Author: Laura Conrad

[cantabile] Plans for the June 28 meeting

We’ll have a new Dowland (Where sinne sore wounding daily doth
oppresse me), and the people who missed the picnic (you missed a good
one, pictures) should
have a chance to play the Bransle set we did there. Maybe in a 4-foot
and 8-foot version if there are enough of us.

I’m feeling like it’s a good week for carousing in Bacchus’
fountains, so we’ll do “Slaves are they” even though it isn’t a good
week for heaping up mountains.

We need to discuss the problem of getting usable copies of
“finished” work again (see the
previous inconclusive discussion).

[publishing] Notation issues at The Boston Early Music Festival

Several people brought up notation issues:

  • At her fringe
    concert     on Wednesday morning, Judith
    Conrad     spoke of the difficulty in playing 17th and 18th century
    keyboard music from modern editions for organ on a clavichord without
    pedals. The facsimiles apparently are printed on two staves like
    modern piano music, and may or may not have an indication of which
    voices to play on the pedals. The modern editions for organists
    insist on putting the voices they play on the pedals of a modern organ
    onto a third staff, which may make it some easier for someone playing
    an organ with pedals, but makes it harder for anyone playing an
    instrument without them.
  • At the same concert, Dr. Stuart
    Frankel     gave it as his opinion that people had not in fact played
    from keyboard tablature, but used it as a convenient shorthand for
    notating ideas arrived at at the keyboard. He based this on his
    observation that the existing keyboard music from the 18th century
    which is in staff notation has drips of candle wax and spilled liquids
    on it, but surviving tablature is comparatively pristine.
  • At her masterclass, Ellen
    Hargis discussed the problem of singers’ deciding where to breath in
    long florid passages. She believed that the regular beaming of notes
    in modern editions makes the problem harder, as the beams obscure the
    shape of the melody, and she urged people doing their own editions to
    avoid beaming which doesn’t occur in the original editions.
  • I wasn’t there, but several people told me that John Tyson at his workshop and
    concert    , plugged this site
    as one of the best sources of Renaissance music in existence based on
    the provision of unbarred parts and original beamings in legible,
    modern clefs.

I don’t remember this much discussion of notation at previous
BEMF’s. So maybe what I’m doing is really on the cutting edge and
everybody will be doing it that way any minute now.

[diary] Finally uploaded the pictures

I’ve been using the camera for quite a while without getting the
pictures off. So I finally did, and put them in the appropriate
galleries:

  • The CCAE concert on May 25, pictures taken by Ken, whose last name
    I’ve forgotten.
  • A bunch from a good day in my garden.
  • John Yoder took some pictures with my camera at the Boston
    Wort Processors     June Picnic.
  • And I had a picture of the “before” version of the tenor recorder
    case for my knitting
    page.     The “after” version has to wait until I knit a few inches.

[publishing] Added Dix Bransles de Champagne, by Claude Gervaise.

There’s really a lot to be said for being able to play lots of dances
together without page turns. And to do that, you need parts rather
than scores. And the Cantabile Renaissance
Band has some members who’d like to play more dance music. So I
might be doing more of both the Gervaise and the Susato in partbook
format.

[cantabile] Report on the June 21 meeting

It was restricted to people playing the Picnic on June 25, so it was
just Laura, Bonnie, and Barney.

We played:

At the picnic, we may also play “Piper’s Fancy”, which is some trio
arrangements of Playford tunes, which we have played many times
before.

[concerts] Camerata Trajectina at BEMF

The concert was all seventeenth century Dutch songs to do with
sailing. The 7-member group had three singers (Soprano, Tenor, and
Baritone), a recorder player, a violin, a bass viol and a lute, who
was also the director. Everybody sang along on the choruses.

That much singing of pretty but often uncomplicated music in a
foreign language could have gotten tedious, but I felt the
arrangements and “staging” were varied enough that I wasn’t bored.

Two songs were sung in English translation. In my opinion these
were among the most effective of the evening. Some leaving audience
members were heard complaining about the slightly accented English,
but I thought the diction was superb, and the songs were much more
effective for not requiring the audience to read along.

