Mi Contra Fa

Maypole: Say, barley!

D'oh!  "Barley" almost (but not quite) rhymes with "say" in about the way "speak" and "break" do. 

Blah-blah, dainty nymph and say
Shall we play break the bar-lay

For the "Blah-blah"... "come, my."  Nothing blatant about that, but if you're sufficiently dirty-minded and/or get the "barley break" reference, it can carry a bit of double entendre in its shoe for good luck.

If we sit and muse we might
O'erlook youth's joys, all gold-bright
Come, my dainty nymph and say
Shall we play break the barley?

I think that just about does it!

Maypole: Official Month of Maying

To the country bagpipe's sound
The nymphs tread out their grou-ound

If we sit and muse we might
O'erlook youth's sweet deli-ight
What say, dainty nymph and speak,
Shall we play barley brea-eak?

At Storvik Music Ensemble practice on Tuesday, we tried a voice-and-recorder version of "Official Month of Maying."  The extended vowels on "ground," "delight," and "break" really don't work well at all.

There's a fair solution to "barley break" and that's "break the barley."  The stresses are in the right places and it's the right number of syllables.  It's somewhat akin to asking if someone would like to play "the war of tugging," though.  However, since I think you'd understand me if I asked you to play the war of tugging, that's not so awful.  But you lose the rhyme.  Gr.  I didn't notice this before, I think because the last verse of Morley doesn't rhyme to my ear anyway - maybe in his day "speak" and "break" rhymed, but not so much today.

I'm really not sure I like the idea of shoe-horning a random single syllable in between "barley" and "break" to maintain a "rhyme" that isn't apparent anyway.  I think I'll leave it as "break the barley" for the moment.

I'd like the nymphs to tread out their "dancing ground," but that's too many syllables.  "Dance ground"?  "Dance" is a noun, but we have "dance halls" as well.  I think that'll work.

And I almost forgot "youth's sweet delight" needs an extra syllable, too.  Oh, dear.  "Sweet" takes a stress and so does "-light."  I can't put an extra word between "sweet" and "delight" without make it "SWEET (word) DE-light."  That's not kosher - the word is pronounced de-LIGHT.  There either needs to be an unaccented syllable after "delight" which rhymes with "might," or else a re-write of this line.  "O'erlook youth's SWEETness AND light"?  ...no.  For a variety of reasons, the top two being that I'm going to try and squeeze "sweetness" into the space for "sweet" and AND really doesn't need a stress.  Never mind the dubious virtue of using the expression "sweetness and light."

"O'erlook youth's joys, all (adjective) bright."  Yes.  What's a good adjective?  Brass or gold?  Brass alliterates, but implies a cheapness we're not looking for.  I suppose gold.

 

The Official Month of Maying

- to the tune of the Bransle Official from Arbeau

   Now we celebrate the spring
When merry lads are playing  
Each lad with his bonny lass  
A-dancing on the green grass

    Chorus:
Fa la la la la la la, la la la la la la, la la la la la la, la la  
Now is the month of Maying  
Fa la la la la la la, la la la la la la, la la la la la la, la la  
Now is the month of Maying

    The Spring, in blooming flowered dress,    
Doth laugh at Winter's sadness    
To the country bagpipe's sound    
The nymphs tread out their dance ground

   If we sit and muse we might
O'erlook youth's joys, all gold bright
Say what, dainty nymph and speak
Shall we play break the barley?

E, Dame Jolie (Efenwealt Wystle)

This weekend's "not a baked eel" musical recommendation: E, Dame Jolie by Master Efenwealt Wystle, also available for a mere pittance at $0.99.

Master Efenwealt is surely one of Atlantia's finest bards.  Along with a wide repertoire of silly and bawdy songs, he's written some touching ballads and "Fair Lady Atlantia," possibly the unofficial Atlantian anthem.  This song is actual a dual recording of the original trouvére song in Old French and Master Efenwealt's rhymed translation. 

It's a love song; well, you can read the lyrics here.  There's an audio sample there as well, if you want to take a listen to the tune.  It's not a merry, jaunty lark like "Non Sofre," last week, but this isn't a jaunty lark of a poem.  It's a very pretty melody, fairly simple and straightforward but also lyrical and unmistakably medieval.  It's short, so it's very possible to sing both the Old French and the English translations in a single performance, or you could perform just the English.

The Soundtrack of the SCA

A lot of us spend our days immersed in music.  Our radio alarm wakes us up with our favorite tunes.  We listen to our iPod in the gym, then turn on the radio in the car on the way to work.  Work may have ambient music, or if we're lucky we can tune in to our favorite radio station via the Internet, or play CDs if we work on a computer.  After getting the traffic report, we switch back to some music on the radio, before heading home to watch some TV where a nearly subconscious soundtrack increases the drama or comedy of each scene.  Even our commercials are highly musical, many with jingles we can sing years after we first heard them.

