Damped campanellas

In spite of the lovely effect campanellas usually create, they happen to be relatively
rare in the guitar repertoire. One will only meet them in exceptional occasions, like in
Mudarra's Fantrasia que contrahaze la aharpa en la manera de Ludovico etc., as in
most cases the reverberating sonority of the campanella will result stylistically
inappropriate. In most cases, then, one will normally choose to avoid them, and play
melodic passages along the string, assuming that playing across the strings will
necessarily create undesired harmonies at random.
But not necessarily so: all one needs to do in order to avoid this "harmonic" sonority
is to mute the previous note as the next is struck. Easier said than done, true… but not
as difficult as one may imagine, certainly not impossible. At the end of the day
(well… of the week or two…) the skills acquired during this process will not only
enable the player to play unpedalled campanella passages, but they'll encourage him
to apply a similar procedure elsewhere as well, when damping is only needed
occasionally. The damping of alien sounds – a practice so often neglected – will
become eventually a natural and organic feature of playing.

At first one should try to develop a feel for this new sonority, and learn to discern
between reverberating and non reverberating note pairing.
For example, one could play an open E on the 1st string and then a D on the 2nd. In one
case the 1st string should be allowed to reverberate while the note on the 2nd will be
produced; in the other the note on the 1st string will be damped as soon as the next
note will be produced. One will notice that damping does more than eliminate the
unneeded previous note, as its aim is to serve the next note, which in turn becomes
much clearer. This is precisely where one's attention should be focused on: not on the
damped note itself but on the appearance of a new an undisturbed one. In other words
damping should not be approached as the negation of the previous note, but as the
positive production of an undisturbed new sound. This is crucial, since a direct order
to the damping hand could turn the whole business into a nightmare, and spoil all the
fun of music making. The inner ear should lead, and the hand - by mere suggestion -
will follow.

IMPLEMENTATION

Left hand -----

Generally speaking, there are two types of damping: the first involves lifting
unneeded left hand fingers, the other the damping of open notes.
Lifting the left hand fingers one by one while stopping the next note may seem at
first bothersome, but isn't it what we always do anyway when playing a descending
scale? So really, there is nothing new to learn… and on the long run this will bless the
left hand with greater playing ease.
A more difficult case is the one of muting the open strings in a descending scale: in a
fast moving passage this cannot be achieved by adding an extra movement on either
hand, since it would be too complicated. Instead one should adopt a slightly different
finger presentation, allowing the left hand finger to lean on the adjacent string in such
an angle that while stopping a given note it would also damp the previous one on the
adjacent string. Timing is crucial, as damping and stopping should always happen at
the same time.
A slightly different application of open strings damping is needed when two open
strings are played one after the other. In this case damping is not always necessary
given the harmonic nature of two adjacent open strings usually have, yet if one still
wishes to stop them, this can be possible by reaching the next note earlier than
required: immediately afterwards the same damping finger will press on and stop the
string, taking advantage of the earlier created momentum. Note that damping and
stopping should not be treated as two separate actions, but as a single double staged
movement.

Right hand -----

Open basses should be usually muted with the right hand thumb, although in some
cases a free left hand finger can usefully "lean a hand".
Like before, striking and damping should occur simultaneously, and not as two
separate movements, like one sometimes see; sometimes I wonder if this is the reason
why players are often deterred by the whole subject in the first place… Of course
there is an easier way: for example, if in order to mute an E on the 6th string followed
by an open A on the 5th the 5th string should be approaches with slightly turned thumb,
allowing the its left side to damp the 6th string with the flesh, while on its way to strike
the A with the fingernail. This angle can be reached by a somewhat lowered wrist,
yet it is also possible to "accidentally" touch the previous string by a wider/deeper
thumb movement with little or no movement of the wrist. In either case the angle of
the approach should be calibrated in such a way that it will enable the thumb to damp
and pluck in one go. If at first paying attention to the finger movement may be
necessary, in a more mature phase the inner ear should lead the thumb trough the
process, and only then damping will feel natural and organic.