Something I've been looking at lately - sorry for the repetition if
you've seen it on the ABC list already. The following tune is from
a small set of tablature tunes in the back of a tadpole MS mostly of
English music from about 1680, one of the "Panmure" manuscripts in
the National Library of Scotland. It comprises letters written on
the top four lines of five-line music paper:
The cloutinach
2
-----|------|]--------|-----------:|
---aa|------|]---adcaa|------acd--:|
-cd--|dcddcd|]-cd--'--|dcddcd---aa:|
d----|------|]d'------|-----------:|
b-------|------|bb-bcdcb--::bbcdcdcb-|b----|
-ca(cdca|cacd)c|--c-----dd::--------d|-dcac|
-'------|-----'|----------::---------|-----|
--------|------|----------::---------|-----|
2
----------::]
a----acd--::]
-ddcd---aa::]
----------::]
I have figured out what the notation is - violin tablature - and
hence what the pitches are, but it leaves rhythm wildly ambiguous.
The parens represent a horizontal bracket drawn over the note
group, probably just meaning "this contains some short values", and
I think the dots under the notes represent flattenings. There's
nothing in the MS to explain the notation - the tadpole part of the
book has music in French violin clef (one of them a rough copy of
the "baggpipe tune" on my Dalkeith site, which I took from another
Panmure book probably by the same writer, who I think was somebody
in the household of Anna, Duchess of Buccleuch) and a piece or two
for violin and alto recorder duet - nothing for lute or guitar, and
the notation makes no sense as lute tab.
Not so much a transcription as a free interpretation (see ABC list
for how I did it):
X:1
T:The cloutinach
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:D Minor
C2F G2A |d2c A2A |GFG GFG|A2c dDD:|
fcA cd/c/A|cAc d2c |f3 fdf|gag fdd:|
f2f gag |agf df/d/c|Ac/A/G GFG|A2c dDD:|
The first note of the tune is either a C on the low G string
as here, or perhaps better, a D unison on the D string and the
G string raised to A. Makes a nice breezy pentatonic jig.
Anyone know any tune like that or have the foggiest idea what the
title means? I'm guessing it's derived from the Gaelic word for
"praise" or "renown". It's the only Gaelic-looking title in the
group.
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