Early Music Muse Blog
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Early Music Muse is intended to appeal to both beginners and specialists in medieval and renaissance music. This blog is written by Ian Pittaway, singer, and player of medieval, renaissance, and early baroque music on period instruments harp, gittern, citole, Symfony, lute, bray harp, cittern, 4-course guitar, mandore, and koboz.
The English estampie: interpreting a medieval dance(?) tune (revised, with new analysis & new video)
Early Music Muse Blog
19h ago
One of the earliest extant pieces of English instrumental music has survived with the 13th–14th century manuscript, Douce 139, now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. It is exciting in its musical drive and complexity, but interpretation of the neume notation ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
2w ago
The wire-strung bandora, created by luthier John Rose in 1561 or 1562, has a small but beautiful solo repertoire, and was part of the bass section of the renaissance mixed consort. Bandora players in the early music revival are few ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
3M ago
Among the treasures of surviving medieval instrumental music are eight French royal estampies in the Manuscrit or Chansonnier du roi, c. 1300. This article includes: • an outline of the manuscript, putting the estampies in context; • a description of ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
7M ago
The first of these three articles focussed on understanding the nature of medieval art, its artistic conventions and relationship to reality. The second suggested 10 principles for a luthier or music historian to follow when gathering practical information about musical ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
8M ago
Our chief source of information for medieval musical instruments is iconography, meaning the art of manuscripts, paintings, and sculptures. That this art must be viewed critically is a commonplace understanding. Due to its highly stylised nature, some argue that all ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
8M ago
Medieval art or iconography is a rich resource for the researcher of medieval musical instruments, giving information about the physical features of gitterns, citoles, lutes, fiddles, and so on, the extent of their popularity and geographical reach, and design changes ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
1y ago
Alliteration was a foundational feature of medieval verse. Animals playing musical instruments are regularly seen in medieval art. The 14th century stone-carved musicians of Saint Mary’s Church, Cogges, Oxfordshire, delightfully bring these two elements together: there are nine instruments played ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
1y ago
To play a musical instrument comfortably, sometimes the player needs a strap to stabilise it. What is the historical evidence for the types of straps used for medieval, renaissance and baroque instruments? As this article will show, in trying to ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
1y ago
This is the last of eight articles about the iconography of Beverley Minster in Yorkshire: 71 musical minstrels carved in stone and wood in the 14th century; musical misericords of the 16th century; and neo-Gothic musicians carved in the early ..read more
Early Music Muse Blog
1y ago
This is the sixth in a series of eight articles about the 14th century carvings of minstrels in Beverley Minster, a church in the East Riding of Yorkshire. There are a total of 71 musicians, more than in any other ..read more