp.org/wiki/L'Art_de_la_ma...nieri,_Silvio)

[Rob MacKillop]

Wow, thanks for that link, Hany! I see he ends with a set of variations on La Folia. I've lost track of how many folias I've played. I'll leave this one for a decade or so!

But there appears to have been another version of Ranieri's Method, with much more text. I haven't seen that one.

[margora]

"I see he ends with a set of variations on La Folia"

This particular piece is recently recorded by Kristina Lisner and Melanie Hunger on "ensemble trioLogie: vol. 1: soundscapes", on the encora label (www.encora.de). Kristina and Melanie are two-thirds of ensemble trioLogie (www.ensemble-triologie.com). I reviewed this CD recently in the CMSA Mandolin Journal. The recording in general, and the Ranieri in particular, is excellent. The CD is available from Trekel.

[Hany Hayek]

Since I don't have book II, here is exercise 9 from book III, andante cantabile. (sorry about the strange ending)

[Rob MacKillop]

Very beautiful tremolo, Hanny. Nice study too. Looks warm where you are!

[Hany Hayek]

Thanks Rob for the compliment. I should do better.
It was warm today. I live in Cairo Egypt. It was 38 C, but I had the AC on (25 C), otherwise I cannot keep my mandolin in tune.
Sorry about how I look. It's due to the fact that my grand mother from my mother's side is Italian from the South (Trani)
I like to look like the Italians you see in the God Father movie, in their underwear at home eating pasta (just kidding)

[Rob MacKillop]

LOL. You've perfected that image. Very Italiano! And very fitting for the music

[derbex]

Thanks Hany, if we are only getting positions in vol 3 and chords in vol 4 -it makes me wonder what's in 2?

There was a bit of a Godfather tone to your playing there

[Jim Garber]

I believe that the original edition of Ranieri Method came in four volumes and that the available 2 volume set is a sort of digested edition. In other words, I think that everything in the modern 2 volume set is in the 4 volume one but that the earlier version had much more in the way of etudes etc. Also, I am not sure if the etude and exercise numbers correspond in the two editions. I have a photocopy of the earlier one and recall comparing the two some time ago. I will try to find my photocopy.

[crisscross]

So far, I had only played some guitar-like pieces by Marlo Strauss and Hugh Boyde on my new bowlback, but this weekend it complained and asked me to play something a mandolin is supposed to play.
So I chose No.31 in the Ranieri method, a Moderato by J.F. Mazas.
It's the first piece in the book I played including staccato notes and I'm not sure whether I did this right.
I played a literal staccato,very short, but afterwards I had my doubts, whether "Staccato" in this context maybe only means "Not tremoloed", but not the very short staccato it is usually executed as.
The text in the book says something like "Raising the hand", but it's not entirely clear what hand he's talking about...
So my question to those more experienced than me: Is it correct to play the mandolin staccato very short, or is "Staccato" only the opposite to tremolo, meaning a note is only picked once?

[Jim Garber]

I think you did a nice job of those staccato notes and played with a nice feeling IMHO. I don't know what Ranieri was asking for in the book but that Mazas is probably from his etudes for violin. Staccato is a shortened note and defined as "with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others".

Most pieces scored for mandolin are marked something like N.T. when you are not supposed to play tremolo. I do see that this etude is indicated for "slurred and staccato crochets." I do think that there must be an obvious difference between the slurred/legato/tremeloed notes and the staccato which I think you do quite nicely.

[derbex]

Nicely played.

I think I tend to interpret this as 'not letting the note ring', so i would raise the fretting finger early and if it's an open string I would attempt to damp the note, maybe with my palm. Exercise 57 has one playing staccato triplets fairly quickly so there's not much time to damp the individual notes except with the fretting finger.

[Martin Jonas]

I think you did a nice job of those staccato notes and played with a nice feeling IMHO. I don't know what Ranieri was asking for in the book but that Mazas is probably from his etudes for violin. Staccato is a shortened note and defined as "with each sound or note sharply detached or separated from the others".

Most pieces scored for mandolin are marked something like N.T. when you are not supposed to play tremolo.

Nice recording.

I think the meaning of "staccato" for mandolin playing depends very much on context and period. In some of the early 20th century methods, "staccato" is explicitly defined as the opposite of tremolo, i.e. synonymous with "single stroke". Similarly, much of the written music of that period has the default that every quarter note or longer is played tremolo unless marked with a staccato dot. In those pieces I would not interpret the staccato dot as marking a particularly sharp or shortened note. Notes are played distinctly separated from the others but otherwise allowed to sustain the entire length of the note value. Notes that are intended to sound very briefly were often written as a 1/8 (or 1/16) note followed by a rest rather than a quarter note with staccato mark.

In more modern mandolin music, the default is single stroke for all notes unless explicitly marked tremolo, and with that convention I would interpret a staccato mark similar as in guitar music: played very briefly and not allowed to sustained through the entire note value.

Martin

[Jim Garber]

Exercise 57 has one playing staccato triplets fairly quickly so there's not much time to damp the individual notes except with the fretting finger.

Yes, agreed, but also note that in both 31 and 57 the pick direction is a down-pick for all the notes which would also have to play detached as well to achieve separate notes.

[crisscross]

In those pieces I would not interpret the staccato dot as marking a particularly sharp or shortened note. Notes are played distinctly separated from the others but otherwise allowed to sustain the entire length of the note value. Notes that are intended to sound very briefly were often written as a 1/8 (or 1/16) note followed by a rest rather than a quarter note with staccato mark.

In example 16, the quarter notes are written as 1/8 notes with an 1/8 rest. This might demand a real short staccato.
In example 31 on the other hand, the quarter notes are notated as quarter notes with a staccato sign, so maybe I could have let them ring out a little longer after one stroke for every quarter note.
Gonna try tomorrow, now it's a litlle too late...

[Jim Garber]

At least in theory, you should play full value of the staccato notes as well as full value of the rests. An 1/8 note should still be an 1/8 and a 1/4 should still be a quarter. There may be some subtlety of attack and choke (opposite of sustain), I would think.

[crisscross]

In the French original text to this piece, it says; "Noires liées et noires détachées". I looked up "staccato" in French and the word also exists. "Détaché" means "single" or just "detached".
So I guess the right translation would be something like: "tremoloed quarter notes and single quarter notes"

In exercise 18. there are eighth notes with a staccato sign and I suppose, there is no special effort required to mute them, just pick them once and let them ring the full 1/8 value.
So I guess, I played the "noires détachées" a little too short in my recording,,,
Doesn't sound too bad, so I'll leave it this way, but for the next time I know, that a staccato sign in this context just means "detached" and has no influence on the duration of the note as such.

[crisscross]

In exercise 24, I played the staccato eighth notes just the way Martin has explained: as single stroke notes, but without any effort to shorten them.
With the exception of the very first musical example in which the tremolo is introduced, there are no pick direction markers, so I think eighth notes are supposed to be played with all downstrokes.
Got to order the second part to find out, how 1/16 notes are picked.
This time, I didn't cheat and played the second mandolin on guitar, but instead let my Suzuki M-60 do the job.

It's by no means an Allegro vivo tempo, but I'm glad to have managed a halfway decent version at a Moderato pace,