ATTENTION: This guy is awesome.

My harp-making husband and I have spent the last day or so drooling over this site:  http://crab.rutgers.edu/~pbutler/instrum.html

Paul Butler, aka Master Arden of Icombe, is a laurel in the East Kingdom who's dabbled quite successfully in medieval lutherie.  He's made a number of stringed instruments, chiefly from the medieval period although he's got one super-ancient lyre and one ren/baroque pochette.  He has detailed descriptions and pictures of the process he went through to make the instruments, which is obviously awesome.  Perhaps even more awesome - most of his pages include recordings of the instruments being played, and he's achieved some really nice sounds.  No recording of the Anglo Saxon lyre, though, which makes me sad, but it's pretty enough and in good enough company that I'm still overall quite happy. :-D  (Mostly I just want one.  Hearing one is the next best thing.  Seeing how one was made is a close third).

No harps, but that's ok because he plays them!  Check out the second mp3 - that's his gothic harp with the brays on.  Neat, huh?  Waaaaaaaaaant.

So nooooooooooow I want a rebec and a citole and an Anglo Saxon lyre (ok, I already wanted an Anglo Saxon lyre, but his site didn't exactly dissuade me).  Harps first.  Harps.  Harpsharpsharps.  Actually bookshelves first.  :-P  Then new folk harps, then a gothic harp and that's all if I'm reeeeeeeeally nice to my super-sexy-talented husband.  :-D  LOVE YOU HONEY!!!!  (harps)

Ealdormere Crown Tournament

We moved up to Ealdormere just slightly too late for the reign of Quilliam and Dagmar - a bit disappointing, as I'd heard nothing but excellent things about them as people and as monarchs.  So I was pretty excited yesterday to watch 20-year-old Quilliam win his second crown.

Coming from an all-rapier background, I don't know nearly enough about heavy fighting for the blow-calling to make any sense.  But I can tell this - when everyone a person kills looks really happy about it coming off the field, that person is doing something very right.  Best I can tell, Quilliam fought with deadly honor, and I've not heard a soul breathe otherwise.

The rest of the day was filled to the brim with music, and I want to share this song by Lady Marie l'Englois.  She wrote it for Quilliam's first coronation, and reprised it most aptly at feast last night.

     

Northern Heir
... being a bardic retelling of the happenings at Ealdormere's XXIVth crown tourney, to the popular Elizabethan tune of Lord Willoughby's March

The last day of October in AS44
King Nigel sought a royal heir to lead his land to war.
The strongest northern fighters all gathered in the cold
To learn who would inherit the lupine crown of gold.

Syr Mordain and Syr Edouard both fought a valiant fight,
But in the end they fell before a stalwart squire and knight.
Syr Wat addressed the people in windblown Ard Chreag,
Then Quilliam showed his mettle with a heart-felt dialog.

He spoke of inspiration, and of a childhood dream,
He spoke about the baroness whom he would make his queen.
He spoke of his opponent, his honoured consort's knight,
And thanked him for the training that brought him to the fight.

When Quilliam finished speaking, Wat gave a bow profound.
The two embraced as brothers upon the tourney ground,
Then knight and hardy squire each other did assail
Until, for love of kingdom, young Quilliam did prevail.

My noble lords and ladies raise cups and voices high
For Adrielle and Nigel, and their heirs we name hereby,
For one spring day in Greyfells, bards of the trillium
Shall sing of the ascension of Dagmar and Quilliam.
         -Marie l'Englois, December ASXLIV

You can see a recording of Quilliam's speech and the ensuing bout here.  I love this song because it's got everything anyone could want in an SCA bardic piece - it's a stirring account of people we know doing great things and it's totally authentic.  Lady Marie wrote this to the tune of "Lord Willoughby's March," a song from period that recounts a person's accomplishments in battle.  Not only is the tune period, but the practice of melody-borrowing itself was common throughout period - in fact you can find a period filk of this very tune here (PDF).  It's even persona-appropriate - though Prince Quilliam is a Viking, Lady Marie is a 16th century English woman living in France.

