But you see, the fact that I am sort of sitting in between two chairs is nonetheless a strength. Because well, the scientific work I have done on the lute… Let’s say that I have been able to contribute certain things that someone who does not play couldn’t have found. So you see, I try [positions left hand on the neck of the lute] and then I tell myself: ‘But no, this is not possible! It’s unplayable! Why is this unplayable?’
(Christine Ballman in an interview, 2015).
The two chairs in between which Christine Ballman is sitting are on the one hand research in the field of musicology and on the other hand, the professional practice of early music through instruments such as the guitar, the vihuela and the lute. She has spent more than 30 years now in between those two chairs, wrapped up in the world of early music. By studying renaissance scores transcribed from vocal polyphony to lute, she stumbled upon ‘unplayable’ parts which made her wonder about the intentions of the author of such tablatures. This triggered a research process in which she found out that, sometimes, during the renaissance, certain lute tablatures were composed by people who were not music practitioners and only composed as an intellectual activity, without noticing that their writing was sometimes not ideally adapted to the practice itself. Some other times, it appeared that composers purposely wrote in order to challenge players’ techniques and capabilities. Another possibility pointed at the pieces being written only to be read as part of a sort of anthology and not played, therefore the confusing fingering. Discovering the possible explanations for a particular musical writing informed Christine Ballman’s practice in the sense that she took the liberty to modify her own tablature to her convenience:
But when you start studying many different sources, you see that you can have copies of a same piece in different sources but with changes, for example in fingering. And then well, you tell yourself that, after all, if that one did it like that, if that other one found the same note a little further… well actually I can maybe do the fingering that suits me, because probably others did what was convenient for them. And you see like this you have plenty of elements that you can retrieve from research for your practice and from your practice for your research. And I find this is the most fascinating
(Christine Ballman in an interview, 2015).
Because my research seeks to explore the culture of early music by looking at the different ways its members understand it, what follows is a characterization of Christine Ballman’s professional practice. Historian of science John Pickstone (2001) characterizes different ‘ways of knowing’ the world, each one characteristic of, but not exclusive to, a particular historical period. One example is experimentalism, which is originally characteristic of the natural sciences and finds its beginnings in the nineteenth century. This way of knowing centers on a few elements that serve to deconstruct a certain area of study and consequently analyse its different objects as ‘compounds’ (p. 239). The activity of focusing on one element of her performance, namely the lute tablature, as a basis for research I argue, can be associated with ‘experimentalism’.
To these ways of knowing the world correspond ‘ways of working’ in the world (Pickstone, 2011). Experimentalism is strongly related to processes of re-describing, reclassifying or refining technical processes; and ultimately re-assembling the different re-worked elements in innovative reconstructions. Christine Ballman’s approach of digging deeper into that element, experimenting with new findings and consequently producing an alternative fingering and way of performing can be typified as this way of working. Here, the lute can be seen both as “a musical instrument and as an experimental setting for acquiring knowledge” about early music performance (Bijsterveld & Peters, 2010, p. 118).
In my research, I argue that an innovative dimension permeates contemporary practices of early music. As illustrated, Christine Ballman’s particular way of researching early music creates an experimental setting of which modifications in her practice come out. Her explicit acknowledgement of taking liberties in her practice as a relativizing product of her research suggests a dynamic of transformation occurring in the culture, calling for a rethinking of its very definition, meaning and significance.
References
- Ballman, C. (2011). Le luth et Lassus. Bruxelles: Academie Royale de Belgique
- Bijsterveld, K., & Peters, P. F. (2010). Composing Claims on Musical Instrument Development: A Science and Technology Studies' Contribution. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 35(2), 106-121.
- Pickstone, J. V. (2001). Ways of Knowing: A New History of Science, Technology, and Medicine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Pickstone, J. V. (2011). A Brief Introduction to Ways of Knowing and Ways of Working. History of Science, 49(3), 235-245.
- Interview with Christine Ballman, April 22, 2015. Uccle, Brussels.
- If you want to know more about other early music practitioners, click here.
- If you want to have a concise historical background on notions of authenticity in early music practice, click here.
- If you want to read about other experimental ways of knowing, click here.
- If you want to learn more about innovation in instrument building, click here.