Dr Michael Gale

Professional biography

• the sociology of music-making in England, c.1500-1700

• musical training and education from c.1500 to the present day

• computer-assisted musicology (i.e. the design and development of electronic resources for musicological research)

• jazz studies (especially jazz historiography, 1940 - present; representations of jazz in film)

Publications

a)  Journal articles & conference/seminar papers:

(with D. Lewis): “Musical texts and information retrieval: the case of the early modern battaglia”, Early Music 43/iv (2015): 587-95.

“Lute pedagogy in Renaissance England: Methods and motivations”, Lute News: The Lute Society Magazine 116 (December 2015): 9-17.

“The life and works of Thomas Whythorne (1528-96): An opportunity for computer-assisted collaborative research”, in B. Fields & K. Page (eds.) DLfM 2014: Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Digital Libraries for Musicology (London: ACM Press, 2014): 64-66.

“John Dowland, celebrity lute teacher”, Early Music, 41/ii (2013): 205-18.

“Two newly discovered English lute tablature fragments”, The Lute: Journal of the Lute Society, 48 (2008): 54-70. See publisher’s errata in The Lute, 49 (2009): 90-1.

(with D. Lewis, T. Crawford, & G. Wiggins) “Abstracting Musical Queries: Towards a musicologist’s workbench”, in R. Kronland-Martinet, T. Voinier & S. Ystad (eds.), Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval: Third International Symposium, CMMR 2005, Pisa, Italy, September 26-28, 2005, Revised Papers (Heidelberg: Springer, 2006): 249-58.

(with T. Crawford) “John Dowland’s ‘Lachrimae’ at home and abroad”, The Lute: Journal of the Lute Society, 44 (2004): 1-34.

(with D. Lewis & T. Crawford) “An Electronic Corpus of Lute Music (ECOLM): Technological Challenges and Musicological Possibilities”, in R. Parncutt, A. Kesseler & F. Zimmer (eds.), Proceedings of the Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology (CIM04): Graz, Austria, 15-18 April 2004. (CD-ROM - ISBN: 3-200-00113-5)

“Remnants of some late sixteenth-century trumpet ensemble music”, Historic Brass Society Journal, 14 (2002): 115-31.

b) other publications:

CD liner notes:  David Gorton: Variations on John Dowland – Longbow/Stefan Östersjö (Toccata Classics: TOCC 0396), 2017, 2pp.

Entries in Encyclopedia of Tudor England, eds. John A. Wagner & Susan Walters Schmid. 3 vols. (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011): “Byrd, William (c1540–1623)” (I: 187-190); “Dowland, John (1563–1626)” (I: 359-61); “madrigal” (II: 730-31).

CD liner notes:  Johann Sebastian Bach: Viola da gamba sonatas – Petr Nouzovský/Monika Knoblochová (Cube-Bohemia: CBCD 2631), 2006, 2pp.

CD liner notes:  Baroque Trumpet Concertos – Marek Zvolánek/New Prague Collegium (Cube-Bohemia: CBCD 2529), 2005, 5pp.

c) book reviews:

Review of Amanda Eubanks Winkler, Music, Dance, and Drama in Early Modern English Schools (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); in Journal of Historical Research in Music Education 44/1 (2022), 122-24.

Review of K. Dawn Grapes, With Mornefull Musique: Funeral Elegies in Early Modern England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018), Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 78/3 (March 2022), 431-34.

Review of The Oxford Handbook of Philosophical and Qualitative Assessment in Music Education, eds. David J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman, and Gary E. McPherson. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), Fontes Artis Musicae, 68/ii (2021), 185-88.

Review of Eric Jas, Piety and Polyphony in Sixteenth-Century Holland: The Choirbooks of St Peter’s Church, Leiden (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018), Current Musicology, 107 (2020): 163–170.

