Schedule

This week

We’re finally back to our regular drop-in groups. Come when you feel like it and suggest any music you want to play.

We’ll be playing some Ingalls, but we’ll also get back to our more normal Renaissance stuff.

There’s another Jenkins Pavanne that Bonnie’s transcribed that we’d like to do.

One of the advantages of having learned All ye whom love or fortune hath betraid is that it fits in our dying swan set, so we might play that. We also want to learn the Vecchi setting some time.

I probably won’t get to it for this week, but I dug out the Josquin setting of Mille Regretz and I’d like to transcribe it for us to do soon.

Next week

We have a problem with the Tuesday rehearsal following this one — it’s the Fourth of July. Our usual venue is not suitable for a rehearsal from 7:45 to 10 PM on the Fourth of July:

• You can’t possibly park anywhere near here at 7:45.
• You can’t possibly leave here at 10:00. That is, you can leave, but it will take you an hour and a half to get a mile away.
• During the rehearsal time, it is unlikely that the percussion from the fireworks will be idiomatic or accurate for the music we’re playing.

There are several options for dealing with this problem:

• We can have a party here, starting at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and going until midnight or so, with the music-making part of the party happening before the fireworks start. Then people who wanted to watch fireworks could go watch them, and maybe we could do some more singing afterwards.
• We can skip the rehearsal that week. This is what we’ve done in the past, and if we didn’t have the Ingalls concert coming up, I’d be in favor of it.
• We can rehearse some other time that week. I’ve polled a few people about Sunday night, and a couple of them aren’t available, but one of those is away for the whole week and wouldn’t come on Tuesday, either.
• Someone who lives somewhere where there aren’t half a million people coming by to watch fireworks could offer to host this rehearsal.

After that

The July 11th meeting will still be open to dropins, although we will be spending time on the Ingalls program. The July 18 meeting is only for Ingalls performers. After that, we’re dropin for the forseeable future, unless we decide to do something crazy like make a demo tape.

Ingalls Concert

We will be working on the music for the Ingalls concert on July 22, but that’s three pieces of which we already know two pretty well, so it shouldn’t take up the whole meeting. We find the shape note stuff is a good warmup, so I’m going to plan to do the Ingalls first. This will accomplish several things:

• People who aren’t interested in the Ingalls but do like the other stuff we do can just come a little late.
• People who want to perform the Ingalls but need to get up early the next morning can rehearse without disrupting their schedule for several weeks.
• People who are chronically late for everything will not have rehearsed the Ingalls, and therefore won’t be performing the Ingalls, so we won’t have to be stressed out before the performance about whether we have all the performers.

The program of our segment of the concert that I sent Tom Malone a couple of weeks ago says:

• Millennium (instrumental followed by vocal)
• Friendship (instrumental followed by vocal)
• Millennium (instrumental)
• Night Thought

This is not by any means cast in concrete — specifically if there’s a piece besides Friendship that people would rather learn, we can do that instead.

I need to know by the end of next week (June 30) who is planning on doing the Ingalls concert, so that we can start working on orchestrations.

Dreams Concert

Many thanks to all the people who worked hard to pull off a complex program. We now have 6 people who know some very beautiful music, and who played it for a couple of hundred people, who seemed to be enjoying it very much.

We also know several things that we need to work on a bit harder for the next performance. Chief among them is getting started gracefully and with the tempo set by the starter. We will be doing drills on that over the next few weeks.

We played:

• In nets of Golden Wyres
• The Silver Swan
• Arcadelt, Il Bianco e dolce Cigno
• Dowland, All ye whom love or fortune hath betraid
• Ravenscroft, O my fearful dreams
• Ingalls, Night Thought
• Dowland, Sleep, wayward thoughts

Schedule

The next dropin meeting will be on June 27. Until then, meetings
are restricted to people playing the June 21 gig.

Then we will meet as usual on Tuesdays at 7:45 PM, except that the July 18 meeting will be
restricted to people playing the July 22 gig.

Schedule

This is the last dropin meeting before we start working exclusively on the June 21 program. So if there’s something not on that program that you’ll miss if you don’t get to do it for a month, let me know, and we’ll do it. We might do some May music, since it’s the last meeting in May.

Our regular dropin meetings will resume on June 27.

June 21 program

I timed the playlist on the wiki, and it’s only 35 minutes. It can certainly be expanded and stretched out to fill an hour, but there’s also room for solos and duets if people have anything they want to play that would be suitable. So let me know. I would think 2-3 minute pieces would be the easiest to accommodate.

If you want me to print you out a notebook, let me know.

If you have a copy of All ye whom love or fortune hath betraid from before last Friday, please get a new one, either from the website or from me at rehearsal. I had indeed fixed up the tenor repeat, but not all the fixes had found their way into the PDF file.

New Blog

I’ve converted my blog to wordpress. I’m planning to eventually convert the whole laymusic.org site, so let me know if you have any problems with the layout or navigation or anything. If you subscribed by RSS feed, you have to resubscribe to the new feed.

