Laura Conrad

[cantabile] Report on April 19 coaching session with John Tyson

Rehearsal log

A very productive evening. We did:

Clear or Cloudy
Changeons Propos
Now is the month of Maying
My love hath vowed he will forsake me
The Silver Swan

Decision log

We made some decisions:

Dynamics in Now is the Month of Maying: Second verse, loud on “and
to the bagpipes sound” and soft on “the nymphs tread out the ground”;
Third verse: soft on “say dainty nymphs and speak”; crescendo through
“shall we play barley break”.
Parts on Silver Swan — Paul will not play cornetto the first time
through.
Key on Silver Swan will be D rather than Eb. This means that if
you’re playing on the instrumental, you should print out your part
from
http://www.laymusic.org/music/gibbons/swan/thirddown/allparts.pdf
especially if you’re playing quintus or altus, which had errors in
them when I looked. (The errors had been fixed in the source, but the
fixes hadn’t made it to the pdf.)

More decisions

We have some more decisions to make; input is welcomed.

Program order.

I’ve listed the sets as:

May music
Drinking music
river music
- Swans
- Babylon

This gives us our typical “Begin with Morley and end with Billings”,
but means that there’s a lot of pretty serious music at the end. Also,
if I mistime the program, we may play the wrong number of rounds in
the Drinking songs set.

So I think it might make more sense to do:

May music
Swans
Drinking songs
Babylon

Let me know what you think.

Orchestration

I think we were starting to be a bit top-heavy last night. Some of
this is that people weren’t really looking at their part assignments,
and I had other things to do than policing them. I’m sure I attempted
to move either Patricia or Anne to the second line whenever there would
otherwise have been Patricia, Anne, and Paul on top and only me on
second.

I don’t want to make anyone do a part they aren’t comfortable with,
and the balance will be so different outdoors that it’s hard for us to
make reasonable decisions anyway. But if you’re ok with the move, I
think it would be better to at least try the decisions I made on
paper.

On “My love hath vowed”, I was expecting everybody to sing the B
section and the fourth verse A section (not just the people listed for
vocal solos). I was also thinking we might have instrumental support
on the top line. I’m assuming the people who weren’t singing or
playing had neglected to print the music out. Please do so (or ask me
to) by Tuesday, so we can play with this a little.

I will be posting a final order with updated part assignments
before the Tuesday meeting, so let me know what you think about any of
this by Sunday.

Schedule

Remember that the rehearsal on April 26 starts at 7:45 PM, and
people who need to do setup and tuning should arrive in time to do it
before the start time.

The May 1 schedule is:

10:30 – 10:45 Laura solo
10:45 – 11:30 Ishmael dance music, including others as he
considers appropriate. Let him know if you want to be included
11:30 – 12 Laura and Bonnie, Morley duos
12 – 12:30 Quilisma Consort
12:30 – 1:15 Cantabile Renaissance Band
1:15 – 1:45 Quilisma Consort
1:45 – 2:30 Cantabile Renaissance Band
2:30 – 3:00 Greatest hits from previous sets whose performers
are still there

If you aren’t playing the morning sessions, arrive as soon after
noon as possible, so that we can be set up and ready to go as soon as
Qulisma finishes their set.

[cantabile] Plans for the April 19 coaching session with John Tyson

We’re expecting the following people:

Laura Conrad (voice, brass, recorder)
Barney Gage (voice, recorder)
Patricia Hawkins (voice, fiddle)
Anne Kazlauskas (voice)
Bonnie Rogers (voice, bass viol, recorder)
Ishmael Stefanov-Wagner (voice, fiddle, recorder)
Paul Ukleja (voice, cornetto, rackett, recorder)

Let me know if that list is wrong in any respect.

We’d like to work mainly on the French drinking songs:

Changeons Propos
Vignons, vignons
Quand je bois

Depending on how time works out, we can add (probably at most one of):

Estans Assis
Good Morrow, fair ladies of the May
My love hath vowed he will forsake me
Now is the Month of Maying
A round

We plan to start promptly at 8 PM. John’s address is 310 1/2 Pearl
St., which is behind 308 Pearl St. His phone number is (617)
661-8097. Let me know if you need more directions than that. I will
discuss scheduling the beer-drinking portion of the meeting a little
more gracefully than we did last time.

[cantabile] Meeting reminder, Tuesday, April 19

Our coaching session with John Tyson tonight will begin at 8:00 PM
promptly. We will be playing at his house at 310 1/2 Pearl St. His
phone number is (617) 661-3353.

I have explained to him that this group doesn’t drink beer for only
10 minutes, and he shouldn’t invite us for beer unless he expects to
spend at least an hour on it. He has a lot of practicing and
rehearsing to do early in the morning these days, so it is likely that
the beer-drinking part of the rehearsal will move to my place.

