Customer Reviews

Lute Songs of John Dowland: The Original First and Second Books Including Dowland's Original Lute Tablature (Dover Song Collections)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It took me awhile to get used to the traditional lute tab notation as I am coming from a regular guitar background (read standard notation & "modern" tablature). This is a good book if you can find it. If you also like steel-string acoustic guitar playing, check out the recordings and transcriptions by John Renbourne. There is another book that may be hard to find but worth it called "Complete Anthology for Medieval and Renaissance Guitar" that has some great transcriptions using alternate tunings by Renbourne.

What a bargain this volume is! French tablature for lute, standard notation for guitar, plus the voice part. All nice and neatly presented. You absolutely can't go wrong with this volume at $10. Thanks, Dover; what a great favor you've done for us lutenists!

After purchasing these books (1/2 & 3/4) I immediately got use of the convenience of its page lay-out. Playing both Lute and Guitar this book is easy to understand with the Guitar notations. My favorite thing about this book is that it's printed with a few extra pages to guarantee that a two-page song is always on two adjacent pages instead of back-to-back. The only thing I didn't like was in comparison to the Stainer & Bell edition. Having Voice on top, Grand Staff realization, and then Lute; the grand staff let's you see exactly where your lower courses are tuned to. Not that its hard to figure out with standard tunings but Dowland did use a few kinds of Lutes through-out the compositions in these books. I definately recommend them for anybody studying Guitar, Lute, or Voice.

This is an interesting collection of Dowland's Lute songs in a format that presents the song in standard notation (classical guitar format) and also in tablature. As with most Dover Publications, it is well-bound with a sturdy cover, but the paper the music is printed on is of low quality.

excelent edition, beautiful music, a must in song repertory. Comes with lute tab and parts, the volume Two is great also. In love with this music.

i'm using dowland on my senior recital for college, this is one of the better books.