"Lute Treasures", review of facsimile edition: The Mathew Holmes Manuscripts I: Cambridge University Library MS Dd.2.11, eds. John H. Robinson & Stewart McCoy, Early Music, 40/iii (2012): 507-9.

d) recording reviews:

Review of Mortua dulce cano: A Florilegium of Late Renaissance Lute Music, Michał Gondko (lute) (Ramée CD RAM2007); in Lute News: The Lute Society Magazine 142 (August 2022), 79.

Review of Dowland: ‘Whose heavenly touch’, Mariana Flores (soprano), Hopkinson Smith (lute) (naïve CD E8941); in Lute News: The Lute Society Magazine 140 (December 2021), 55-56.

Review of Arcadia: Italienisch Lautenmusik der Hochrenaissance, Christoph Greuter (lute) (Narrenschiff CD Nar 2020146); in Lute News: The Lute Society Magazine 137 (May 2021), 39.

Review of Rembrandt! Musik des Niederländischen Goldenen Zeitalters/Music of the Dutch Golden Age, Alon Sariel (lute), Concerto Foscari (Querstand CD VKJK 1901); Lute News: The Lute Society Magazine,133 (April 2020): 57-8.

Review of Mad Dog, Hopkinson Smith (lute) (naïve CD E8940); Lute News: The Lute Society Magazine 133 (April 2020): 56-7.

Recent conference presentations:

(with Karen Wardley) "Graffiti, gaps, and the written record: Music and worship at the Hospital of St. Cross, Winchester during the sixteenth century", Making Your Mark: 2nd National Symposium for the Study of Historic Graffiti, York, 19 November 2022.

“New light on the career of John Chappington, Elizabethan organ-maker”, Galpin Society conference, Edinburgh, 23-25 June 2022.

"Musical provision at the Hospital of St. Cross, Winchester during the sixteenth century", Royal Musical Association annual conference, Newcastle, 14-16 September 2021.

"The life and work of Walter Cheyney (d.1601), Elizabethan 'singingman'", Renaissance Society of America annual meeting (online), 13-22 April, 2021.

“Locating Richard Mynshall’s books”, Annual Congress of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres (IAML), Kraków, 14-19 July 2019.

“Music-making and identity-formation in the Elizabethan universities”, Medieval and Early Modern Spaces and Places conference, Open University Medieval and Early Modern Research Group, Milton Keynes, 23-24 February 2018.

 “The death-knell for traditional harmony and counterpoint studies? Some prospects and implications arising from the new A-level Music curricula,” Music Transitions and Futures conference, Newcastle, 25 January 2018.

“Professional Musicians in Winchester, c.1575-c.1625: a preliminary sketch”, Wessex Centre for History and Archaeology seminar series, University of Winchester, 6 April 2017

“Recreational music-making in early modern Oxford and Cambridge colleges”, Teaching and Learning in early modern England: Skills and knowledge in practice, Cambridge, 1-2 September 2016.

“John Danyel and the early modern music-teaching profession”, Samuel Daniel, poet and historian conference, London, 10-11 September 2015.

“The professional musicians of Winchester and their networks, c.1570—c.1625.” Musical Life Outside London, 1500-1800: Networks, Circulation, Sources study day, Newcastle, 25 October 2014.

“Thomas Robinson’s Schoole of Musicke (1603), autodidactic learning, and the politics of the early modern music lesson.” Sources of Identity: Makers, Owners and Users of Music Sources Before 1600 conference, Sheffield, 4-6 October 2013.

“Music, verse, and community in a provincial Elizabethan town: re-reading Richard Mynshall’s lutebook.” American Musicological Society annual meeting, New Orleans, 1-4 November 2012

“Music, verse, and community in a provincial Elizabethan town: re-reading Richard Mynshall’s lutebook.” Music, Space, and Sociability in the Renaissance workshop, Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, University of York, 9 May 2012

At the OU, I currently teach A113 (Revolutions), a Level 1 interdisciplinary humanities module. 

I have previously taught A179 (Start Listening to Music), AA100 (The Arts Past and Present), A150 (Voices & Texts), and A105 (Voices, Texts, and Material Culture).