Dear David, There is a special notation which was used in Spain in the 16th century for keyboard, harp, and vihuela. You can see it in books by Cabezon and Luys Venegas de Henestrosa. Each note of a diatonic scale (F major) is given a number from 1-7. It is logical and simple to understand, yet it never really caught on.
You can see a facsimile of a page from Henestrosa's book in Arthur Ness's edition of Francesco da Milano's lute music (page xxxi). I have seen a similar system used to notate Chinese pop music published in Hong Kong. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Rastall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Jon Murphy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "Lute List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2004 4:56 PM Subject: Re: Notations > On Sunday, February 15, 2004, at 04:56 AM, Jon Murphy wrote: > > > To those on the Lute List who wonder why this harp related question is > > sent > > to you as well as the harplist, it is because you all have some > > experience > > with alternate notations/tabulations. > > Yes, actually I do wonder what nine-tenths of the Jon Show is doing on > this list, as it has little or nothing to do with the lute. > > Irritably, > > David Rastall > >
