Dear All, It fell on a summer's day is a well-known song by Thomas Campion - naughty but nice - published as No. VIII in Philip Rosseter's _A Booke of Ayres_ (London, 1601). It presents a problem towards the end. This is how the voice part ends:
_h__e__f_______e__e_f_h_f_c_____a___ _____________|________________|____|| _____________|________________|____|| _____________|________________|____|| _____________|________________|____|| _____________|________________|____|| and the lute tablature has: _c__a__a_______a________________a___ _e__a__c_____|____e_c_e_f___e_|_a__|| _f________c__|____f_______d___|_c__|| ____c________|________________|_c__|| _c_____a__e__|____c___________|_c__|| _____________|________________|_a__|| It has always troubled me that the first bar of my extract ends with a chord of E minor on the lute, while the singer is singing c". I might be tempted to change the b natural (tab c3) to middle c'(d3), to have a chord of C major (1st inversion) instead, yet I can't do that, because the lute chord rings on into the next bar, where the singer has b' natural. I don't think B's and C's clashing against each other is an option, so something needs to be done. I propose changing the c3 at the end of the first bar to c4, to produce a chord of e (e5) and g (c4). These two notes are common to C major and E minor, so will sound well with the singer's part. I know of no other sources of this piece to offer inspiration, but having a tablature letter on the wrong line is a common and plausible error. In a word, I propose the following for the lute: _c__a__a_______a________________a___ _e__a__c_____|____e_c_e_f___e_|_a__|| _f___________|____f_______d___|_c__|| ____c_____c__|________________|_c__|| _c_____a__e__|____c___________|_c__|| _____________|________________|_a__|| What do people think? Best wishes, Stewart McCoy.
