Author: Laura Conrad

Report on the November 14 meeting

We played:

* Marcello, ??Sonata III??
* Maier, I and II from ??Atalanta Fugiens??
* Byrd, ??In Nomine II??
* Wilbye:
** ??Draw on sweet Night??
** ??Weep O mine Eyes??
* Rounds:
** ??Cider Round??
** ??I had tea with the Duchess??
** ??O Portsmouth??
** ??Five Reasons??
** ??Let us drink and be merry??

h3. Links

I promised people some links during the beer drinking session.

* The text and graphics and English translations for ??Atalanta Fugiens?? are online at “The Alchemy Website”:http://www.levity.com/alchemy/atl1-5.html. Jack Campin’s ABC transcription of the tunes is “here”:http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack/Music/Atalanta.abc.
* The Disney illustrations of ??The Communist Manifesto?? are “here”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oGIffyVVk&NR. You might want to check this soon, as it’s the kind of thing YouTube may need to remove pretty fast.
* “WordPress.com”:http://www.wordpress.com is the site I recommended if someone wanted a free place to put up writings, pictures, etc., with a fair amount of flexibility. Your site will be called a blog, but there’s also a capability of writing static pages, so if you don’t want to blog you don’t have to.

h3. Schedule

We will be continuing our weekly dropin meetings for the forseeable future, on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html.

We also need to schedule the Christmas party. Since December 25th is a Monday, I assume many people will leave town on Friday the 22nd, so we’ll plan for the previous weekend. If you have a strong preference for Sunday, December 17, over Saturday, December 16, or vice versa, let me know about it in the next week or so.

Report on the October 31 meeting

We played:

* Charlton, ??The Foggy, Foggy Dew??
* Senfl, ??Two Lieder for five voices or instruments??
** ??Ich soll und muss ein Bulen haben??
** ??Es taget vor dem Walde??
* Something (a canonic song by Willaert?) Bonnie brought and took away again, so she has to report on it.
* Byrd, ??In Crystal Towers??
* Wilbye, ??Draw on, sweet Night??
* Round group:
** ??Cider Round??
** ??What a queer Bird??
** ??The Ghost of John??

Ishmael took a picture at the meeting, which is “in our gallery”:http://serpent.laymusic.org/gallery/albums/cantabile/RenBand20061031_pan30.thumb.jpg

h3. Schedule

We will not be meeting on November 7. Remember to vote.

We will resume our regular drop-in meetings on November 14, at 7:45 PM at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html.

h3. Other events

* “The Flanders Recorder Quartet”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org/calendar/cal_popup.php?op=view&id=294 will be playing this Saturday, November 4, at First Church in Cambridge. It’s going to be a program mixing recorders and singing, so it’s relevant to what we do.
* “The Quilisma Consort”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org/calendar/cal_popup.php?op=view&id=313
will be playing on Sunday at the Loring Greenough House, in the next event in “The Boston Recorder Society Concert Series”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org/concerts.html. I have an extra ticket, if anyone wants to go with me.
* “The West Gallery Quire”:http://www.laymusic.org/wg.html will be having their regular monthly meeting on Sunday, November 12. They will be playing for the church service at Saint Mary’s Church in Newton Lower Falls on November 19, and rehearsing for that performance on Thursday, November 16.
* “The Boston Recorder Society mini-workshop with Will Ayton”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org/flyer1106.html will be on Saturday afternoon, November 18.

Report on the October 24 meeting

We played:
* English Duets
* Byrd, ??I have been young??
* ??Mille Regrets?? group:
** Susato
** Josquin
** Susato, ??Reponce: Les miens aussi??
* Rounds:
** ??I had tea with the Duchess??
** ??What a queer bird the frog are??
** ??Ghost of John??
** ??Benji met the bear??
** ??Five Reasons??
** ??Slaves are they??
* Gwhelog Grace

h3. Schedule

We will be meeting as usual (7:45 PM, at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html) on October 31, but not on November 7, election day.

h3. Mailing list alternatives

Several people’s mail has been bouncing. I will look into editing my mail configuration, but in the meantime, these mails are also posted on my “full blog”:http://laymusic.org/wordpress/, or the “Cantabile category”:http://laymusic.org/wordpress/?cat=4.

