In the interest of jump starting a discussion on Medieval tunes on the mandolin, I humbly draw your attention to two transcriptions that I contributed to Mel Bay's Mandolin Sessions website in the April and June issues in 2006.
Lamento di Tristano:
http://www.mandolinsessions.com/apr06/Lamento.html
English Dance:
http://www.mandolinsessions.com/jun06/english.html
I play these in kind of a radical scordatura tuning: the E course is lowered one whole tone to D, and one of the G strings is lowered a 4th to D while the other is raised a whole tone to A. This gives a very "open" I-V-I-V-I tuning: D3A3 D4D4 A4A4 D5D5. The 5th on the bottom course makes the mandolin sound really huge.
I'd be interested in what Medieval tunes you all are playing on the mandolin.
Cheers!
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