DOWLANDIA SALES NOW CEASED

Sales have now ceased

Enjoy playing Dowland's music and help two wonderful charities

Update 16 Jan 2022: total monies dispersed equally between the two charities is now £840 UK! Heartfelt thanks to our kind purchasers.                         

Welcome to the page where you can buy an e-book of this compendium of timeless music – it's only 15 USD! 

Just scroll down to find the PayPal button

The solos

Tarleton's Riserrectione (P 59) 

A piece without title (P 78) 

A Galliard (P 27) 

Mr Dowland's Midnight (P 99) (a) 

Mr Dowland's Midnight (P 99) (b) 

Lady Laiton's Allemande 

John Dowland's Galliard (P 21) 

Fortune (my Foe) (P62) 

The Queen’s Galliard (P 97) 

Coranto (P 100) 

The Frog Galliard (P 23) 

My Lord Willoughby’s Welcome Home (P 66a) 

The Shoemaker’s Wife: A Toy (P 58) 

Dowland’s Battle Galliard (P 20, P 20a) 

Lachrimae Pavane (P 15, P 15a) 

Farwell Fantasie (P 3)

You can see the first line of each solo in THIS PDF FILE 

Why the Dowlandia Project? 

Book designer and ukulele enthusiast Hugh McElveen has worked with me to make this e-book of 15 lute solos by John Dowland, arranged for low-G ukulele. They are based on the arrangements mostly posted in draft here in the blog (which will give you a rough idea of what they're like), but are corrected, refined, and better polished.

We had two aims: to make the music more accessible to the ukulele player in a handy format, and to benefit two charities close to our hearts:

• Oxfam, the international worldwide charity that needs no introduction, and

• The Survivor Girl Ukulele Project, which helps girls rescued from distressing circumstances to recover through playing the ukulele. More info here: www.sgub.org

So, by buying and downloading this book you'll have a lot of fun, and do some good too. 

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to buy.

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Great effort has been made to include all the voices (musical lines) possible on the ukulele. The book includes in parallel:

• musical notation, which is the definitive version, but also
• the fullest tablature possible, so that the pieces can be played from the tabs alone (as Dowland and his contemporaries would have done). This saves having to read the notation and tab staves at the same time. It also means that the music is playable on all instruments such as the guitar tuned with the upper four courses as in the low-G ukulele – although guitarists may need a capo.

Contents page

 You will note from the contents page above that, as well as the 15 solos, we have included (anachronistically) chord sequences for most of the pieces, together with notes and interesting snippets about them. There are also some some historical notes about the composer himself, and the family tree of the ukulele.

The arrangements are a complete as possible, but are not writ in stone. You may want to modify or simplify them to suit your own playing style. Most importantly: have fun!

A fuzzy example. The original is very crisp.
Note that, unlike most of the transcriptions on this blog, the tabs in the book are on-the-line!
You can see the first line of each solo HERE

You can hear a wonderful performance by Paul Mansell of one of the pieces (Mr Dowland's Midnight) on his fascinating "Ukulele Sessions" https://www.paulmansell.co.uk/theukulelesessions. 

Paul Mansell

Note added 13 May 2021: you can here more performances kindly made available by Ekkehard Prepens via this blog post . 

From the introduction

         "

John Dowland (1563 – 1626) was probably the pre-eminent composer of lute solos, accompanied songs and consort pieces in the late English Renaissance, during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I/VI.

In this book fifteen of his solos for lute have been arranged for ukulele tuned G3 C4 E4 A4 i.e. with a low 4th string. (In this convention of naming notes, C4 is equivalent to middle C.) Since the Renaissance lute had six to eight courses of strings, and the ukulele only four strings, it is a matter of squeezing a quart into a pint pot, and concentrating the principle voices or musical lines. Despite the necessary compromises, however, I hope you will find these arrangements enjoyable and rewarding to play.

The fifteen pieces in this book are arranged in increasing order of difficulty. Many

of them are made up of several sections or strains, each followed by more elaborate variations, which are harder to play. Just taking the main statements will make perfectly acceptable pieces.

The final two pieces are quite challenging. No 14, ‘Lachrimae pavan’ was Dowland's signature work. No 15, ‘Farwell’, a fantasy or ‘fancy’, is admittedly difficult, but is so beautiful it is well worth the effort.

    "

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Pay here

This is where you can buy your own copy of the book and help two deserving causes.

SALES HAVE NOW CEASED FOR THE TIME BEING: THE PAYPAL LINK WAS TOO UNRELIABLE

1. The easiest way: just click the button below and there you will go to the secure PayPal page where you can pay through your PayPal account or credit or debit card. 

It's all very safe, and only $15 US for 15 timeless solos. And just think of the good you're doing for such worthwhile charities.

You will then automatically be sent the link to the ebook, in pdf format, which you can download. Then you can start plucking.

PayPal button:

 

A reassurance. Things may sometimes go wrong, but I always send an email as soon as I can after I receive notice of your purchase. You can  then reply to the mail should you need to. We aim to please!
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2. The more personal, if slower, way:
a) Use the "Contact me" form in the right-hand column to request the book.
b) I will send you a PayPal invoice via email.
c) If you want to go ahead just pay through PayPal as usual, and they will send me notification. 
d) I will email the link to you, or I can send the pdf if you prefer. So, do get your email address right.
Just make sure you have 9.6 Mb space in your inbox.

Depending on time zone (we are in the GMT zone) this process may take some hours.

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Problems or queries? Please write to me using the "Contact me" form in the right-hand column and we can sort things out. The only info we will have about you is your email address: please say if you want it deleted after you receive your book.

Thank you for helping Oxfam and the Survival Girl Ukulele Project.
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PS As ukulele players are such lovely people, we're sure that you won't mind us saying:

"Please respect the arranger's copyright. This book has been made to benefit two charities. Illegal copying takes funds from these important organisations."