Mi Contra Fa

Bittersweet Nostalgia Song

I've had a bit of an itch to write a nostalgia song. I've been in the SCA for over half my life; I think that's long enough to legitimately look back on "way back when" with some rose-colored stained glass windows.

"Way Back When" was indeed the working title under which various ideas were banging around my head.  The general idea was that way back when, I didn't know crap, and so my persona/presentation/garb/experience was more unfiltered.  I didn't know what one was 'supposed' to do, and my direction was more in accord with my heart and less with the corporate goals of a 501(c)(3) educational organization.  Then I got older, learned more about the community standards, and began conforming to them more.  Much was gained, but something precious was also lost.

Then one day, leaving work, "It was magic, you see" popped up in my head as the intro for the evolving refrain.  And when I got home, I sketched out a draft lyric.

It was... not what I thought "Way Back When" was going to be.  It presented a personal evolution, taking a good deal of the bitterness out of "Way Back When" by finding magic at every stage.  Only the final, backwards-looking verse/refrain reflected on the particular early magic that was lost.  It's not bad - it's in fact much more optimistic - but I also feel like I weakened the emotions I was going for.  Like I was walking back some of the honesty.

Except that the original "Way Back When" wasn't entirely honest, either.  Nobody held a handgonne to my head and told me to up my A&S game.  I did change partly out of respect for the community standards, but mostly because one day I fell unexpectedly head over heels for early period stuff.  It's a different experience than the one I had when I first joined, but it's not any less dear to me for all that.  So "It Was Magic" is also true.

And on the gripping hand, it's not like this is an autobiography.  I'm writing a song that's inspired by my own experience, but the "poetic I" does not have to be the confessional, authentic I-myself.

(I also turned up my old copy of Heather Rose Jones' "Songbook Pusher," which contains "Music and Magic."  Its chorus: "Oh, I remember the early days / It came so easy then / What are we missing? What have we forgotten? / Why can't it be magic again?"  And I wondered all day if maybe I didn't need to write anything at all.  But upon review - this is a similar song, with a similar pain under it, but it's not exactly the same lament.)

I suppose I could try writing both and see where they go. 

 

Book Review: The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue

I am behind on commenting on the books I've been reading.

Summary: Super eggheaded discussion of why performance is an act of creation every bit as important as composition.

As an Amazon Prime member, I was able to 'borrow' Bruce Ellis Benson's "The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music" on Kindle for a week.  I'm glad I did, but I don't know that I'll pick it up.

Oh, it was interesting. And when he finally started to talk about the early music movement, I was bookmarking like crazy. Yes, that's a good point! Yes, those are the sorts of questions we have to resolve!  Yes, yes!

But it is, at heart, a philosophy book.  What is a work of music?  Is it the score?  Is it the score plus a particular performance? Is it some Platonic ideal that lies hidden?  Who creates the work?  The composer or the performer? What role, if any, does the audience play?  

Those are interesting questions, particularly since Benson's goal is to challenge the 'Western art music' ("classical" music, which can encompass everything from the Baroque to postmodern) concept of the "true work," birthed by the composer, with the performer relegated to the role of a dutiful servant enacting the composer's wishes. He goes on for a good bit about jazz as an alternative paradigm, where the musician's improvisation is a critical aspect of the creation of the work.  Early music, also rich with improvisation, gets a short section as well.  

This is all discussed in a rich swirl of philosophers I've heard of in passing, and some I'd never heard of.  Lots of lingo, although Benson seemed to do a good enough job of explaining it.  I had to reread a few parts, but I was never hopelessly lost.

But this isn't exactly a practical how-to guide.  I recommend it to frustrated performers who want some grade A academic arguments to toss around during A&S chit-chat time, when they want to assert their legitimacy as creators and artists.

Weaving with Wool

Or, Sometimes When You Ignore Common Sense, You Create Art; and Sometimes, You Create a Mess.

Sing I the praises of Meisterin Johanna von Sudeborn, generous hall-leader, who in time of cold and darkness did gift this humble poet of her homestead with wool yarn in bold colors. Such are her wisdom and insight that the wool was colored purple and green, the colors of my lord husband and his Eastern household.  And so, to do honor to this gift and to my husband, I undertook to create for him some warm thing to wear.

I started with an attempt to nalbind a hat. (Okay, I started by winding the yarn into balls using a 1" dowel as a nostepinne.)  I discovered that the yarn was rather curly and bouncy, and the nalbinding was frustrating.

Maybe, I thought, I could weave a scarf.

Why, you may ask yourself, did I think it was a good idea to take curly and bouncy yarn and try to weave with it?  I have no good answer.  I recognized that this was likely to be a liability, yet there I was, putting a green yarn warp onto my tapestry loom.  90 warp ends for a 10" wide scarf.

Maybe, I thought, I could do a twill.

So, with 'Honest Movie Trailers' playing in the background, I tied around 150 string heddles for a 4-shed plain 2/2 twill. (I had about 30 already tied.)  And then I put those 180 heddles onto my 4 heddle bars and my 90 warp ends.  And I wisely put the project down at that point (warping and heddles took about 5 hours), and went to bed.

The next day, I sat down and raised the first heddle bar.

...where's the shed?  Did I do something... okay, take this, lift up, rest here... yeah, okay, I can see the shed on this side...

The 4 heddle bars occupy something like 6" of length on the loom.  When the top one is lifted (and you have springy, lively warps), the shed is fairly well vanished by the time you try to get your shuttle through under the bottom one.

I tried to soldier on, thrusting my weaving sword approximately where the shed might have been, and tried to weave in a few waste  rows, but... it became increasingly evident that this was Not Happening.

As I might have expected, given the nature of the yarn.

I have not yet written the project off!  I have retired two of the heddles, leaving me with what I think is called a half basket weave - one weft goes over two, under two, over two, under two.  With only two heddles, the top shed is much closer to where I can put the shuttle through.  I wove some waste, and a few rows of purple yarn, and called it done for the day.  

If all goes well, when I take it off the loom, it will... probably do something crazy and crinkly, and maybe I will learn to block a wool garment.

Adventure!