MUSIC IN SHAKESPEARE'S THEATRE

Nearly all the scripts of Shakespeare's plays specify incidental music and songs to create an appropriate atmosphere.

Trumpets and drums would be required during battles, for example, and could be used to herald the entrance of important people; the delicate notes of a lute (an early type of guitar) might accompany a love scene; and the eerie wail of a shawm (similar to the modern oboe) was very effective in producing an air of mystery, for instance before a ghost appears on the stage.

The actors were expected to be musically versatile, perhaps when singing accompanying themselves on a viol (a stringed instrument played with a bow), and clowns would dance jigs while playing a tabor (a small drum) with one hand and a pipe with the other. A group of about six musicians, usually on a balcony overlooking the stage, provided general background music and accompanied the play's songs and dances.

The quotation at the top of the page is from The Tempest, Act 3 Scene 2.