[LUTE] Re: Ornaments

[Martin Shepherd]

Dear Gilbert,

Thanks - you've alerted me to something which I should have made 
explicit, but which I mistakenly left unsaid.  Margaret Board (and 
Dowland) used a dot (to the left  of the note) to mean a shake, instead 
of the more usual # .

I did say that sometimes scribes substituted a dot for one or other of 
the signs, but having presented these pieces from Board I should really 
have explained it more clearly.

In Board (also Mace and various lyra viol manuscripts) the dot means a 
shake, the cross means a fall.  This is clear from the contexts in which 
the signs occur.  In most other English lute sources, the # means a 
shake and the + means a fall.  The only qualification needed here is 
that when I say "Board" I mean the pieces actually written by her and 
Dowland - there are other hands at work in her book which don't follow 
the same convention.

I hope that makes it clear.

Best wishes,

Martin

P.S. Right hand fingering is represented by dots *under* the note, one 
dot for first finger, two dots for middle finger, three for ring finger.


Gilbert Isbin wrote:

Dear Martin,
I read your very interesting essay on ornaments at the Dowland site.  
One thing I don't understand is the left dot before the note. It's 
defenitely an ornament. I can hear it on the mp3 files. Is this dot 
written because the ornament is used with open strings ? It's not 
clear to me what the difference is between  a cross or + and this dot 
Thanks
Gilbert 
http://users.pandora.be/gilbert.isbin/lutecompositions.html

     

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