This post shows how simple chord sequences were elaborated.
The other day I was re-reading Christopher Page's The guitar in Tudor England (see Resources page), which illustrates the remaining fragments of a guitar tutor by Adrian Le Roy. The original French version is lost, and all we have are eight pages of the English version published in 1569.
Transcription
The facsimilies are fairly clear, so I thought I'd transcribe four pages that illustrate the development by elaboration of simple well-established Renaissance grounds (chord sequences). They are shown on pp 94 & 95 of Page's book.The tutor combines the two grounds passamezzo moderno and romanesca to form a piece called Les buffons, referring to a comic or rustic dance style.
- The first page shows the piece in the form of basic block chords, possibly strummed. These will be very familiar to the ukulele player.
- In the second page the chords are elaborated with simple divisions, indicated as plus diminués.
- The third and fourth pages show the passamezzo and romanesca more elaborated with more rapid divisions (plus fradonnes).
The term “fredonné” is described by Page as a contemporary term which “expresses the lightness and elaboration of birdsong, or the freshness of youth.” (So that’s what it should sound like!)
On the other hand, Ward (1983) gives a definition from 1611 as: “Fredon: A semie-quauer or Semie-semie quauer, in Musicke: and hence, Diuision; and a warbling, shaking, or quavering”.
In the interests of understanding how elaboration was done (this blog is, after all, a fair copy of my self-imposed homework) I have rearranged the pieces so that all the passamezzi are put together, then all the romanescas.
The usual forms of the grounds were as follows:
Passamezzo moderno: I | IV | I | V | I | IV | I, V | I ||
Romanesca: III | VII | i | V | III | VII | i, V | i ||
Both pieces in the tutor are set in C major, which means that the romanesca (which would typically have been in the minor key), here needs flattened III and VII harmonies, i.e. chords E♭ and B♭.
Transcription notes
1. Square brackets in the transcription indicate positions of missing fragments: the fingerings have been entered editorially, the earlier ones following Page, p114.2. † (in the score): In the original these notes were displaced, I think, one position to the left; I have moved them over.
3. I have preserved the contemporary spellings.
Playing
Le Roy indicated unaccented single notes with a dot ("prick") beneath, meaning that they were to be played with the index (or possibly middle) finger rather than the thumb. I have indicated these by the conventional “i” in the p-i-m-a system. Other (accented) single notes would have been played with the (stronger) thumb, and possibly the middle finger. This emphasises the rhythmic pattern.The grounds (block chords) could well have been played by strumming or plucking – we don’t really know. If plucked, then the single note on the top string could have been touched by the index finger on the up stroke, whilst the block chords on the 1st and 3rd beats were strummed with down strokes. The 4th beat could, I suppose, be played up or down: Le Roy gives no "prick", so down is the most probable.
Anyway, do give it a try.
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