Practice

I have gotten back into a regular musical practice. While this is good for me, it doesn't lend itself well to blogging.  

I've made progress on Karen Marshalsay's "Key Techniques for Harp." That got me back to the ap Huw manuscript, and I'm reading Paul Whittaker's thesis. His take on the tunings makes some sense to me.  I've also been monkeying with the "24 measures" of Welsh music as given in the MS - sort of a series of chord progressions, except there's only two chords, 1 and 0.  Reading Whittaker, I'm getting more sure that I have totally incorrectly parsed what's a 1 and what's a 0.  Onward!

I assumed that 1 would be Dorian home (plus a third and a fifth above) - like it is for, say, Brian Boru's March.  Then 0 would be a whole step below Dorian home, with its associated third and fifth.  It's more like 1 is home and 0 is an away that's a whole step above, but there's at least one note shared between the two.  

The 7 Warranted Tunings are then thrown into the mix. If I'm reading Dooley right, exactly what pitches are home and away change based on what tuning you are using.  So 1 can be Dorian, if you're in that tuning. If you're in the most basic and commonest tuning, 1 is actually the major key!

Runo 3 is ready for voice-only performance. Still don't know how to use harp or lyre with it. I have the melody with fingerings down on nylon harp. Accompaniment isn't solid yet, and I haven't done damping for it (for use on wire). Seems like I ought to be able to apply several of the things from Marshalsay to it...

I have also acquired two books that are the start of learning Old English. And I even started to read them. (Unlike some books, which sit talisman-like on my shelves, as if owning them is enough to gain their knowledge.)

And I was finally hit with inspiration for an "Atlantian style" song I have been wanting to write for a while. Right now, it's not saying quite what I set out to say... that should probably be its own blog post.