Dear Jon, The vihuela is a guitar-shaped instrument tuned like the renaissance lute. It was played in Spain in the 16th century in preference to the lute (although by no means exclusively so). It has been suggested that the Spanish preferred the vihuela because of the lute's association with the Moors.
Since the vihuela and the lute share the same tuning, it is not surprising that vihuela music turns up in lute sources outside Spain, in printed books (e.g. Phalese), and in manuscripts (e.g. the Willoughby Lute Book. However, the traffic didn't all go one way. There is some music by Francesco da Milano included in Henestrosa's collection, printed in the tablature I described in my last e-mail. Best wishes, Stewart McCoy. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Murphy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Lute Net" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Stewart McCoy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, December 12, 2003 11:03 AM Subject: Re: Tabs, Staff and Bach superior to Weiss > I wasn't aware of the tabulature for harp and keyboard, but I doubt it was a > substitute for modern staff notation. If you've read the old staff notations > almost anything would have been better than that. I don't know the vihuela, > although I gather from this list that it is in the lute form, perhaps one of > those with the extra strings on the extended neck.
