Guárdeme las vacas by Luys de Narvàez
Luys de Narvàez’s birthplace sometime around the year 1500 in Granada, Spain. Highly regarded as a composer and vihuelist in his lifetime.
Guárdeme las vacas was composed in the 16th-century for vihuela and published in Los seys libros del Delphin(1538) by the composer Luys de Narvàez. It consists of a set of variations on a Spanish folk theme.
The vihuela is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shape like a guitar and the tuning is very similar to guitar. Vihuela have 6 courses string which mainly tune in 4th except the 3rd and 4th courses tune in 3rd. As the modern guitar is also tune in 4th but the 2nd and 3rd strings tune in 3rd. The common practice to play the vihuela music in modern guitar is tune down the 3rd string a semitone to F# so the 3rd and 4th strings is in 3rd the others remain tune in 4th. There is some different tuning among vihuelas it depends on its size, the bigger size tune lower; the smaller size tune higher but still tune in 4th except the 3rd and 4th courses tune in 3rd. The most popular tuning is tune G C F A D G from 6th to 1st string respectively. When I played this famous tune from Narvàez firstly I tune the 3rd string down to F# and used a Capo on the 3rd fret so the tuning becomes G C F A D G . And I chose my old Contreras (1988) guitar with its crystal clear sound come close to the sound of vihuela. And I improvised to put some ornaments here and there when the music was repeated which revealed the style of the music of that period.
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