# Music by Genre > Orchestral, Classical, Italian, Medieval, Renaissance >  Resource for Medieval and Renaissance Music

## JayA

Having played around with the Mandolin for a couple of months now, I've discovered a real interest in folk music, particularly early medieval and renaissance stuff.

I've done a few Google searches and turned up a few interesting items here and there, but I was wondering if anyone has a good resource for finding music for this style? Doesn't necessarily have to be tabbed, I'm learning to read music so would be a good challenge to spur me on.

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## Jacob

Book/CD Collections for Mandolin in both Notation and Tablature (nfi)

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## Martin Jonas

This thread in the "Medieval Mandolin" Social Group here on the Cafe may help:

Link

Martin

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## John Craton

Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but several years ago I edited a collection called "Divertissements médiévaux" for violin & piano, consisting of arrangements of a number of works from the medieval to Renaissance period. They're all in 1st position and play well on mandolin.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CEAMYI/

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## demotlj

Allen Alexander has a number of books of arrangements of Renaissance and Medieval music for mandolin.  The books come with both notation and tab, and CDs with guitar accompaniment.  His music is not only very accessible but his arrangements are quite nice.  One of the problems with a lot of music you'll find from collections of that era is that it's very short.  Alexander has written variations on the basic tunes so that you can play a longer piece.  I highly recommend his books.

Laurie

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## KristinEliza

http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Morley,_Thomas

I've enjoyed some of the pieces by Thomas Morley on www.imslp.org.

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## JayA

Thanks for the good replies. I came across Allan Alexander via a Classified ad on Mandolin Cafe just the other day, and ordered the Medieval Faires collection. Good to see a couple of recommendations here, I am very eager to get my hand on the book now.

I would have thought that, given the large amount of music there must be from that period that there would be more available to view, and try, but maybe I am being just a little naive in thinking everything is available digitally these days! 

Thanks for the link to the Social Group, too, I didn't know it was there. Seems to have gone a bit quiet there in recent times, but some nice videos to view.

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## Jim Garber

> http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Morley,_Thomas
> 
> I've enjoyed some of the pieces by Thomas Morley on www.imslp.org.


For some reason, I cannot access IMSLP at the moment. I was able to get to the Morley page on the Icking site. Any recommendation as to particular works that are good on mandolin?

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## billkilpatrick

glad to see you've joined the medieval group - don't be shy about posting videos of yourself playing these wonderful tunes.  many of the tunes are available in tab and notation - once you find the name, just give a search.  sometimes translations are available.  youtube is a great source of material as well - renaissance - or - medieval music in the search engine should bring them all up.  here's my playlist for the "estampie reale" plus a few early dance tunes:  

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...eature=mh_lolz

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## Jim Garber

IMSLP site seems to be online again.

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## JeffD

> I would have thought that, given the large amount of music there must be from that period that there would be more available to view, and try, but maybe I am being just a little naive in thinking everything is available digitally these days! 
> .


Very little, comparitively, has been published for the mandolin. But as you are learning to read, soon enough you can play music written for any instrument. Of which there is at least a ton.

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## KristinEliza

Jim-

I did some of these with some friends last June...I didn't have my mandola at the time, so we were all on mandolin...still sounded cool...will sound better this year now with my mandola.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Canzonets,_or_...orley,_Thomas)

I'd need to look at them to tell you specifically which tunes we liked the best.

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## billkilpatrick

difficult to decipher the melody from the ornamentation sometimes but the tunes are there!

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## jdyoungca

I highly recommend learning to read standard notation instead of depending on tablature.  I bit the bullet on that a few years ago and it open up whole new worlds of music you can play.  I play medieval music with a small group from the local SCA chapter and I'm generally playing music originally written for recorders or vocalists on my mandolin and octave mandolin and it works quite well.  If I had to depend on tab I'd be doing a lot of work generating it myself.

I highly recommend the Alan Alexander books mentioned previously on this thread.  He has 3 books for medieval and two for renaissance music that are a lot of fun to play.  If you have some others you can play with there are a lot a good sources for multipart pieces that were written in SATB format for other instruments that translate well to mandolin.  These are some pieces I've done from that genre:

http://www.soundclick.com/members/de...tion&id=929350

These are all me playing with the tracks overdubbed using Cubase.  The soprano parts are mandolin, the tenor parts are octave mandoline, and the bass parts are done with acoustic guitar.  The alto should really be done on a mandola, but I don't have one (and my wife will probably murder me horribly if I buy yet another instrument) so I've done them on either the mandolin or the octave mandolin depending on how high/low they are.

Some SCA members have put up good pages with sheet music/midi/audio files, plus there are many other pages put up by people with an interest in period music.  Here are a few I have used:

http://sca.uwaterloo.ca/~praetzel/phaedria.html

http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Renaissance_composers

http://www.free-scores.com/free-shee...&historiques=1

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## JayA

Thanks for those suggestions - I ordered Alan Alexander's Mandolin Music for Medieval Faires which arrived just today. Some great tunes in it and very helpful to have the CD, too. I think I shall be ordering some more next month.

I shall be checking out those links, too. Thanks  :Smile:

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