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Fantasie No. 1: from the 1st book of tablature for the Renaissance Guitar

from Barry Tone​’​s Fantastic Adventure by Donald Bousted

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This, and the Grégoire Brayssing Fantasies which follow later on the CD, were written for the Renaissance guitar and published by Morlaye under licence from Henry II between 1552 and 1553. The Renaissance guitar was similar in size to the baritone ukulele and had a single first string, then three courses (or pairs, strung very close together) of strings with the fourth, or lowest string, tuned in octaves. This means that it’s possible to play Renaissance guitar music on the ukulele, either with re-entrant tuning, as is usual on the higher instruments (tenor, concert and soprano), or in linear tuning on a tenor with a ‘low G’ or a baritone - and the effect on either is broadly similar. Alternatively, there are eight-string tenor ukuleles with four courses of strings which, arguably, would produce a sound closer to the Renaissance guitar. When I started playing Renaissance guitar music on the ukulele I was less interested in authenticity and more interested in performing this little-played music on an instrument which sounded beautiful and which felt in some way connected to the music of the time. It’s undoubtedly a very personal thing, but I felt that the baritone offered more than the higher instruments in this regard by means of its longer sustain and lute-like sound quality. So for the time being at least, this is my preferred instrument. But above all it a huge pleasure to be able to play this music live because it’s so rich and beautiful and so under-represented, even in the world of early music. As a former lutenist, I read French tablature (which uses letters to represent the frets and a kind-of shorthand rhythmic notation) but I have also been very grateful for Michael P. Walker’s transcriptions from the facsimile editions into both staff notation and ukulele tablature (which uses numbers rather than letters).—Donald Bousted

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from Barry Tone​’​s Fantastic Adventure, released October 24, 2021
Donald Bousted, baritone ukulele
Written by Guillaume Morlaye; ukulele tablature by Michael Walker

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Donald Bousted UK

Donald Bousted benefitted from some excellent teaching, studying the guitar with Thomas Hartmann, the lute with Christopher Wilson and early music with Peter Holman and Ian Gammie. Later, he took further guitar lessons with Antonio Albanes and Oliver Hunt privately. In 2017, he discovered the classical ukulele and it seemed to bring many of his interests together. Sadly Donald passed in 2021. ... more

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