Category: Cantabile

We went through the playlist in order (below) and decided on some
details about when we’ll tune, etc. If I have any of this wrong,
please correct me.

Basically, I want to tune before a piece whenever anyone has to
change an instrument, or when we don’t mind having a break between the
pieces because of a change of mood.

We also expanded our country dance set, in case it’s necessary to
play longer before the play because of a delay in the curtain going
up.

Playlist

Before the play

• He that will an Alehouse Keep Drinking
  songs book (General tuning to A)
• Dulcina PDF
  (Stuart gives pitch to Anne)
• O Portsmouth Drinking
  songs book (Stuart gives pitch)
• Quand je Bois Drinking
  songs book (Tune last note; Ishmael starts)
• Vignons, vignons Drinking
  songs book (Ishmael starts)
• Country dance set. All of these will be started by Ishmael and
  Bruce, with Stuart joining on the second verse and Barney taking the
  lead on soprano recorder on the third verse. (Stuart starts the first
  verse when Bruce isn’t playing.) Others may join ad lib on voice or
  low recorders. I will work out a signal for when the play is about to
  start with the stage manager.
  • Newcastle PDF,
    MIDI.
  • Daphne PDF,
    MIDI
  • All in a garden green, in
    Playford for alto voice.
  • Dargason, in
    the renfaire book.
• Fanfare, TBD

Intermission

• Greensleeves, PDF.
  Note that this includes some things we won’t be doing, so you don’t
  have to print out pages 5 and 6. (General tuning, to first chord of
  Bransle de la torche). The route is:
  1. Bransle de la torche, all recorders, Stuart joining pizzicato on B
     section.
  2. Triple Greensleeves, Bruce (Ishmael when no Bruce) first verse
  3. Duple Greensleeves, Anne, Second verse
  4. Bransle de la torche, as above
  5. Triple Greensleeves, All sing 4-part arrangement, last verse,
     Stuart plays the pickup, and the singing starts on the downbeat.
• Fair Phyllis PDF,
  MIDI
  (All tune to last note; Bonnie starts)
• Silly Bees, PDF,
  MIDI.
  (All tune to first note)
• Shepherd in a shade, PDF,
  MIDI,
• Changeons propos Drinking
  songs book (All tune to last note; Ishmael starts)
• Vive la Serpe Drinking
  songs book (All tune to last note; Ishmael starts)
• Dance? I will discuss this with the stage manager — we may
  decide that it makes sense to just stop when we’ve gotten to the end,
  even if intermission lasts a couple of minutes longer. Or if there’s
  time, we may play the
  Greensleeves set again, or play some of the country dances.

Stage manager questions

I will be dropping in at the dress rehearsal for the play on
Wednesday at about 6:30 to discuss logistics with the stage manager.
Here are the questions I can think of at the moment that I’ve promised
to ask; let me know if you want me to discuss anything else.

• Parking, and handicapped parking.
• Arrival time, and whether a small amount of rehearsing would be
  appropriate.
• Signal to cut off before-play set, and intermission set.
• Area to store stands and other things we may feel OK about leaving
  between performances.
• Where to put stands, chairs, etc. at the end of the
  before-the-play set.
• Fanfare (whether there is one, where it happens in relation to
  moving the chairs and stands).
• End of the intermission set — should we attempt to go until the
  curtain rises, or just play our pieces and stop?
• Are they anticipating sellout of the Saturday (this Saturday?)
  performance.
• Publicity. Is there a flyer we could distribute, and where’s the
  blurb they promised us for e-publicity?

Schedule

Thursday’s rehearsal is at 7:45 at my place. Ishmael may be a bit
late, but everyone else should attempt to arrive on time. We used
half an hour of our extra 45 minutes last night on rehearsing, so two
hours and fifteen minutes is not an excessive amount of time.

I’m told we neglected to wish Bruce a Happy Birthday last week, so
we will make up for it this week.

I will discuss arrival logistics with the stage manager Wednesday,
but plan on arriving in time to be comfortably set up and start
playing at 7:40 for each performance.

We really need the Tuesday, November 15 rehearsal time for the
Lowell gig, so people who are not playing Lowell can plan on having
the evening off. People who have still not committed to playing
Lowell need to decide before then whether they can do it. Preferably
as soon as possible.

