Renaissance Ukulele: Le Roy: Three Dances

Thursday 19 January 2017

Le Roy: Three Dances

Title page of Le Roy: Renaissance guitar tablature

An image of the title page of the book from which I have transcribed these three dances. The first two are bransles, or branles or brawls. The Oxford Companion to Music describes bransles as originally round dances which became popular in the French Royal Court around the period of these tablatures, the rhythm usually being two-in-a-bar, although those from Poitou (Poictou) were three-in-a-bar.

In transcribing Bransle de Champagne, I dithered between 2/4 and 4/4 time, but the latter looked more readable, so that I what I chose. You can decide by downloading the tabs in these formats pdf (preview), pdf auto download, TablEdit and MIDI.

Bransle de Poictou caused no problems of time signature (3/4). Download the tabs in these formats pdf, pdf auto download, TablEdit and MIDI.

I chose Pimontoyse to transcribe because the name intrigued me. It's in 3/4 time, and the first bar is reminiscent of Twelfth Street Rag, a popular jazz-tinged record of my youth. I imagine that the name is an early version of 'Piedmontaise', but I'm open to correction. Anyway, here it is in pdf, pdf auto download, TablEdit and MIDI formats. [Note added later: I am grateful to "ukatee", a contributor to the Ukulele Underground Forum for many helpful suggestions for improving this transcription; the linked files have been updated accordingly.]

The tabs look pretty simple, but the sounds and rhythm are intriguing. I found some of the harmonies in Champagne and Pimontoyse a little weird, but I have double-checked the transcriptions and they look OK. As I'm doing these transcriptions, in part, to help me understand the music of the period, I've added chord symbols to help my analysis. So much to learn ...

Why this blog?

This blog is the record of a learning voyage. You are, in effect, reading a fair copy of my self-imposed homework.

I have long been intrigued by Renaissance and early Baroque music of the 16th and 17th centuries, and am slowly learning more about it. I also enjoy trying to play fretted instruments, and currently I am trying to get to grips with the tenor ukulele, which is not dissimilar to the Renaissance guitar. (A smug note in 2019: I now have my very own Renaissance guitar, so I can try out the arrangements on both instruments.)

To these ends I have been transcribing lute and guitar music of the period, for playing on the ukulele. Rather than just file the transcriptions away for my own use, I thought it sensible to publish them in this blog so that others might get enjoyment from them – and modify them.

Many of the easily available arrangements are for the ukulele with re-entrant tuning, but most versions in this blog aim to make full use of the (almost) bass string. The exception is for pieces written for the Baroque guitar, which used various re-entrant tunings. The transcriptions are as complete as possible on a 4-string instrument, in the expectation that you will reduce them further to suit your playing.

I am eternally grateful to the composers (now long dead) of these pieces for their genius, and to those organisations and individuals who have made facsimilies and transcriptions available freely online.

Note: the 'P numbers' attached to Dowland's pieces refer to the numbering in Diana Poulton's publications (see 'Resources' page).

No ukuleles were seriously damaged in the preparation of these arrangements.

Quick links to transcriptions

Catastrophe! Google have broken the links to all my transcriptions, due to improvements (aka dumbing down).

The files are all now on Google Drive: see my post of 7 August 2020 for the link.

Posts after 1 August 2020 should have functioning direct links to the arrangements.

Use the links below for transcriptions arranged by format, and in alphabetical order by composer and title within each format. These apply only to posts before 1 August 2020.

pdf format

TablEdit format

MIDI format

Free TablEdit reader (If you download the free reader you can manipulate the display, and in particular change the display to tabs only, notation only, or both; then you can print in your preferred format. You can't save, though – fair enough!)

To see posts listed by hardness, just click on the page title in the navigation bar near the top of the page.

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Thursday 19 January 2017

Le Roy: Three Dances