Category: Cantabile

Finally, we played through the whole program.

We made some decisions:

• We rehearsed “Now is the month of Maying” with viol instead of
  rackett on the bottom line, so we’ll play it that way.
• We’ll perform the two “small-group” May songs with the Morley set
  instead of with the 12:30 set. They will be part of the 1:45 set.
• We decided not to worry about the places where Laura’s playing
  recorder on the second line and Paul and/or Patricia is plaing
  cornetto or fiddle on the top line.
• Ishmael will be playing and singing the first line of Estans Assis
  solo, and then be joined by Barney when the rest of us come in.
• Ishmael will be conducting the start of “By the rivers of
  Watertown”, as well as the tempo change on the repeat of the last
  section. He will also be starting us on “Clear or Cloudy”, where I
  play serpent.

Comfort

The weather prediction at the moment is for partly cloudy, with
temperatures in the low 60’s. Which is pretty comfortable, but
remember that standing around gets colder than brisk walking, the wind
comes up along the river in the afternoon, and of course their ability
to predict how fast weather patterns move is limited, and they are
predicting showers for Saturday. So bring layers.

I’ll bring my keg of carbonated water and some paper cups. If
you’re going to need food between breakfast and 3:30 when Bugaboo
Creek will feed us, bring a snack.

If you’re not driving and would like a chair to sit on, ask one of
the people who is driving to bring an extra.

For my comfort, please arrive in plenty of time. I suggest that
anyone not playing the morning session be there by noon. If you are
playing in the morning, get there at least 15 minutes before you want
to be playing.

Again, this is not a dropin group. This meeting is limited to and
compulsory for the people performing on May 1 at the Walk for Hunger.
We resume our regularly scheduled dropin group next week.

We have a lot of work to do at this rehearsal. Please come in time so
that we can be set up and tuned and ready to start playing at 7:45 PM.

Play list

The play order is as follows. Please have your music in order:

• May music
  • Now is the month of Maying.
  • My love hath vowed she will forsake me.
  • Good Morrow, fair ladies of the May
  • Clear or Cloudy.
• Swan songs
  • Silver Swan
  • Me, me and none but me
  • Il Bianco e dolce Cigno
• Drinking Songs
  • Changeons propos
  • Vignons, vignons
  • Quand je Bois
  • Rounds
• Babylon
  • Campian, Babylon Streams
  • Estans Assis
  • Billings, Lamentation over Boston

Recording

Ishmael recorded a lot of last week’s coaching session, and I found
it very helpful to listen to it. He dumped his recording to a
(1-track, 77 minute) CD, and Bonnie and I listened to it yesterday.

For those with good internet access, the track is a (humongous)
.wav file and a (large) .ogg file at
serpent.laymusic.org/~lconrad/audio/cantabile-0405. If
anyone would be helped by there being a .mp3 file, I can make one of
those.

If there’s someone without good internet access who would like to
borrow the CD, let me know. If there’s more than one person, making
copies of the CD before tomorrow’s meeting would be pretty easy.

Some random thoughts on listening to the CD:

• The diction on “Clear or Cloudy” was indeed difficult to understand
  on the first time through, and less difficult after John’s coaching
  but still has a lot of room for improvement. If you’re driving or
  showering or walking along the street with nothing better on your
  mind, try speaking the words aloud as a “public speaker”.
• At least with that recording equipment, I don’t think my voice is
  overpowered, so I withdraw my remarks about the group being top-heavy
  with cornettos and multiple soprano voices on the top line.
• The startup of every verse of Changeons propos was
  embarrassing. We don’t have time to work on things like that
  tomorrow, so if there’s anything that seems to be working that way it
  gets cancelled. With all those rounds that we’re used to doing and do
  pretty well, we have the luxury of cancelling anything that we don’t
  sound pretty good on the first time through.

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.

We’re expecting the following people:

1. Laura Conrad (voice, brass, recorder)
2. Barney Gage (voice, recorder)
3. Patricia Hawkins (voice, fiddle)
4. Anne Kazlauskas (voice)
5. Bonnie Rogers (voice, bass viol, recorder)
6. Ishmael Stefanov-Wagner (voice, fiddle, recorder)
7. 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.

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.

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

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.

Some decisions we made:

• Clear or Cloudy isn’t ready for public performance. We will work
  harder on it next month, and I will try to get better underlay.
• Anne’s voice works fine as an instrument in an instrumental
  setting.
• The serpent isn’t ready to play 15 minute performances in settings
  where there’s no warmup time.

Route

Let me know if I have any of this wrong.

