The vihuela is the Spanish answer to the English and Italian lute; it bears many physical and structural resemblances. Both instruments read from a type of notation known as tablature, both use strings that are arranged in six courses of two strings each. The vihuela, however, apparently does not tune its strings in octaves as does the lute; in addition, its pegbox sits at a much more relaxed angle from the body of the instrument. Only one surviving example of the vihuela survives, a sixteenth century instrument now housed in a museum in Paris. Yet in its heyday of the sixteenth century, the instrument apparently studded the courts of Spain and Portugal; it was eventually eclipsed in popularity by the guitar, which remains popular on the Iberian peninsula today. A 1611 theorist, for instance, complained that "This instrument has been highly esteemed until the present time, and it has had excellent players, but since the invention of the guitar, only very few people give themselves to the study of the vihuela. It has been a great loss, because on it one could put all kinds of notated music, and now, the guitar is nothing more than a harmless bell, so easy to play, especially in the strummed style, that there isn't a stable boy who isn't a guitarist." Yet Luis de Milán played and wrote for the instrument in its most popular period.

Valencian composer and performer Luis de Milán published a collection of music for the instrument in 1536, entitled El Maestro; it was the first of six published collections of music for the instrument over the course of the sixteenth century. The first of six "Pavans" from this collection elegantly illustrates his style. The Pavan as a form emulates courtly dances; Milán in the introduction to his print says he specifically sought to echo the style of Italian dance music. In Pavan No. 1, the most obvious link to the dance is the clear and regular phrase structure. The piece divides roughly in its two halves, each of which close with the same refrain. But each also consists of short, highly danceable phrases of eight measures each (once 10). Sometimes Milán's writing is chordal, sometimes it includes little imitative polyphonic passages; always it proceeds with relaxed grace toward a predictable cadence. Judicious use of accidental inflections, including a number of delightful cross-relations immediately following cadences, spice up the overall harmonic pallette.

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