CD-ROM of the collection of Vihuela Music

[Akira Sakamoto]

Hello, folks,

 

I'm looking at the CD-ROM titled "Libros De Musica Para Vihuela 1536-1576" which contains facsimile data of the seven surviving collections of vihuela music by Narvaez, Milan, Mudarra, Fuenllana, Pisador, Valderrabano and Daza.

 

Before purchasing it, I would like to make sure whether it also contains the music for the four course renaissance guitar composed by some of them, as I'm collecting tablatures for my renaissance guitar now (I've already acquired the facimile of Morlaye/Gorlier books).

 

Any info would be highly appreciated!

[Akira Sakamoto]

Hi, Martin,

Thank you for the reply and the interesting link. I don't think the tablatures for the guitar are cut out either, but it should be safer to make sure of that. The CD-ROM is not too cheap (roughly 80 USD), so I don't want to risk the money.

I'm aware of the compatibility issues, and the incompatibility with Mac OS is already mentioned. I didn't know about the issue with Vista. Thank you for the heads-up. Actually the CD-ROM contains the tablatures in PDF format which can be opened in any OS. I bet the compatibility issue is only for the software to browse and/or search the tablature.

[Alexander Batov]

Hello Akira,

Yes, the guitar pieces are all there: six in Mudarra's "Tres Libros de Musica en Cifras ..." and nine in Fuenllana's libro sexto of "Orphenica Lyra". No need to worry about the incompatibility issues because you can simply copy all seven folders that contain image files (by the way they are jpgs not PDFs) of the vihuela books to your computer and browse them with the application of your choice (which I personally prefer) instead of using the rather dreary viewer that is included on the CD-ROM. The images, although perfectly readable from the screen, are of low resolution (800x560 Mudarra, 643x1002 Fuenllana), as well as on the blurry side, so I wouldn't expect great quality from prints if that's what you are thinking about. All in all, 80 USD for just 15 guitar pieces seems rather a lot, unless of course you are planning to get yourself a vihuela one day too.

Alexander

[Akira Sakamoto]

Hi, Alexander,

Thank you for the definitive info! So long as the images of the tablatures are readable enough that I can transcribe them by hand correctly (without the human error on my side), I won't require much of the image quality.

> All in all, 80 USD for just 15 guitar pieces seems rather a lot,

Maybe you're right. But if that's the only way to get access to the "source" instead of the questionable transcriptions, there seems to be no choice...

> unless of course you are planning to get yourself a vihuela one day too.

Oh, no, that's too tempting! (lol)

[Alexander Batov]

Akira, I admire your determination! Anyway, do let me know your email address (if that's not a problem) and I might be able to help you with some of the music. You can find my on the 'contact' page of my web site.
Alexander

[Alexander Batov]

PS: For more 4-course guitar repertoire have a look at this link (there are some nice pieces in that MS too):
http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg00965.html

[Akira Sakamoto]

Oh, you were posting the postscript while I was typing.

I've downloaded all the pages for the four-course guitar!

Thank you again!

[Robert S. Dollard]

I ordered this up last week, but for the Vihuela music.  It seems like a lot of money, even for the Vihuela music; then too, if I had to purchase the facsimiles, it would have been much more.  I'm just tired of the transcribed Vihuela books and not having all the notation.  Wanting to work on technique, the original source material, or at least the digital facsimile makes for a viable alternative.   Anyway, compared to the Weiss editions, coughing up the money for this one was an easy decision.  Hope the CD-ROM proves as useful as I think.

[Akira Sakamoto]

I didn't purchase the CD-ROM, but has seen some facsimile data from it.  Although they are not up to hi-res large print, printing to, say, A4 size is no problem.  The good thing is that some black tablatures with vocal part printed in red is digitized in color.

 

So, I would say it is still worth the money even at the currently offered price, considering the value of all-in-one package of comprehensive repertoire.

[Mark Day]

Robert,

Have you received the CDrom yet, and if so how do you like it? How readable is it? I know some prefer to play off facsimiles, but I haven't seen too many that are very legible and I actually prefer playing from something made in Fronimo or Django, sacrilege though that may be.

[Robert S. Dollard]

Have it on order, though my local vendor is out and had to put it on back order.  Said it would be in in a few weeks.  

I've not seen any of the facsimiles of the vihuela music, though do enjoy looking at source material for the lutes.  I wanted the facsimiles so that I can check markings, dedillo etc., that are not present in the transcriptions I've seen.  Not that I'd ever play off the CDrom, but it should be good for study and doing my own transcriptions from. 

 

[Dmitry Medvedev]

Would anyone be interested if I rewrote the software for this CD-ROM to be able to run on both Windows and Mac and maybe added a few additional features, like text search? And I could replace the facsimile images with higher quality ones available from the web.

I would probably do it anyway, because I find the electronic catalogue much more convenient than stand-alone PDF's, but I could spend some more effort to make if more 'user-friendly', sort of... The original software is unfortunately very old. You still can run it on Windows, but the resolution is fixed and there are other problems.