Mi Contra Fa

A Household Initiation Ceremony

More stuff from years past, although this one is more recent than I thought it was.  In 2009, someone asked on the Merry Rose mailing list for a structure for an initiation for new household members. I replied at length, first with a general format and then with a specific example.

 

I. Welcome and Invocation

The leader welcomes the initiate(s) and attendees and states the purpose of the gathering. 

II. The Initiate Is Informed

The initiate(s) are called forward.  The leader (or an assistant) describes the ethos and goals of the household and the duties, responsibilities and privileges of its members.  A brief history of the household may be included.

III.  A Pact Is Made

The leader asks the initiates if they understand their responsibilities, and the initiates reply with some version of "I do."  The leader asks if the initiates if they wish to join the household, and again they reply something like "I do."  Depending on the structure of the household, the attending members may be asked if they agree to accept the initiates and guard and train them, or the household's leader (may or may not be the ceremonial leader) may make the decision unilaterally.

IV. Tokens Are Given and Received

Some items symbolic of the household or of the pact are given to the initiates, and their symbolism explained to the attendees.

V. New Members Are Welcomed

The leader presents the initiates to the attendees as new members of the household.  There is cheering, hugging, ceremonial buffeting, whatever works for you.  If possible, a shared meal or refreshment should be offered.

Example:

For an imaginary household named Glad-Wood Hall.  It's main focus is A&S (early period and Anglo-Saxon in particular) although some members fight, and it's starting to become active in service.  Several founding members have small children, and keeping things kid-friendly is a priority.  Glad-Wood Hall is run by its founding Lord and Lady, and the household's scop will serve as the ceremonial leader.

Scop:
Hwaet! Hear me,   hearken my words
Welcome all comers   to wide Glad-Wood Hall
Travelers come  from Kingdom Atlantia
Seeking our fire   solace of hall

Aethelstan and Godwin, come before the high seat of Bertwald our ring-giver and Cynwise who bears the mead-horn.

Initiates:
(approach the lord and lady on their bench)

Scop:
Brave Bertwald   in bygone day
Raise our high hall    happy were we
Cynwise loves music     scops were well-fed
Glad-wood sang      Wonderful sound
So our hall named    for noise most merry

Know you, Aethelstan and Godwin, that Bertwald seeks peace in the land.  No coward he, and warriors welcome to our hall, but he seeks not out strife and blood.  Glad-Wood Hall he fills instead with learning and with art.  Bright Cynwise passes the horn to scribe and to scholar as well as to soldier - all are honored here.  Even the smallest, babes at the breast, be welcome when we set our tables.

Bertwald and Cynwise seek ever out new knowledge to ornament our hall.  They seek also a willing spirit, to help our hall-mates according to need and to ability.  Know that if you are in need, the men and women of Glad-Wood Hall will help you best they can, offer they knowledge or time or a strong back.  If you seek knowledge, it will be shared; your knowledge, you will share freely.  Do you understand our compact?

Initiates:
We understand.

Scop:
Lord Bertwald, Lady Cynwise, to you I present these far-travelers, seeking shelter in Glad-Wood Hall.

Lord:
You, Aethelstan, I have heard you are a scribe and also a tailor.  Is this so?

Aethelstan:
It is, your lordship.

Lord:
I have need of a scribe and a tailor in my hall.  Will you join your gifts to my household?

Aethelstan:
Gladly, my lord.

Lord:
Then take from my hand this ring of bright gold, and also this quill, so that you may do good work for us.

Lady:
You, Godwin: it is said that you are a gleeman of note, a singer of fine songs.  Is this so?

Godwin:
It is, your ladyship.

Lady:
Music is always welcome in Glad-Wood Hall.  Will you join your gifts to my household?

Godwin:
Gladly, my lady.

Lady:
Then take from my hand this silver penny, and also this cup, that your throat shall never be dry.

Lady:
Now drink you both from my mead-horn, and be welcome in our hall.