Plans for May 23 meeting

[cantabile] Plans for the May 23 meeting

Schedule

Once we start working on a new program, the dropin people seem to
abandon us even when we say we’re happy to have their help.
This is a problem, because not all the people who want to
perform start coming all the time. So last week we had a couple
of recorder pieces we would have liked to try, but we didn’t
have 4 recorder players to try them with.

So here’s the schedule from now to the next performance. All
rehearsals start at 7:45.

• May 23, dropins welcome but mostly working on music for June
  21.
• May 30, dropins welcome but mostly working on music for June
  21.
• June 6, rehearsal for June 21 performers
• June 13, rehearsal for June 21 performers
• June 20, rehearsal for June 21 performers
• Wednesday, June 21, Performance. We will be playing from 7:30 until
  9. I’m requesting that all performers arrive at the site at 7
  PM. There will be a break in the middle of the performance for
  the presentation of some awards, so we’ll only be playing for an
  hour or so.

For the performers’ rehearsals,
everyone should arrive in time to set up so that the actual
rehearsal can start at 7:45. For most people this seems to mean
about 7:30. If people are actually arriving ready to start at
7:45, we could start off with a vocal warmup, which I think
would improve both our sound and our comfort level on pieces
that are at the edge of our ranges.

One of the performer’s rehearsals is likely to be coached by John
Tyson.

There are directions to the performance venue and links to public transportation information
on the Conference site.

Performer signup

So far, we have 4 people officially signed up for the June 21
performance. I need to know who’s playing by the end of this
week, so that we can start assigning parts and constructing a
real playlist.

We did much better on taking the Walk for Hunger seriously than
we’ve done the previous few performances. But there’s still
room for improvement, even on the easy part of arriving at
rehearsals and performances on time and ready to play. We’ve
scheduled more unfamiliar music for this one than usual, so
please don’t sign up unless you plan to make most of the
rehearsals between now and then and to make the performers’
rehearsals and the performance on time.

One of the encouraging things about the Walk for Hunger performance
was how much better the performance was than the last
rehearsal. This means that when people want to, they can work
on their own to improve the weaknesses in their individual
parts. Now let’s see if we can do that work before the final
rehearsals, so that we can start working seriously on what we
sound like when we all know what’s coming next.

Music planning

I’ve been recording most of my planning in the wiki. If you’re
playing, you’re welcome to help.

I have a script that will print a notebook of all the music in the
wiki playlist. If you want me to run it for you, let me know. I don’t promise that we won’t do a lot of adding, subtracting, and rearranging this notebook, though.

This week, Stuart won’t be able to come, so I thought it would be a
good week to work out some recorder arrangements. One piece
that might be fun to play with is Susato’s
Ronde V, which I transposed for Aldo’s Junior High band into
parts for Bb, Eb, F, and G transposing instruments. This way,
we can stick people on instruments with fingerings they haven’t
learned.

If you look at the playlist, you will see that there are several
Dowlands that we haven’t done very often, so we really do have
to run those again and see which we think we can play in public
in less than a month.

---

Laura Conrad

Last modified: Mon May 22 11:36:30 EDT 2006

Plans for the May 16 meeting

[cantabile] Plans for the May 16 meeting

This is a drop-in meeting, although we will be doing some
exploration of pieces that we might play on the June 21
program. You can edit the tentative list at the
wiki playlist. Here’s the current version:

• Ingalls, Night Thought
• Instrumental fantasias, solos, and duets
• Ravenscroft, My fearful dreams
• Dowland Set
  • Come, Heavy Sleep
  • Come again
  • Thinkst thou then by thy fayning
  • Rest awhile, you cruel cares
  • Sleep, wayward thoughts
  • Awake sweet love

We have two Jenkins Pavanes that Bonnie set for us, which she
thinks will go well on the large recorders.

Schedule

We’ll be meeting every Tuesday for the forseeable future. The
meetings start promptly at 7:45, and are at my place, 233
Broadway, Cambridge.

The May
meetings will probably all be dropin and the first three June meetings will
probably be limited to people playing the June 21 gig. Please
feel free (encouraged, pressured…) to come to the dropin
meetings if you’re thinking of playing the gig, and also free
(encouraged…) if you aren’t thinking of playing it but would
be interested in the music.

June 21 plans

I’m trying out a new Wiki technology on the plans for this gig. This
one is a real Wiki, that anyone can edit. It’s at http://www.laymusic.org/dreams06/.
I especially need to know who’s thinking of playing on this
program. You aren’t making a hard and fast commitment yet, but
obviously we can’t program 5-part pieces if only 3 people are even
thinking of doing the gig.

