Planning the site redesign

There are two main things I’m going to work on in the next week or
two about the site. One is improving the format, hopefully so that
those pesky IE5.0 on Mac OSX people can read it, and also because the
current design with all the site links in the right column is starting
to be unwieldy, now that I have the google ads (which might be
producing useful checks some day). So I’m going to try out some
three-column designs, and see what happens.

The other big problem is the lilypond version problem. I have
written out a lot of my thoughts on this problem in an email to the
lilypond
user list. I’m hoping to work on fixing and redesigning the
db2htm.py script over the weekend.

Corrections based on Feb. 8 rehearsal

Heurteur, Grace et vertu

My oversimplification of the alternative endings was too simplified to
be playable, so I have unsimplified it but not to the extent the AR
edition does.

Also, there was a typo in the words, which has been fixed.

Barney is convinced there should be an indication of the elision,
but I don’t do that anywhere else. But I have asked the Lilypond user
list whether it’s possible.

Update: 02/10/05
I wrote the lilypond
user list with the question
about how to do this, and didn’t get anything useful back.

There was a dotted rest in the cantus part, which I transcribed
from the AR edition, but my typesetting standards don’t allow dotted
rests, so I have taken it out.

Campian, Babylon Streams

There was an underlay problem in verse 5, which is now fixed.

If
one were really going to sing all 9 verses, one would want to do
something like italicize the even numbered ones.

Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno

The lyrics were missing lots of hyphens. I forget where I got that
from — I probably didn’t enter the lyrics directly. Fixed now. Let
me know if I overdid it. I’m pretty sure “sconsolato” is one word,
but I suppose it could be “scon solato”.

Added Thomas Campian’s Babylon Streams

The Cantabile
Renaissance band has been doing more Thomas
Campian lately, and we also have a set of songs that have
something to do with rivers, because we play every year for the Walk for Hunger on the banks
of the Charles River.

There’s a piece called Babylon Streams by Thomas Campian that the West Gallery Quire does.
It was published in the Scottish Psalter in 1615 with words from the
New
Version of the Metrical psalms. But Bruce Randall usually uses
the words from Walter Scott’s Dies Irae translation, which are very
impressive.

But I thought it would be fun to sing to the Babylon words along
with the Billings
Lamentation over Boston and the Psaume
CXXXVII by Paschal de l’Estocart.

So it’s up.

Other additions on February 8, 2005

Neither of these are new typesetting, but I noticed they weren’t there
when I was writing up Babylon
Streams, so I added them.

We thought Campian’s
My love hath vowed he will forsake me might work in the May songs
group we do at the Walk for Hunger, so I set
that.

And we did Psaume CXXXVII
 by Paschal de l’Estocart to a translation by Clement Marot last
year at the Walk, and it was a big hit. The Serpent especially
likes it.

February 8th A list rehearsal

Tuesday, February 8, usual time and place. As usual, please let me
know whether you can come as soon as possible.

Good news is that Bruce Randall will be able to play April 2 at the
Central Square Library.

We’ll have to start deciding what to play as soon as we know who can
come. I’m thinking of either as much of the river set as fits in the
time and works with the personnel (e.g. if we don’t have 5 people we
won’t do Silver Swan), or a drinking songs set.

So the sooner you decide whether you can make it on April 2, the
better.

I’m hoping to have the Heurteur that we liked a couple of weeks ago
transcribed, and print out some of the less familiar stuff from the
setlist at
so we
can try it out.

Report on the February 8 A List rehearsal

We mostly worked on the river music set, which is really two sets — the Psalm 137 set and the Silver Swan set.

  • Bop duets
  • Silver Swan Round
  • Grace et vertu
  • Bruce’s Wordsworth setting
  • Campian, Babylon Streams
  • Estans assis
  • Billings, Lamentation over Boston
  • Arcadelt, Il bianco e dolce cigno
  • Dowland, Me, me and none but me

I think the conclusion was that the Arcadelt really belongs with
the other Silver Swan ones, but the round doesn’t. The Campian is ok,
but probably not interesting enough as is for 9 verses. It would of
course be better in a setting where people were singing along.

So our river music set(s) are shaping up to be:

  • Campian
  • Estans Assis
  • Billings
  • Gibbons
  • Dowland
  • Arcadelt

Comments, additions, deletions, order changes?

Schedule

Next week (February 15) is a regular rehearsal, to which we hope Bruce
and Stuart will come. Anne will be in Spain.

So the next possible A-list rehearsal is February 22. Note that
this is not a definite schedule until I send out the email invitation.

Blogmania

Bonnie was asking whether it was necessary to check the blog as
well as read the email.

My policy is that anything that affects scheduling will be sent out
by email.

However, I’m putting a lot of stuff that people here might be
interested in in the blogs. For instance, this morning I did the
corrections to the music that we found last night, and described them
in
the publishing blog

In other words, there isn’t going to be a rehearsal you’ll miss by
not reading the blogs, but if you want to know what I’m up to, you may
want to check both my personal blog

my
personal blog (which this is part of)

and

the www.laymusic.org site blog.

Money

I have signed up for Google ads on my site, and it looks like a small
number of clicks actually makes a noticeable amount of money. So when
you’re checking the site, if you have nothing better to do, click on
some of the ads. I get paid just for people clicking on them — you
don’t have to buy anything.

