Report on the October 10 meeting

We started out with three people, and the trio that was handiest was by William Byrd, so we ended up having a William Byrd orgy:

* Byrd orgy:
** ??Susanna Fair??
** ??The Eagle’s Force??
** Two ??In Nomine?? s
** ??Lord in thy rage rebuke me not??
* Drinking Songs:
** Sermisy, ??Vive la serpe??
** Purcell, ??I gave her cakes??

h3. Schedule

We will have our usual dropin meetings for the next three weeks, October 17, 24, and 31. These meetings will be at 7:45 at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html.

On November 7, we will have an election break, and will not meet that day.

Speaking of elections, if you know anyone who isn’t registered to vote in Massachusetts and should be, remind them that if they register by October 18, they will be eligible to vote in the November 7 election.

Healy ad not only racist but ungrammatical

“Others”:http://jackandjillpolitics.blogspot.com/2006/10/kerry-healy-niggers-are-coming.html (link includes the youtube version of the ad) have commented on the racial aspects of the Healey campaign ad criticizing Deval Patrick for having defended an “admitted cop killer”. I’d like to criticize the grammar of the ad.

The ending sentence is, “Defense attorneys have a right to defend admitted cop killers, but do we really want one for governor?”

I saw that ad twice in less than half an hour watching Channel 7 on Monday night. My guess is that anyone who spends that much money on having an ad shown, also spends a lot of money on having it written and produced. I also suspect that the people who get paid that kind of money for writing have had training in how to write clear sentences in which no pronoun has an ambiguous antecedent.

It isn’t entirely clear whether the antecedent of “one” in that sentence at the end of the ad is “defense attorneys” or “cop killers”.

I doubt that this is an accident.

Report on the October 3 meeting

We played:

* Dowland, ??In Darkness Let me Dwell??
* ??Mille Regrets?? group:
** Susato, ??Mille Regrets??
** Josquin, ??Mille Regrets??
** Susato, ??Responce: Les miens aussi??
* Wilbye, ??Draw on Sweet Night??
* Mundy, ??My Prime of Youth??
* Sermisy, ??Vive la Serpe??

h3. Schedule

No known problems with having our regular dropin meetings every Tuesday at 7:45 PM at “my place”:http://www.laymusic.org/directions.html for the rest of October. November 7 will probably be an election break.

Report on the September 26 meeting

We played:

* ??Mille Regretz?? group:
** Susato
** Josquin
** Susato responce: ??Les miens aussi brief??
* Gabrieli, ??Canzon prima??
* Wilbye, ??Weep, O mine Eyes??
* Dowland:
** ??Come ye heavy states of night??
** ??White as lillies was her face??
** ??Fine knacks for ladies??

We decided the Susato response to ??Mille Regrets?? was worth learning, so I will transcribe it. I’ll probably also transcribe the 5 part Gabrielli, as we seem to be enjoying him, and we don’t always have enough people for the 6 and 8 part ones.

h3. Schedule

I don’t know of any reason we won’t be having our regular dropin meetings all the way through October. The first Tuesday in November will probably be another election break.

h3. Other events

The “New England Sacred Harp Convention”:http://neconvention.net is this weekend in Kingston, RI. If you don’t get enough singing time, this is a good way to fix that for a day or two.

You have a cooling rack

Those of us who are low on both money and storage space often look longingly at kitchen equipment catalogs like “The Bakers’ Catalog”:http://www.bakerscatalogue.com/ but don’t order the equipment.

One of the things I have concluded I don’t need is a cooling rack for baked goods. Not because I don’t bake, or don’t want to turn out fresh-baked rolls or cookies onto a rack where the bottom would be exposed to air, but because I already have something that works quite well.

Your stove came with a broiling pan, which is the largest size thing that fits comfortably in your oven. That pan has a rack that allows the fat from what you’re broiling to drip down to the bottom of the pan instead of frying the food it comes from.

If you turn that rack upside down on your counter, you can use it as a cooling rack for your rolls or cookies.

