Mi Contra Fa

Birthday Invitation

We invited TRM Vladimir and Kalisa to Storvik's baronial birthday in 2009 with a poem.  It sketches Storvik's early history as well.  Another way poets can involve themselves in baronial activities. 

Seanan, sovereign  stalwart king of East
Saw in his south  separate shires
Aster, fair flower  farthest to south
Caer Cladach  created from stone
Mighty Murklndr  men of strong arms
Also Tarhvassir      talented scholars

A single shire  Seagate they formed
At royal request  they reduced their numbers
But better, they thought  to be barony
Seanan agreed  So south he sailed

Doughty duchess        deserved his trust
Ysabeau Cameron  crowned by king
Bright baroness  of a-borning lands
By the Great Bay  bathed in salt spray
Storvik is formed  by Seanan's hand

Storvik has stood  strong by the bay
Baronies birthed,  battles well-fought
Thirty years old  come autumn's chill

Vladimir, prince,  we pray and implore
Not for bright riches  rings from your hand
But blessed our birthday  if bold foe-slayer
And clever queen  Kalisa most kind
Came to celebrate  with kinfolk and friends
Our hearth and home  Our hall and mead-bench
We open for you  We ask that you come
No better boon  for barony's birth

A Poem for... Some Thing or Another

Written Februrary 2004.  Ragnar, king; Johanna, baroness; Sylvanus Perrin, warlord. 

...What melee event happens in February?

Eager and ready     are Eastern warriors
Strong, hardy men     from snow-covered reaches
Bold, brave battlers      border our north
Atlantia's best     must bar their way
Wise is Ragnar    right choice made
Good battle-king     great in wisdom
Seeking in Storvik    a stalwart man
His thane Johanna     offers her best
From these warriors     a warlord of old
Many campaigns     called forth has he
Keen of mind     mettlesome man
Sylvanus Perrin     praised in men's songs
Well will he lead     large armies now
From broken black tower     borders are watched
Fear, foemen!     The fight will be hard.

Poetry for All Occasions

Back in 2003, then-Lord William le Younger asked on the Storvik list:

Hey, can a bard help me here with a poetic way of saying “come and drink beer and socialize”

And I replied:

Riders rode out      on ruddy steeds
Glad news they bear:    Beer in the hall!
William Beer-Gifter    generous man
Hearth and home opens    this holiday time
Let harp be strummed    and song spill forth
And brave boasts made    while byrnies repaired.

Then in 2012, now-Baron William told me, with a smile, that he had saved "that armoring poem I wrote for [him.]"  I had no idea what he was talking about, until I began to clean out my inbox and found this.

I am such a big fan of writing poetry at the drop of a hat, y'all.  It advances the art of poetry by bringing it visibility and incorporating it into more workaday situations.  It usually gladdens the people who inspire it.  If you're fluent in one or more forms, you can shake out a quick quatrain or sextet, maybe a bit rough, but that's okay.  This isn't for someone's award scroll - it's a disposable reply on an e-list.  It's for fun, for practice, for a bit of unexpected art.

I'm trying to get back into the habit of it, myself.

Boasting the Anglo-Saxon Way

I was cleaning out my inbox and came across an arts-promotion piece I sent to our local baronial e-list in 2004:

So you're at Novice Tourney, squaring off against another newbie fighter.  How'd you like to strike fear into his or her heart by announcing your past victories to all?

You might recall the scenes of boasting from "Beowulf," if you read that back in high school Brit Lit.  Warriors got up at dinner and tooted their own horns, proclaiming their great deeds of the past as evidence that they'd go on to do further great deeds in the future.

For the sake of courtesy, keep it short - two or three sentences will have the desired effect.  For the sake of honor, keep it honest (or so over-the-top that it's clear you're being humorous).  For the sake of chivalry, keep it centered on you:  you can toot your own horn without speaking poorly of your opponent. You can congratulate your opponent on being so brave to fight such a warrior as yourself!  That gives honor to both parties.

Example:

Fact: I fought with Storvik at Kingdom Crusade one year.  Being short and new, I was put in the center front of the shield wall.  Also, I legged someone there.  (I died a lot, too, but the boast is supposed to accentuate the positive!)

My boast: Before you enter this combat, know that you are facing Teleri, who stood shield-to-shield with the spears of the East and did not flinch!  Who crippled one of the mighty Eastern warriors!  Who fights you today gladly and without fear.

Bonus Points: Use words that alliterate (start with the same sound).  Example: "Before we battle, hear my boast!"

Part of an ongoing (albeit intermittent) effort to convince people they can integrate the bardic arts into day-to-day SCA activities...

Beowulf Birthday Bash

First, before I forget - one of the reasons "Veni" was giving me such a headache was that I had it in the wrong mode. It's Mixolydian, not Lydian.  Now that I'm starting on the right note, it works great.

I've had the week from Introvert Hell (four 10-11 hour days of business conference) so I was not as well-practiced, well-rested or even coherent as I might have been.  But!  I had a lovely time.

Got to sit with the Bright Hills Bards, who are always awesome. 

Entered a bunch of old stuff into the Northern European A&S display.

Showed a few interested folks the lyre; Mistress Molly very generously gifted me with veil pins for the demonstration.

The Anglo-Saxon poetry class had four! students, who followed right along and said I was making sense.  We didn't do a writing exercise, at least partly because I forgot to bring paper and pens for it. D'oh.  So (since at least 3/4 were performers) we talked performance modes instead.

Also in good scop fashion, after I performed "Beocat," I was asked to do it again for the kitchen folks.  Kitchen folks approved and offered me a small measure of mead. Yum!

