What's on Your Stand?

Jim King Nice! We have very similar setups. 

Hatef Yamini I see that as well.  Also, I notice that we are both using Bradford Werner as a source for scores.  Are you following his lessons as well?

Jim King I take much the same approach, Jim, always having half a dozen or more pieces on the go. (I don't have the patience to focus on a single work for days (let alone weeks) on end.) I like the repertoire you're working on - the Andantino by Carulli was at one time part of my daily 'warm-up' routine. And I'm always heartened to see guitarists playing lute music of any kind - the 'Spanish Pavin' (as you may know) was a traditional tune popular in Elizabethan England. Many settings have been preserved, the best known being the one published in Thomas Robinson's 'Schoole of Musicke' (1603). If you're interested in hearing it, I recommend Christopher Wilson's beautiful recording.

Jim King Hi Jim, yes I love Brad’s material because I can get a clean score and I can watch him play and put the two together. I do have a teacher that I see weekly. 

David Krupka I listened to the Christopher Wilson recording and agree that it is a beautiful recording.  As this recording and others have shown me, the score I have is only one part of the whole piece.  Unfortunate but beautiful just the same.

One fact that I read when I started that piece was that in the early 16th century, this piece was played at a quick tempo but was slowed down to a processional march later that century.  Not sure why this happened, do you have any idea?  Anything I checked didn't readily provide an answer.

Jim King 

The score you are working with is likely complete - it's just a different version of the 'Spanish Pavin' than the one played by Christopher Wilson. Indeed, there are perhaps a dozen or more 'settings' of the tune in various manuscript sources. There is no single 'correct' version, any more than there is today for a standard jazz tune. Different musicians will treat the same basic material according to their own taste and ability. So it was in Elizabethan times also, and though Robinson's arrangement is more elaborate than the anonymous setting in the 'William Ballet Lute Book', both are based on the same tune.

The matter of tempo that you refer to is quite interesting. There was, for reasons that I think remain obscure, a general slowing of dance tempos during the course of the sixteenth century. What happened in the case of the Pavin was simply part of a broader trend. You can get a sense of this by comparing one of the earliest known pavanes (dating from 1508) with one composed some seventy-five years later. 

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David Krupka Thank you David for the information.  It is interesting to learn about some of the history to better understand the music we play.

For the score, I tend to get my music from sources that are oriented to the beginner.  Accordingly, these scores are sometimes made simpler and shorter to suit that purpose.  But it makes sense that there would be various editions of the same music given the nature of the times for musicians to add or improvise in addition to the original music.

As for the tempo, thank you for the demonstrating how much Pavins have slowed their tempo over the 16th century.  That is some contrast in tempo!