3.3 Feuillet and Points of Contact
When I first embarked on my research, I was exploring technical results achieved through other historical disciplines of movement. I was inspired both by the expressive results of Salzedo’s incorporation of ballet into modern harp technique, and by Roodenburg’s theory that sprezzatura was the muscle memory of the courtier’s vigorous training in fencing, dance and rhetorical gesture1. I became impressed with the impact the development of dance notation had, especially Beauchamp-Feuillet notation commissioned by Louis XIV in the 1680s.
I hoped that in incorporating gestures from this era into my technique, it may unlock further expressive potentials, as ballet had for Salzedo. While there are a number of interesting intersections in these ideas and commonalities, (for example the similar division of the wrist, elbow and arm, rising and falling gestures present in Feuillet's Choreographie mimicking the similar division and classification of gesture central to Salzedo's technique),2 I found there was a missed connection between my research and my instrument.
The modern pedal harp is an instrument built for concert halls, both the instrument and the technique are designed for strength and projection. The arpa doppia is, for want of a better word, more introverted. Certainly some volume was gained in the increasing size of the instrument and the added resonance of the double row, but in creating a present sound, the early triple harpist is more inclined to adapt colour rather than volume alone, for example, playing près de la table and with the nail for a harder attack. This may be reflected in the inclusion of bray pins on some of the arpa doppia’s descendents, the Flemish bray harp and Davidsharfe. The bray pins cannot increase the physical size or volume of the instrument, but create a colour with more attack, cutting through louder sounds.
Returning to Agazzari and Mersenne, I remembered the precious advantage, the direct contact with open strings. I realised that much of the dance notation I had studied was based on contact, from early word-based descriptions in Playford’s publications recording the joining of hands,3 to the meticulous recording of the contact, such as the feet to the floor (Figure 3.31, Figure 3.32), employed in Beauchamp-Feuillet notation.
FOOTNOTES
1. Roodenburg, Herman. ‘Dancing in the Dutch Republic: The Uses of Bodily Memory’. Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Europe: Forging European Identities, 1400-1700. Ed. Roodenburg, Herman. Vol. 4. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007. pp.333
2.Feuillet, Raoul-Auger. Choreographie, ou l'art de décrire la Dance. 1701.Digitized by the Boston Public Library. pp. 97-99
3. Playford, John. The English Dancing Master. London, 1651.
I devised that rather than taking a more literal application of these disciplines, I should attempt to do the same for my discipline, creating more complex choreographies of colour through a consideration of contact. I decided to discover insights not by attempting to tap into the subconscious iterations of movement from many disciplines, but through the conscious pursuit of colouring text, knowing this to be a priority of the original arpa doppia players.
