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I've seen some posts here about lute music available on the web. I don't know if anyone's mentioned this yet, but there are two extremely useful software programs for lutenists, which together with the remarkable, enormous amount of music available on the web, will give you a way to view, print, and hear what seems to be every piece of lute music ever written.
Example: you've always wanted to see what Dowland's Frogg Galliard looked like on paper (or Weiss' L'Infidelle, for that matter):
1. Dowload Django and/or Fronimo. These are tablature programs. With them, one can display, print, "play" (via midi) and even create lute music in any format (notation, french tab, italian tab, etc.). They can even convert midi files to lute tab. I think Django is more full-featured, costs less, and has more stuff encoded for it already. It's $90 (I think) and can be downloaded from the new Django website: josquin.musickshandmade.com/ . There's also a ton of tablature available at this site and at the sites it links to.
Fronimo: I think it's a good deal more, maybe $200, available at its yahoo group page: groups.yahoo.com/group/Fronimo_editor/
2. Get Timidity++. So you got the tab editor and the tab of whatever. You're trying to play the piece, which you printed out from Django, but there's a tricky bit you can't make out. In Django, if you press the play button, it will play the piece through your soundcard, producing a tolerable but squeaky rendition. But if you get a copy of timidity++ and a lute soundfont, instead of caterwauling you get the finest cat, er, sheepgut coming through your speakers. Timidity++ is basically a midi player, but it seems to be the one of choice for this situation (at least as far as I can tell). Download the win32 gui and command line version from timidity.s11.xrea.com/index.en.html
3. Get a lute soundfont: www.pythagorean.org/lute/music/lute.sf2
4. Edit timidity's config: I'll admit this is a little daunting. If anyone hasn't done this already, and needs help, reply and I'll post my config file.
I don't know about you, but since I found Django, it's been all instant gratification from then out. Great idea.
Best,
Jim Abraham
Example: you've always wanted to see what Dowland's Frogg Galliard looked like on paper (or Weiss' L'Infidelle, for that matter):
1. Dowload Django and/or Fronimo. These are tablature programs. With them, one can display, print, "play" (via midi) and even create lute music in any format (notation, french tab, italian tab, etc.). They can even convert midi files to lute tab. I think Django is more full-featured, costs less, and has more stuff encoded for it already. It's $90 (I think) and can be downloaded from the new Django website: josquin.musickshandmade.com/ . There's also a ton of tablature available at this site and at the sites it links to.
Fronimo: I think it's a good deal more, maybe $200, available at its yahoo group page: groups.yahoo.com/group/Fronimo_editor/
2. Get Timidity++. So you got the tab editor and the tab of whatever. You're trying to play the piece, which you printed out from Django, but there's a tricky bit you can't make out. In Django, if you press the play button, it will play the piece through your soundcard, producing a tolerable but squeaky rendition. But if you get a copy of timidity++ and a lute soundfont, instead of caterwauling you get the finest cat, er, sheepgut coming through your speakers. Timidity++ is basically a midi player, but it seems to be the one of choice for this situation (at least as far as I can tell). Download the win32 gui and command line version from timidity.s11.xrea.com/index.en.html
3. Get a lute soundfont: www.pythagorean.org/lute/music/lute.sf2
4. Edit timidity's config: I'll admit this is a little daunting. If anyone hasn't done this already, and needs help, reply and I'll post my config file.
I don't know about you, but since I found Django, it's been all instant gratification from then out. Great idea.
Best,
Jim Abraham
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