Many thanks to Rob MacKillop for intabulating several beautiful pieces from the Anonymous Scottish Manuscript BM Add ms 4911 (“The Art of Music”), and many more thanks to him for putting his intabulations online.
In his edition, Rob mentions the PhD. thesis where he got the transcriptions: Judson Dana Maynard, "An anonymous Scottish treatise on music from the sixteenth century, British Museum, Additional Manuscript 4911, edition and commentary," 2 vols. (Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1961) I was thinking about ordering a copy of the dissertation to make more intabulations when I discovered that the text of the manuscript and many of its musical examples are online for free at: Texts on Music in English http://www.chmtl.indiana.edu/tme/16th/16th.html Just scroll down to SCOTA3B1 TEXT for the first part of the manuscript and then there’s SCOTA3B2 TEXT, SCOTA3B3 TEXT, & SCOTA3B4 TEXT for the rest of it. >From what I’ve read so far, much of the manuscript is a tutor on “descant,” that is, improvising over (and/or under) a cantus firmus, a necessary skill for singers of sacred music. After the descant section there is a tutor for “faburden,” another necessary skill for singers. The text is 16th Century Scottish/Latin and not TOO difficult to understand, although a translation would be useful. The musical examples are small GIFs in modern notation, and since they give credit to Maynard’s thesis, are presumably his. In some of them the staff lines don’t reproduce, but there’s enough there with staff lines for more intabulations. Since there are quite a few pieces that could be intabulated, I’ll probably order the dissertation to get a larger, somewhat clearer copy. It’s a great find. Thank you again, Rob. (While you’re on the TME page, scroll down further and you’ll find the text and musical examples from Thomas Morley: A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke.) To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
