Tablature - Lute Tablature

Lute Tablature

Lute tablature is similar to guitar tablature, but comes in at least three different varieties. The most common variety used today is based on the French Renaissance system (see example at right). In this style the strings are represented by the lines on the staff (occasionally the spaces above the lines on the staff), and the stops are indicated by lowercase letters of the alphabet (rather than numbers), with the letter a indicating an open string and the j skipped (as it was not originally a separate letter from i). A six-line staff is used, just as for modern guitar tablature. However, lutes were not limited to 6 strings or courses (they could have as many as 19), and stops for any courses beyond the sixth were shown below the bottom line, with short diagonal strokes (see below).

The letters soon developed somewhat stylized forms for ease of recognition. In particular, the letter c often resembled r. This was common in many styles of Renaissance handwriting, but also helped to differentiate c from e. Also, sometimes y was used for i.

Lute tablature provides flags above the staff to show the rhythms, often only providing a flag when the length of the beat changes, as shown in the example. (Notice that this piece begins with a half measure.)

Other variants of lute tablature use numbers rather than letters, write the stops on the lines rather than in the spaces, or even invert the entire staff so that the lowest strings are represented at the top and the highest are at the bottom (e.g., Italian Tablature).

As with guitar, various different lute tunings may be used, all written using the same tablature method. A tenor viola da gamba can usually be played directly from lute tablature as it typically uses the same tuning. A guitar can often be played from lute tablature by tuning the G string down to an F♯ and putting a capo at the third fret to preserve the original pitch.

In standard Baroque lute tabulature, each staff has six lines, representing the first six courses. The course of the highest pitch appears at the top, and that of the lowest appears at the bottom. (The Italian Archlute of the same period uses an opposite system.)

F____________________ D____________________ A____________________ F____________________ D____________________ A____________________

Lowercase letters or "glyphs"are placed on each of these lines to represent notes. If it is required to play an open D course, for instance, a small a will be placed on the appropriate line. For a note with the finger on the first fret a b, a note on the second fret a c, etc. However, as mentioned above, j was not used since it was not considered a separate letter from i, and c often looked more like r. Thus:

F_____c___ D_____a___ A_____b___ F_____c___ D_____a___ A_____b___ G - a

would represent a G-minor chord,

All open strings would represent a D-minor chord:

F______a________ D______a________ A______a________ F______a________ D______a________ A______a________ D- ///a

The strings below the sixth course are notated with additional short ledger lines: glyphs are placed below the staff. These courses are tuned in accordance with the key of each piece played:

G- a F- /a E- //a D- ///a C- 4 B- 5 A- 6

A number of slightly different systems were used to show rhythm: some scribes and printers used headed notes, but it was simpler for a scribe to use headless tails for the fast-moving notes these plucked instruments commonly played (breve to semi-fusa); and early printers followed the scribal practice. Individual tails were sometimes combined into 'grids', resemblimg today's beams. The semibreve was indicated by an untailed line, the breve by a circled line or a line flagged to the left. Regarding notation of rhythms, French manuscripts tend to use a more florid script for the rhythmic values while English and Germanic manuscripts tend to use a more conservative script.

The lute was a virtuoso's instrument, and rapid ornamentation in the form of graces, trills, shakes, fall-backs, mordents, etc. were expected of players ad libitum to ornament the music artfully, beyond just playing the written notes. Some of these ornaments may be written out, but more commonly a special symbol would mark places where they might be used; these symbols are the subject for a special discussion; each scribe and composer had a different style of ornamentation and there were a variety of ways to notate them. However, for a general discussion of French tablature ornaments see Furnas' dissertation discussing the Manchester Lyra viol manuscript.

The majority of viola da gamba tablature manuscripts is written in French Baroque tablature. The difference between viola da gamba tablature (also called lyra viol tablature) and lute tablute is that the chords in lyra viol music must include all the strings between the highest and lowest notes in the chord. Lutinists, however, can play broken chords (chords that do not include all the internal strings within a chord). Additionally, a diagonal slash often appears in lyra viol manuscript, indicating a slur. As these distinction are subtle, manuscripts have often been misidentified.

Two features of French tablature are critical. French tablature does not use the letter i. It is replaced by the letter y. Second, the letter c is often written in a manner that suggest the letter r or a small capital Greek gamma.

A few lyra viol manuscripts notate music above the octave. In such rare cases, no letters are ignored. Thus, letters follow: h, y, j, k, l, and m. Lyra viol music above the octave is extremely rare. Contemporary composers, including Peter H. Adams have written music up to the octave and a fifth above the open string.