Scop:
Behold! Our guests   brothers become
Gleeman and scribe    great their gifts
Welcome them warmly    well-wishes bestow
Then sit for feast    food shared as family

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.

Lyre Wrist Strap Fix

My tied-on wrist straps have seemed low.  They hold the instrument to my hand well enough, but I can't relax my arm into them and still reach the strings.  I recall that at least one of the extant lyres has mounts for a strap, and they're higher on the arms.  My knots won't hold up high, though.

Solution: Add friction! Photo essay below the cut.

Lessons learned

I worry more about a command performance than a competition.  If I mess up during a competition, the worst thing that happens is that I lose.  But when someone has requested me to play for an occasion, and I mess that up... it feels like giving a broken present.

I was requested to play my wire harp for my church's summer solstice service.  Normally, I do my improv as meditations, but the organizer wanted "Sheebeg, Sheemor."  Now, I know that; it's actually the only O'Carolan I know.  So I got out the harp for some crash practicing.

"Let's go simple," I thought.  "Melody with octave-grabbing on the strong notes."  Except I'd grab sevenths and ninths instead of octaves.  "Melody with moving drone!"  Better, but still not performance-ready.

Back when the Storvik Music Ensemble was running, we had a violinist.  He played well enough solo but had no group experience.  No problem, that's what ensemble was for.  So I'd give him easy parts - really easy.  Like, one note per measure.  And he seemed offended.  He could play more difficult stuff than that.

But not under pressure.

I eventually just played the melody, with one open fifth at the ending.  And it worked.  I think I missed two notes, but they weren't critical ones and I kept the rhythm going - you could legitimately call it a "variation," I think.  Certainly not ear-splittingly wrong.  I was happy with the performance, and I suspect I would not have been if I'd gone for something even a smidgen more technically challenging.

Luminous Matter

Allison Mondel held a three-hour workshop on singing the chant of Hildegard von Bingen in DC this past Saturday, as part of the DC Early Music Festival. I attended and it was awesome.

The focus of the workshop was on reading and performing from Hildegard's original notation.  While she did use a four-bar staff with C clefs, she did not use the square neumes that I usually associate with chant.  Everything was much more... cursive.  Happily for me, it looks rather like what little I've seen of the Winchester Troper's notation, although I don't think the Troper has bar lines at all.

There are times when I'm glad I'm not a "paper trained" musician. This was one of them.  People who are used to being able to sing by sight-reading seemed a lot more uncomfortable. 

Allison lives in Baltimore but will be moving to Silver Spring.  I am very much considering signing up for some vocal coaching.  I expect to be somewhat torn - I really love exuberant chest-voice singing, while the "official early music sound" is more in the head and mouth and a lot more pure-toned.  But I think I would like to learn the technique, even if I set it aside occasionally, and I would really like to learn how to "tune" properly (Pythagorean-ally?). 

A Poetic Cycle

A "problem" with "Nam languens" and "Veni, delectissime" is that they're so short.  I say "problem" because it's strictly a problem of perception and staging.  Bardic performances are supposed to go 3-5 minutes.  Long pieces show more skill than short pieces (not really but that's the perception). 

Now, there's nothing stopping me from going off and tackling the Battle of Maldon or Brunaburgh as a lengthy performance.  (Possibly too lengthy...)  But I've put a good bit of work into these shorter, lyric pieces, so I thought - how about combining them into a longer poetic cycle? 

Start with "Veni, delectissime" - two people in love.

Then, any combination of "Wulf and Eadwacer," "The Wife's Lament," and "Nam languens."  "Deor" could fit as well (it has been suggested as a partner to "Wulf and Eadwacer," with Deor and Wulf being the same man) but the first three all have female speakers.  "Deor" would be a sudden shift of point of view... although it could work...

End with "The Husband's Message."

