Robinson: Goe from my window

An opportunity to compare entabulations by Thomas Robinson and John Dowland.

Thomas Robinson (c 1560 – c 1610) was a lutenist who published a tutor for lute (The Schoole of Musicke) in 1603. This piece is the fifth of his works that I have transcribed for low-G ukulele, and will be posting over the next few weeks.

There are four variations based on the old song, increasing in complexity.

Ornamental capital from the original

I remembered that over five years ago I blogged an arrangement of a version of this song.by Robinson's contemporary John Dowland (1563 – 1626). You can read about it here. This was an opportunity to polish up the arrangement that I made then.

You can view and download my arrangements by both composers in pdf format by clicking on the links below:

• Robinson
• Dowland

See what you think of them. They are in the same key, which helps. (I know which composer I prefer.)

Happy plucking!

Robinson: The Spanish Pavan

Robinson's version of a popular Renaissance melody

Thomas Robinson (c 1560 – c 1610) was a lutenist who published a tutor for lute (The Schoole of Musicke) in 1603. This piece is the fourth of a number of his works that I have transcribed for low-G ukulele, and will be posting over the next few weeks.

Ornamental capital from the original score

The “Spanish Pavin” was a popular tune in Tudor England. Before I transcribed it I had expected it to have (in the words of Jelly Roll Morton) a “Spanish tinge”. It doesn’t. At the time this slow, stately dance was popular in Spain and therefore associated with that country, but scholarly analysis I have read seems to show that it originated in Padua. The strongest accent was on the third beat, with a lesser accent on the first.

In performance, the pavan was often followed by the livelier galliard, often based on the same tune, but it isn’t in Robinson’s book.

Whenever an instrumental piece is based on a melody or song I search out the original, and I find that it helps with the interpretation. Ian Pittaway has written a fascinating article on Richard Tarleton and his use of this tune here: https://earlymusicmuse.com/category/spanish-pavin/. I have taken the melody from his article and, having transposed it, have appended it to this arrangement.

You will see that Robinson’s first statement keeps closely to the melody, but ends on the tonic (A) rather than the major 3rd (C#) as in the melody – the Tierce de Picardie, with echoes of the Coventry Carol. It is a tuneful entabulation, with simple counterpoint, and a pleasure to play. Alone, this makes a perfectly acceptable piece.

Subsequent variations are increasingly complex – Robinson obviously expected a lot of the students in his “Schoole”. Variation 4 begins in triple time, but I have not modified the beaming of the notes to show the irregular phrasing. It includes what sounds to me like a bugle call. The piece ends back in duple time.

You can download a free pdf file of the transcription HERE.

Happy plucking!

______________________

SOURCE: Thomas Robinson, 1603, The Schoole of Musike (f. L2v). 

Facsimile at: https://ks4.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/9/9a/IMSLP247275-PMLP401021-Thomas_Robinson_School.pdf

Robinson: Row well you marriners

 A nautical dance

Thomas Robinson (c 1560 – c 1610) was a lutenist who published a tutor for lute (The Schoole of Musicke) in 1603. This piece is the third of a number of his works that I have transcribed for low-G ukulele, and will be posting over the next few weeks.

This is an arrangement of a well-known dance that is still performed today, sometimes under the title "Row well ye mariners". 

I have appended the melody of the original dance to the uke arrangement, so you can see how they relate to each other. Robinson’s version agrees quite closely with the later dance tunes, but is much more syncopated, so probably not intended as an accompaniment to dancers. Bar 5, an ornament of the bass line, seems not to be part of the dance.

You can see and download a pdf of my arrangement here.

Happy plucking!

-------------------------------------------------

Footnotes

SOURCE: Thomas Robinson, 1603, The Schoole of Musike (f. 33? or I2). Facsimile at: https://ks4.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/9/9a/IMSLP247275-PMLP401021-Thomas_Robinson_School.pdf

The dance melody: Playford's School of English Dance (1650).

There is a facsimile of keyboard version arranged by Cecil J Sharp here: http://round.soc.srcf.net/files/mariners.pdf.

Roger Ruthen has made an accessible arrangement for uke (key of F) from the melody in Playford's dance book here: https://pdfminstrel.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/row_well_ye_mariners.pdf

Robinson: A gigue, rosa solis

A lively jig with frisky undertones

Thomas Robinson (c 1560 – c 1610) was a lutenist who published a tutor for lute (The Schoole of Musicke) in 1603. This piece is the second of a number of his works that I have transcribed for low-G ukulele, and will be posting over the next few weeks.

