In the recent thread on intabulation, Dan Winheld’s mention of transcribing or intabulating? Morley’s three part canzonet “Cease myne eyes” for guitar intrigued me. I figured if Dan liked the Morley that much, maybe it was worth intabulating for lute. First I went to cpdl.org and downloaded a pdf score and midi of “Cease myne eyes.” It’s beautiful. I liked it so much that I went back and downloaded scores and midis of the rest of Morley’s three part canzonets. Then I went to imslp.org and downloaded a pdf of the original 16th century print. When possible, I always like to check modern scores against the original parts--there can be differences.
Now I was ready to intabulate the Morley. I was a few bars into “Farewell disdainfull” when it occurred to me that perhaps someone else had intabulated these pieces. (I hate to do a lot of work that replicates what’s all ready been done! I’ve been there before.) So I went back out on the internet and found no lute intabulations, but I did find that Richard Yates had transcribed these pieces for guitar. His website makes them available as a free download. I decided that I would download the guitar transcriptions anyway. Only the download isn’t transcriptions for guitar. It’s a collection of intabulations -- for LUTE. Most of them are in french tab but a few are in upside down italian tab (similar to the tablatures of Luis Milan--or John Fahey). Having these lute intabulations has saved me a LOT of work, but like almost all lute intabulations from the 16th or 21st century, these lack any indication of voice leading, or rests, but those can be added by referring to the vocal scores (or Yates’ guitar transcriptions--see below). The intabulations seem pretty accurate at first brief playthrough. I started to add voice leading indications and rests to the intabulation of “Farewell disdainfull” and I encountered what at first looked like a couple of mistaken notes in measure 15 , but they turn out to be just very awkward intabulation--something else to correct! (It’s easy to make mistakes in music editing--I’ve made my share in vocal scores--that’s why I always check intabulations against a vocal score and the original parts if possible. There are plenty of mistakes in 16th & 21st century intabulations that you won’t know about unless you do this work!) Here’s the url to take you to the Morley page on Yates’ website: http://www.yatesguitar.com/displaydetail.php?tempid=25&compto=any&instto=any&sdtqto=any You’ll find a button there which will allow you to download the lute intabulations as a pdf. As it turns out, Yates’ guitar transcriptions of Morley still exist. I couldn’t find them on Yates’ website directly but another more refined Google search got me this url which will get you the Yates guitar transcriptions and an introduction with an explanation of his editorial methods. Each piece also has its own introduction with performance advice and lyrics. (The lute intabulations do not have these.) http://www.yatesguitar.com/misc/Morley.pdf If you only want the introduction to the guitar transcriptions it’s here: www.yatesguitar.com/misc/ART-20su2001.rtf Those interested in how to indicate voice leading in lute intabulations can find an example on David van Ooijen’s website: www.davidvanooijen.nl Go to “Writings” Go to “A Lesson in Polyphony” Read the text and download his score and tablature. Thank you, Richard Yates. And thank you, Dan. To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