The next rehearsal of the Cantabile Renaissance band will be on
Thursday, November 10 at 7:45 PM at my place.

This is a dress rehearsal. Please try to be on time (I know Ishmael
may have a problem), with your
music printed and in order in a notebook. If you need help with the
printing part, let me know (Bruce already has).

We will try to get a complete runthrough, but since we did that on
Sunday, this will be secondary to:

• Finalizing the fanfare arrangements.
• Finalizing (or at least adding to) the dance set
• Making sure we’re all on the same page about how we’re getting
  things started, cues for endings, etc.

Playlist

Before the play. Tom is planning to open the doors to the audience
at about 7:45. We will be set up, and possibly already playing at the
time the doors open, and at any rate, ready to start the instant they open.

• He that will an Alehouse Keep Drinking
  songs book (General tuning to A)
• Dulcina PDF
  (Stuart gives pitch to Anne)
• O Portsmouth Drinking
  songs book (Stuart gives pitch)
• Quand je Bois Drinking
  songs book (Tune last note; Ishmael starts)
• Vignons, vignons Drinking
  songs book (Ishmael starts)
• Country dance set. All of these will be started by Ishmael and
  Bruce, with Stuart joining on the second verse and Barney taking the
  lead on soprano recorder on the third verse. (Stuart starts the first
  verse when Bruce isn’t playing.) Others may join ad lib on voice or
  low recorders.
  • Newcastle PDF,
    MIDI.
  • Daphne PDF,
    MIDI
  • All in a garden green, in
    Playford for alto voice.
  • Dargason, in
    the renfaire book.
  • When Laura Smiles, PDF
    (tentative)
  • There have been a couple of other suggestions; if someone brings
    copies of one of them we’ll try it.

  The cue for ending the set will be the closing of the doors between
  the box-office area (which the church labels the “Nursery”) and the
  theatre (church hall). We will be standing facing the doors, so it
  shouldn’t be hard to see. This is planned to be about 2 minutes
  before the action starts, so we’ll finish whatever we’re doing, but
  not start a new verse or piece after that.

• Fanfare. They are planning on us playing one, and we will be cued
  by the stage manager or sound director. I will look at the Gabrielli
  excerpt we’ve suggested before, and we can play with it, but I think
  it’s likely that Bruce or I will just play it on Bruce’s fanfare
  trumpet while other people go take their seats.

Intermission

• Greensleeves, PDF.
  Note that this includes some things we won’t be doing, so you don’t
  have to print out pages 5 and 6. (General tuning, to first chord of
  Bransle de la torche). The route is:
  1. Bransle de la torche, all recorders, Stuart joining pizzicato on B
     section.
  2. Triple Greensleeves, Bruce (Ishmael when no Bruce) first verse
  3. Duple Greensleeves, Anne, Second verse
  4. Bransle de la torche, as above
  5. Triple Greensleeves, All sing 4-part arrangement, last verse,
     Stuart plays the pickup, and the singing starts on the downbeat.
• Fair Phyllis PDF,
  MIDI
  (All tune to last note; Bonnie starts)
• Silly Bees, PDF,
  MIDI.
  (All tune to first note)
• Shepherd in a shade, PDF,
  MIDI,
• Changeons propos Drinking
  songs book (All tune to last note; Ishmael starts)
• Vive la Serpe Drinking
  songs book (All tune to last note; Ishmael starts)
• Dance. They will flicker the lights for the audience to return to
  their seats, so I think we should stop playing when they do that, as
  above for the doors closing.

Stage manager questions

Here are the answers I got yesterday. I have emails and phone
numbers to use if they turn out not to be adequate for anyone.

