Report on the November 29 meeting

We made a few decisions last night; please make sure your music is
marked to reflect them:

  • Drive the cold winter away will have an instrumental
    preceding the 3 vocal verses. I might play recorder only on
    the repeated sections of the vocal verses.
  • Slaves are they has been cancelled
  • Silver Swan is being done twice. The first time: Paul
    (recorder), Laura (recorder), Frank (recorder), Anne (voice),
    Bonnie (viol). The second time Laura will sing. We are
    performing in the original key, with one flat in the key
    signature.
  • Fair Phyllis: The vocal will precede the instrumental.

I will send updates to this when Frank and I decide what we’re
playing for our break session, and when Anna sends me the directions.

Playlist

  • Winter
    is icumen in     Frank and then Paul (rackett) play the ground, and
    when it’s established, Anne, Laura, and Bonnie enter with the tune.
    Laura cuts off.
  • Drive
    the cold winter away    , pages 10 and 11. Laura (recorder) and Anne,
    top line. Paul and Bonnie middle line. Frank bottom line. Anne
    sings all verses except # two. Instrumental, three verses vocal.
  • Three
    blind mice    . Laura (serpent), Frank, and Paul (rackett) start the Ravenscroft.
    Anne and Bonnie enter and sing. Anne looks puzzled, then stops and
    waves her arms. Everyone stops. Anne starts modern version, and all
    join in. Laura stops as usual.
  • Drinking
    rounds     from October 15 set. All 3 part rounds are Anne; Laura and
    Paul; Bonnie and Frank. All four part rounds are Anne; Paul; Laura;
    Bonnie and Frank.

    1. He that will an alehouse keep
    2. He that drinks is immortal
    3. I gave her cakes
    4. To Portsmouth
    5. Let us drink and be merry
  • Death set:
    • Silver
      Swan       All recorders, except for Anne and Bonnie. Parts from top: Paul, Frank,
      Laura, Anne, Bonnie. Second time, Laura sings.
    • Me, me
      and none but me       Parts: Paul (instrumental) or Anne (vocal); Laura;
      Bonnie; Frank and Paul (vocal).
    • Never
      weather-beaten saile       Parts: Paul (instrumental) or Anne (vocal);
      Laura; Bonnie; Frank and Paul (vocal)
  • Break sets:This may change after Frank and I have
    rehearsed. Paul should send me his proposed setlist,
    preferably with timings. Anne and Bonnie — do you have an
    approximate timing for yours?

    • Anne and Bonnie (maybe end with Daphne)
    • Paul, Van Eyck (Maybe Daphne)
    • Laura and Frank something from the Division flute, maybe
      Greensleeves (We may decide to put this before, or mixed
      with Paul’s van Eyck.)
  • Madrigal set:
Laura Conrad



Last modified: Wed Nov 30 10:37:39 EST 2005

Report on the November 28 meeting

Report on the November 28 meeting

[cantabile] Report on the November 28 meeting

It’s going pretty well. Tonight I want to go through basically in
order, except leaving the three-part things that Anne, Bonnie,
and I know really well to the end.

I have called Anna Ross and left a message, and we have exchanged
emails about where she should send the check. So I should have
more information by tonight.

Playlist

Below are the adjustments to the playlist. I’ve attempted to list
part assignments, but I may be remembering them wrong. Please correct
me if what I have isn’t they way you remember it. Please do this
before the rehearsal if possible, instead of taking up rehearsal
time.

  • Winter
    is icumen in     Frank and then Paul (rackett) play the drone, and
    when it’s established, Anne, Laura, and Bonnie enter with the tune.
    Laura cuts off.
  • Drive
    the cold winter away    , pages 10 and 11. Laura (recorder) and Anne,
    top line. Paul and Bonnie middle line. Frank bottom line. Anne
    sings all verses except # two. Instrumental TBD.
  • Three
    blind mice    . Laura (serpent), Frank, and Paul (rackett) start the Ravenscroft.
    Anne and Bonnie enter and sing. Anne looks puzzled, then stops and
    waves her arms. Everyone stops. Anne starts modern version, and all
    join in. Laura stops as usual.
  • Drinking
    rounds     from October 15 set. All 3 part rounds are Anne; Laura and
    Paul; Bonnie and Frank. All four part rounds are Anne; Paul; Laura;
    Bonnie and Frank.