Information on period printings of "Lord Willoughby" can be found here.  Lady Marie has a recording and the score available for download here.

And Waes Hael to Prince Qulliam and Princess Dagmar - may their reigns be fruitful and frequent!

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG IT'S SPRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!

There are leaves on the trees and flowers blooming and grass on the ground and NO!  SNOW!  And there's an event coming up with the word "dandelion" in its name, and that means it's time for REJOICING IN THE STREETS!!!!!

Also songs about Spring.  So at Dandelion Festival, I'm challenging people to bring bardic pieces that celebrate the Springtime.  Find the girl in the green dress with the harp during the day, perform a piece, fill the day with song (or stories, they're fine too) and receive a bright, shiny as-yet-to-be-determined token.  Yee-uh.

So here, to get your bardic juices flowing, are some ideas:

Oh how I love the springtime gay...
A troubadour song about bashin' heads...in the springtime.
Read more here.

Kalenda Maya:
A troubadour song about a jilted lover...in the springtime.
Lyrics and translation here.
Listen on youtube here.

A l'entrada de temps clar
A troubadour song about a springtime dance...in the springtime.
Lyrics and translation here.
Listen on youtbube here.

Greek Mythology
The myth of Persephone and Hades was a popular basis for stories and poems in period.
Read more about it here.

Norse Mythology
They had Norse people in period!  And they had....
Myths about the Springtime.

Sonnet 98
Willie Shakespeare wrote about everything.  Including the springtime.

From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
   Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
   As with your shadow I with these did play.

Frog Galliard

I've mentioned before that I'm arranging the Folger Dowland MS for small harp.  Well, here's a taste of what's in the manuscript!  I entered this in an A&S competition  this past weekend (and took home a sumptuous prize that included a LUSCIOUS beaver pelt....must think of something likewise luscious to do with it).  So here, for your geeking pleasure, is Frog Galliard.


The documentation, with the sheet music for harp.

A rough (really) recording of the piece, to give you an idea of what it sounds like.

This is the first of about 50 pieces yet to come.  I have a few more done than this, but this is the only one I have documented and recorded - and many of them (including the duets) are much easier than this.  Some are also way harder, but hey - that's fun too.

That's really one of the reasons I'm so excited about this project.  Not only does it flesh out our sadly spare collection of early harp music, but it really ups the ante for small harp technique-wise.  A perception exists that folk harps just aren't up to serious, technically challenging music.  That's largely because there's not a whole lot of technically challenging music out there for small harp.  This manuscript offers both - really fun, difficult stuff, with easier, more manageable stuff as well.  Gives you something to work through.  I can't wait until I have more of these done!

Proceedings from Practicum

Last weekend up here in Ealdormere, a staggering number of SCA teachers converged on the Canton of Caldrithig for Practicum - a day full of classes on everything from shaving to sewing to ass-kicking.

Here, for the first time in a really really long time, is the collected wisdom of that day in handy PDF format - the Proceedings from Practicum 2011.

Though by no means exhaustive, this 98-page document contains class notes, handouts and abstracts from classes taught at Practicum.  If you see something you'd like to know more about, please reach out to the person who taught the class - you'll find contact information for nearly everyone who contributed.

How to be a Troubadour

Today at Caldrithig's Practicum, I'm teaching a new class about songwriting in the style of the troubadours.  In addition to basic cultural background, my course covers some musical and poetic features that make troubadour songs distinct, so that modern songwriters can more easily create original work in this classic medieval style.  If you'd like a copy of the handout, download this here PDF.

It seems to me that many bards in the SCA shy away from writing period-style songs because of a persistent belief that medieval music sounds "weird" and "inaccessible to a modern audience."  It is my firm belief that if people had a little more grounding in early music, they'd realize just how beautiful and universal it can be and would be quite a bit less intimidated by it.  People write what they hear, and if our most prominent bards are writing music that sounds nothing like medieval music, new bards will follow suit.  But when we take the plunge into more authentic sounding music, we make it easier for others to do so as well.  I hope this class will help to demystify troubadour music for those willing to try.