• Parking, and handicapped parking. There was lots of parking
  yesterday; I parked right across the street from the church. There is
  a handicapped space right in front of the door we’re supposed to use,
  which was free last night.
  Bonnie may want to check the one-way streets; Francesca Avenue is one way
  going into College Avenue.
• Arrival time, and whether a small amount of rehearsing would be
  appropriate. The house manager (Tom) is planning to be there with
  doors open by 7, so I’m suggesting we plan to arrive at 7:15 and be
  set up by 7:30. Tom doesn’t think there will be a problem with a
  little bit of playing before we officially start.
• Signal to cut off before-play set, and intermission set. As above
  — doors closing before the play and lights blinking for intermission.
• Area to store stands and other things we may feel OK about leaving
  between performances. They’re going to be leaving some stuff
  overnight in the Nursery/Box Office, with covers over it. For the
  week between Sunday and Thursday, they will have somewhere else, so if
  you want to leave anything Saturday, be sure and check with Tom.
• Where to put stands, chairs, etc. at the end of the
  before-the-play set. The current thinking is that we set up in front
  of the passageway between the kitchen and the stage, and just leave
  our stuff.
• Fanfare (whether there is one, where it happens in relation to
  moving the chairs and stands). As above.
• End of the intermission set — should we attempt to go until the
  curtain rises, or just play our pieces and stop? I think we wrap up
  when they blink the lights.
• Are they anticipating sellout of the Saturday (this Saturday?)
  performance. There is a way to make reservations on the website, so
  to be safe, you should make a reservation.
• Publicity. Is there a flyer we could distribute, and where’s the
  blurb they promised us for e-publicity? I just got this by email;
  will send it separately to you and to our lists.

Schedule

On Friday, I’d like everyone there by 7:15 promptly, and if possible,
set up and ready to play by 7:30, so we can start a few things and get
a feel for the hall. After that, we can probably be a little more
relaxed, and as long as everyone’s ready to play by 7:40 we don’t care
exactly when they get there.

I really need to know tonight who’s going to be playing Lowell.
Those people will be rehearsing on (at least) the remaining 3 Tuesdays
in November.

The next rehearsal of the Cantabile Renaissance band will be on
Tuesday, October 25 at 7:45 PM at my place.

This meeting is limited to the people planning to play our November
public performances. Those people should let me know in advance if
they won’t be able to come.

We’ll be having John Tyson coach us on our performance. Please
make an extra effort to be on time and ready to play at 7:45.

Suggestions for where we could most use John’s help are welcome. Here
are the areas where I think the program most needs work:

• Work on a tuning discipline.
• We need to work on getting “Fair Phyllis” started at the right
  speed for the group, and not slowed down after that.
• “Vive la Serpe” sounded solid last week, but not the week before
  that. So we definitely would like ot play it this week, and see what
  John thinks.
• The arrangements for Dulcina, Greensleeves, and Daphne (if we play
  it) need work.
• I think the Silly Bees are what would benefit most from John’s
  “Your’re telling a story here” rap.
• We need to get the dance sets under control, especially for the
  nights when Bruce won’t be there.
• I think there are still a couple of pieces Bruce hasn’t played
  recently, so it would be good to do those.

Here’s a slightly modified version of the last playlist we
published.

Before the play

• He that will an Alehouse Keep
• Dulcina
• O Portsmouth
• Quand je Bois
• Daphne?
• Vignons, vignons
• Playford set, probably including Newcastle
• Fanfare, TBD

Intermission

• Greensleeves
• Fair Phyllis
• Silly Bees
• Shepherd in a shade
• Changeons propos
• Vive la Serpe
• Another dance set, probably Playford, suggestions welcome. The advantage of Playford is that we have 3-part
  arrangements that some of us know pretty well. Since some of the
  people who can play can’t play every performance, we want to keep this
  as simple and fool-proof as possible.

Schedule

Please check your schedules for the week before November 11 to see
when you could possibly have a dress rehearsal. So far, nobody has
said that they couldn’t make Thursday, November 10.

We will be playing in Lowell on Thursday, December 1, from 5-6:30.
Anne, Bonnie, Ishmael, and Laura will be playing; Bruce is still
checking his schedule. This is a paying gig, so we need to be a
little more polished than sometimes. So we won’t be having drop-in
rehearsals until December.

We played:

• Vignons, vignons
• To Portsmouth
• Fair Phyllis
• Silly Bees
• Vive la Serpe
• Shepherd in a shade

John made some suggestions:

• Everybody should be able to sing their own part without support
  from others.
• Practice regularly with a metronome
• Memorize the words
• Play the simpler things without the music.

