Renaissance Ukulele: Polonais: Courante

Monday 9 January 2017

Polonais: Courante

Jacques Polonois (Jakub Polak) was a Polish lutenist who moved to Paris in 1574. He lived 1545 – c 1605, so was John Dowland’s senior by about 18 years)

This arrangement is from a transcription in the tutor by Diana Poulton. She points out the importance of keeping the voices alive in this polyphonic music, pointing out that “several books of instruction … say that no [left-hand] finger should be lifted … until it is needed for another note”.

The original lute piece makes use of the diapaisons – the 7th and 8th courses on the lute, which neither the ukulele nor the guitar possess.

In the 2 versions of the last 6 bars I have (a) moved the main voice up an octave to make room for a base line, or (b) maintained the main voice in position and raised the diapaisons several octaves to sit above the main voice. See what you think.

There's a quick peek below, and you can download the arrangement here in pdf (preview), pdf auto download, TablEdit and MIDI formats.

Music Tablature Jacques Polonois Courante

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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Monday 9 January 2017

Polonais: Courante