Please bring all the music for the Walk for Hunger. We will be
concentrating on the three French drinking songs, but John would like
to start with one of the things we did last time so that he can see
whether what he said made any difference. We have cancelled “April is
in my mistress’ face” since then, but it might be any of:

Me, me and none but me
Il bianco e dolce Cigno
Clear or Cloudy

Even more than usual, since we won’t be where I have lots of copies
of lots of things, please let me know in advance if you need me to
print anything for you.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but for the next two
weeks, we are not a drop-in group. Please come on time, or
earlier if your instrument needs setup and tuning time. Please have
your music with you and in order (I haven’t yet sent out a performance
order, but have it in some kind of order where you can find things).
Please use rehearsal time for rehearsal and not for social life. In
other words, treat this group, for the next two weeks, the way you
treat any other serious performing group you may belong to.

The May third meeting goes back to being a drop-in group with lots
of sightreading and social life.

[publishing] Testing Lilypond 4.5

I spent most of yesterday morning building and testing lilypond
4.5.

I won’t be using it routinely yet, because there’s a very serious
bug in abc2ly, where it doesn’t any more translate the Key signature.

Update: they fixed that but, so I’ll probably be doing some more
testing, and then maybe starting to convert my setup to using the
current version.

This means abc2ly is unusable, since the notes are different for a
different key signature in lilypond and abc. That is, in lilypond an
F# is entered as fis no matter what the key signature is. But in ABC,
the note on the first space of a treble clef is entered as F, and the
key signature is what determines whether that note is sharped or not.
So an abc2ly that doesn’t know what the key signature is, isn’t going
to have the right notes, and a workaround that just edits the key
signature in isn’t.

But just so you can see what they’re up to, compare this piece

from 2.0.2 with the same piece from
2.5.19

Let me know what you think.

[cantabile] Report on the April 12 rehearsal

The good news is that we were joined again by Patricia Hawkins, who
is also planning to play the Walk for Hunger. This means that we’re a
lot better off for singing on the vocal top lines.

The bad news is that between trying to thoroughly rehearse
some of the things we’re shaky on or trying out new part assignments (good),
and how long it took everyone to be in place with their instruments
tuned and music in front of them (bad), we got through only a small amount
of what we need to rehearse in the next two weeks. The rehearsal
next week will be a coaching session on another small part of the
repertoire, so this really can’t happen on April 26. We really have
to be able to start playing at 7:45, which means everybody has to have
their books in order and marked with what they’re playing, and the
people with setup and tuning time have to be there well before the
start time.

I have updated the part
assignments to reflect the decisions we made last night. If you
need any help printing your parts, or understanding what you’re
playing, please ask me before the next rehearsal.

We played:

Drinking rounds
Babylon group
Changeons Propos
Il Bianco e dolce cigno

Bruce’s message about NEFFA

Hello everyone!

This is it! The last NEFFA email! Unless I forgot something, or some
major cat-ass-trophy erupts between now & then (like snow?)…

Don’t forget we also have a church service on April 24. There’s a
little info about this at the bottom of the page. More will come.

COPYISTS:
Please let me know how many booklets you’re making, so I’ll know if I
need to make more. Please do this soon, so I’ll have time to react.
And bring the booklets with you on Sunday! Don’t Forget Them!

GENERAL INFO.

The workshop is on Sunday from 12:00 – 12:55 in the Small Hall. This
is where we’ve been before. I assume the chair setup will be similar.
We’ll sit in parts with the basses to my right, the way we set up in
Newton.

This workshop is a lot of fun, has always been well-attended, and is
one of the best ways to introduce the music to more people. But we
need to be efficient and organized in advance, to make it run
smoothly.

Try to get there a little early; the previous session is the “Ladarke”
sing-along; if you want to do this, you’ll already be there. Or sneak
in towards the end of the session.

Bring your stand if you need one, and all your instrument parts (don’t
laugh! I’ve seen it happen!) if you play an instrument, but don’t
bring your regular music book; we’ll sing from the special handout.

WHAT TO DO.
I’ll need people to do these things:

BEFORE:
– a few people to greet in-comers, hand out booklets, encourage them
(we can’t force them) to sit in voice-parts, and generally be helpful.
A couple people might want to stay near the door so people who come in
late will get welcomed.

– some people to hand out booklets within the room. It takes some
strain off the greeters.

– 4 people to hold the signs (I’ll bring these) to designate where the
voice-parts are seated.

DURING:
– everyone should sit in their favorite voice part, scattered amongst
the rest of the people. If someone near you seems confused, try to
help them out (within reason). Being a Good Example is usually the
most helpful – Sing Lustily And With Good Courage!

