Renaissance Guitar Songs

[Moldy Forest]

Hey everyone I'm hoping to pick your brain for a moment. What are some good period songs for the guitar? Are there any music/tab sites that cater in this type of music? Thanks- Justin

[DonaCatalina]

http://home.earthlink.net/~guitarandlute/ren.html

[Moldy Forest]

Awesome thanks. Have you tried the books before? Any one specific ones have songs that you think are best?

[DonaCatalina]

I don't play....I just listen to Owain Phyfe.

[Lady L]

Along that same line of thinking...anyone know of piano sheet music for ren songs? I have Danny Boy, maybe Greensleeves or something else? Please, no drinking songs, my Mom doesnt' like that. TIA.

[MonikacGraf]

As long as you know chords I've found a few collections that are good: Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music from Hal Leonard, Tom Glazer's Treasury of Folk songs and One Hundred English Folksongs edited by Cecil J. Sharp

[Moldy Forest]

As long as you know chords I've found a few collections that are good: Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music from Hal Leonard, Tom Glazer's Treasury of Folk songs and One Hundred English Folksongs edited by Cecil J. Sharp

I will definately check those out. Thanks

[Prof. John Bull]

Sorry to drag up an old thread, but....

One of the best starting places for period sheet music for guitar (and lute) is Fred Noad's The Renaissance Guitar.  Used copies are available inexpensively at Amazon and it contains a well-chosen cross section of authentic period music transcribed into modern notation.  There are also performance notes and fingering suggestions which are helpful.

Guitar isn't really a period instrument.  The steel string acoustic guitar we see today is a 20th century innovation, with the classical nylon-string guitar having become common no earlier than the 18th century.  While there were guitars in the 16th century, they were small instruments, quiet, more like a lute than a guitar in their sound, tuning, and construction.  The lute, on the other hand, was common throughout Europe in the 16th century, and its literature works well on modern guitars, though there are occasional fingering problems posed by the wider fret spacing we have today, and it is often necessary to tune the g string down to F#.  Noad covers all this in his book.

Along that same line of thinking...anyone know of piano sheet music for ren songs? I have Danny Boy, maybe Greensleeves or something else? Please, no drinking songs, my Mom doesnt' like that. TIA.

You might enjoy "Mel Bay Celtic Fiddle Tunes for Solo and Ensemble."  This comes in several versions, among them a piano accompaniment.  It's not really written as a piano solo but does have a wide selection of the better known fiddle tunes with a reasonable piano part.