Why I'll play harp music from period if I damned well want to.

When last we met, I lamented the extreme paucity of harp music that survives in written form from period.  There's the Mudarra piece I mentioned for double-harp and, for the wire-strung harpists in the audience (ie - not me), there's the Robert ap Huw MS (recorded after 1600, though not by too terribly much, and certainly including much older songs).

BUT THAT WON'T STOP ME!!!  I have found, in my couple of years as a harping bard, that what I love the most is the sort of musical anthropology that goes along with early music.  Troubadour or early German music is more fun for me than later period stuff because we don't entirely know what it sounded like.  We have to use what little we do know in creative ways, like using the tuning of a lyre to tell us what a German harp c. 800 might have played or lists of who paid what to whom in X's court to figure out what instrumental accompaniment troubadours used.

And in the same vein, I get a kick out of recreating what we lack when it comes to period harp music.  Finding parallels between early harp and lute music and then creating new harp pieces based on that is even more fun than learning a pre-existing piece.  Just because we don't have the music doesn't mean we can't play something awfully close to what period harpers would have played.

And I find that to be terribly exciting.  ^_^

Why I can't play harp music from period.

Single-row harp c.1520

We all know what a harp looks like here.  It involves a single row of strings.  Modern concert harps have pedals that change the length of the strings, producing sharps and flats.  Modern folk harps have levers that do the same thing but require a hand to leave the strings to engage.  Harps in period had none of these - you played how your harp was tuned, or if you were really good you could fret a string to produce a sharp (this is impossible on modern folk harps given the string tension).

Lookit!  Two rows of strings!

Toward the end of period you also find harps with 2 or 3 rows of strings.  These harps had the same range as their single-row counterparts, but double or triple the strings meant strings for sharps and flats!  I have absolutely no interest in playing a double or triple harp.  The technique is wonky, the repretoire is overwhelmingly baroque (post-period and not really what I'm most into anyway) and my harp-making husband isn't a fan of their tone (I haven't really played around on one enough to hear for myself, but I tend to trust his judgment in these matters).

Now.  I've told you before that I'm arranging some lute music (Dowland right now) for harp to fill the gaping void that is period harp music.  There is exactly ONE piece designated for harp that survives from before 1600.  One.  And I have it on my computer.

This is the piece.  I promise this is music.

AND IT'S FOR EFFING DOUBLE HARP!!!!!  EFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!  I SO want to learn this piece.  It's our ONLY genuine piece of period harp music, and there are no transcriptions or recordings of it out there.  But I am NOT going to acquire and learn to play a double harp just so I can play ONE freaking piece!  I'm not!

Eff.  Effity eff-eff-eff!  I will transcribe it, though.  I'll transcribe it and see if it'll work on a pedal harp.  And if it will, I'll try to get a decent recording using one of my parents' pedal harps.  It won't be period, but at least it'll be OUT there!

And I'll keep going on Dowland and other lute music.  That's going really well, actually.  I'll post some of those pieces soon.

Raggin-fraggin double harp...

John Dowland for Harp

It seems that during the medieval and renaissance periods, there was a good deal of crossover between the lute and the harp.  Lute/harp was a popular duet pairing, and a piece published in 1546 (Alonso Mudarra's "Fantasia que contrahaze la harpa en la manera de Ludovico") draws a comparison between the harp and, in this case, the vihuela (a more guitar-like relative of the lute).

Given this, it seems that early lute repertoire would be a very reasonable place to look to fill the gaping void that is our collection of early harp music (it just hasn't survived, folks, and that sucks).  So I've embarked on a new project (yeah, I'm still working on those other ones, they're going fine).  I've just started transcribing a collection of John Dowland's lute pieces for harp.  It's the Folger manuscript, and according to the Folger library it was recorded by Dowland himself between the years 1594 and 1600, which makes it oh-so-suitable for the SCA.

