There's a new brochure for Serpent Publications with a back page that has announcements and examples of new work and a front page listing the lulu.com offerings, and a better explanation than we've had before of what we do.

Many thanks to Ishmael the Fiddler for help writing and editing it. Right after proofreading 5 parts each of 65 pieces by Holborne is the wrong time to tackle marketing literature.

All the parts for all 65 of the Holborne Pavans,Galliards, Almains, and other short Æirs both grave, and light, in five parts, for Viols, Violins, or other Musicall Winde Instruments are available at the Serpent Publications Lulu.com store.

Individual part books will be up shortly.

One of the major sources of public domain sheet music has been taken down. If you're looking for IMSLP, you should read about the problem (and the workarounds) at IMSLP Journal.

Please consider contributing time and/or money to help preserve our access to our musical heritage.

When I redesigned this site two years ago, one of the pieces from the old site that got left out of the first implementation was a listing of pieces by date last modified.

I don't know how many people ever used it, but I found it useful when someone found an error that I was sure I had fixed.

On the new site, I've been really good about telling people when I put new pieces up, but quite unreliable about blogging when I fix things. So now if you have an old download that has problems, and you're wondering if you should write and tell me about them, you can check the by date page and see if there's a newer version than what you have.

I originally transcribed My Prime of Youth from an edition which included the work In deep distress as the second part.

There's a performance tradition of performing these two together, but that isn't the way Mundy published them. The Chidioch Tichdale poem "My Prime of Youth" has three verses, and I wanted to see if the other two work with the music Mundy wrote.

The answer based on one meeting is that the parts do work independantly, and My prime of youth does work with all three verses of the poem.

So that's the way they're on the site now. There's nothing stopping you from singing the first verse of "My Prime of Youth" and going directly into In deep distress if that's the way you want to do it.

There's been more activity in the lulu.com store lately, so I've been more inspired to do work on adding more items to the store.

I've just added two poll questions to the sidebar. If you think you might be willing to pay for book versions of the content of this site, please answer the questions.

Obviously, the reason for the first question about what you'd like to see next is to see what people might be interested in buying.

The reason for the second question, about whether you buy in hard copy or downloadable PDF is practical -- the lulu pricing isn't kind to people who buy hard copy of part books, for two reasons:

• In general, there need to be more pages in 4 partbooks than in one book with all the parts.
• Four partbooks cost more than the same number of pages in one book.

People who buy pdf's don't have to worry about this, because they are paying for the printing costs on their own printer, instead of on lulu's printers.

Current actual sales are very heavily PDF's rather than hard copy, and my guess is that this will continue to be the case, but if there's a large pent-up demand for hard copy, I'd like to know about it.

So please consider answering the poll questions, if you have any interest at all in what I do with the lulu store.

The key signature for this piece by William Byrd is now D minor, not D dorian. I also undotted the rests.

In general, the underlay for second and subsequent verses in the Dowland part songs is completely editorial, and in this case, the editor had completely screwed up the word order.

I'm not claiming it makes a lot more sense the way Dowland or his lyricist wrote it, but I believe it is now the way it was written.

I transcribed this 10 years ago, when I knew a lot less than I do now about how Renaissance polyphony typically worked, and the facsimile has a rest at the very beginning that makes no sense at all, and throws everything off.

Thanks to Sarah Mead, I now have it corrected, so if you've ever downloaded it and wondered how anyone could have written anything so dumb, download it again -- it's a nice piece.

It's actually the middle part of a three part song, and I have some pending corrections to the first part that someone wrote me two years ago when I was in the throes of dealing with the Rogers estate, but maybe I'll get to them now.

Added the next two Holbornes: 7. Pavan. and 8. The Marie-Golde.

Also a new Sermisy -- Languir me fais, which in addition to the four parts by Sermisy from 1528 has the top and bottom lines decorated by Adrianus Petit Coclico in 1552.