1. April is in my Mistress’ Face
   • Instrumental: Bruce and Laura, T recorder, Ishmael, Fiddle,
     Bonnie, viol.
   • Vocal: Bonnie and Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce
2. The Silver Swan
   • 4-foot instrumental: Laura, Bruce, Ishmael, Anne, Bonnie
   • vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce, Bonnie (viol)
   • 8-foot instrumental: Laura, Anne, Ishmael, Bruce, Bonnie
3. Me, Me and None but Me
   • Instrumental: Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce (trombone)
   • Vocal (2 verses): Bonnie and Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce
4. Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno (Arcadelt)
   • Big instruments: Bruce, Laura, Ishmael, Bonnie
   • Vocal: Anne and Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce
   • Recorders: Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce

Transcription error

We discovered an error in the Tenor line of the Eb version of “The
Silver Swan”. The words “death ap-” in the second phrase should be
eighth notes not quarter notes. I will fix this all the places I
can. I think the 2004 book isn’t fixable, so if you print it out
again, do it from the
laymusic.org site.

We’ll be at John’s place (310 1/2 Pearl St. in Cambridge) starting at 8
PM. 310 1/2 is behind 308, down a long driveway. They don’t enforce
the permit only parking there in the evening, so there shouldn’t be a
problem parking on the street. Let me know if you need more
directions than that. His phone number is (617) 661-3353.

We’re expecting Anne (voice), Bonnie (voice, recorder, bass viol),
Laura (voice, recorder, serpent), Ishmael (voice, recorder, fiddle),
Bruce (voice, recorder, trombone), and Stuart (cello).
If this list is wrong in any respect, please let me know. Also let me
know if you need me to bring any music.

I’ve given all the part assignments top voice to bottom voice.

We’ll be working on the playlist for the April 2 gig, which is a
subset of the playlist of the May 1 gig, so people from both gigs are
coming. We will probably do only two or three pieces, and work on
them pretty intensely.

There’s a problem practicing for the April gig, because we have two
five-part pieces, and only 5 people playing, one of whom doesn’t play
an instrument, so we may decide not to do our usual instrumental then
vocal route for those pieces.

April is in my mistress’ face

April part assignments: instrumental: Bruce, Laura, Ishmael,
Bonnie.

Vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bonnie and Bruce.

Stuart will probably be playing bass in May, but it might make sense for him
to also learn the tenor, so maybe he should play tenor this week.

Clear or Cloudy

April part assignments: Anne, Bonnie, Ishmael, Bruce, Laura. We will
fiddle with whether there’s an instrumental that makes sense at the
March 29 meeting. Stuart should play bass, and that way we can also
do the May configuration where Bonnie and Anne will both be on the top
line, and Laura will be on Altus.

Quintus is between Altus and Tenor in this piece.

Silver Swan

Make sure you have the version in Eb (three flats in the
signature).

April part assignments: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce, Bonnie.
Again, we’ll fiddle with an April instrumental version on March 29,
Stuart will play bass so Bonnie and Anne can both sing top line.

Quintus is between Cantus and Altus in this piece.

Me, me and none but me

April part assignments: Instrumental: Bonnie, Laura, Ishmael,
Bruce. Vocal: Anne, Laura, Ishmael, Bruce. I’d like to see if this
works a capella, in which case Bonnie can sing top line with
Anne, and we can do the instrumental completely on recorders, since
it’s a recorder society gig. If not, Bonnie will play viol with Bruce
on the vocal, and probably also on the instrumental version, in which
case Bruce will play top line in the instrumental.

In any case, Stuart will play bass except when we’re experimenting
with what we can do without him.

Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno

Same assignments as Me, me and none but me.

It was good to play for an experienced pair of ears like John’s.
We worked on establishing a tuning routine for the strings, and on
having the instrumentalists as well as the singers be more sensitive
to the words, and on having everybody be more aware that they’re
telling a story.

We played:

• Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno
• Morley, April is in my mistress’ face
• Dowland, Me, me and none but me
• Dowland, Clear or cloudy

Future plans

We still haven’t completely settled the orchestration for the April
performance. If Barney can make it to the March 22 rehearsal to stand
in for Bruce (I know he doesn’t play trombone, but he sings in the same
range and can play the recorder parts), we should be able to decide
that, and then work intensely on that program on March 29.

Corrections to the music

We found two errors in the printed music.

1. The Bassus in April is
   in my mistress’ face has an F in the wrong octave in measure 25, and
   should be either corrected by hand or
   printed from www.laymusic.org.
2. The Cantus part in “Me, me and none but me” has two eighth notes
   in measure 20 that are a step up from where they should be. This
   should be printed from laymusic.org.