SOURCE: Thomas Robinson, 1603, The Schoole of Musike (f. 33? or I2). Facsimile at: https://ks4.imslp.net/files/imglnks/usimg/9/9a/IMSLP247275-PMLP401021-Thomas_Robinson_School.pdf

Image of a sundew (rosa solis) from Sowerby's English Botany

According to Wikipedia: 

Rosa Solis or Rosolio, probably originating in Renaissance Turin, was a cordial derived from the carnivorous sundew plant. It was believed to not only invigorate the heart, but to be an aphrodisiac as well; according to the 17th century medical writer William Salmon, sundew "stirs up lust". 

Geoffrey Grigson says that in Lancashire it was known as “youthwort” in recognition of its perceived rejuvenating qualities. 

All very appropriate for a lively jig. I wonder if playing the piece has similar effects. 

Why not download the pdf version here and try it out.

Happy plucking, etc.....

Osborn Commonplace Book, Part 3: What yt ys to love

 A simple piece I may have unfairly rejected.

We have very little extant Renaissance guitar music written in England, but in The Osborn Commonplace Book there are a number of pages dedicated to the instrument. I have previously blogged most of them here (in revised format), and three more here. 

A few days ago correspondent Martin Wall asked me if I had transcribed "What ys yt to love", and recommended watching the flamboyant version by Taro Takeuchi here. He is a very gifted player, and really knows how to spank a plank.

I had previously not bothered with making a transcription because I thought the piece was just arpeggiation of a simple chord sequence, but when I heard Taro I thought "it's not what you play it's how you play it." And so I'm posting my version here.

The first line of the MS, showing the original barring. I mostly followed Ward by splitting each bar (measure) into two.

I must confess I (lazily) based this version on the transcription published in J M Ward's Sprightly and cheerful music, and then checked it against a facsimile of the original. I followed his barring, except in §D. Thanks to Martin's comments on a draft I think I now have the timings and beaming correct.

It's all based on the 8-bar chord sequence in, I think, 3/4 time

• Dm  |  A   | Dm   | A   | Dm   | C   | Dm   | A  |  
• 
  
• which is repeated twice in variation, 
• 
  
• followed by a section [D] in 9/8 time (following the MS rather than Ward),
• 
  
• concluding with a final section in 3/4, with a 2-bar scale passage.

The piece seems to stop rather abruptly, but that’s how it is in the MS. I imagine that the original was intended mainly as an aide memoire, like a jazz-man’s fake-book, and that the contemporary player would have improvised at will. So, there's a lot of scope to having fun, using your own ingenuity: plucking, strumming, varying the rhythm patterns, adding divisions (rapid runs of notes) and so on.

You can see and download a pdf of the transcription here. 

Happy plonking!

Ascue: Robin Hoode

Another version of the old melody

Some years ago I blogged a compendium of Robin Hood instrumentals by Dowland and Robinson, preceded by simpler versions by me in (I hope) the appropriate idiom.  You can view them here. 

Earlier this week I heard on BBC R3 another version the very obscure Robert Ascue. It was played on lute by Paul O'Dette. It's in The Euing Lute Book, held in Glasgow University Library, but there appears to be no facsimile available. Fortunately I found a transcription on www.GroundsandDivisions.info, to whom many thanks.

Alternative names of the piece are: Robin is to the Greenwood Gone, Bonny Sweet Robin, and Robin Hood(e).

It's quite a nice arrangement, but probably easier to understand than to play. The later variations include a fairly bog-standard set of divisions: OK, but not a patch on the Dowland version. Have a look at both versions and see what you think.

You can download the pdf of the arrangement for low-G ukulele (for free) here. (Just click on the download button in the top right-hand corner of the page.)

Let me know if you have any problems. Happy plucking!

Anon: (Poor) Tom of Bedlam

 A lively song about a sad case

I first heard this song last Sunday on BBC Radio 3. It was played on lute by Paula Chateauneuf with great brio, and it struck me as an ideal piece for the ukulele.

Bethlehem Hospital in London, the first English mental hospital, popularly known as "Bedlam"

Checking on the remarkable Sarge Gerbode'e website I found that he had transcribed three simple (phew!) arrangements for lute, which you can find here reduced to fit the uke.

Version 1 is the simplest: basically chord strum plus single note melody. Version 2 is in the chord-melody style. Version 3 is more complex, with some use of divisions and counterpoint. You may want to play  the three in sequence.

I always find it helps to play intabulations of a song if one knows the melody, so I have prefaced the tabs with the melody and the first verse of the song.

The first appearance of the song seems to have been 1620, which is contemporary with the MSS from which these pieces are taken.

There seem to be many versions of the words, and the tune was also used for other songs. The version here is taken from http://www.thehypertexts.com/Tom%20O'%20Bedlam's%20Song.htm.

You can download the arrangements for free here:

• pdf
• MIDI
• TablEdit