Additions

This week there are two new composers: “Benedetto Marcello”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#72 and “John Wilbye”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/bycomposer.html#73. They’re both people I’ve known about for years but never happened to transcribe anything by.

I transcribed the “Marcello Sonata III”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/365.html because I’m playing it at a “Master Class”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org/calendar/cal_popup.php?op=view&id=329, and needed to print out copies for an accompanist, the teacher, and the other attendees. I could have copied the facsimile, which is what I’m playing from, but the accompanist at least probably prefers not to have to read the switches to C clefs and some of the cramped and scrawled figures that are in the facsimile.

The fourth movement of the Marcello is the one that uses the same tune as “Danza, danza fanciulla gentile”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/363.html.

I had sung and enjoyed the Wilbye ??Draw on Sweet Night??, so when I ran into “Weep, weep mine Eyes”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/366.html in a box of music from a friend, I pulled it out for doing with the “band”:http://www.laymusic.org/windband.html and we turned out to really like it.

The score was at “cpdl.org”:http://www.cpdl.org, so I used the “the lilypond finale converter”:http://lilypond.org/doc/v2.8/Documentation/user/lilypond/Invoking-etf2ly.html to put it into the unbarred parts that we use. It probably would have been easier to just type it in my normal way, since I had to enter both the rests and the lyrics, but it does save some proofreading time.

Meeting report, September 12

h3. Schedule

Please remember that we will *not* be meeting on Tuesday, September 19. If you’re a Massachusetts voter, please remember to vote. I will be overseeing a free and fair election in Cambridge’s Ward 10 precinct 3.

We will be having our regular drop-in meetings from September 26 through the month of October. The first Tuesday in November will probably be a similar interruption in the schedule due to an election.

h3. Last Meeting

We played:

* Swan Group
** Guidiccioni, ??Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno??
** Gibbons, ??The Silver Swan??
** Arcadelt, ??Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno??
** Vecchi, ??Il Bianco e Dolce Cigno??
* Wilbye, ??Weep, weep mine eyes??
* Mundy, ??My prime of youth??
* Senfl, ??Wohl kumbt der Mai??
* Arthopius, ??Die bruenlin die da fliessen??
* Round group
** ??Cider Round??
** ??Three wise men of Boston??
** ??Benjy met the bear??
** Purcell, ??Tis Women??

h3. Other events

I’m going to be playing a “masterclass”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org/calendar/cal_popup.php?op=view&id=329
on Sunday, September 17. I don’t know who else is playing, but the Marcello Sonata I’m going to be doing is a lot of fun.

Sunday, September 24, is the “first meeting”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org/calendar/cal_popup.php?op=view&id=296 of the “Boston Recorder Society”:http://www.bostonrecordersociety.org. You can come try out all the groups for free and see if there’s anything you’d be interested in.

Additions

A bit miscellaneous this week.

A couple of weeks ago the “Cantabile Renaissance Band”:http://www.laymusic.org/windband.html ran through 5 tenor lieder by Ludwig Senfl [1]. “Wohl kumbt der Mai II”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/362.html is the one we liked best, so I transcribed it. Expect it to be on the program for next year’s Walk for Hunger.

“The new Gabrielli we’ve been learning”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/361.html is in a key that puts the top lines out of the range of my brass playing, and pretty high up for anyone. There’s some evidence that they actually played things like that down a fourth, so I “transposed it that way.”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/364.html. It probably isn’t an improvement for recorders, since the Alto part goes too low for an alto recorder, and the Tenor part goes pretty low for a tenor recorder. And recorder players who can handle the ornamentation in the top lines can play up to high B with no problem. But brass player’s lips will thank me.

I’m working on learning a Marcello sonata for recorder, whose last movement is similar to the Italian song “Danza, danza fanciulla gentile”:http://www.laymusic.org/music/sp/html/pieces/363.html. If I were to perform it, I’d want to also include the song, which is by “Francesco Durante”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Durante, who was acontemporary of Marcello. Also, I was puzzled by the phrasing my “recorder teacher”:http://www.renaissonics.com” wanted me to use. So I’ve transcribed it, and transposed it into a less remote key.

fn1. London Pro Musica EML 295