– one or two people could make rough estimates of how many attendees
we have. I’ll see if I can find out how many chairs they have; this’ll
help the count.

– if I tell the Bassoon Joke, and you’re sick of hearing the Bassoon
Joke, try to laugh anyway. It will encourage others to do the same…

AFTERWARDS:
– a few people to collect booklets . I’ll encourage everyone to take
theirs home, but some people might not want to; if we gather them, we
won’t leave the room in a big mess. Also make sure the chairs aren’t
too disarrayed.

– if people have questions, encourage them to come out to the corridor
and talk with us. We NEED to be out of there on time so the next event
can set up. I’ll have a pile of green flyers near the exit door, and
another pile in the Hall-O-Flyers. Also the back page of the booklet
will have information on it.

++++++++++++
OTHER STUFF. If you’ve been to NEFFA before, you can skip this part:

– If you’re on the Performers list I submitted a month ago, you can
pick up your pass at the Performers Sign-In table in the lobby. This
gets you into the festival for the whole weekend. If you didn’t give
me your name, you can buy a ticket at the ticket table.

– DON’T plan on showing up just before noon and getting in! Allow an
hour for parking and bus-riding. The parking lot is across town. Don’t
try to park near the site unless you get there before sunrise!

– Please do other stuff while you’re there! It’s tons o’ fun, and
you’ll see and hear lots of cool things. A lot of us are also doing
other things there, so you’ll see some familiar faces. Don’t forget
your dance shoes and your lunch money!

If you have any questions or answers, let me know before Friday
afternoon. I will be at NEFFA all 3 days and will probably be too
tired to listen to messages at night.

ALSO Remember we have a church gig on April 24th. There’ll be at least
one rehearsal, on Thursday the 21th, and possibly another if I can
find a time. We’re doing about 5 songs, so it shouldn’t be too
difficult. Look for another email soon!

I will see you all there! Have fun!

Thanks,

Bru

[cantabile] Report from April 5 meeting

We got through a lot of stuff:

Good morrow, fair ladies of the May. This will be done by a small
group if at all.
All the drinking songs on the setlist,
except “To Anacreon in Heaven”. The ones that need more work are
“Slaves are they that heap up Mountains” and “Vive la Serpe”.
The River set, except the Swan ones that we did Saturday, and
excluding the 5-part Vecchi Cigno, which we have decided to postpone
until after the May performance. This set is in pretty good shape;
the Billings needs work, and will sound better when we have everyone.
The May music, except the Campian and “April is in my Mistress’
Face”. We may drop April if it continues to sound as bad as it
sometimes does these days.

Printing music

For the next meeting, please have your music printed and
organized. I decided not to do booklets for people, because we’ve
been doing a lot of this stuff for years, and most of it for months,
and many people have their own copies with helpful markings on them.
So I’ve felt that the work that I’ve put into having booklets hasn’t
always produced better performances. However, having everything
organized does produce better rehearsals. I’m happy to print things
for you, but you have to tell me what you need.

I have annotated the setlist,
so please check it if you have old music, to make sure you have
up-to-date copies in the right key.

[publishing] Susanne un jour

Latest upload to the music publishing:
Susanne
un jour, Lassus

This is not specifically for the Cantabile Renaissance
Band, unlike most of my polyphonic Renaissance music.

It was supposed to be for the Cambridge Center for Adult Education
Renaissance Ensemble class. I will still use it for whatever part I
end up doing, and I suspect most of the singers will use it, but the
instructor is still convinced that unbarred parts are a harder way to
play Renaissance music, and is planning to distribute hand-written
parts. She has degrees in music from prestigious institutions, so her
education does include how to write legible notes, and her normal
handwriting is no worse than most peoples, but when she reduces lyrics
to “fit” under notes, they come out completely illegible.

Anyway, she decided that, or told me about the decision, after I
had already done more than half the transcription, so I finished it.
I’m going to be not only singing or playing some part in the madrigal,
but doing divisions on the top line. So I’ll be able to play the
divisions against the MIDI file instead of just a metronome, which is
an advantage when things get wild and crazy.

See Ancor che
col partire for something else I did this way. I also did “Non
Gemme non fin aura”, but haven’t yet uploaded it; watch this space for
further developments.

The transcription is from the Choral
Public Domain Library edition. Unfortunately this contributor
uploaded the .mus finale file, which I can’t read. Had they uploaded
the .etf file, lilypond would
have been able to use it. The MIDI file is also useless for
transcription purposes, as all the
parts are on the same channel.