At events, we tend to box the music up.  We expect (or maybe dread) a performance or two at feast, and maybe a bardic circle if it's a camping event.  If there's a bardic competition, there's some music there.  And of course, if you're lucky enough to have dancing, that's where the instrumentalists can go.  I have occasionally heard a boombox or two, playing ambient music under a dayshade or in the kitchen.  (Incidentally, a boombox works in the kitchen.  A live performer there would just get in the way of the cooks.  That is bad; they have knives.)

Where's the music?

We're working at getting more ambient music at events around here.  I've heard Lord Richard Wyn of Bright Hills in a far pavilion, his guitar echoing down the event site.  Mistress Fevronia Murometsa has perched herself on a hillside and let her harp and voice roll down to the field.  Our humble Music Ensemble has set up shop and played, and I've parked myself under a dayshade for an hour or so to provide music.  I'm sure there are others whom I haven't heard, or who don't come to mind at the moment.  It's coming along.  But why is it something we have to work at?

On the one hand, it's because it is work.  It's not critical volunteerism, like Troll or MOL, nor physically demanding work like list field set-up or pavilion tear-down.  It looks a lot like loafing around, to be honest, and in some ways it is.  We love our work and it's fun.  But to commit to spend an hour providing music is an hour we're not participating in the event's other activities, not speaking with our friends, not shopping or eating or enjoying the weather.  It's a service for which, I'll point out, people in the mundane world will pay $60-$100 an hour.

Yes, seriously.  Go find out how much a harpist or harper charges for playing at a wedding.  That's the value of live music.

On the other hand, bards aren't used to being background music, especially the vocalists.  Instrumentalists often have some experience with being ambient sound - as dance musicians, if nothing else.  Vocalists expect attention.  And to a certain extent, the populace also feels that they should give them attention.  Singing is close to speaking, and when someone starts speaking loudly near us, we (usually) attend to them to see what they have to say, at least for a few moments.

But the populace is not at the event to listen raptly to bardic performance.  They are there to socialize, and fight, and shop and eat and enjoy the weather.  A "bard in a box" can be politely ignored and relegated to background music.  With a live bard, there can be some tension.  Does he expect me to listen to the whole thing?  Will she be mad if I keep walking?  Am I supposed to do something here?

I think the problem on the first hand is of more consequence than the problem on the second hand.  The second hand will solve itself if we just make more music, more often, in more places, until it becomes normal.  I'm not advocating that bards entirely self-efface until they become walking boomboxes, but not every performance needs to be all eyes on the bard, either.

The first problem is valuing the intangible.  People do value it - I've played harp throughout a feast, utterly ignored by all signs - until people came up afterward to tell me how much they enjoyed music while they ate.  Our experiments in court music have gone over exceptionally well.  Once you find a hole for music and fill it, people will miss it when it's gone.  But you have to find the holes, and then fill them at enough events that people begin to associate the music with moment.  Then you'll start seeing autocrats put out a call for volunteer musicians and bards along with trolls, MOLs, kitchen help and waterbearers.

Some obvious (to me) holes:

• Troll.  Wouldn't it be nice to be entertained while you waited on line?
• Royal or baronial room, dayshade, hangout.  Crowns need musicians as well as heralds.
• Court, as background music, not as a performance venue.
• Feast, the same.  I mean one long stretch of performances, perhaps in different areas throughout the hall, over the entire course of dinner, which would not require silence from the populace.  Breaks for the musicians and bards to eat, of course.
• Set-up/Tear-down, especially if there's good work music to be had.
• Kitchen, only with permission of feastocrat
• Newcomer's Point, MOL table, or any other place where other volunteers are sitting for long stretches of time and could use some music to lift their spirits.

Workshops

In my professional field, a workshop is a kind of brain-storming session.  People involved in the workshop topic get together to discuss it.  While some of those people may be more experienced or expert than others, it's a hierarchically "flat" event, with only a facilitator or moderator of some kind to keep things on-track.

A bardic workshop has been proposed for Tournament of Chivalry by the King's Bard, Baronesa Gracia Esperanca de Sevilla.  It is of course up to the autocrat whether or not there will be a bardic workshop (it admittedly doesn't have much to do with tournaments or chivalry), and it will be up to la Baronessa as to the final form and content of the workshop (if there is one).  But we've bounced some emails around and I came up with some workshop suggestions that I'm pleased enough with to post here.  If we don't do them at ToC, I'd like to run one or more of them at some other event.

Spectacle Workshop: Putting some pomp into our circumstance
If their Excellencies agree, participants workshop a bang-up court.  (Challenge: this is not for bards to show off, but to make the court excellent.)  The eventual final form will be dependent on the talents of the workshoppers, but a group of bards with some talent in versification, filk or original musical composition, and perhaps some instrumental capability might come up with:

• A sonnet or other poem composed for the herald to read as she announces their Excellencies.
• A song (vocal, instrumental, or both) for processional music
• More dramatic scripting for the herald, during court
• Incidental music - perhaps instrumental, perhaps a great swell of vocal music if someone is approaching for a baronial award. Perhaps even songs (very very short ones - 8-16 bars) specifically composed for each person called forth, sung as they approach the thrones.
• Another poem to close and recessional music, which (depending on circumstance) may fold directly into songs welcoming diners in to the feast hall.

Performance Venues Workshop: Getting out of the feast hall
After a very brief reminder about the etiquette of interrupting people and of family-friendly performance, workshoppers are sent out into the wilds of the event, in the middle of the day, to "bard" for 45 minutes, either alone or in pairs.  Workshoppers reconvene afterwards to discuss what they did, how they approached other SCAdians (if at all) and how well it worked.

Performance Workshop
The basic "Here's my piece, what did you all think?" sort of feedback roundtable.  Standard but valuable.

Vocal Projection and Enunciation Workshop
Maybe not worth an hour?  Each participant takes turns wandering 20-50' away from the rest and projecting something back.  The ones who are the loudest and easiest to understand get grilled for their secrets.

Discussion Roundtable: Encouraging the bardic arts
Why do some areas (like Windmaster's Hill) have a thriving bardic community and others don't?  What can we do to recruit and retain new bards?  What have you tried (at events, at monthly meetings, etc.) to raise the visibility of bardic in your area, and what's worked?

Book Review: McGee's "Performer's Guide"

Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Performer's Guide, by Timothy McGee, is absolutely a must-read and re-read book. It is out of print, which is an abominable shame. It is available at several online booksellers, used, for rather high prices; or most university libraries will either have a copy or can get it for you via Interlibrary Loan.

I came to McGee late, and it was like a giant smack upside the head. He lays out, very clearly and cleanly, the assorted performance decisions you need to make when performing early music, and how you might go about making those decisions.

He covers reading fascimilies and modern editions; dealing with problems of tempo and meter (I didn't even know there were problems of tempo and meter); appropriate vocal style for solo and choral singers; instrument selection for instrumental pieces, ensembles, and accompaniment; creating arrangements for soloists, accompanied soloists and ensembles; issues of ornamentation and improvisation. Each section by itself is small and digestible.

Most importantly, this isn't all airy theory. McGee tests his ideas out in performance, and the work is very much a guide for performers, as the title indicates. He offers practical, solid guidelines to work from.

Two caveats. First, this is an older book (1990), so some of the performance practice suggestions may have been refined in the meanwhile.

Second, don't think of this book as either gospel or a straightjacket. It offers practical, solid guidelines, based on what appear to be the "norms" of medieval and Renaissance music. Any particular piece of music may be different from those norms. As Guido d'Arezzo (c. 1050) said in his treatise on music, "Do everything that we have said neither too rarely nor too unremittingly, but with taste." Respect the world the music came from (as we understand it from the scholarship) but also let each individual piece speak to you, and allow yourself to try things beyond these guidelines.

I would say that access to Hoppin's Medieval Music and McGee's "Performer's Guide" are an excellent and necessary start to any SCAdian's music library, whether the SCAdian in question is interested in solo (bardic), polyphony (choral groups), or ensemble (instrumental) performance. If I lost the rest of my library, I could do a lot with just those two.

Music and Bardic Events for April

In a 4-6 hour drive from the Washington, DC area:

Atlantia: Beltane XXVII, Shire of Berely Court (Williamsburg, VA), April 25-27.  Flyer touts a "muchly acclaimed bardic competition."

...and that's it.  AEthelmearc's coronation features storytelling after feast, but it's by Lake Ontario.

There is a possible opportunity for guerrilla music at Tournament of Chivalry, April 18-20 in Storvik (Cheltenham, MD, just off Exit 7A on the DC Beltway).  It's a primarily fighting event, but a critical mass of 4-6 bards and musicians could spin off some impromptu musical activities.  Any takers?

Update: I've seen where a good gentle has already undertaken to propose to the autocrat a bardic workshop. Stay tuned for more details!

LOLresearch

see more crazy cat pics

I have some thoughts on "ur doin it right" as well.

On Research: Goal-Setting

Your research efforts will be more focused and more productive if you consciously identify the goals you are working towards.  You may be trying to create masterworks for your own personal use and enjoyment, to inspire the broader populace about your topic of interest, or to develop a comprehensive curriculum to be used in scholas, universities, or practices.  These are all worthy goals, but your efforts and focus would be different for each one.

High-Level Goals: Why, What, When and Where

Why are you pursuing this research?  Is this a topic you have a deep and abiding interest in, that you want to explore in as much depth as possible?  Or do you just want something suitable for a themed A&S competition that’s coming up?    Any honest answer is fine; we are amateurs, and we do this because we want to, not because we’re paid to.  When you know why you’re doing something, you can better scale how much time and effort you want to put into it.

What do you envision your “end” result being?  I put “end” in quotes because often there isn’t really an end; there’s just more research. (Yay! More things to learn!)  But envision yourself as wildly successful in your research.  How do you know you’ve done well?  Are you an expert on a given topic, lecturing to an eager class of University students?  Can you whip up an entire beginner’s kit for the chatelaine for $10?  Have you started a business marketing your wares?  Did you win a competition?  Preparing for life as a Modern Medieval entrepreneur will be very different from preparing to showcase your A&S work to its best advantage.

When and where are you interested in?  Do you want to research broadly or deeply?  It’s a common pattern to start out broadly but shallowly, then narrow and deepen as you find your favorite interests.  But if you want to leap from interesting shiny topic to shiny topic, that’s perfectly fine.  Just be aware of how that is, or is not, going to help you get to your “what.”

Low-Level Goals: Your Research Plan

So you’ve identified your high-level goals, your hopes and dreams for what you’ll have done “one day.”  What are you going to do today that will get you there?

A research plan is an outline of activities that you will perform to move you towards your higher goals.  It doesn’t have to be a comprehensive five-year plan that moves you from novice to Laurel in one fell swoop; in fact, it’ll almost certainly be better if it’s not.  But it should take you from today to some identifiable future point that is a step in the direction you want to go.

Banish the words “better” and “more” from your goal-setting vocabulary.  They are vague and unhelpful.  “I will learn more songs.”  “I will practice my calligraphy more.”  “I will get better at embroidery.”  How do you know when you’ve learned “more”?  How much improvement from your current skill level is “better”? 

Goals must be measurable.  Instead of the fuzzy goals statements above, consider these: “I will learn six new songs.”  “I will write out a calligraphic alphabet once a day, five days a week, for a month.”  “I will practice chain-stitching until it looks even and I don’t have those little nubs sticking out anymore.”  You know when you’ve achieved those goals.

And they suggest where to go once you’ve achieved them.  Once your chain-stitch is even, then what? Is it time to begin embroidering your garb?  Or did you want to add beading to it? Your embroidery is getting “better” but you are being specific about how it is getting better, which lets you actually focus on particular issues and improve them.

Goals should be challenging but not impossible. If your goals are too easy, you're not really growing much. If your goals are too hard, you will always fail to achieve them and that's discouraging.

Take practicing as an example. Many arts have techniques that are improved by frequent, repetitive practice. Most of us don't enjoy practicing all that much, but we know we should do it. In an effort to improve our work, we set a goal: To practice every day for thirty minutes.

But for most of us, that's an invitation to failure. Most weeks, something will come up. There will be overtime at work, or you will get sick, or spend all day driving to Thanksgiving dinner at your aunt's in Ohio. Accept this as your reality. Decide to practice N days a week, where N is probably more than 1 but is less than 7, or practice for 3.5 hours a week, so if you miss one thirty-minute session you can add fifteen minutes to two other sessions later.

Goals should have a time limit on them. Deadlines are motivators. The SCA gives a wonderful array of possible deadlines - different events, competitions, classes, exhibitions. Write down your deadlines, or tell someone about them, so you have a feeling of accountability.

Goals should be "right sized". You want to break your research plan down into chunks that you can actually handle in the now timeframe, not the someday timeframe. Keep setting smaller and smaller goals until you find one that you feel comfortable committing to finishing by, say, the end of the week. This week.

The exact selection of your subgoals is going to depend on your field, your resources, and your "why." You may have:

• An Internet search
• A literature search. (This is what most people think of as "research.")
• A trip to a museum to view physical artifacts
• Conversations with other researchers (Scadian and mundane!)
• A period of practice where you perfect a new technique
• A period of synthesis where you bring several kinds of techniques or knowledge together. This is what most people think of as "an A&S project."
• Writing up your results, also known as documentation.
• Sharing your results, in an A&S competition, in a newsletter article, or as a class

Feed subscribers: You want cuts?

I just saw my last post in my own LJ Friends list and my, it does go on.  I believe there may be a way to hide some of that "below the fold."  Would that be something you would want to see, or is it fine the way it is?