Renaissance Ukulele: Dowland: Mr Knight's Galliard (P 36)

Saturday, 11 November 2017

Dowland: Mr Knight's Galliard (P 36)

This was not the most promising piece to transcribe for the ukulele – the lute original involves fingering on the low diapaison tuned to D' alias D1 (which is usually used open). So, rather than follow the native fingering I have transposed to the inevitable G to include as much music as possible. It's still a jolly tune, but obviously does not have that belly-vibrating bass line of the lute version.

There are three eight-bar strains, each repeated without variation. The first phrase, in the treble range, is repeated lower – by two octaves in the lute, by one octave in this arrangement – as in the extract below. Diana Poulton notes that the motif is not original to Mr D, but occurs in earlier pieces by other composers. Versions of the motif occur in bar 3 (raised by a fifth), in Section B (bars 12–14) and more distantly in Section C (bar 19). I wonder if I've missed any.

Mr Knight's Galliard (simplified): the opening phrase and its repeat in the bass line

You can find the transcriptions here:

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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Saturday, 11 November 2017

Dowland: Mr Knight's Galliard (P 36)