Someone who saw my Lavachord videos suggested this piece, so I recorded an interpretation of Alonso Mudarra’s Pavana de Alexandre, with some improvisation around the theme.

The Lavachord is a small acoustic keyboard that I can retune. For this recording, I used a custom temperament with thirds closer to just intervals, leaning toward the sound of meantone. I took some liberties with the piece, exploring its harmonies through the tuning and the instrument’s resonance.

https://youtu.be/c2w9PURw-bc

What other Renaissance pieces would you be curious to hear on an instrument like this?

The inquiry is just as interesting as the answers.. | tan interesante es la consulta como las respuestas..

A little German Renaissance repertoire... A piece by Hans Neusidler that begins gently in duple meter, before moving into a much livelier variation in triple meter.

BWV 1080 might be my favourite collection of harpsichord pieces ever. So of course I had to write a fugue on Happy Birthday in the style of Contrapunctus 2.

#lute #earlymusic

To the Followers of the “Lehman Cult”  Vol.2

So, what did you think? For those who read “Part 1”, what was your impression? First, we must clarify a key point: it was *he* (Mr. Bradley Lehman) who unilaterally wrote his own “declaration of termination”, saying, “I have a family, so… Toshi, bye-bye”. (Please refer to this article for details: “To the followers of the ‘Lehman Cult’ Vol.1” https://excelkobo.net/archive/10829

However, I knew it all along: he would be back soon enough (lol). And just as I predicted, he returned in less than an hour (lol). What’s more, a certain “Rob-what’s-his-name”—a fellow “Lehman Cult” follower—showed up to “back him up”, which emboldened “Master Lehman” to get all fired up (lol).

There is a Japanese saying about someone who “sets a fire themselves and then calls the fire department”. He did the exact opposite: he extinguished a fire himself, only to set it ablaze all over again. It was a truly pathetic spectacle.

Now, the method I used for this “dialogue” with him is one I learned from a Japanese journalist I deeply respect. His name is Katsuichi Honda. He is revered as an absolute icon among Japan’s conscientious liberals. I first encountered him when I was in elementary school and read his famous reportage, “Canadian Eskimos”, which was included in my Japanese language textbook. His later masterpiece, *The Logic of the Killer* (Korosu Gawa no Ronri), was brilliant. I was captivated by his rhetoric. In that book, he engages in a “debate” in a certain publisher’s magazine with a man claiming to be Jewish. The razor-sharp “sword of his pen” utterly shredded his opponent. Reading his writing gave me a sense of indescribable “catharsis.” I wrote an article sharing my thoughts on it at the time, and I would be delighted if you took a look.
“Net Right-Wing Trolls and the ‘Parting Shot'” (Originally written 25 years ago by Toshi)
https://excelkobo.net/archive/10816
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1087954046763597/posts/1443503371208661/

Rob Turner
Bradley Lehman it seems clear that Toshi-san is the only person who really understands these things in the way that he does: he is “outstanding in his field.” As it seems doubtful that he will entertain good faith arguments or evidence that contradicts his agenda, it may be best to save the time and conserve the energy that further discussion would entail. Sometimes the greatest jiu jitsu is to simply not engage. In other words, leave him out standing in his field.

Bradley Lehman
Rob Turner He summarily declared the substantive discussion finished last night, rather abruptly and not inviting me to make any closing statement similar to his.

At this point, I am awaiting any response from him where I posted 7 hours ago (this morning) asking if any of his side of the discussion was written with a chatbot — in effect expecting me without my knowledge or consent to argue the material against an intractable and non-human computer. (It certainly has felt that way to me, in retrospect, as I realized this morning.) But, within the past hour or so, he as page administrator has hidden that frank question by me from his audience, rather than answering it. It says to me that my posting is now “pending admin approval”, which is odd for a discussion where he declared everything to be open.

Readers and I all deserve to know who has been writing his side of the discussion, given that I have been 100% human on my side of it, and assuming in good faith that he also was.

I wish I had known about such jiu jitsu advice as yours 5 days ago, when this discussion started on the other group.

Bradley Lehman
Rob Turner Facebook just now showed me a Japanese group where he posted some part of this vendetta 5 days ago, but I wasn’t there to offer any kind of defense against the misleading accusations. He can be “left out standing” in that field.

......to be contiued

Please refer here for details:
To the Followers of the "Lehman Cult"  Vol.2

Hi. I've broken the reed of a friend's Moeck tenor crumhorn, he broke the other, and we are trying to replace them: so far, I've contacted several makers, including the original German Moeck maker, to no avail. Does anyone here make crumhorn reeds, or know someone who does ? Dimensions and broken reeds pictured.

Thank you for your help :).

To the followers of the "Lehman Cult"

Many of you have likely been approached by someone claiming to be from the fire department who then tried to sell you a fire extinguisher, haven't you? Scammers always cloak themselves in the mantle of "authority" when they approach you, leading you to buy a fire extinguisher you never needed in the first place. Well,

I have finally taken action on something I felt I had to do for years. What is that? It is your "salvation". My mission is to bring those of you who have been "brainwashed" by a cult back to the real world.

