January 25, 2010

"Beer is for Girls"

Aint that the truth.




































Notes:  I entered this piece in the A&S competition at Nordskogen's 12th Night, and again won without suspecting I was in any danger of doing that.  In order to enter this competition, entrants had to associate their project with a quote from Shakespeare.  I found the following quote from Henry IV Part 2:  "I will make it a felony to drink small beer!"  And I swear to God, if one more drunk, well-meaning bozo at an event suggests I might prefer a Smirnoff Ice to a beer, I will go as ballistic as Jack Cade.

The song takes its stylistic cues from the drinking songs of Thomas Ravenscroft and is displayed in the manner of a 16th century English broadside.  Yes, I play oompahs on the harp when I sing this.  Yes, the harp can do drinking songs.  For the full documentation, download this here PDF.

4 comments:

  1. Greetings!

    I happened upon your blog via the SCA_Bards yahoogroup, and I think it's awesome! I've just started teaching myself to play the harp (I've played the piano for 30 years and read music well, so it's not as big of a stretch as it might be), with the hopes of eventually doing bardic stuff in the SCA.

    I was wondering if by any chance you've written down the music to Beer is for Girls? I absolutely love it, and would love to learn it and bring it to An Tir.

    Asny (modernly known as Karla)
    ksexsmith@gmail.com

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  2. Greetings, Asny, and welcome to the Great Harpy Conspiracy! :-D I'll look into getting the music up here pretty soon. If you're going to be harping in the SCA, though, you should keep an eye out for "Harps of the Known World," a anthology of SCA harp music soon to be published by Misstress Linette out in the East. "Beer is for Girls" will be in that one as well.

    ~Isolde

    PS - Have you joined the "Scahapers" Yahoo group?

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  3. Hi, I am interested in this piece for our of our local Bardic get-togethers but are having trouble downloading the documenation (also for the poem Oh how I love the Springtime Gay) - I am guessing the platform does not host your documents anymore? Would you have them accessible anywhere else? Your Beer Song rocks (I am a brewer) and I can't wait to try my hand at it, even tho it will never be as good as you (I am neither small, nor play a harp LOL). Thank you! Elska a Fjarfelli, Kingdom of Aethelmearc

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