I have had a bit more time to look at this..... In the message which Martyn posted on 7th January commenting on an earlier message of mine he said -
"Simply overlooked is that the majority of pieces after F. 67 are in keys where low G is at least as helpful as for the works on in the following keys of G, F. Cand D - BUT the scribe writes the G at the upper octave:" "a distinctive feature of the guitar, but not not of the period mandora, etc." "Good practical examples include: the Echo on f68 where the penultimate bar would better with a low sixth course G - but the scribe writes a high third course, guitar appropriate g and numerous similar examples." However I would point out On f.69v-f.70r there is a boure evidently intended to be played by two mandoras. In Boure Mandora 1a there is skip of a 7th in the bass line in bar 3 and bar 11 In Boure Mandora 2a there also is a skip of a 7th in the bass line in bar 3 and in bar 11 (the fourth bar on the first stave of f.70r). It is a reasonable assumption that the 5-course pieces at least as far as f.76r are for a 5-course mandora. That probably explains why there are two versions of the Losy piece. The pieces from f.76v may be for 5-course guitar – which is what I suggested. (Martyn clearly had not read my message when commenting on it). There are quite a few 5-part chords and in one place there is an indication that the chords should be strummed. In the untitled piece on f.88r the two A major chords in bar 8 are to be strummed. The most likely explanation seems to me to be that the "gytarra" is a 5- course mandora with one additional unstopped bass. The pieces from f.48v-f.59v are for gytarra; those from f.60r- f.76r are for a 5-course mandora; and those from f.76v-f.95r numbered 1- 56 for 5-course guitar. It is better not to jump to conclusions about complex documents of this kind. Because Martyn thought it was appropriate to send his lengthy message not only to this list, but to the Baroque Lute list and even the Lute List as well, it only appears on the Baroque Lute list. In the future I suggest he sends his messages only to the list where the discussion is taking place. Also that he reads the message he is replying to all the way through and then composes a concise and coherent reply. If necessary you can copy and paste the passages which you need to refer to. It is not helpful to go through a message inserting comments at random especially on the list where any kind of formatting is not reproduced. As ever Monica To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