    1. He that will an alehouse keep
    2. He that drinks is immortal
    3. I gave her cakes
    4. To Portsmouth
    5. Slaves are they
    6. Let us drink and be merry
  • Death set:
    • Silver
      Swan       All recorders, except for Anne. Parts from top: Paul, Frank,
      Laura, Anne, Bonnie.
      No instrumental. Possibly two verses. I am printing the parts in the
      original key, which seems to suit recorders better.
    • Me, me
      and none but me       Parts: Paul (instrumental) or Anne (vocal); Laura;
      Bonnie; Frank and Paul (vocal).
    • Never
      weather-beaten saile       Parts: Paul (instrumental) or Anne (vocal);
      Laura; Bonnie; Frank and Paul (vocal)
  • Break sets:
    • Anne and Bonnie (maybe end with Daphne)
    • Paul, Van Eyck (Maybe Daphne)
    • Laura and Frank something from the Division flute, maybe
      Greensleeves (We may decide to put this before, or mixed
      with Paul’s van Eyck.)
  • Madrigal set:
Laura Conrad



Last modified: Tue Nov 29 09:48:12 EST 2005

[cantabile] Plans for the November 22 meeting

The next meeting of the Cantabile Renaissance Band is on Tuesday,
November 22, at 7:45 PM at my place. This meeting is limited to
people doing the Lowell
gig on December 1. We’ll go back to being a drop-in group in December.

Below is a less tentative playlist. Please feel free to make
suggestions for additions or deletions.

Note that I’ve left out the Morley 2-voice canzonets on the grounds
that they will probably be part of one of the “break” sets. If this
doesn’t happen, we’ll add Girandola and Miraculous Love’s Wounding (at
least) to
the Madrigal set.

I think this is enough music that we can dump anything that doesn’t
go well on the 22nd, and not waste time on it on the 29th. If (when) we turn
out to need more rehearsal time, I’m hoping that Thanksgiving weekend
has some unscheduled time in it. I’m certainly expecting the 10-15
minute break sets to be rehearsed outside of our normal rehearsal
time.

I had been thinking that if we split into groups of two, Bonnie and
I would be one group, on the grounds that we’ve done a lot of duets
together over the years, but on further reflection, that would put the
two best bass line players in one group, so I’m thinking that Bonnie
and Anne could do a really good ballad set with Bonnie on viol, and
there are a lot of things Paul and I could do, and I’ll probably be
going to Fall River sometime before the concert, so we could get
together for a southern rehearsal.

[cantabile] Report on the November 22 meeting

Schedule

We clearly needed more rehearsal time, so we will be rehearsing
both Monday and Tuesday. Please arrive by 7:45, with your music
in order. Frank, if you came at 7:30, we could run the Division Flute
thing.

I will be talking to Anne Russo about what the arrangements are. I
will ask about handicapped accessibility. We start playing at 5, so I
assume everyone will want to be there by 4:30, to make sure we’re set
up and ready to start at 5.

Playlist

Below are the adjustments to the playlist. I’ve attempted to list
part assignments, but I may be remembering them wrong. Please correct
me if what I have isn’t they way you remember it.

  • Winter
    is icumen in     Frank and then Paul (rackett) play the drone, and
    when it’s established, Anne, Laura, and Bonnie enter with the tune.
    Laura cuts off.
  • Drive
    the cold winter away    , pages 10 and 11. Laura (recorder) and Anne,
    top line. Paul and Bonnie middle line. Frank bottom line. Anne
    sings all verses except # two. Instrumental TBD.
  • Three
    blind mice    . Laura (serpent), Frank, and Paul (rackett) start the Ravenscroft.
    Anne and Bonnie enter and sing. Anne looks puzzled, then stops and
    waves her arms. Everyone stops. Anne starts modern version, and all
    join in.
  • Drinking
    rounds     from October 15 set. All 3 part rounds are Anne; Laura and
    Paul; Bonnie and Frank. All four part rounds are Anne; Paul; Laura;
    Bonnie and Frank.

