LayMusic.org

News of the week of September 30, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

News of the week of September 23, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

News of the week of September 16, 2025

Meeting reports

September 9, 2025

We played:

September 16, 2025

We played:

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

The piece we tried last week for a warmup is a great piece but requires too much counting to work well as a warmup, so this week we’ll try Dormen’un giorno. If you’re coming, let me know if you want me to print it for you.

News of the week of September 2, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

Playing and singing opportunities

West Gallery Quire

The first meeting of this year’s West Gallery Quire will be this Sunday, September 14, at 2pm at the Newton Highlands Congregational Church, 54 Lincoln St., Newton, Massachusetts.

This is one of the better places to play with singers, and as far as I know, the only place in this area to sing with a serpent on the bass line. If you haven’t tried it, you should.

Boston Recorder Society

The Boston Recorder Society finally resumes monthly meetings for coached recorder playing on Sunday, October 5 from 1-3:30pm at the Leslie University building at 1815 Massachusetts Avenue in Porter Square.

The Loud Band, which has been meeting regularly for a couple of years now, will continue to be an option.

We are back!

What’s been happening

No meeting reports, because we haven’t been meeting.

I got sick, and stopped hosting the meetings.

What seems to have happened is that I got lyme disease, which was undiagnosed because the rash was where I sit down, so I couldn’t see it, and the fever was atypically low, so the doctors weren’t interested. But since I couldn’t eat and couldn’t move much, I stopped being able to poop, and when I hadn’t pooped for a week, I went to the doctor and they took it seriously, although by then the fever was even less impressive.

Their idea was to admit me to the hospital for workup of the constipation (a terrible idea – even if you aren’t constipated when you go into the hospital, you probably will be after a couple of days of not moving or eating right, which you can’t do in the hospital). The first test they did showed really low blood sodium levels, so they got really interested in working that up.

Nothing they did seemed to be accomplishing anything about the sodium level, until I complained about the rash where I sat down, more because I thought the nurses might find me some kind of cream for it than because I expected it to contribute to the diagnosis. But the doctors got really interested and took pictures, and one of them got sent to a lyme disease expert who said, “That used to be a bulls-eye rash.”

So they started treating me for the lyme disease, and I’ve been getting better ever since.

The recuperation is very slow, and I still need to go back to bed for my after breakfast nap after I’ve gotten up and walked the dog a couple of blocks and eaten breakfast. But when I sing or play for a few minutes, I sound ok, so I’m going to invite you all to a meeting tomorrow night. If I can’t handle a two hour meeting, I’ll go lie down and you can play without me for a bit.

Many thanks to everyone who’s been helpful and supportive.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of August 5, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

This week several people will be away at Pine Woods, so it’s particularly important that you not only let me know you want to come, but also let me know if you change your mind about coming.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of July 29, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

The current warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth.

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

News of the Week of July 22, 2025

Meeting report

We played:

Thanks to Ishmael for taking notes.

Schedule

We meet on Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA. Let me know if you want to come.

Our new warmup piece is Come, sirrah Jack, Ho!, transposed down a fifth. (The link in the playlist above is only transposed down a fourth, which is what we played last week, but won’t in the future, so don’t use that for printing.)

If you’re coming, also let me know if you need me to print it for you.

Performing

Several people like the idea of performing at a porchfest or similar event. It looks like we’ve been too slow to organize for any of the ones we know about this summer (how Cambridge expected anyone to organize an application in the time they gave us is baffling), but in future we should be more on the ball. So if you’re connected with anything like that, please let me know when the applications and performances are happening some time in advance of when we’d have to do them.

To explain, in order for there to be a performance, there have to be people who commit to being at the performance time and place, and at some rehearsals before the performance date. None of this happens by magic – every performance you’ve ever seen has happened because someone did some organizing for it.