Dear Steven and All, I assume we're talking about the version in the Board lute book. Margaret Board used the dot sign where most other scribes used the # sign (some other later scribes used the same convention, e.g., Thomas Mace). There are no complete certainties in the matter of what these signs mean, but I have sifted the evidence (see my article in The Lute 1996 for the details) and I can offer you the following suggestions:
The # sign (or in Board a dot) means a "shake". This starts on the main note and alternates with the note above or the note below, according to context and fingering possibilities. In general, if the previous note is higher you might use the upper note, if the previous note is lower you might use the lower note. So in bar 4, the first dot probably goes main-lower-main and the second main-upper-main, repeated if you have time. The + sign means a "fall". This starts on a note below the main note and "falls" onto it. So in bar 1, you play first fret, fourth course together with the other notes of the chord, then fall onto second fret. When the + sign appears on fret 3 or higher, it can be acd, for example the second bar of the second section of the piece has + on letter d, where you could play cd but I would be tempted to play acd. Later writers like Thomas Mace used the terms "half fall" (cd) and "whole fall" (acd) to distinguish the two possibilities. Sometimes the + sign appears in contexts which suggest that it must use the upper note - in which case it is a "backfall", starting on the upper note and "pulling off" onto the main note. As far as I can see there are no instances of this in the piece under discussion. Some later manuscripts used a separate sign for the backfall, a comma or a 7. Sometimes the two signs appear together, as in bar 3, where a b on the second course has both a dot and a + sign. This could be Robinson's "fall with a relish" (abdb) or a "shaked fall" (ababab). I hope that helps, Martin P.S. In understanding the 17th C terminology, it may help to remember that they generally seem to have regarded moving towards the bridge as moving "down", towards the nut is "up" the neck. So a "fall" is not only a fall in the sense that the finger falls onto the note (coming down onto the fingerboard) but also in the sense that it is going "down" the neck, i.e., towards the bridge. > > To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
