Hmmm. I play more English Renaissance music than I do Italian...but in both cases, dance music is an excellent source of material. English and Italian Renaissance dance music is generally fun to play, enjoyable to listen to, and easy to find. For late English Renaissance, of course, you can get away with some of the earlier country dance music. Many Italian Ren dance treatises are available in modern editions; they generally include music. In fact, I'll put in a plug for my own project along these lines...I am in the process of transcribing and editing all the music from Caroso's Il Ballarino (1581); what I have done so far can be found at www.pbm.com/~lindahl/caroso/music/ .

Since this is my first post to this tribe, I might as well introduce myself. My name is Marnen Laibow-Koser, but some of you may know me as Lord Marnen of Wolfhurst; I was Blackmore's Night's violinist in 2002 and 2003. I happened to run across this tribe, so I thought I'd join...