The lyrics to one piece were written to be sung to a psalm tune
that has a 6-part polyphonic setting by Sweelinck, so they did it that
way. The result was interesting, but probably not what the sailors
did on deck after a hard day in the rigging.

The instrumental backup was superb, and most of the singing was
very committed to the subject matter. I wish my group could find as
effective a way of presenting our drinking songs.

[sitenews] The Cafepress

store is open

At the moment, the only things you can buy are the Drinking Songs
book and a t-shirt with a nice Breughel picture which advertises the
drinking songs book. I will be gradually putting more of the
published music up for sale there, with promotional items for people
who want to help support and advertise the site, but find downloading
the free PDF’s works well for them as a way to acquire the music.

[cantabile] Schedule for the next few weeks

We’ll be having a regular rehearsal on Tuesday, June 14.
Unfortunately, it’s too early in the Boston Early Music Festival for
putting out flyers to bring in very many people, but I will
post an invitation to the relevant mailing lists. Please let anyone
who’s in town for the Festival know that they’re welcome to come play
with us.

Tuesday, June 21 will be limited to the people playing the Boston Wort Processors summer picnic on
Saturday, July 25.

After that, we resume our regularly scheduled drop-in sessions,
(almost) every Tuesday at 7:45 PM at 233 Broadway.

Publicity

I have rewritten the flyer, with help from
Ishmael, Anne, and Hope. Please take a look at it, print it out, and
bring it anywhere you think people would be interested. I’d still
like to find or manufacture a good graphic instead of the two serpents
that I used in desperation in June of 2000.

Addition

This week’s been a busy performing week, so only the new Dowland.

When the
poore Criple by the poole did lye,
 completes the three-part song that also includes
Thou
Mighty God

and When
David’s life by Saul was often sought
.

All three pieces are both rhythmically and harmonically
challenging. If you’re having trouble reading them, try getting
bassus and cantus solid before adding the altus and (especially) the
tenor.

[cantabile] Plans for the June 7 meeting

We have the third part of the three-part Dowland we’ve been working
on, so we’ll probably spend the bulk of the meeting trying to make the
whole thing sound like music. In addition we’ll continue working on
the two drinking songs we’re trying to get performable.

In addition, we have several things to decide:

  • I have the first copy of the Cafepress edition of the Drinking
    Songs book Since I no longer
    have double-sided printing capability, we have to decide how we’re
    going to deal with acquiring multiple copies of “finished” books. The
    possibilities include:

    • Buying in bulk from Cafepress. In this case, they would cost in
      the vicinity of $6 each if I order a few, and can probably be brought
      under $5 if I order as many as 15. It’s close to $10 to order an
      individual copy with shipping.
    • Copying double-sided at Kinko’s or somewhere and me binding with
      my comb binding machine. I’m not sure how much this costs, but I
      think it’s comparable to the bulk pricing at Cafepress, which also
      includes a nice color cover.
    • Someone with “free” xeroxing copying double sided, and me binding
      with my comb binding machine. This is obviously the cheapest way to
      get new books, if there’s someone with a good setup for doing this.
    • For this book, we have almost up-to-date copies which we can paste
      in edited versions of the pages that have changed. This might be the
      right solution for this book, but won’t work for the Dowland third
      book or the Pilgrim’s Solace.
  • Do we meet next week? I don’t have a conflict, and it might be
    fun to invite people who are in town for the early music festival to
    come join us. But I understand if people are overscheduled that week
    without this meeting.
  • I want to put out a flyer describing our group on the flyers table
    at BEMF. I’m about to take a crack at editing the current flyer,
    which no longer really describes the group very well. But if anyone
    else has ideas, let me know. In any case, I’ll have a trial version
    for proofreading, editing, etc. tonight.
  • I’ve sent information to at least some of you about the Wort
    Processors’ Summer picnic on June 25. We need to decide whether we’re
    playing, and if so, what. We might make the June 21
    meeting “performers only” if we decide to play.

I believe both Anne and Ishmael will be coming from another
commitment and will be a bit late, so maybe the official start time
for this one should be 8 PM.