A Tutor for the Renaissance Lute by Diana Poulton – Although this is a method book for lute, I’ve used it a lot for my classical guitar studies and for creating guitar editions of lute music. It’s an extremely helpful guide to learning to read lute tablature – easily done on guitar by tuning the 3rd string down to F sharp. Reading French and Italian lute tablature is relatively easy once you get used to it and opens up a huge world of music that is very playable on the modern classical guitar. There is also lots of valuable information on lute performance practices and technique which is, again, very relevant to classical guitar. The section on ornamentation is very important as is the reference sections for expanding your knowledge of the literature and sources that exist for studies in this area. This is a one -of-a-kind book that every advanced guitarist, or anyone interested in Renaissance music, should own and add to their library. I highly recommend it.
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Table of Contents
- The Instrument
- Stringing
- Tuning
- Some practical advice on tuning
- Tablature
- Holding the Lute
- The right hand
- The left hand
- The diapasons
- Italian tablature
- The nexachord
- Spanish music and the bihuela
- More about Spanish music
- Questions
- Scales
- The use of graces in Renaissance lute music
- The performing of graces
- Graces in English sources
- Intabulations of polyphonic vocal music
- The interpretation of signs in the French air de cour
- The “half” barré
- German tablature
- Cifra nueva
- The ten-course lute
- List of Sources and Modern Editions