Thematically, it would go:

Sensual love and joy (Veni)
Forcible separation, longing and danger (Wulf)
Meditation on bad times; looking forward to better times (Deor)
More longing, hoping for reunion (Nam languens)
Reunion (Husband's Message)

"Wife's Lament" is a bit of an odd duck with many possible interpretations; the more I think about it, the more I think I'd rather leave it out, at least for now.

The most obvious flaw in this cunning plan is that mixing the Latin and Old English verses into a "cycle" is really dodgy.  Of course, I'm not in the least actually proposing that these poems belonged together originally.  It's just a nice "program" for presentation.

"Veni" and "Wulf" are performance-ready.  I hope to have "Nam languens" done in a reasonable amount of time.  The biggest project would be learning/adapting "The Husband's Message," but I've meant to learn it for years now.  It's a touchingly sweet poem.

Two Commandments and a Golden Rule

I was preparing for a "Bardic 101" class last month.  In and among 40-50 minutes of "what is a bardic circle?"  and "how do they work?" and so forth, I came up with two bits of the Performance Gospel According to Teleri.  Here goes.

1) Thou shalt perform that for which thou hast passion.

Or, "Do what you love."  (This, is occurs to me, is another reason why we don't have much genuine medieval music in the SCA - not too many people have a passion for it.)

7/10s of your performance will be carried on your enthusiasm for what you're performing.  Technique and style matter, but not as much as you think they do, particularly in an informal bardic circle setting.  Whether you are crazy about the "St Crispin's Day" speech from Henry V or "The Scotsman," you should go with that.  If it's not SCA-appropriate, you may be in the wrong venue - consider a local coffeehouse instead. 

If you are in a group, or if you take requests, you may not love-love-LOVE every single piece in your repertoire.  That's okay.  But if you find that you really don't like most of what you're performing, or have no excitement for it, or that it doesn't stir you, you're performing the wrong stuff.

2) Thou shalt not apologize prior to performance, and only rarely shalt thou do so afterwards.

If you forget the lyrics, drop your bard book into the fire, drunkenly careen into a bystander, or belt out "Bend Over, Greek Sailor" at the Children's Bardic, you can apologize.  If you do something genuinely rude, or if you can't finish the piece your audience was enjoying, you can apologize.

Otherwise, don't.

Prior to a performance, it's an attempt to manage expectations.  You're telling them that you haven't practiced/aren't that good/are new/are sick/are drunk in the hopes that they won't criticize you too much.  Newsflash: It doesn't work that way.  They are there to have a good time. They want you to be good.  Help them to believe that you will be good, by projecting enthusiasm and confidence, and they will believe that you are good.  Even if you missed a stanza/went flat/were too quiet/were too loud.

Moreover: either you are good enough to perform, or you aren't.  If you are, do it and don't apologize.  If you aren't (because you haven't practiced or you have laryngitis or whatever), then don't.  Don't tell us that you're awful and then expect us to listen anyway.

After a performance, an apology doesn't help anything.  Chances are excellent that all those dozens of mistakes you made went entirely over the heads of your audience.  Unless you came to a screeching halt partway through, they either didn't notice or have already forgotten.  Calling their attention to it is counterproductive.  Act like you meant to do that and they'll think that you did.

And a Golden Rule:  Anything short is fine.

I have been to long performances that I have loved, so I would not make brevity a commandment.  However, in general, if you are nervous or new or unsure about your bardic ability, do something short.  Scadians are a warm and polite audience, particularly when their patience is not taxed.  They will sit still for anything, provided it comes in under 3:30 or so.  Yes, even the most uneven novice attempt at a shaggy dog story will be given polite attention for the first 3-5 minutes. 

If you listen to people when they complain about bad performances at bardic circles, you will notice that the common theme is that something was not to their taste, and it was long.  It went on and on and on, they moan.  If you think you are losing or have lost an audience, wrap up your piece.  Better to bow out early than be remembered as That Bard, the One Who Droned On.

At long, long last!

