EXAMPLES OF CHROMATIC NOTATION FOR MODERN LYRES - II.
Renaissance Pavane written by a Spanish composer Luis de Milán was initially composed for a vihuela (instrument similar to the guitar) but it is nicely suitable for a modern lyre without any changes from the original script. In this lyre transcription, only some minor changes were made by adding a few notes to enrich the sound. But the notation looks certainly quite different... Although the major benefits of chromatic notation are more transparent in some contemporary music, the piece was chosen mainly to show the differences in rhythm notation - particularly the look of minims and semibreves that may take a while to get familiar with. On the other hand, the stemless minims can make more complex scores look clearer. In simpler scores, like Milán’s Pavane in this example, the rhythm proportionality in horizontal spacing can be also easily achieved. Like this, the notation corresponds to musical relations both vertically (melody, harmony) and horizontally (rhythm), which generally means a less time and effort is required to read the notes correctly, thus more is left for music itself.
