Category: Cantabile

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

We played:

• Flute duets, Opus 1, by Johan Mattheson.
• Dix
  Bransles de Champagne, by
  Claude
  Gervaise
• Americana Suite by Andrew Charlton

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.

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.

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.

We did:

• Morley:
  • Good Morrow, fair Ladies of the May
  • Whether away so fast
  • Hold out my heart

  Dowland:

  • When the poore Cripple
  • O mighty God
  • When Davids life by Saul was often sought
• Vive la Serpe
• Slaves are they that heap up mountains

Decisions

• We will meet next week, on Tuesday, June 14. Some people will
  have BEMF commitments, but there might be other people in town for the
  festival who would be fun to play with.
• Ishmael can do some double-sided printing for us, so we haven’t
  yet made an order for the drinking songs.
• Anne and Ishmael both have other commitments on the 25th. So I
  will check with Paul, and if he can’t come, maybe Bonnie, Barney, and
  I will resurrect some of the old recorder trio repertoire.
• I got some feedback on the new version of the flyer. Check out the
  current version and see what you think.

We did:

• Morley:
  • Good Morrow, fair ladies of the May
  • Whether away so fast
• Vive la serpe
• Dowland:
  • When David’s life by Saul was often Sought
  • O Mighty God
• Isaac, Benedictus
• Slaves are they that heap up mountains

Plans are underway for the Boston
Wort Processors Summer Picnic. If we want to play, we need some
people to sign up. I’ll send the official information to the usual
suspects; if you aren’t one of them and want it, let me know.

We’ll have the next Dowland. It’s the second part of that
three-parter we started last week, so we’ll attempt that one again as
well.

If we have 5 parts, there’s a Holborne that we didn’t do two weeks
ago, and it might be fun to do some of the others again.

I’m committed to setting the three pieces from the Odhecaton that
I’m playing Saturday with John and Miyuki (BRS
calendar listing)
so we might do whatever I’ve finished of those, if people are
interested.

I’d like to continue working on Vive la Serpe and Slaves are they
that heap up mountains.

Report from the Memorial Day performance

I thought we played pretty well, considering. Unfortunately, it
wasn’t really quite a big enough party to justify background music,
and I don’t think we were holding the audience well enough to be
foreground music. The demo was written up in the Fall River Herald; I
can forward the writeup to anyone interested.

We did:

• O Portsmouth
• Vive la serpe
• Dowland, Thou Mighty God
• Slaves are they that heap up mountains
• Now is the month of Maying

It looks like the Memorial Day cookout in Fall River will include
Laura, Bonnie, Anne, Barney, and Paul, but Ishmael is a maybe.

I propose for a program:

• Now is the Month of Maying (Anne on Altus and Laura on Quintus,
  unless Ishmael shows up. Paul should bring the Rackett.)
• Changeons Propos
• Vignons, vignons
• Quand je Bois. All these with the “old” route of 4-foot, French,
  English. Paul, you’re playing and singing bassus; use your judgement
  about whether to do it on recorder or cornetto.
• After that, pass out the drinking songs books to any audience and
  invite participation in some of the rounds. Based on last night, we
  do “Slaves are they” only if the audience is very friendly and
  supportive, but we can do “Anacreon in heaven” in honor of Memorial
  Day in any case.

We’ll be working out schedules and rides when we know more about
the schedule in Fall River. Please remember that it’s a pot-luck
event.

We’ll have at least one new Dowland. The next one is a
through-composed, 3-verse one, so it’s as much work as setting three,
and I probably can’t do that much (I have about half the work done for
the first one as of 9 AM this morning). But we’ll see.

I’ve changed two things in the Drinking Songs book, which I’m
gearing up to sell at . So we’ll
do “Vive la Serpe” (new key and some English underlay fixes) and “O
Portsmouth”.

People should be prepared to decide whether they want to sing in
Fall River next Monday, and if several of us want to, we’ll go over
what we want to sing. I would expect “Now is the Month of Maying” if
there’s a quorum, and a selection of drinking songs, although anything
we did at the Walk for Hunger should be still an option.

We’re meeting as usual tomorrow, Tuesday, May 17, at 7:45 PM at
my place.

We’ll have another Dowland.

We may have English words to “Vive la Serpe”, although they still
need a little work.

If we have 5 parts, there are a bunch of things I’d like to do,
including a bunch of Holborne’s that I’ve been transcribing for John
Tyson.

If we have only three parts, we can work on some more Morley
canzonets.

I didn’t hear back from my sister about singing at her Memorial Day
cookout, so I have pinged her. I said we needed to know if she hated
the idea, so that we could practice “Praise the Lord and pass the
ammunition” instead of “Dona Nobis Pacem” and crash someone else’s
Memorial Day event. If she sounds interested, we’ll discuss what to
play, and with what instruments. I think it might make sense to try a
vocals only with no music stands or instruments. It could be short.

We played:

• Lassus, Fantasia 25
• Morley, Good morrow, Fair Ladies of the May
• Vive la Serpe, with the new English words
• Dowland, If that a sinner’s sighs be angel’s food (no cake to go
  with it)
• Holborne group
  • Fairie round
  • Last Will and Testament
  • Galliard 40
  • As it fell on a holie Eve

It looks like at least some of us will do a short group of drinking
songs at the Memorial Day cookout in Fall River. If we have enough
people, I think we should include “Now is the month of Maying”.