Thursday 13 May 2021

Dowlandia news: more reviews and performances online

A few months ago, with fellow ukulele enthusiast Hugh McElveen, I published Dowlandia, an ebook of 15 solos of pieces by John Dowland arranged for low-G ukulele. You can see the introductory blog post here, and buy the book via this page.

We have since received more kind reviews from luminaries of the ukulele world, and two players have published fine performances of some of the pieces on YouTube. Grateful thanks to them all!

Reviews

James Hill (James' website)

Harry's arrangements are delicate, tuneful and very satisfying to play. Challenging? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.

Dowlandia is beautifully presented and further strengthens the nascent bond between the uke and the lute. From the opening phrase of Tarleton's Riserrectione the ukulele comes alive in a new way, speaking in a strange but familiar voice. Give it a try; you might just fall in love with your ukulele all over again!

Daniel Ward (Daniel's website)

Beautiful music, finely arranged in a gorgeous package.

This book is a welcome addition to the ukulele repertoire. Harry Thomas has done a magnificent job with the arrangements, and I think the book will stand as a valuable resource for a growing wave of practicing ukulele players.

The addition of the chord sequences, all the full notes, backgrounds and explanations of the music itself (including how to use the book) makes this one of my favorite rabbit holes to jump right into. Understanding the lute and where this music comes from is a great gift as well.

The visual layout by Hugh McElveen and digitized "Fell types" have a way of making you feel as if you've discovered a brand new set of undiscovered Renaissance pieces just for your instrument... and indeed you have !!

Bravo Harry and Hugh - I look forward to learning and teaching from this book for years to come.

Performances online

Paul Mansell

I mentioned in a previous post that you can hear Paul Mansell playing a wonderful version of "Mr Dowland's Midnight" on his Ukulele Sessions site HERE. Look for Episode 29.

Ekkehard Prepens

I am most grateful to guitar and ukulele player Ekkehard Prepens, who has been kind enough to make his fine performances of some of the arrangements available on YouTube. They are listed below.

Lady Laytons Allemande (Alman) (P 48) https://youtu.be/dTk71nUb0FE

The Frog Galliard (P 23) https://youtu.be/dTk71nUb0FE

Mr Dowland's Midnight (P 99) https://youtu.be/DcsQ9NvwKTs

A Piece Without Title (P 78) https://youtu.be/ETuTj1IPk9Y

My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home (P 66a) https://youtu.be/wLFmWHJ1gOQ

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.

Renaissance Ukulele

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Please read: What to do if the links to transcriptions don't work

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