Last meeting

We played:

• Susato
• Purcell Fantasia 7
• Vive la serpe
• More Susato

---

Laura Conrad

Last modified: Tue May 16 10:45:27 EDT 2006

Plans for the May 9 meeting

[cantabile] Plans for the May 9 meeting

We resume our regularly scheduled drop in meetings tonight. There are
a number of things we’d like to accomplish; I’m sure we’ll manage at
least some of them:

• Some of us are playing Susato for Needham Hospital Nurses’
  Appreciation Day tomorrow, and there’s been some feeling that people
  would like to go over that even though the organizer of the event
  didn’t think it was necessary.
• We’ve had those big recorders around for a while and not been able
  tu use them because we didn’t want to take them to the River on
  Sunday, so I want to try out some recorder pieces at 8 foot pitch.
• We need to start trying out repertoire for our June 21 gig. My
  current plan is to start with Ingalls “Night Thought” and end with a
  Dowland set, and in between to do some instrumentals and maybe some
  solos and duets.
• I really like that Gibbons May piece that Bonnie found for us, and
  would like to work on it some more.

Walk for Hunger report

It was fun, and I think we played well. There are a few pictures
in our gallery, and I think we’ll
get some more later. Thanks to everyone who played, or helped
rehearse, or supported us in any way.

Schedule

We’ll be dropin for the rest of May, and probably limited to the
people playing June 21 for June. As far as I know, we’ll be meeting
at the usual time and place every Tuesday.

---

Laura Conrad

Last modified: Mon May 1 14:59:44 EDT 2006

Set up a google calendar

[cantabile] Google Calendar

I’ve just started using google
calendar for my appointments, so I put the Cantabile ones on
their own calendar and exported it.

So you can go to the Cantabile
google calendar and include it in your own google
calendar, or import it into whatever ics or xml based calendar
you use.1

---

Laura Conrad

Last modified: Mon May 1 14:59:44 EDT 2006

Report on April 11 meeting

[cantabile] Report on April 11 meeting

We played:

• All in a Garden Green
• Earl of Essex Galliard
• Can she excuse my wrongs
• Millennium
• Billings, Easter Anthem
• Burst forth my tears
• O sweet Wood
• His Golden Locks
• My prime of youth
• Lamentation over Boston
• He that will an Alehouse keep

Walk for Hunger preparations

This year I’m trying out a new technology for the web presence of
this gig. The place to look for the play list, part assignments
(when we make them), timings, pointers to the PDF’s, etc. is here
.

Schedule

Next week is still open to non-performers at the Walk for Hunger,
but they should be aware that we’ll be working pretty intensely
on the Walk for Hunger music. The following two weeks are
exclusively for performers. After that, we’ll have some more
dropin meetings. We may try to schedule a coaching session with
John Tyson for May or early June.

• April 18, Dropin, but working on Walk for Hunger
  program
• April 25, Walk for Hunger performers only
• May 2, Walk for Hunger performers only
• Sunday, May 7, Walk for Hunger
• May 9, regular dropin meeting.

---

Laura Conrad

Last modified: Thu Apr 13 13:38:35 EDT 2006

Report on April 4 meeting

[cantabile] Report on the April 4 meeting

We played:

• Shape note group
  • Experience
  • Friendship
  • Danville
  • Prince of Peace
  • Fellowship
  • Haverhill
• Quand je Bois
• Clear or Cloudy
• April is in my Mistress’ Face
• Can she excuse my wrongs
• Sleep, wayward thoughts
• Come Heavy Sleep
• Burst forth my tears
• Now, O Now

Schedule

So far, we have 5 people signed up for the Walk for Hunger, and you
need to let me know very soon if you want to play and haven’t
told me yet. The people who are signed up are me, Anne, Bonnie,
Ishmael, and Paul. Stuart is available to play, but has limited
rehearsal time in April, so he’s welcome to come, but I have the
impression he’s thinking of skipping it this year. Did I say
you have to tell me NOW if you want to play?

If you aren’t signed up to play, you’re still welcome to come to
the rehearsals next week and the week after that, if you
feel like doing the music on the playlist below.

• April 11, dropin meeting working on Walk for hunger
  program
• April 18, dropin meeting working on Walk for hunger
  program
• April 25, Walk for Hunger performers only
• May 2, Walk for Hunger performers only

Tentative playlist

• Spring group
  • Now is the month of Maying
  • Burst forth my tears (?)
  • April is in my Mistress Face
  • Clear or Cloudy
  • All in a garden Green (?)
• Elizabethan Nobleman group
  • Can she excuse my wrongs
  • Earl of Essex Galliard (?)
  • O sweet Woods (?)
  • It was a time when Silly Bees could speak
  • His golden locks time hath to silver turnd. (?)
  • My Prime of Youth
• Shape note group
  • Millennium
  • Friendship (?)
  • Haverhill
  • Lamentation over Boston

I haven’t timed anything, so I’m sure this is way too long. The
ones marked (?) are the ones I’m going to think hardest about
dropping when this turns out to be an hour and twenty minutes
worth of music. But let me know soon if I’m leaving off
something you’d especially like to do, or if you know for sure
you don’t want to work on something on that list hard enough to
perform it.

---

Laura Conrad

Last modified: Wed Apr 5 10:05:06 EDT 2006