Schedule

As there wasn’t a day when everyone could rehearse in the week
before the gig, we scheduled two rehearsals, with different people
missing each. So our schedule now looks like:

• Tuesday, November 1, rehearsal.
• Sunday, November 6, Dress rehearsal; no Bruce. We didn’t discuss
  the time for this — is 7 PM too early? I know some people (including
  me) will want to
  go to concerts in the afternoon, but meeting at 7 would get us an
  extra 45 minutes that we could decide whether we wanted to use it for
  rehearsing, drinking beer, or sleeping.
• Tuesday, November 8, Election Day. Please remember to vote. I
  won’t be available for rehearsal, but don’t let that stop you if you
  want to get together.
• Thursday, November 10, Dress rehearsal; no Barney, Ishmael
  probably late. The regular
  7:45 time.
• Friday, November 11, Merry Wives of Windsor performance, no Bruce.
• Saturday, November 12, Merry Wives of Windsor performance
• Sunday, November 13, West Gallery; we won’t be playing the Merry
  Wives of Windsor
• Tuesday, November 15, Rehearsal. If things are going well enough
  with the Merry Wives gig, we may decide to make this a rehearsal for the Lowell
  performance.
• Thurday, November 17, Merry Wives of Windsor performance, no
  Barney.
• Friday, November 18, Merry Wives of Windsor performance, no Bruce
• Saturday, November 19, Final Merry Wives of Windsor performance,
  strike party.
• Tuesday, November 22, Rehearsal for Lowell gig.
• Tuesday, November 29, Rehearsal for Lowell gig.
• Thursday, December 1, 5 PM, Lowell gig.
• Tuesday, December 6, drop-in rehearsals resume

If there’s anyone with scheduling problems that I don’t know about,
please let me know as soon as possible. Stuart, which day were you
planning to leave your cello at my place?

We played:

• Newcastle
• Greensleeves
• Vive la serpe
• Fair Phyllis
• Silly Bees
• Shepherd in a shade
• Changeons propos
• Quand je bois
• He that will an Alehouse keep

Schedule

John Tyson can coach us on October 25, so I have scheduled that.

I
told him it was easier to organize rides for him here than to organize
the beer drinking at a different place from the rehearsing. So
can someone volunteer to pick him up on their way to rehearsal? Anne
and Stuart are the obvious suspects, since Bonnie and Bruce are coming
from the other direction, and Ishmael and Barney don’t come by
car.

Suggestions for which pieces it would make sense to work on with
John are welcome. I was thinking of Phyllis and “Vive la Serpe”, and
maybe one of the ballads. Bruce hasn’t done Dulcina, so it might make
sense to do that rather than Greensleeves.

This will mean that November 1 is our only normal rehearsal before
the November 11 opening night performance. We didn’t cover all the
music last Tuesday, so I think it would be really good to have another
rehearsal between November 1 and November 11, so that we can do all
the stuff Bruce has never seen before on November 1, and then do a
dress rehearsal on the new date. It looks like Thursday the 10th is a
possible date for that. Is that a problem for anyone?

New Gig

I’m writing the woman in Lowell that we would be happy to play an
hour of English Music on December 1.

After we throw out the French music, and put back the 17th and 18th
century drinking songs, we may be able to add a couple of things to
the November program, so requests are welcome. I was thinking
Anacreon might be a good choice.

The next rehearsal of the Cantabile Renaissance band will be on
Tuesday, October 18 at 7:45 PM at my place.

This meeting is limited to the people planning to play our November
public performances. Those people should let me know in advance if
they won’t be able to come.

We’ll be working on firming up the playlist for the two sets. I’m
going to get the Greensleeves arrangements into E minor, and add the
hymnbook arrangement. I think with Dulcina, that will be enough
multiverse ballads, and the Babylon stuff has been cut from the script
they’re using anyway.

Here’s a slightly modified version of the last playlist we
published.

Before the play

• He that will an Alehouse Keep
• Dulcina
• O Portsmouth
• Quand je Bois
• All in a Garden Green, or Daphne, or maybe neither.
• Vignons, vignons
• Playford set, probably including Newcastle
• Fanfare, TBD

Intermission

• Greensleeves (This will include the “Division on a Ground”
  version, maybe a couple of sung verses, and maybe the Charlton
  arrangement for 2 recorders, although that’s pretty obviously
  anachronistic. (So is the Division on a Ground, but by fewer
  centuries.)
• Fair Phyllis
• Silly Bees
• Shepherd in a shade
• Changeons propos
• Vive la Serpe
• Another dance set, probably Playford, suggestions welcome. The advantage of Playford is that we have 3-part
  arrangements that some of us know pretty well. Since some of the
  people who can play can’t play every performance, we want to keep this
  as simple and fool-proof as possible.

