Trombone progress

I notice my playing
alto sackbut is one of the top posts on LayMusic.org. I also notice that I
promised to update you on my progress.

Hardware

I managed to sell the cliffbut to an instrument collector. I
asked Catherine
Motuz, who was the sackbut faculty member at the Amherst Workshop about the
cheap (under $1000) sackbuts on the market, and she thought Nartiss
looked better than the Wessex Tubas (which seems to have fallen
off their website) one. So I bought that.

[alto sackbut]

I thought I should have a better high range (given how high I
can play on other instruments) than I was getting on the
mouthpiece than I could get on the one that came with the sackbut,
so I also ordered an Eggar
mouthpiece, which looks quite similar to the Nartiss one, but does
give me a better high range.

[alto sackbut mouthpiece]

Playing opportunities

Of course, I sometimes play on Tuesdays,
and the Boston Recorder
Society loud band has people who want to play the high parts
on shawms, so I sometimes play it there. (Otherwise, they’d
rather I played cornetto on the high parts).

But on the whole, the early music desire for everyone to play
one on a part means that for learning to play an instrument,
you’re better off joining a community band with people who already
know how to play. Then you can sit next to them and watch what
they do.

So the last two or three summers, I’ve played alto trombone on
the first trombone part in the Wakefield
Summer Band.

I started out playing on my red plastic pbone, but I decided
that even on my level, the slide was holding me back, so I got
ebay to sell me the frankenbone, which is a chinese copy of a
famous German alto sackbut, with a lead pipe from the actual
German company. Some of these Chinese copies aren’t anything you
want in your house, but this one seems like a pretty good
instrument.

Practicing

I got bored with practicing trombone exercises even faster than
I have on some other instruments. I’m currently playing a lot of
English
Country Dance tunes. I’m also playing a lot of duets from
facsimile, and I usually read the ones in alto (C3) clef on the
alto sackbut.

I notice people try to think of other instrumentations when I
bring out the sackbut, but it’s definitely getting better.

My goal is to be playing trombone respectably by the time my arthritic
fingers get bad enough that I can’t play recorder, serpent or cornetto.

News of the week of November 26, 2019

Meeting Report

We played:

Guido Reni - Ícaro

Schedule

We meet every
Tuesday at 7:45pm at 233 Broadway, Cambridge. Please let me know
by the previous Monday night if you are planning to come on
Tuesday.

We will certainly not meet on Tuesday, December 24. It is
likely we won’t meet Tuesday, December 31, although I’m
perfectly happy to meet if people want to come. Or see below
for party planning.

Party

We have a holiday party every year, so people can eat, drink
and sing Christmas music together. The last few years, we’ve
done it on New Years Day, which works well for me.
Unfortunately, there are a number of people we’d like to party
with for whom it
doesn’t work at all. So I’m taking a poll.

If you’d like to come to a party like that, let me know if
January 1 is a good day for you.

Whether it is or isn’t, if you would like to come, let me know
which of the following would work:

  • December 21
  • December 28
  • December 31
  • January 4
  • January 5

News of the week of November 12, 2019

Meeting report

1630 Serpentinhumpen mit Silberfassung anagoria

Schedule

We meet every
Tuesday at 7:45pm at 233 Broadway, Cambridge. Please let me know
by the previous Monday night if you are planning to come on
Tuesday.

News of the week of October 29, 2019

Meeting report

We played:

Blake Wise And Foolish Virgins 1826

Schedule

We resume our normal schedule of meeting every
Tuesday at 7:45pm at 233 Broadway, Cambridge. Please let me know
by the previous Monday night if you are planning to come on
Tuesday.

Concert

In Stile Moderno
will be playing a concert of lute songs of Dowland and his
contemporaries. They’ll be sitting around a table and singing
from the facsimile. The Cambridge performance will be on
Saturday, November 16 at 7:30 pm at the Friend’s Meeting House.

Sourdough rye chocolate cake

My new chocolate cake recipe is from my new favorite baking
book, 100% °F
Rye by Shannon Stonger.

I believe there are actually health benefits to cooking with
sourdough and whole grain flour and maybe even rye versus
wheat. But the reason I’ve adopted it over my previous bread
machine sprouted wheat chocolate cake is that it’s so moist.

The picture is of the version I baked for the twentieth
anniversary of the West
Gallery Quire. People said it was good, and most of it disappeared.

Recipe

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 cups rye flour
  • ½ cup starter
  • 1 cup milk (I used almond milk)
  • 1 cup honey, softened to a pourable consistency
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup melted butter or coconut oil (I have coconut oil
    somewhere, but I can’t find it, so I used almond oil, which I
    keep on hand for oiling musical instruments.)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2/3 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¾ teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

Whisk together the flour, starter, milk, and honey in a medium bowl until just combined. Cover tightly and set aside to ferment for 6-12 hours, or longer if desired.

Preheat the oven to 350°F and prepare a 9×13” pan (I
have one somewhere, but I can only find a 10×14″ pan, so it bakes
a little faster) by buttering and flouring it. Add the eggs,
melted butter, and vanilla to the fermented dough and just begin
to stir it together. Sprinkle over the cocoa, baking powder,
baking soda, and salt and finish mixing until all ingredients are
homogenous.

Scrape batter into prepared pan and place pan into the preheated
oven. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a cake tester inserted
into the center of the cake comes out clean. (I use an
instant-read thermometer, and it’s done when the probe comes out
clean, but just to check I make sure it’s in the 190-200°F
range.)

Allow to cool before slicing and serving.

Variations

I’ve only baked it twice. The first time I baked it plain, and
I loved the texture but thought the flavor was a little boring.
For the pictured version, I made a chocolate ganache frosting, and
used almond slivers and dried apricot pieces for decoration. Next
time I’ll try doing what I did with the bread machine cake, which
was add chocolate chips and dried cherries.

News of the week of October 15, 2019

Meeting report

We played:

Passereau non identifié

Schedule

We meet Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, as
long as enough people have told me by Monday night that they want
to come.

We will not meet on Tuesday, November 5.

News of the week of October 8, 2019

Meeting report

We played:

Danse de Salomé Bruxelles Couv Cordeliers 5620

Schedule

We meet Tuesdays at 7:45 pm, at 233 Broadway, Cambridge, as
long as enough people have told me by Monday night that they want
to come.

Tuesday, November 5, is election day in Cambridge, so I will be
working at the polls. We have decided not to
have a meeting that day.