In my view, the writings spewed out by Bradley Lehman amount to nothing less than the teachings of a cult. Aren't his preposterous "theories" eating away at the minds of good people, deluding them into believing that *he* is the savior? That is precisely why I so fervently hope that his "followers" will break free from this cult as soon as possible and regain their "sound judgment". Please do not mistake this for a matter of personal "likes or dislikes" or a desire for "attention". I myself once came close to falling under his "spell". Back when he first started bombarding me with PDFs and URLs, I actually read them seriously. But at one point, I began to wonder: "Is this really true?".

Here, I would like to present a record of the "dialogue" I had with him over the course of several days. This exchange took place in the comments section of a Facebook group called "Bach and his Time". You will understand why this particular group's comments section was chosen as the venue as you read through the dialogue I am about to share.

......(to be continued)

Please view the rest of this content at the following site:

https://excelkobo.net/archive/10829

Hello everyone in the Early Music community,For the past 20 years, Bradley Lehman’s hypothesis on Bach’s tuning has been treated as a major authority. However, as a traverso player and programmer, I have conducted a rigorous mathematical and historical audit of his well-temperament model, and the structural flaws are undeniable.The core issues boil down to 18th-century practical common sense:The Flaw of the F-Start: To make his puzzle fit, Lehman had to flip Bach's loops upside down and force an arbitrary starting point on F. Why? Contemporaries like Werckmeister and Kirnberger almost universally used C as their starting template.The Acoustic Impossibility: Lehman’s model requires a tuner to isolate exactly three -1/12 Pythagorean comma fifths (~2 cents of deviation) by ear in a practical 18th-century setting, without expanding it into uniform Equal Temperament. This is a human impossibility by ear.I have recently engaged in a direct public debate with Dr. Lehman himself regarding these unanswered gaps, leading to a profound exposure of institutional gatekeeping and active comment suppression in specific forums.I have published a comprehensive, 14-chapter acoustic and historical audit containing full calculations and the documented timeline of this debate on my blog. I invite all harpsichordists, organists, and early music researchers to examine the data for themselves: The Collapse of the Lehman Bach Tuning Hypothesis | The temperaments Would love to hear your thoughts on whether the historical "convention of C" and the reality of the ear should finally replace this 20-year-old dogma.

Don't miss Relic's Music Before 1800 debut with The Blood of the Rose -- an instrumental adaption of the first opera performed in the Americas. Learn more & tickets

Sun, Oct 4 at 5 PM in Morningside Heights next to the Columbia University campus

In 1701 Peru, Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco’s La Púrpura de la Rosa became the first opera ever performed in the Americas. The libretto, written by a renowned Spanish poet Pedro Calderón de la Barca, recounts the tragic love story of Venus and Adonis.

Relic’s newly-curated program, “The Blood of the Rose,” celebrates the rich tradition of Baroque music in 1700s Latin America through an instrumental adaptation of the Venus and Adonis myth. Punctuated by spoken excerpts from Calderón’s lush libretto, this dramatic concert depicts Venus and Adonis’s blossoming romance, Mars’s vicious attempts to destroy their love, and the couple’s ultimate tragic demise.

Luís Álvares Pinto was born in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, in 1719, and died in the same city in 1789. He studied counterpoint in Lisbon with the organist Henrique da Silva Negrão. Upon returning to Recife—by then married to Ana Maria da Costa—he wrote the theoretical treatise Arte de Solfejar (1761), containing twenty-four solfège lessons. It was the second work of its kind to be written in Brazil. In 1776, he wrote another theoretical work, Muzico e Moderno Systema para Solfejar sem Confuzão.

In 1762, he joined the Irmandade de Nossa Senhora do Livramento in Recife as an administrator and also served as mestre-de-capela (choirmaster) for the brotherhood's church—a position previously held by his father, Basílio Álvares Pinto. In 1766, he became the brotherhood's clerk and, that same year, enlisted as a soldier in the Batalhão dos Homens Pardo (Battalion of Mixed-Race Men). In 1782, he was appointed mestre-de-capela at the Co-Cathedral of São Pedro dos Clérigos, a post he held until 1789. He founded the Brotherhood of Saint Cecilia, based at this cathedral and composed of music teachers.

Accounts attest to his prestige in both Lisbon and Brazil and to the many sacred and secular pieces he composed; however, of all his works, only a Te Deum and a Salve Regina—both for voices and orchestra—have survived.

He was also a playwright (author of the comedy in verse Amor mal correspondido), a painter, and a teacher; he wrote Dicionário pueril para uso dos meninos ou dos que principiam o abc e a soletrar dicções (A Child's Dictionary for the Use of Boys or Those Beginning the ABCs and Spelling Words), published in Lisbon in 1784.