We have volunteers who have offered to arrange a third part from
the keyboard arrangement to Dulcina, and to get some Playford
arrangements that are better for our purposes than the Marshall Barron
ones. This should happen in the next week or so, if it’s going to be
of maximum usefulness.

John Tyson says that it’s possible that he’ll have a Tuesday before
our gig, but he won’t know Tuesday the 18th. It looks like that’s
our best hope for having a coaching session.

• Sheep (and bee) set
  • Fair Phyllis (Cantus: Anne; Altus: Bonnie; Tenor: Ishmael; Bass:
    Barney and Laura)
  • Dulcina (Anne vocal; Laura Bass; accompaniment various)
  • It was a time when silly bees could speak (Cantus: Anne; Altus:
    Laura; Tenor: Ishmael and Barney; Bass: Bonnie)
  • A shepherd in a shade (Cantus: Anne; Altus: Laura; Tenor: Ishmael
    and Barney; Bass: Bonnie)
• Drinking Songs
  • Changeons propos (Cantus: Anne and Bonnie; Tenor: Laura; Bassus:
    Ishmael and Barney)
  • He that will an alehouse keep (Three part round)
  • He that drinks is immortal (Three part round)
  • I gave her cakes (Three part round)
  • Vignon, vignon (Cantus: Anne and Bonnie; Tenor: Laura; Bassus:
    Barney and Ishmael
  • Slaves are they (Four part round)
  • Vive la serpe (Cantus: Anne; Altus: Laura; Tenor: Ishmael; Bassus:
    Barney and Bonnie)
  • O Portsmouth (Three part round)
  • Cider Round, if we learn it.
  • Quant je boy
  • Let us drink and be merry (Three part round)

3 part rounds:

1. Anne and Bonnie
2. Ishmael and Barney
3. Laura

There are a lot of three part rounds, so we may decide to mix up
who starts.

4 part rounds:

1. Ishmael
2. Laura
3. Barney and Bonnie
4. Anne

This meeting is a dress rehearsal for the Saturday, October 15,
ciderfest performance.

This means that it is restricted to, and compulsory for, the people
who are playing that performance.

Please forget about thinking of this group as a drop-in group for
this meeting. Please arrive on time, with your music in order. If
you aren’t able to print music, please let me know that, so that I can
print music for you.

The list you should have in order is
here.
I’m not sure it’s actually necessary to print out the drinking songs
individually instead of playing from the drinking songs book, but
definitely all the madrigals should be printed out and in order. If
it rains and you want to do drinking songs from a book, you’ll have to
use one of the old ones.

I think it would be a good idea for us to start the rehearsals with
some idea of what part we’re playing. I think that’s pretty much
decided by our voice ranges except for me and Bonnie. Anne needs to
know which of me and Bonnie are playing bass so that she can hold down
the other part. Barney may feel he would rather double Anne than sing
a tenor or bass part that doesn’t fit his range. So Bonnie, can we
decide and let Anne know which of the following you want to play bass
on, and which I’ll do?

• Sheep (and bee) set
  • Fair Phyllis
  • Dulcina
  • It was a time when silly bees could speak
  • A shepherd in a shade
• Drinking Songs
  • Changeons propos
  • Vignon, vignon
  • Vive la serpe

We may decide that we don’t need instrumental bass for Changeons
Propos or Vignon, vignon, but I’m pretty sure we want it for
everything else on that list.

It has also been suggested that we should do a dance set. I think
that’s a good idea, but I suggest that we do three-part music that
Barney, Ishmael, and Bonnie can handle if I end up organizing. Anne
can bop along if she wants to, but I think expecting her to hold down
a solo part outdoors is unrealistic. If someone wants to organize
that in advance, that would be best, although you’re certainly welcome
to use my trio box if that would help.

We did:

• Dulcina
• Greensleeves
• Fair Phyllis
• Burst Forth my tears
• Dulcina
• It was a time when silly bees could speak
• A shepherd in a shade
• I gave her cakes
• O Portsmouth
• Five reasons

As far as I know the people playing for the October 15 gig are
Laura, Barney, Anne, Bonnie, and Ishmael. In addition, these people
plus Bruce and Stuart will play some or all of the November dates. If
this list is incomplete or inaccurate, please let me know.

