Mi Contra Fa

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. 

Performer's Revel Report

Fun as always!  Heard many nifty new things, including a song about the Children's Crusade that should come with a content warning for young mothers and/or pregnant women.  We had some attendees who had come from afar, including Sir Axel from the south of Atlantia and Rathlaed duNoir.  (Well, when your hosts are Clam Chowder, I guess there's a certain pull...)

We had I'd say a good half-dozen entrants for the Poeta Spring Challenge, which we followed with the maypole.  Six dancers and nearly as many singers!  It was fun, and much more coherent than the Guppy Gala demo.  Still lacked something of the frission it seems like it ought to have, probably because we were all over 30, mostly married, and a little self-conscious about the whole thing.  I also neglected to psych people up to flirt. I'd still like to see it done with a high school/college crowd.

I did get to speak with Baroness Janina about Ye Olden Daies, and I have my nugget: Storvik's first seneschal and baroness divided those duties between them by coin toss.

Personally, I did all right.  "To Put the Devil Into Hell" was quite well-received, and "None Suffer" started a brief discussion on the nature of the pilgrims (Baron Igor picked up that if they were eating white bread and wine, they weren't especially ascetic...).  I trotted out "By Your Side" for I think the second time in public; a little wobbly at first, but it went fine.  I tried Bertran de Born again; people left the room.  Oh, well - I think I do well by it, but it's just a weird-sounding song.  More gratifyingly, I read the "Saga of Fishflinger" on a lark, during a lull when folks were snacking and talking, and heard a few "Sssh!"s because folks realized they wanted to hear it.  And after the room went on something of a gypsy jag, I hauled out Beggars to God.  Little wobble in the first verse, then my voice caught up with itself and it went very well.

After listening to a large number of minor key narrative folk songs on various popular tropes, though, I admit I'm tempted to try a few Scadian versions of Title of the Song.  Title of the War Song, Title of the Irish Song, Title of the Magical Song...

Test as you fly, fly as you test

That's the mantra in the spacecraft Testing and Integration community.  The idea is that tests which do not simulate flight conditions are, while perhaps not worthless, not really useful for determining flight performance.  Subsystems that work fine in isolation may interact with each other in bad ways, or the transience you thought you could neglect comes back in reality to bite you on the butt.

It's not a bad mantra for performance practice, either.  That's what I discovered at Twelfth Night, when I tried to perform a song/poem/chant that had been fine  sung a capella in the car.  I slapped a simple lyre accompaniment - which would have also been fine on its own - on top, and the mix was a qualified disaster.  The lyre had just been retuned, so the starting note was a bit different than I'd practiced, and I ended up in some in-between key and... it was just unfortunate.

I've been practicing for KASF, again in the car, since that's where and when I have time.  I'd like to perhaps try the lyre, but figure I shouldn't.  More tempting is a drum for "None Suffer" (especially to do sound effects for the dancing pork chop) and possibly for "The Armed Man."  I can sort of get a similar effect by pounding the steering wheel, but it's not the same as handling an instrument.

I want to believe that the drumming I would do would be so simple, I can practice it in the few days before the event and get it down.  Prior lessons learned indicate this will not be true.  This will not be true.  Repeat it, Teleri, until you believe it.

If I start practicing with a drum, in the evenings, for "None Suffer" now, I might have enough time to get it right.

Feasts and Foolishness Report

We had to cut it short on account of toddler meltdown.  But:

Poeta Atlantiae had a last-minute 'challenge' (not competition) for poetry performance, which two gentles accepted.  One recited four brief and funny poems of her own devising, while the other recited one by Sir Walter Raleigh.  Considering the last-minute nature of things, not bad.

I got three performances in.  I did "Wulf and Eadwacer," still sans lyre, for the 'medieval women' challenge.  No one said anything about it to me one way or the other, but I'm pleased with the way the performance has come together.

In the bardic circle and working from paper, I debuted "The Holy Pork Chop Song."  People laughed!  It was funny!  And a few recognized it as a cantiga.  I count this as a solid victory for the Great Translation Project and excellent incentive to keep at it. 

Just before leaving, I gave the "Spring War Song" a go at the bardic circle.  I need more practice with it, but I faked my way through some uneven melismas.  Yseult recognized it as Bertran de Born.  I was very much reading the paper, so I missed a good bit of audience reaction.  I heard a few amused sounds, but overall I'm not sure if it was well-received or just politely received.  (I'm a bit "fussy mother hen" with this piece because I know it's melodically odd and hard to listen to.)

Seen and heard: A new trio (guitar, violin, doumbek) that's only previously been to Pennsic; they were very good!  "The Challenger," a song only three years younger than me by (I think it was) Viscount Sir Edward Zifram ("Fast Eddie"), unexpectedly touching.  Three harps, a flute, and a vocalist collaborating - very lovely!  A boy (single digits in age) performing... I couldn't catch most of the words but the tune was nice and he danced with a rattle to good effect.  My lord performed his tribute poem to our late friend Rhiannon.

Very good event for bardic!