I'm arranging it for lap-harp, of course.  My harp has 22 strings and no levers - harps in Dowland's period had up to 26 strings and no levers, so my transcriptions will be faithful to what a harp-playing contemporary of Dowland's would have played in those respects, at least.  I'm tackling "Frog Galliard" first, and this one I'm practicing up while I transcribe it (although I'll play through all of them to make sure they work, I'll only practice up the best ones - there are 61 pieces in the MS!).  Here's David Taylor playing it on the archlute:



I'm so pleased with this music so far - it's so much fun to play!  I think this collection of transcriptions, if it keeps going well, could be a valuable contribution to the small-harp repretoire out there.  There's not much out there for small harps (particularly without levers), and what there is frankly is not that technically challenging.  The songs in the Folger MS range from fairly simple to blisteringly difficult with many many levels in between.  And there's a duet!  This will give more advanced players something to keep them interested, beginning players something to work through as they progress and damnit, it'll show the world that serious classical music can be played on the small harp!  It was in period!  Why the hell aren't we doing it anymore???

Early Music Cage Fight: Sephardic v Celtic! FIGHT!!!

A friend of mine here in Northshield, Mistress Eliane Halevy, wrote an absolutely gorgeous song based on a Sephardic tune.  It's called "Three Words" (link leads to a YouTube link of her performing it).  Normally, she gets a drummer in the audience (or the entire audience) to accompany her with a simple beat, and sings it otherwise unaccompanied.  In my arrangement, I'm drumming on the sound box of my harp with my right hand and playing the strings with my left hand.  It's taking some getting used to (not a drummer!), but I looooooove iiiiiiiit!  Specifically, I'm completely carried away with texture and gorgeous, unusual scale the melody's written in (and, of course, being carried away by Eliane's words was what got me started on this project in the first place).

SO!  I was having a great time drumming along with myself.  "Hm," I thought.  "Drums are cool.  We have a bodhran here.  Hm."  Although bodhrans are a common sight at SCA events, I've suspected for a while that they might be just another "neo-Celtic" thing that people figure must be ancient for no better reason than "it's Irish, isn't it?  And the druids were ancient, so there ya go!"  Couldn't find much that traced it back any further than its being popularized in the '60s.  Yeah.

Then I found this really cool article on the etymology of the word "bodhran" that's made me think, "Alright, we'll never know details for sure, but there was definitely some bodhran-drum-thing in period, and....HOLY CRAP THE HISTORY OF CELTIC MUSIC IS TOTALLY COOL!!!"

So.  Who will be the next to wrest Isolde's attentions away from the troubadours?  The ancient Sephardic Jews or the ancient Celtic probably-not-druids?  FIGHT!!!

War: what is it good for?

Payin' the bills and not much else, if the Landsknechte are to be believed.

Wolfgang Roth's album "Early German Ballads," available through the Smithsonian Folkways label, includes several Landsknecht songs, in addition to other songs from the German Peasants' Revolt of 1524-1526.  They're not what you'd expect from a stone-cold mercenary singing about war - no guts and glory here, no reveling in violence, but a sense of profound weariness.  Here's an example from the CD:  "Lied Alter Landsknechte."

 Wir alten Soeldner von der hohen Wart'
Wir hab'n all ein eisgrauen Bart
Wir alten Soeldner sind mied und matt
Und haben schon lang' das Kriegsspiele satt.
     Ein eisgrauer Bart
     Ein Panzer von Erz
     Doch tief in der Brust
     Ein blutendes Herz.
     Jung Volk nemm acht
     Dass man Euch nit zu Landsknecte macht.
Uns alte Soeldner von der hohen Wart
Uns blieb im Leben kein Sturmwind spart
Uns alten Soeldner war nit Guts beschert
Als zu kaempfen und streitten mit nem blanken Schwart.
     Ein eisgrauer Bart...

The liner notes, available as a free download, contain the full translation.  But just to give you an idea, here's the chorus:
An iron-gray beard,
Armor of metal,
But deep in the breast
A bleeding heart.
Young folks, take heed
That they don't make a Landsknecht out of you.