Got to geek out a bit about my garb with Aaradyn.  Possibly a bit too much...  ("Why did you pick purple and red?"  "Oh! Blah blah Arnegunde blah blah round pins blah pin suite blah blah")  Pleased to report that the chained pin suite/belt combo works very well to  hold the coat/robe in place in lieu of the round pins.

Ooh, also on the costuming front: Since it was chilly, I wore the wool veil I made originally to go with this ensemble.  As it is a bit heavy, I put on my gold-threaded headband (just for bling), then over it put a linen cap from Revival Clothing.  I pinned the heavy veil right to the cap instead of to the headband.  Worked like a charm!  (Got the idea from this book, I think. Or possibly this one.)

I went outside to say hello to Aaradyn and Baron William, and Aaradyn introduced me to her Highness, who was lovely.  We spoke for a bit about poetry and music, and Baron William said some very nice things (apparently I wrote a poem about armoring? And he's kept it?  Very sweet!)

Finally: the performance!  It was not error-free, unsurprisingly, but I think it went very well.  I was not pleased with myself for being on-book, and my eye contact for those pieces was sketchy at best, but life's life.  Despite all my good intentions, practice has just not been happening - although I wonder if it may, soon.  It feels sort of like my energies are swinging back into this.  Still, self-care first - work has picked up with a lot more responsibilities and I need to do things like get exercise and play with the kids.  All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.  One thing at a time.

"Veni" with harp

I added some really basic harp to this piece.  ('Really basic' accompaniment is still new for me.) 

Depending on how you look at it, the melody (adapted from Sequentia's version) is either plagal Lydian mode or a major key.  (It doesn't contain the fourth above tonic that would resolve which.)  On my Ardival Rosemarkie, tuned in C major, that means tonic is an F.

All I'm doing is, if I recall correctly, (bass, treble) CF cf, DF cf, CF cf, Cf cf.  One teeny change from C to D gives it just enough motion to not feel too flat.

At least, I think that's what I came up with last night. c is a fifth up from F, or a C a fourth below, which is why it works with an F tonic here.  I don't think I was playing Fc fc', because the highest c' on my Rosemarkie is plinky and not very nice.

Still don't have the Latin words memorized, and still get caught up on the final couplet. I originally wrote it as "briskly/quickly," then changed it to the approximate rhyme "swiftly/quickly," and actually sing it every which way (including sometimes 'quickly/quickly,' ergh).  Practice, practice, practice...

"Veni, delictissime" Performance Development

Dun Carraig is having a Beowulf-themed birthday event in about a month, and I've been asked to perform. Which means it's time to actually get some of these dusty pieces performance-ready!

I really do find Sequentia's tune (on their "Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper" CD) for "Veni, delictissime" better than what I came up with, so I will shamelessly co-opt it.  The piece is so short, I'm thinking that I'll do the Latin and the translation.  I mean, it's three short verses and I can whip through them in 30-45 seconds.  Doubling the performance time is hardly a burden.

I think the tune has mutated in my head.  I should listen to the CD to refresh.

My Little Lyre: Woodworking Is Magic Documentation

Who says documentation has to be stuffy?  Not me.   Download Quicklyre

Whistle update

I ordered 3oz beeswax from The Bee Folks for my whistle project. It came the other day, and I promptly began to try to jam it into the flute to make a fipple.

I heated it in the microwave in 15-second bursts until the 1oz cake was soft around the edges, then twisted off a piece to work with.  It was easily pressed into the tube until just visible through the blow hole.

Then, a comedy of errors involving trying to flatten one edge to create the narrow airway the fipple is supposed to do.  Finally, realized:

1. Force wax into whistle.

2. Let cool and harden.

3. Remove, shave off wax to form airway.

4. Reinsert.

was probably the way to go.

That seemed to be a better way to do it, but it still doesn't work.  I figure the culprit could be:

• The beveled edge of the blow hole might not be sharp enough.
• The D-shape of the blow hole isn't as D-like as it could be across the flat side. I could file that down.
• When the pipe was cut into lengths, the plastic sort of got dragged by the saw blade down across the diameter, so there's a lip there now.  The wax is shaped by the lip into a cylinder a little narrower than the actual inner diameter of the pipe. Maybe I need to clean that all up.
• There could still be some problem with the fipple

For a 'simple instrument,' this is surprisingly hard!

Instruments!

Many thanks to Dave C., who emailed me a whole passel of articles on pre-Conquest and medieval bone flutes! 

Indeed, I jumped the gun a while back.  Just because the 40,000-year old flutes were notched and end blown doesn't mean the Anglo-Saxon ones were and, indeed, the archaeological finds seemed to all be fipple flutes.  I have to go over the articles in-depth, but some measurements jumped out: a fairly intact, large specimen 19cm long and about 11mm in diameter.  That's about a pennywhistle with the last three holes cut off.

Remember the PVC pipes I bought back in March? Finally hauled one of the smaller diameter ones out and drilled two holes in it, near either end.  I used a mitre box and saw to try and turn one of the holes into a D-shaped blow hole, then used a small square file to file down the edge.  It looks about right.

No fipples survive; beeswax has been suggested as a possibly substance that would conform to the irregular inside of a cleaned bone.  I don't have any beeswax, but thanks to having two small boys, I have an abundance of Play-Doh.

Play-Doh does not make a very good fipple, at least not right off the bat.  It's too soft.  I can plug up the entire end of the flute with it, but when I try to make that tiny channel for air along the top, everything just goes squishy.

Maybe I should make a plug and let it air-dry, then file off a flat spot?  It'll shrink as it dries, but a thin layer of fresh 'Doh ought to make up the difference.

In other news: Lyre!  Hoo boy.