Six Pavans by Luis de Milán (c.1500-1561) – Originally for vihuela. PDF sheet music arranged for classical guitar. Regular guitar tuning. Comes with both a notation edition with left hand fingering and a separate tab edition. Also includes a separate unfingered edition if you want to use a relative lute tuning. Mixed level: Late-Intermediate to Early-Advanced (Grade 6-9). Generally easy shapes to play and mainly in first positions but some tricky fingerings for voice leading and independence.
My PDF Sheet Music Edition:
The six pavans (pavanes, or pavanas) by Luis de Milán (c.1500-1561), also Luys Milán, come from his Libro de música de vihuela de mano intitulado El Maestro (1536). One of the first published music collections for the vihuela de mano. There are many editions of this music available but this edition focuses on voice leading and legato connection in imitation of vocal works of the era. Low quality editions often ignore the vocal quality and complexity of the music resulting in fingering choices that simplify the music to the point chord playing. This edition has been fingered specifically to create beautiful musical lines and voice independence. This doesn’t always make for easy fingerings but the musical result is worth it.
Tuning – Fingering for regular guitar tuning. Relative vihuela tuning is almost always beneficial to music of this era (tuning the 3rd string to F sharp). However, after playing the works in both tunings I concluded that half of the works are far easier to play in regular guitar tuning. You can use the unfingered edition and utilize any fingering or tuning you wish.
Video Performance – YouTube Link
