False Relations in an English Town

False Relations in an English Town: “Dalza’s basse danse meets the english cadence”

The final cadence of 'False Relations in an English Town' in musical notation.

Figure 1: The final cadence of False Relations in an English Town

As far as I remember, in this improvisation I ripped off one of Joan Ambrosio Dalza’s basse danses or pivas. However, the main gist was to test out a final cadence with false relation; also known as “english cadence” in renaissance music. It might make sense in the future to relate this improvisation with the style of renaissance lute composers such as Luys Milan, but right now I will leave this post deliberately short. A few points for the future:

  • techniques by other renaissance composers to improvise on top of a drone or single-note bass,
  • Luys Milan and other composers utilizing guitar-friendly imitations between bass and upper voices,
  • english cadences by english composers, Thomas Tallis comes to mind,
  • and finally, other false relations: late renaissance or early baroque France comes to mind.

For playback (& if you like this album, consider buying it in BandCamp to support my art):

Here’s the recording session video of the piece: