Mi Contra Fa

Flute Research

I got my copy of Bone, Antler, Ivory and Horn in the  mail yesterday!  Flipping to the section on bone flutes, I found...

Fipple flutes?

Fipple flutes.

Sigh.

I have an ILL out on some of Graeme Lawson's reports on Anglo-Saxon bone flute finds. No offense to Arthur MacGregor, but if there's only two such bone flutes cited in his book, I may as well check them out in the original archaeological reports and see what the musicologist has to say about them.  Then I go back to the bone book to figure out how to make the thing.

Quena!

For Mother's Day, I took myself to the House of Musical Traditions and scored a bamboo quena.  It's a notched, end-blown flute (NEBF hereafter, because I am lazy).  Since I have no experience in making instruments of any kind, I thought I should get a real NEBF to see if/how I could play it, and how it was made.

I can get sound out of it, but not really reliably.  Progress! But need practice.  With this as a template, I can measure off proportions for trying to make a NEBF out of some PVC pipe I picked up at the hardware store.

I think I also need to lay hands on an actual archaeological report (or two or six) documenting some of the actual Anglo-Saxon flute finds.  I think I've sort of assumed that because I saw one bone flute in the news that was a NEBF, obviously all early bone flutes were the same.  That might not actually be the case.

Graeme Lawson's website lists his publications, which include analysis of several Anglo-Saxon flutes.  None of them are easily available (read: free and on the Internet) but I can check my local university card catalogue and see what turns up.

Hoarding

I'm trying to declutter - home, email, habits, et cetera. 

I've noticed I keep an awful lot of emails because they have a link in them that might be useful, some day, for some project. New 14th century manuscript digitized!  New book on Italian Renaissance dance out!

Except that, experience has taught me that on the off-chance that I actually need a 14th century manuscript or a book on Italian dance, I'm not going to say, "Oh, hey, I've got that email from 2009 that I haven't looked at in three years!"  No, I'm going to go to Google and search for it.  Or go to the library's online catalogue.  Or WorldCat.

I have a habit of doing this with physical objects as well. "A travel-sized hair comb!  No matter that I already have one in my overnight bag.  I could lose it, and then I'll need this one.  Let me put it here in the closet."  Not a bad idea in theory, but in practice it contributes to clutter I don't have time to clean up, and the uncleaned clutter stresses me. 

Delete, delete, delete. 

I still save some things: anything related to my current research themes, or some ideas for competitions to run at events.  But anything that's just related, somehow, to medieval music and performance?  Good-bye.  I may have the disc space to store you, but you're occupying brain real estate I'd like back, thanks. 

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve?

You just put your lips together and blow."

Thank you, Lauren Bacall. 

So, when you're trying to play a 3/8" diameter tube as a flute, it helps to purse your lips into something like a 3/8" diameter hole, rather than have them sort of flat and wide.  It helps a lot!

EDIT: Or, you know, I could be actually whistling.  *facepalm*

Well, at least I had fun.

So, yeah, the blog's named what it is for a reason.

I spent a good 90 minutes at the University of Maryland's Performing Arts Library last night, with two different copies of Klara Semb's "Norse Folkdance."  One was the 1951 translation, which ended up being more of a 40-page pamphlet containing only some background material on the kinds of dances, and then about four tunes and dances.  The other was the 1925 edition of her book, in Norwegian.

I combed through it, looking at all the music for a tune that matched "Rolandskvaet."  Nope, nada, zilch.  There were two tunes labeled "faeryosk" (Faroese) and I dutifully copied them down to compare at home, but no love. 

Yes, well.  I was looking at the 1925 edition of volume one of her book.  There are four volumes, apparently, all with the same primary title and then subtitles to distinguish them.  This was not clear to me until after I got home.  The tune for Roland is supposed to be in the second volume.

The second volume is in the Library of Congress.  I've gone to the LoC before for concerts; it would be an entire evening to get into the city, register as a reader, view the book and get out, but I could do it.  Alternately, it's an afternoon to get my UMD Alumni card its library bar code, then submit an ILL request to have the book sent there.  Either option is really pushing at the limits of my curiosity vs time spent curve, re: the tune source, but my inability to overlook such things may mean I'll track it down eventually.  In the meantime, I'll go with the Trio Medieval tune that I like and compare it to my current lyrics.

Also, I picked up a bunch of PVC pipe, drill bits and files.  The nice man at the Home Depot even cut the ten-foot lengths into one-foot pieces for me!  We'll see where that goes with the bone flute project.  (Speaking of... I got a few more toots out of my pen version, and got a change in tone from the fingerhole I'd made.  But I can't reliably pick it up and make sound on it.  Finding the right combination of pen/mouth angle and embouchere is hard.)

Bone Flutes

I've had it in my head for a while to make a bone flute.  Or maybe buy one?  Although that seems like cheating.

Turns out, there's more than side-blown and fipple flutes.  Really old bone flutes were end blown but had no fipple.  There's just sort of a notch cut in one end, and you use your lip as the fipple.

Now emptor has to caveat here, because a lot of places sell bone flutes that are bone, or imitation bone, but are fipple flutes.  This guy appears to have some of both... for $50-$100.  Which is kind of a lot.  Here's a "stone age flute" but in bamboo, for $39.  Gorgeous sound, but almost too gorgeous - most of these things were wing bones and tiny, so very shrill. 

On a lark, I tried an experiment with a soda straw; actually a milk shake straw, so it's a little wider.  I cut a notch in one end and tried to blow.  Upside down, at first, until I remembered the notch and the holes (which I did not cut) both went up.  Aheh.  I got, briefly, a tone.  After much more trying, I got the suggestion of a tone.  Is it because it's too thin in the walls?  Or my embouchere is just awful?  It's a cheap plastic straw? Probably all of the above.

Searching for "straw flute" turns up lots of ways to turn a straw into a reed, but not really a flute.  So I thought... what about a pen?  A pen is thick-walled enough.  Indeed it is, as this nifty YouTube video shows, but the many videos in the sidebar reminded me that maybe PVC would be a good thing to practice on.

For future reference, a how-to guide for making a turkey call from a turkey wing has basic instructions on cleaning and preparing the bone.  From what I already know of boneworking (which is not much), using baked bones and then boiling them is not exactly recommended, but if I encounter a roasted turkey anytime in the near future, this will still be handy to have.

Anyhow.  I may see how small PVC pipe comes, buy a bit and try making flutes with it.  When I feel like I have the knack of it, then we worry about finding an appropriate bone (or reed? There's cattails and pampas grass near me...) and cleaning it.

Winter University 2012

I went, I taught, I had a great time!

On the trip down, I stopped at Duke University to view a microfilm copy of Christopher Page's 1981 dissertation on "Anglo-Saxon Hearpan: History, tuning and techniques."  It was awesome, and three hours was not enough to take all the notes I wanted.  But I was a clever monkey, and noticed that the microfilm box came from the British Library.  So, once home again, I Googled "British Library thesis."

Behold, EThOS!  The Electronic Thesis Online Service of the British Library, which will let you download FREE PDFs of digitized British theses.  Including (drumroll) Page's from 1981.  Hurrah!

I stayed in the lovely and affordable Augustus T. Zevely Inn in Old Salem, where I met Lord Mungo Napier and his lovely wife, Lady Sarah.  Alas that the historic Salem Tavern was closed for kitchen repairs.

Getting to the event was easy enough.  I took Master Efenwealt's helpful and informative class on DIY recording and got some useful hints and tricks.  Then it was time for my teach-a-thon.

'Writing a Research Paper' had but five students, although they were wonderful and engaged students.  I felt it went a little unevenly in parts, but overall seemed like it went well.  I should have the class notes posted today.

'Constructive Criticism' went very, very well!  A large class, with lots of back and forth - almost more of a workshop.  The students raised the difficult but very relevant question of what to do if we saw/heard another judge being unnecessarily harsh and mean, and I think we eventually decided that the right thing to do would be to say something.  (We were trying to balance minding one's own business/not escalating drama with damage control, and concluded that stopping real damage was more important.)

'Research and Documentation for the Bardic Arts' also had good turnout and vocal, involved students.  I've come up with a refinement not in the current handout - about Information Search being used to find content, context, and performance information, which I quite like and helps organize that section much better.  I'll try to do an update soon.

But I did leave with a sense that I need to be doing a bit more actual performing.  Of course, we've been mostly out of the SCA since The Boo was born two years ago; that's just the nature of the small, grabby beast.  But as the outdoor spring events start up, we're going to try to make more of them. We'll probably have to leave before feast/bardic, but it's a start!

Happy Second Birthday, Mi Contra Fa!

It really doesn't seem like I've been keeping this blog for two years.  Time flies when you're having fun!

It continues to be the best thing I've ever done to motivate and document my SCA research.  Last year's output was skewed hard to poetry - not surprising, as I spent most of that year as Poeta Atlantiae.  I wrote "To Put the Devil Into Hell," which is quickly becoming a showpiece.  Every time I recite it, someone wants to know where I got it and if they can learn it. 

I still feel like I was spending most of my time unfocused, though.  My first year, I focused on my Great Translation Project, which was/is awesome but not really a coherent study of any one period or style of performance.  Last year, as Poeta, I certainly indulged my inner Anglo-Saxon but tried to offer competitions and examples in a variety of styles.  Or, briefly but tellingly: Over a year after my voice-with-lyre disaster at Twelfth Night 2009, I still do not have a voice-with-lyre performance of "Wulf and Eadwacer" ready to go.  Okay, the two kids have something to do with that, but so does a lack of focus.

So in the third year, I want:

• To continue to produce original pieces for performance
• With a focus on Anglo-Saxon appropriate genre and style

To this end, I will:

• Continue making translations and writing original pieces at my current level of knowledge
• Begin to learn more about chant, the earliest known Western musical tradition
• Listen to chant
• Read about, view and/or listen to oral performance styles alive in traditional cultures today

In housekeeping/tech issues:

• The Original Works page needs re-organized with the best stuff right up top
• I need to figure out if my computer's recording problems originate in the soundcard, the microphone, or the software system
• I will try making a YouTube video or two

And in service:

• Keep teaching as family schedule permits
• Finish the Lyre Book and make it available

New year goal-setting

Last year, I thought about goals-setting around the blog's anniversary.  I have done one of the two translations I wanted to make, but have made no progress on chansons de geste.  On the other hand, in the execution of my Poeta duties, I did learn a bit about Norse verse.  The lyre book is well underway.  Writing for Poeta took more of my time than I expected.

This year, what with the new year coming just before the end of my maternity leave and the end of my tenure as Poeta, I feel like looking at new goals now.  My resolution for the New Year is to not do so much.  Or maybe, not to expect myself to do so much.  If I get it done anyway, that'd be great.  But I have two kids, a full-time job, duties as an SCA Exchequer and some semblance of a family/social life.  It is not reasonable to expect that I'll cover acres of ground in my hobby research.

I received a generous Amazon.com gift certificate as a Christmas gift, and I bought a variety of nifty books: Early Anglo-Saxon Cloth and Clothing, The Heliand (a Saxon account of the Gospel of Mark), a book on early music, a book on Turkish oral poets, an Anglo-Saxon history and a Norman account of England in the 11th century.  Good stuff and I want to start reading it.

However, I am recognizing a lamentable tendency to put off doing performance until I've read and researched one more aspect of it: I need to read up on 8th century church music, I need to finish "Singer of Tales," I need to understand the epic poetry tradition.

Partly this is because of my academic tendencies; partly it is because practicing with instruments is hard (my toddler likes to help).  But I need to take what I already know - which is actually considerable - and put it into practice more often.  I'd like to practice Wulf and Eadwacer with the lyre enough so that I can perform it.  I want to do some poems with lyre or harp accompaniment, and set a few more of them to music.

So, that's really it.  I'll read my new books for enjoyment, but I want to turn out one to three new Anglo-Saxon performances this year, without doing more research as a precondition. In addition to giving me some new material, it'll be good experience to ground future research in.

Edit: I suppose it is Deeply Unfortunate, at best, to make my first real post after receiving a kingdom Arts award contain the phrase "resolution... to not do so much."  I wish to clarify.

I love my hobby research and intend to keep at it. However, in my head, I keep an impossible to-do list (well, impossible unless one is a university professor in this topic, I suspect).  This would not be bad, if I thought of this list as "things to work towards" or "future focus areas."  But no - it registers as "to do."  Today.  Being something of a perfectionist, I then get disappointed with myself that I didn't finish my list, even in a whole year.  (Never mind that these are areas that specialists can easily spend years, plural, on. A lifetime, even.)

So what I am aiming to do in the new year is to get rid of that ever-present, impossible list.  Looking back on my goals from last March... do you see "learn neume notation and Gregorian chant structure" on there?  I don't. But I've been beating myself up about not having learned it yet. 

That's what I want to "not do so much" of.

Storvik Poem: Documentation

I got most of the documentation done last night, hurray!  Writing the "Results" section brought a few inelegances in the poem to my attention, and I hope to deal with those before the weekend.

Yes, I'm writing documentation even though I'm not entering the poem into competition.

Update: Behold, the revised lay and also the documentation!