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Musick's Handmaid Home Page

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Maintaining this site is not free. Please help share the cost for providing access to a large collection of lute music and ensure that work will continue to improve the site's features.

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In the Pipeline [AJAX CALL]

Fandango Release Candidate 23F is now available. See the details for that release.

A complete transcription of Castaldi's Capricci a due instrumenti for theorbo and tiorbino will soon be posted here. A facsimile copy can be found on this site.

A complete transcription in grand staff notation of Jean-Baptiste Bésard's Thesaurus Hamonicus will soon be posted. Currently, the Thesaurus is available here in tablature.

What are you interested in?

Fandango software

Fandango software

Fandango is a full featured tablature and notation editor with a rich library of transcriptions of Renaissance and Baroque lute, guitar, mandolin, etc.pieces

Projects pages.

Collections that deserve special attention, with PDF transcriptions and audio output.

Browse available scores

Individual scores in PDF, image or Fandango format.

Fandango format collections

Fandango scores organized by instrument.

Find a lute piece

Search a database of thousands of pieces for lute and theorbo. The index contains links to transcriptions as well as facsimiles and concordances.

Find a digital early music facsimile.

Search for a digital facsimile book in libraries across te world.

Find a lutenist near you!

A Google map with the position of thousands of early music players all over the world. Each pin includes information on the person's instrument and location.

Iconography.

1000 paintings showing historical instruments and practices.

Browser based W. Cripps Tab editor

Create tablature using Wayne Cripps tab program directly online. All browser-based, no installation is necessary!

MIDI parser and OGG audio generator

midiHogg is a browser based MIDI parser and editor and OGG audio generator. midiHogg also uses an auto-score feature.

Chord dictionary

A utility to generate chord charts and a database of chord shapes for guitar and lute.

Jazz grid song editor

browser-based editor allows you to create Jazz style chord grid songs, with lyrics and a chord chart dictionary

This Site Offers:

Early Music dedicated Software and Music ...

  • Fandango Tablature Software

    Supports all kinds of weird instruments: Renaissance Lutes, Baroque lute, Theorbo, Baroque guitar, mandolino, mandolin, banjo, dobro, slide guitar, etc. Also supports alfabeto notation for Baroque guitar

    Also supports regular notation and mixed instruments scores

  • Transcription projets
    Special projects dealing with a collection of material that often represent a special challenge. So far, these include:
    • Complete transcription of the Cherbury lute book
    • Transcription and intabulation of Filippo Dalla Casa music for archlute
    • Transcripton of pieces by Marco Dall'Aquila by Arthur Ness
    • Transcriptions of sonatas by Friedrich Wilhem Rust
    • A transcription of Marin Marais' Sonnerie de Ste Geneviève
  • Lute pieces index
    Over 32000 lute pieces indexed in facsimile or transcription ... About 10000 facsimile images are indexed and links to around 1200 plucked early music volumes are available
  • Lute iconography
    800 paintings and drawings from the Renaissance and Baroque period ...
  • Lutenists world map

    Google map with the location of musicians who have created an account on the site. Find out which lutenist lives near you, or closest to the North Pole!

    All early music practitioners are encouraged to join the map, even crumhorn players

Modern Music Software, and MIDI support...