News of the Week of April 23, 2024

• Isaac, Innsbruck
• Rore: Mia benigna fortuna
• Holborne: 25. Patiencia; 33. Heres paternus
• Ravenscroft, He that will an Alehouse keep

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

We are trying out a slightly modified meeting format. We have found for some time that starting a meeting with everyone sightreading an aggressively polyphonic piece did not lead to good work on tuning and ensemble. So what we’ve been doing is starting with everyone sightreading from the hymnal, which does lead to good work on the tuning, but doesn’t directly address the problem of good ensemble playing from unbarred parts.

So what we’re going to try for a while is playing the same piece at the beginning of the rehearsal every week for a month or so. This will allow:

• People who aren’t comfortable sight reading in the ensemble to work on one or more parts on their own, or with a teacher if they’re taking lessons.
• People who want to learn a new instrument or a new clef or fingering to work on it on their own and not have to sight read cold.
• Everyone to have a chance to play or sing all the parts they want to.

For our first piece to tackle this way, I picked Innsbruck. If you weren’t here last week and are coming this week, you should either print it out or ask me to do it for you.

If you have suggestions for a suitable piece for next month’s non-sightreading segment, let me know.