Report on October 17 Meeting

We played:

* Chedeville, ??La Feste de Vilage??
* Morley, ??Good morrow, fair ladies of the May??
* Byrd, ??Susanna Fair??
* Dowland, ??Go, Crystal Teares??
* Byrd, ??Lord in thy Rage??
* Mundy, ??My Prime of Youth??
* ??Three Wise men of Boston??
* ??I had tea with the Duchess??
* ??He that drinks is immortal??

h3. Schedule

We will meet as usual on October 21 and 31. At 7:45 PM at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html. Drop-ins are welcome.

November 7 is election day, so we won’t meet then, since I’ll be assuring a free and fair election in Ward 10 Precinct 3.

Lots of Dowland updates; new publishing policy

In honor of the discussions of the “Sting Album”:http://www.wstm.com/Global/story.asp?S=5001096, I’ve gotten “most of the Dowland’s on the site”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#4 upgraded to lilypond 2.9.

While I was at it, I also removed the numbers from the piece title in the database, so that the “By Composer”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html page prints them alphabetically by title, so that you can find ??Now O Now I needs must Part?? under N instead of VI.

I believe that what’s missing are a few of the pieces from the end of ??A Pilgrim’s Solace??, and of course all the ones from ??Lachrimae?? that aren’t transcribed yet. I have found a source for MIDI files for the whole of ??Lachrimae??, so the rest will be appearing shortly, and I will also be converting the lilypond from ??A Pilgrim’s Solace?? soon.

I in fact also have the Dowland “First Booke”:http://www.laymusic.org/dowland-I.html updated.

In the past, I have shared essentially all the publishing work I’ve done online, and only charged people who wanted me to print it for them.

I will continue to do this with the basic typesetting I do, which I do as a member and director of a group which sings and plays music I love, and which I want other people to sing and play and love as much as I do.

However, the work of compiling books isn’t really necessary for this effort, so I have decided that in the future, the books will be available for sale, but not for free download.

I will be organizing the database driven part of the site better, so that it will be easier to find and print all the pieces in a given book if that’s what you want to do. And I will leave up the PDF files that are already there, but not the updates and new books that I produce.

Report on the October 10 meeting

We started out with three people, and the trio that was handiest was by William Byrd, so we ended up having a William Byrd orgy:

* Byrd orgy:
** ??Susanna Fair??
** ??The Eagle’s Force??
** Two ??In Nomine?? s
** ??Lord in thy rage rebuke me not??
* Drinking Songs:
** Sermisy, ??Vive la serpe??
** Purcell, ??I gave her cakes??

h3. Schedule

We will have our usual dropin meetings for the next three weeks, October 17, 24, and 31. These meetings will be at 7:45 at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html.

On November 7, we will have an election break, and will not meet that day.

Speaking of elections, if you know anyone who isn’t registered to vote in Massachusetts and should be, remind them that if they register by October 18, they will be eligible to vote in the November 7 election.

Healy ad not only racist but ungrammatical

“Others”:http://jackandjillpolitics.blogspot.com/2006/10/kerry-healy-niggers-are-coming.html (link includes the youtube version of the ad) have commented on the racial aspects of the Healey campaign ad criticizing Deval Patrick for having defended an “admitted cop killer”. I’d like to criticize the grammar of the ad.

The ending sentence is, “Defense attorneys have a right to defend admitted cop killers, but do we really want one for governor?”

I saw that ad twice in less than half an hour watching Channel 7 on Monday night. My guess is that anyone who spends that much money on having an ad shown, also spends a lot of money on having it written and produced. I also suspect that the people who get paid that kind of money for writing have had training in how to write clear sentences in which no pronoun has an ambiguous antecedent.

It isn’t entirely clear whether the antecedent of “one” in that sentence at the end of the ad is “defense attorneys” or “cop killers”.

I doubt that this is an accident.