Added Guillaume Le Heurteur, Grace et vertu, bonté beaulté, noblesse

I have the AR edition of
“French Chansons for Three Voices (ca. 1550), Part I: Three-Part
Chansons Printed by Gardane (1541)”

Several of our favorite drinking songs are from there. When there are
three good people at a small rehearsal, as there were the Tuesday
after the blizzard of ’05, we sometimes read through some of the ones
we don’t know. On that occasion, this was our favorite of the seven
or eight we read, so I said I would transcribe it, and I have.

There’s a slight infelicity in the transcription. The modern system
of alternate endings on a repeated section was developed after regular
barlines were a consistent feature of printed music. I feel that with
music written before this happened, it’s a lot easier to read without
all the tied notes that the regular barlines require.

In this piece, there isn’t a good way to decide where to put the
repeat sign, and have the alternate endings work for all parts without
tied notes. So I decided on the simplest solution, which is to repeat
back to almost the beginning of the phrase.

This leaves the Cantus
part exactly as the AR edition has it (minus a fermata on the last note). The Tenor part is missing the
half note which should be tied to the ending half note on the first
ending, which I have noted in a footnote. The bassus part singers
have to know to not sing the pickup to the last phrase at the end of
the piece.

February Announcements from Bruce

I hope you all had a good month. The regular West Gallery workshop is
coming this weekend, and we have some other news items as well.

1. NEXT MEETING:

The next regular West Gallery Music workshop will be on Sunday, Feb.
13th, from 1:30 – 4:30 PM, at the usual place, St. Mary’s Church in
Newton Lower Falls. I hope the thermostat will be working this
month. I’ll try to remember to check with them this week.

Last month I gave out 2 new pieces; “Psalm 23” by Thomas Clark, and a
new version of the “Psalm 56” which we already had. We’ll do these
songs again; if you missed last month, be sure to pick up copies of
these when you come.

I don’t think we have any tunes suitable for Lincoln’s Birthday,
Chinese New Year, nor Valentine’s Day (except maybe “Lydia?”), but
it’s the beginning of Lent, and we have plenty of mournful dismal
songs to choose from. Also we haven’t done “Old Foster” for a while;
I think it’s time to give that another hearing. Another one we
haven’t done lately is “Bridstow” with its time-changes.

Please bring your friends! We’ve been getting lots of newcomers
lately; I hope this trend continues. If you know any Oboe, Clarinet,
Bassoon, or Concertina players, twist their arms – we don’t get many
reed instruments, and it would be nice to have some.

If anyone is involved with concerts, dances, sings, or other events
with other groups, please bring some flyers. This is more efficient
than trying to announce them during the meeting.

2. NEW TUNE LIST!

The Tune List has just been updated at the web site
www.laymusic.org/wg.html). Please check this to see if you’re
missing anything; let me know what you need and I’ll bring it to you.
I can also give you a printed copy of the song list if you prefer.

You should take your music booklet with you if you plan to come
regularly, or even irregularly. Put it in a 3-ring binder so it
doesn’t explode. I always bring a few extra booklets for newcomers
and so-forth, but I’d rather not carry tons of stuff around.

3. THE MEDWAY GIG.

We’ll be performing at the Sunday Morning service on March 6th at the
Episcopal church in Medway.

I have about 22 people signed up for this, which is a goodly number,
well-distributed amongst the parts, and with a reasonable variety of
instruments. If you haven’t volunteered for this, there’s still room
if you want to – if I remember right, there was plenty of space.

We’ll have a couple of rehearsals, at the site itself, on different
week-nights. I’ll be sending separate emails about this, so watch
this space for further updates.

4. WEATHER OR NOT (repeated from last 2 months):

A) Now that the Weather season is upon us, be careful on the stairs at
the church. We’re supposed to use the door at the right-hand end of
the building, but please use the ramp at the center door instead if
you need to; I always unlock this door.

B) If I need to cancel a meeting because of weather, I will send an
email to this list, probably on the morning of the meeting. If you
don’t have access to your email on that day, please call me if the
weather is questionable.

C) If you need a ride from the T or elsewhere, send a message to this
list; if someone’s coming your way, maybe they can give you a lift.

I hope to see you on the 13th! As the joke goes, “Bring your friends,
if you have any.” And please pass this message on to other people who
might be interested.

Best wishes,

Bruce Randall

melismata@hotmail.com

978-373-5852

Log entry for John’s problem browser

I got John to look at the blosxom log on the main site, and here’s
what the log thinks he’s using:

64.12.116.14 – – [03/Feb/2005:23:33:25 -0500] “GET
/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi HTTP/1.0” 200 13750 “-” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;
MSIE 5.1b1; AOL 5.1; Mac_PowerPC)”

64.12.117.5 – – [03/Feb/2005:23:33:58 -0500] “GET /cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/cantabile HTTP/1.0” 200 8813 “http://www.laymusic.org/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.1b1; AOL 5.1; Mac_PowerPC)”

More blogging implemented, google in the works

I managed to set up categories on blosxom. The categories plugin
doesn’t work for me, but the categorylist one does exactly what I wanted
out of the box.

So now I have categories on both my
personal blog, and the laymusic.org
one.

I also set up a link from the http://www.laymusic.org one to the
serpent.laymusic.org one. This is the first time I’ve put a link to
serpent.laymusic.org from http://www.laymusic.org; I doubt that my little
webserver will be overwhelmed, but we’ll see.

I have written John to see whether he can read the blogs. If so, I’ll
change the css so that it works more like the blosxom html flavour.

I also applied for having google ads on the page. I don’t expect to
get rich this way, but I’m getting a couple of thousand hits a day, so
it could be a small income stream if they’re the kind of hits that
lead to clickthroughs.