Schedule

Next week’s meeting, on October 11, will be limited to and
compulsory for the people playing on October 15.

The meetings on October 18 and 25 and November 1 (or substitute), 8
and 15 are limited to people playing the November gigs:

• Friday November 11th 8:00 pm (Bruce will
  miss this one)
• Saturday November 12th 8:00 pm
• Sunday November 13th 3:00 pm (we’ve
  decided to skip this one and go to West Gallery instead.)
• Thursday November 17th 8:00 pm (I think
  Barney said he’d miss this one.)
• Friday November 18th 8:00 pm (Bruce will
  miss this one)
• Saturday November 19th 8:00 pm (The West
  Gallery gig announced for this date has been cancelled, so we’ll be
  playing this date.)

Please check your calendars, and let me know if there are any other
scheduling problems.

We agreed that we’ll try to schedule a coaching session with John
Tyson for one of the November gig rehearsals. We’ll organize rides
for John to come to my place rather than trying to organize
beer-drinking in a place separate from the rehearsals.

After November 15, we will resume our regularly scheduled drop-in
sessions.

Longer term, we’re expecting to play the Walk for Hunger on May 7.
The BRS will probably do a Play the Recorder Month event in March some
time. We’ve talked to Kurt Hoffman about playing wallpaper music on
June 21 in Bridgewater, and we’re discussing playing at a Jeremiah
Ingalls event in July.

Playlist for October 15

We decided to drop “Burst forth my tears” on the grounds that it’s
too difficult to sing outdoors. I’m also dropping Five Reasons on the
grounds that we don’t have time to fix the ragged edges that showed up
last night. It’s plenty long enough of a program to drop more stuff
if ragged edges show up.

• Sheep (and bee) set
  • Fair Phyllis
  • Dulcina
  • It was a time when silly bees could speak
  • A shepherd in a shade
• Drinking Songs
  • Changeons propos
  • He that will an alehouse keep
  • He that drinks is immortal §
  • I gave her cakes §
  • Vignon, vignon
  • Slaves are they §
  • Vive la serpe
  • O Portsmouth
  • Quant je boy
  • Let us drink and be merry §

§ Probably not on the November program either because of being an
inappropriate feeling, or from too late of a date.

Please let me know if you need me to help you print copies to practice.

The next rehearsal of the Cantabile Renaissance band will be on
Tuesday, October 4, at 7:45 PM at my place.

Until mid-November, our rehearsals are restricted to people who are
performing at one of our October or November gigs. You don’t have to
come to all the rehearsals, but please let me know by next week
whether you’re playing and which dates you want to play.

I got some work done on a couple of umpteen-verse ballads that
are mentioned in “Merry Wives of Windsor”. Look at the
Greensleeves book, and the
Dulcina book. We aren’t going to do all of those verses, but if
you see one or two you’d especially like to sing, now is the time to
lay claim. If anyone feels like doing more “arranging” than is there
(i.e., any at all for Dulcina, and more than a bass line for
Greensleeves), please feel free.

I think we should plan to have a real play list for the October 15
gig by the end of tomorrow night. Since it’s outdoors, I’d like to
concentrate heavily on things we can sing a capella in a tight
circle, so that we don’t get all spread out with music stands and not
able to hear each other.

So here’s a tentative list:

• Sheep (and bee) set
  • Fair Phyllis *
  • Burst Forth my tears * §
  • Dulcina
  • It was a time when silly bees could speak * §
  • A shepherd in a shade *
• Drinking Songs
  • Changeons propos
  • He that will an alehouse keep
  • Five reasons §
  • He that drinks is immortal §
  • I gave her cakes §
  • Vignon, vignon
  • Slaves are they * §
  • Vive la serpe *
  • O Portsmouth
  • Quant je boy
  • Let us drink and be merry §

* these are four parts, so if we don’t have four people, we won’t
do them.

§ Probably not on the November program either because of being an
inappropriate feeling, or from too late of a date.

This is probably too much, so we’ll cut some of the things that
don’t sound as good. Although if we aren’t doing instrumental verses,
it will go faster.

Most of the hard stuff on this list will also be on the November
list,