[WG] Songs for Neffa, and a plea for copyists

NEFFA is almost upon us – only 10 more days! I’ve finally finished making a booklet of tunes for our workshop, including:

Arise and Hail – Babylon Streams – Corfe Castle – Cranbrook – Folkestone
– Lingham – Lydia – Pentonville – Poole – Psalm 95 – Spanking Roger – Wiltshire

That’s 12 tunes, which is more than we’ll have time for, but I want to be
able to make the final choice on the spot. This includes several we’ve
never done there before, plus several all-time favorites. Or favourites,
I suppose. We’ve got a big-time groaner, some arse-kickers, some Thomas
Hardy references, some folky-sounding ones and some more-elegant ones. Something for everyone…
If you see any on the list which you’re not familiar with, maybe you’ll have time to look at it before we have to do it with 100 other people.

So, Now – I need some volunteers to make copies. It’s a 22-page booklet,
which needs to be copied double-sided, and stapled. It’s all laid out so
that 2-page pieces will come out on facing pages.

If you can make a batch of copies, without getting in trouble with your boss, let me know ASAP and I’ll get a master to you. We should plan on having about 140 copies, since we got 120 people last year. If I get them
copied at Stooples (I know it’s spelled “Staples,” but they always mess it up), it will cost me about $231, which is rather a lot considering it’s
a volunteer event (and I don’t have a real job)…

I hope everyone’s having a good week. Maybe it won’t snow any more between now and Neffa. I’ll send another email next week with the final Neffa
information.

Thanks,

Bruce

[performing] Report on the March 30 Dan Laurin Masterclass

As far as my own performance went, I wasn’t embarrassed. I don’t
think it got as relaxed as the best of what I did in my own apartment,
but it was a good audience and I was fairly comfortable making
eye-contact, and I played at the level I’m capable of this month.

Setting

Karen Kruskal and Sheera Strick have a beautiful house, which they
enjoy opening up for musical events. Along with John Tyson, they
organized a party spread for afterwards, and plentiful water for
drinking during the class. While the seating area was a little on the
crowded side (when they’re expecting larger crowds they remove the
coffee table, or even one of the sofas), it was much friendlier, more
relaxed, and more intimate than the Marion Verbruggen class at Longy
in January.

Performers

Two young professional recorder players, one professional oboe
player who plays recorder very well, and 3 amateur recorder players.

The oboe player, Wai Kit Leung, has informed me that he’s an amateur,
not a professional.

I got drafted to start, and played Van Eyck’s “En Fin l’Amour”.
See the
laymusic.org blog for a discussion of the edition I did to prepare
for this performance. Dan said that musically it was very well
prepared, and worked on articulation (mostly), fingers, and breathing.
Wai Kit Leung, an oboe player from Hong Kong, played a Vivaldi
concerto movement, with Dan playing the bass line on an alto
recorder. Dan worked with him on vibrato and adding ornamentation.
Emily O’Brien played the first two movements of the Bach Cello
Suite in G major. She had played this at the BRS concert in January,
when I thought she was better. The first movement especially seems to
me particularly unidiomatic for recorder. It sounds better when she
plays it than it would if I played it, and Dan played it better still,
but it still isn’t a piece I’d pick to work on. He discussed how you
decide where to breath, and worked on getting her to be more relaxed
about taking time where she decides to breath.
Brian Warnock did two movements of a Loiellet sonata, with Miyuki
Tsurutani sightreading the harpsichord part. Dan first suggested that
the Largo should be larger, and then worked with him on the
ornamentation, which was quite impressive. I’m always surprised when
people like him play the fast movements at the same speed as the slow
movements. For a lot of people it’s obviously because their fingers
aren’t up to playing the fast movements, but there was nothing wrong
with Brian’s speed in the Allegro; he just doesn’t hear the Largo as
slow as I do. Part of the problem was communicating with an
accompanist he hadn’t rehearsed with — they took several measures to
settle in on a speed when Dan asked for a slower one, and it wasn’t
clear that is was really the speed either of them would have picked.
One good point Dan made about Baroque ornamentation was that we
should think of Baroque painting, with stars and angels and
elaborately dressed people and lions and snakes.
Anya (I should check her last name) played Malle Simon by Van
Eyck. She hadn’t really learned it very well, but therefore improved
markedly on Dan’s suggestions. He was very helpful in discussing
varying the repeats by shifting the emphasis.
Mary Briggs played a movement from a Bach cello suite. It was
labeled a Sarabande, but doesn’t sound anything like a typical
Sarabande with the da daa de da daaa rhythm. He discussed why this
piece might be called a Sarabande for several minutes, without as far
as I remember coming to any conclusion. This one works better on
recorder than the ones Emily played. Dan made a good point about why
to play Bach — he said you have to think about phrasing
because heaven knows Bach didn’t.