Don't know if still available, but Lumsden's old anthology was what got me started on staff notation 1,000 years ago. I painfully transcribed the first third of the "Lachrimae" into guitar standard notation, got impatient & disgusted, and just learned staff for lute in G. It's much easier than German tab. and you don't even have to flop your brain as is necessary for learning Italian tab. Lute in "A" is easy if one has a classical guitar background- simply pretend one has a high "a" string. There was (is?) a staff version of the "Varietie" as well.
For Baroque lute there is Perrine's "Pieces de luth en musique", Paris, ca. 1680 the one lute book originally in staff notation. Perhaps an easier path for beginning Baroque lute staff reading may be reading not too technically advanced violin music- harmonically sparer, and melodically rewarding when not too technically challenging. Going back in the other direction, pre-tab lute music may simply be undesignated staff notation, tab being an expedient for clarifying music of consistently more than one part on a fretted instrument. One could simply begin by reading single line stuff- with or without a Medieval plectrum- from the Odhecaton or other early sources. >>>>Are there any >>>>sources for learning notation on the lute. >>> >> >>Yes there are. Virtually any old lute edition from the last century >>had the cumbersome twofold system of staff with tablature under it. >>So to practice reading from staff would be straightforward with >>works like Poulton's Dowland, Ness' da Milano, any edition from >>CRNS a.s.o. My lute teacher always tried to encourage me to learn >>to read from staff notation. >> >>G. >> -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