I like this because it's a very honest, realistic look at war, and one we tend not to emulate in the SCA.  We in the society like to glorify our sport, and we should - it's fun, and there's clearly precedent.  There are lots of songs from period that talk about the glory of battle, the visceral joy of violence.  It's easy to lose track, though, of the fact that when these people fell in battle, they didn't get back up afterward and go drink with their buddies in the Green Dragon.  Marching off to war means so much more under those circumstances, as some of our members know all too well.

So inspired in part by these war-weary Landsknecht songs and the story of the German Peasants' Revolt, I'm working on a song that deals with a simple peasant's reasons for going to war.  What makes war worth it to an untrained foot soldier, with no delusions of grandeur and only a vague sense of national identity, if any?

It's a motet, unfortunately.  I say unfortunately because I was inspired by an excellent polyphonic-type piece at Bardic Madness, and it stuck in spite of the fact that I don't know any motets from period that deal with these themes.  Also my motet sounds a whole lot more like Les Mis than Machaut, but what are you gonna do?  It's my first crack at polyphony.  I'm learning lots, and my next motet will sound a lot more accurate for having written this one.

Resource for Elizabethan Songs, and a fledgling bardic wiki

I just stumbled across this website, and I'm oh so glad I did!  Magic Music is a compendium of 30 Elizabethan songs with words, melodies and documentation.  Each song is documented to a primary source prior to 1600 - so you can sing these in the SCA with abandon and not worry about the authenticity snob lurking around the corner (or in your brain...if you're me).  And, if you resemble me in that respect, you'll have a great time nosing through the hefty bibliography that's included.  Big, big props to Courtney Allen Powers for putting this together!

Right, so I wouldn't have found that site if I hadn't first found this site:  A Circle of Bards.  This site is just getting off the ground, but as you can see, it's already quite useful!  It's meant to be an online compendium of SCA bardic works.  Right, there are already plenty of those, many of which are linked from the site's bardic resources page.  But I think this page has the potential to go beyond what's already out there.  The wiki format will make it possible for the song collection to be more diverse and exhaustive than other individual collections that I know of (and it's searchable!), and the forum and calendar could lead this site to be a bardic hub of sorts.  I really hope it takes off.  Big, big props to Master Niall Dolphin for putting this one together!

Period Songs: Where to Find Them, How to Write Them

Here's the handout to the class I taught at Bardic Madness XX.  I finally got around to adding some footnotes!  :-)

To see the handout, download this here PDF.  If you find anything confusing, or would just like to geek out, email me!

I AM ISOLDE! RESEARCH GODDESS!!! RAWR!!!

There are two songs who's melodies I particularly wanted to take a look at - "Lai Non Par" and "Lai Markiol."  So I trot my happy self down to the library to get a copy of Hendrik van der Werf's Extant Troubadour Melodies, the seminal collection of, you guessed it, extant troubadour melodies.  Checked out.  Blast.

Far from daunted, I figured the only other person likely to have it checked out was the professor in charge of the Early Music Ensemble, and that I'd beg it off of him for a few days at rehearsal.  So I get to rehearsal, and before I can even broach the subject, he tells me about this great book he has, and would I like to borrow it.  HELL YES I'D LIKE TO BORROW IT, THANK YOU!!!  I giddily drag it home on the bus (it's rather large), eagerly crack it open, and...not there.  Blast.

Utterly betrayed by van der Werf, I turn to the internet where I find generous fragments of the melodies, which thank you I already have in books and I want THE WHOLE THING!!!  But I do find some helpful footnotes...

To make a long story short, I spent this afternoon tearing through books in three languages (one of which I actually speak) and eventually find one book devoted to both songs, containing transcribed melodies in all their complete, stemless glory.  Deux lais en langue mixte, by Dominique Billy.  Yes, I did a geeky little end-zone dance there in the stacks which may or may not have involved antlers.  No, I do not speak French, so Billy's no doubt brilliant analysis and commentary will be utterly lost on me.  Fortunately, however, dots on a page transcend the petty constraints of national dialect.

VICTORY IS MINE!!!