    1. He that will an alehouse keep
    2. Five Reasons (has been cut)
    3. He that drinks is immortal
    4. I gave her cakes
    5. To Portsmouth
    6. Slaves are they
    7. Let us drink and be merry
  • Death set:
  • Break sets:
    • Anne and Bonnie (maybe end with Daphne)
    • Paul, Van Eyck (Maybe Daphne)
    • Laura and Frank something from the Division flute, maybe Greensleeves
  • Madrigal set:

[diary] Adding a technorati link

technorati seems to be
having trouble with this dynamic blosxom blog, although it let me
claim the laymusic.org static
blog with no trouble. So I’m putting their code into this post to see
if that helps.

Technorati
Profile

From my log, it looks like they might be looking at the .rss feed,
which doesn’t have all the stuff in foot.html, which is where I put
the original link.

[diary] Using docbook

The idea of docboook is that you write one source file in sgml or
xml (which is a subset of sgml) and you can process it to get plain
text, html, rtf, or tex output, or put the information in a database,
or any other format that someone can write a program to read the input
and get the output.

This is an attractive idea for people who have to email to
collaborators, maintain a website, print hard copies, and keep track
of where they’ve put the stuff they do. (I’m sure I’d transcribed the
Ravenscroft “Three
Blinde Mice” before Bonnie did it this week, but neither of us
could find it).

However, before last night, I’d tried several times to get the
docbook toolchain to work, and never managed to get both text and PDF
out of the same file (using the test files I got off the web), let
alone have it magically solve my website database maintenance
problems.

Last night, I finally hit on the DocBook Install
mini-HOWTO, and it works!

Of course, the pathname to the DTD file isn’t exactly the same in
Debian as if you install everything from source, but slocate and
updatedb are your friends, and there’s a Makefile template that will
let you find the files once and then let the computer remember where
they are.

I’ll let you know if I manage to get it to clean the house and
roast the Thanksgiving turkey for me.

[publishing] Additions

The group has
been busy with gigs, so the transcribing has slowed down a little, and
the publishing had ground to a halt. But I’m trying to catch up.

[cantabile] Plans for the November 15 meeting

The next meeting of the Cantabile Renaissance Band is on Tuesday,
November 15, at 7:45 PM at my place. This meeting is limited to
peopld doing the Lowell
gig on December 1. We’ll go back to being a drop-in group in December.

Below is a tentative playlist. Please feel free to make
suggestions for additions or deletions.

  • Winter is icumen in (We’ll have to experiment with whether it
    makes sense to have one, two, or zero drones given four performers.
    We might start out with the serpent and rackett in canon, and then
    drop one or more of them.
  • Three blind mice
  • Drinking rounds from October 15 set:
    1. He that will an alehouse keep
    2. He that drinks is immortal
    3. I gave her cakes
    4. Slaves are they
    5. Vive la serpe
    6. To Portsmouth
    7. Let us drink and be merry
  • Death set:
    • Silver Swan (we can see if this makes sense given only 4
      performers. If it’s really Michal’s gallery, maybe she’ll want to sit
      in.)
    • Me, me and none but me
    • Never weather-beaten saile
    • Stay time a while they flying (Dowland, Pilgrims’ solace) We can
      try it to see if we can learn it in three weeks.
  • Break sets:
    Anne might be willing to do an unaccompanied set. If she decides
    not to, we’ll split into groups of two, and do duets. If she wants
    to, Bonnie, Paul, and I will do a set of recorder trios while Anne
    takes her break. We’re thinking about either Pipers’ Fancy or the
    Charlton Gilbert and Sullivan arrangements.
  • Madrigal set:
    • Fair Phyllis
    • Shepherd in a Shade
    • Morley (two and three voice canzonets. If Bonnie and I are doing
      duets, we’ll have a lot of two-voice ones in the break sets.
    • Country dances
    • Come again

[cantabile] Report on the November 6 meeting

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.

  • 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.

[cantabile] Plans for the November 10 meeting

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.

    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.