06/17/07 Hello Neil,
My long-term project is to set Edgar Allen Poe's poem Annabel Lee to the guitar chords and melody of Scarborough Fair. A haunting melody with haunting/tragic lyrics. Got to be a Top-Ten hit! Also, since both works are over 150 years old, I shouldn't have to worry about the tortuous copyright laws: anywhere in the world! Not being a guitarist or a lutenist (I'm an undaunted vocalist), I bought a copy of Mel Bay's Deluxe Encyclopedia of Guitar Chords, by William Bay. www.melbay.com Now armed with every chord every conceived for the 6 string guitar and my French Tablature Transcription Guide for 6-course Renaissance Lute in G Tuning (from the Lute Society of America download section with assistance from Daniel Heiman) and Daniel Heiman's Transcription Guide to Pitch Notation to French Tablature for 6-Course Renaissance Lute in G Tuning (also available at the Lute Society of America website http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~lsa/index.html, thanks Daniel!) I'm ready to make the conversion from guitar chord accompaniment to lute. As someone pointed out, it is very educational to take this type of personal approach to your music. From William Bay's book I now see exactly what makes up a chord. Terms like 3rd, 5th, and 9th now mean something to me. (My prior musical background was in bass clef brass instruments. In the US grade, middle, and high school areas the focus is on performance, not on music theory and history.) Now I can proudly stare at an Augmented 11th chord and know it takes the root, 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and sharped 11th. William's encyclopedia tells me exactly which notes are then used for the D Augmented 11th chord. I can then use the transcription guides from the Lute Society of America to find these notes on the lute keyboard. I try to keep the lute chords to at most 3 notes that I pluck simultaneously. Which means that on the complex chords (like an Augmented 11th), I'm leaving notes out. Determining which notes to leave out is my biggest challenge. Best of luck to your project, "The Other" Stephen Stubbs To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