I am finally, finally buying a Korg OT-120, an electric tuner that supports Pythagorean temperament!  And, between the Amazon.com discount price and $50 of credit card "rewards" coupons, I'm getting it for under $25!

I think it's taken me so long because I had the Korg OT-120 pegged in my head as "expensive outlay."  Over $100!  I could buy several books or CDs for that!  But it's also really well past time I got it.  My ear isn't good enough to do "circle of fifths" unassisted tuning; I can barely hear the resonance on the wire harp and don't hear it at all on my other instruments.  Even on wire, I seem to hear it quite a few cents on either side of true tone, so I just don't trust myself to get it right that way.

Gut strings will likely be the next major investment; we'll see how long it takes for me to get around to that.

Art and Accessability

I hope my last post didn't make it sound like I thought Art has to be inaccessible, or that accessible things can't be Art.  That's not what I meant.

The performance I feel drawn to create is likely to be somewhat inaccessible.  I think I can count it as a valid artistic expression, though.

A different performance or expression of artistry that happens to also be accessible is also still an artistic expression.  This is, in fact, a principle behind the Great Translation Project - that making inaccessible art more accessible is worthwhile and does not inherently diminish the art of the original.

And to be fair, I do plan on making concessions to accessibility.  I am not interested right now in performing in Old English.  I want my audience to be able to easily access the meaning of my words, although this is a departure from utterly strict authenticity. 

Like usual, it all comes back to one's own personal goals.  If I wanted to continue working on the Great Translation Project for this next little while, I would be making accessibility a high-priority goal and not at all feeling like I was compromising because of it.  The point of that project is accessibility.  But right now I want to work on a project whose point is the re-creation of a different and distinctive performance style, even if that style is a bit inaccessible.  And if I make changes only to make it more like what people expect from bardic performance, I would feel like I was compromising.

Art and Performance

I argue that "fun" and "authenticity" are not two poles of one axis, but rather independent, perpendicular axes.  So there can exist performances which are fun and authentic, fun and inauthentic, unfun and authentic, and unfun and inauthentic.

The "sweet spot" for SCA performance seems to be well up the "fun" axis and about centered on it.  That's "SCA appropriate" - maybe inauthentic, but too much; maybe authentic, but not too much.  It's close enough to modern to be accessible but also not "glaringly" modern.  Ideally, it is somehow evocative of the Middle Ages "as they should have been" as well.

For examples, consider the collected works of (say) Mistress Rosalind Jehanne.  "The Song of Roland" falls on the "authenic" side of the fun axis (but not too far - it is not, after all, a reconstruction of the chanson).  "At the Battle of Maldon" ambitiously captures the alliteration of the original, but also imposes meter and rhyme on it.  This fits it much more firmly into our modern performance idiom.  It makes it more accessible - that's the second time I've used that word, and I think it's important.  It's hard for something to be fun if you don't "get it."  Mistress Rosalind's work is marvelously accessible and brings some actual medieval stories and themes to people who might otherwise assume it would be boring.

As I'm  brainstorming ideas for a performance project, I find myself torn on this idea of accessibility.  Part of me wants to lump it and strictly pursue Art (and you should probably imagine that word all in pretentious fancy Gothic letters).  That's the part of me that's fascinated by the Anglo-Saxons and wants to try and bring their words and performance to life in the most accurate way I know how.

Then there's the bard part of me who wants a happy audience.  While I do  believe there would be people who would appreciate a very authentic re-creation, it is not going to hit that "fun" spot for most folks, because it won't be accessible. It'll be weird.  Good-weird, hopefully, but weird all the same.

So I found myself pondering parallel performances: the "real" one and the "modernized" one.  Say, the onion riddle in direct poetic translation vs. the onion riddle rewritten in three rhyming quatrains of iambic tetrameter and set to repeating music.

I don't think I really want to do that.  I think I feel like I need to, to satisfy this imaginary audience.  Maybe the brave thing is to try the weird performance and see how it flies.