1586—Seville, Spain

Chapelmaster Francisco Guerrero issues the cathedral band a set of guidelines, including directions on improvisation: “First, that Rojas and Lopez should always play the treble shawms, and that they should take great care in the order of the time and place of their glossing [improvising], so that when one is glossing, the other plays the music unadorned, each being careful of the other because when they gloss together it makes such absurdities as would stop up the ears….When the same Juan de Medina plays the contralto [shawm] alone as a treble with the trombones [sacabuches], the field is open to him to make whatever decorations and glosses he wants and can play well on his instrument” (Kreitner, Minstrels in Spanish Churches).