A Fair in the Spring
Last Saturday we went to Columbus to visit Felice and Michel and to help provide music for the ball at the Marche of Tirnewydd's Spring Faire, formerly known as Elizabethan Faire. It was a lightly attended event--apparently there were a couple of major events the previous weekend--but there was a pretty decent turnout for the ball.
The band consisted of a me on recorders and keyboard (mostly recorders) and aelkiss on cittern and mandolin (mostly cittern), a violinist, a bassist, a guitarist (who only played on a few pieces) and a drummer. Later on in the evening another violinist, Her Excellency Isabeau of the Middle Marges, and a violist joined us. We'd played with everyone except for the late-joining violinist and violist before at red-dragon last October, and the violinist came to Terp this year and played with us on violin during the first set and played the bodhran the rest of the time. They've all improved immensely since October.
Still, there were challenges. Things like maintaining a steady beat, staying together, not slowing down, intonation... all things you expect, really, in new-ish musicians. Sometimes that kind of thing bothers me, but here it doesn't. I think it's because with these musicians I can do something to try to help... while at an event like say Crystal Ball, such a thing would be inappropriate. It also helps that the musicians and dancers at Tirnewydd are soo appreciative of us being there. It's probably more appreciation than we deserve, but it is really nice and it certainly makes us want to come back for Red Dragon.
Before court I learned about the Kamancheh. Isabeau brought her two kamanchehs with her and did a demonstration for us. I'll admit, before she played I was a little dubious. There are a lot of people who gush over their expensive, eccentric period instrument and can't play anything on it. But she played it very well, and it was really cool to hear. It sounded a bit like a viel.
There was also a tour of the Byzantine Catholic Church where the event is held. Actually that's not quite an accurate statement. The event is held on the grounds and in their fellowship hall, not in the actual church. Also tour is an overstatement. It was more of a Q&A with the priest. Still it was pretty neat. I learned that the Byzantine Catholic Church is under the pope, but their practices are very Eastern Orthodox. I also learned that their liturgy is completely sung and there's a big thing about teaching the new members the chants. Hearing that and seeing the saints and hearing about their rich history made me all nostalgic for Catholicism. But then he got to talking about the resurrection, and I started thinking decidedly heretical thoughts, and well... it's hard to be an official Christian if you don't believe the resurrection is important. Alas.
After the event aelkiss and I sang shanties while people were mopping. (Felice had said something about wanting to leave the building in better condition than they found it this morning. I think that's an excellent attitude. I'm not sure if Cynnabar has that tradition. We certainly try to do enough or maybe a bit more than enough, but I'm not sure we scrub the sinks, wash the toilets, and mop the floors before we leave event sites...) Some people liked the singing. One kinda sorta made fun of us... although I don't think it was intended to be hurtful. Others were probably indifferent. I like me my communal singing, and the Morris sponsored pubsing hasn't happened at all this year. :(
Speaking of communal singing... at the after party there was more singing. Yay! Most of it was traditional stuff, a fair amount was standard ren-fest repertoire (most of which I'm tired of, but that's alright), and eventually we degenerated into Jonathan Coulton and Da Vinci's notebook and They Might be Giants. As far as dengenerateness goes that's fine by me.
However, something not so awesome happened during Re: Your Brains that's worth mentioning. Lots of people knew some of the words to thing song. I think me and maybe Aaron were the only people who could sing it on pitch, but I didn't know it quite well enough to take hold of the song and lots of people were trying to "help". So it was a mass of people singing (yay) a song about zombies (yay) but not anywhere near something like on pitch (not so yay.) Apparently our lack of musical quality offended someone and the person told us to stop singing. (That's a nice way of putting it.)
Looking back, there are several interesting things to note about this incident. For one, it's kind of amusing that the freak out was over a song about zombies, who, let's face it, aren't exactly known for the impeccable singing abilities. Second, it honestly didn't bother me that much. I've had this kind of thing happen before where I meet people who don't value singing (no matter the quality) the way I do. In the past it really hurt. Now it slides off, which is good. Although if I think about it I can't help feeling a bit cynical.
Speaking of singing, I'm still sooo not happy with my singing voice.... and I know I'm doing something wrong since my voice usually hurts after performance singing. I sang my pieces relatively on pitch though, so that's happy. :)
All in all the singing was fun and there were some really awesome moments where me, Felice, the bassist from the dance band, and aelkiss sang shanties accompanied by aelkiss on the drum. Definitely my favorite times were when drum was the only accompaniment. So cool.
And I learned about Western Spoon Fighting. If ermenrich or charles_midair ever have the opportunity to learn about Western Spoon Fighting, I highly recommend that they take that opportunity. Bringing it back to Cynnabar would be a great benefit. Just sayin...
On the way back, as often happens, aelkiss and I dream up things we want to see happen in the SCA music world. There are ideas. It will be awesome. I will talk about things when the dreams are more solidified.
Whee! Yay musics!
The band consisted of a me on recorders and keyboard (mostly recorders) and aelkiss on cittern and mandolin (mostly cittern), a violinist, a bassist, a guitarist (who only played on a few pieces) and a drummer. Later on in the evening another violinist, Her Excellency Isabeau of the Middle Marges, and a violist joined us. We'd played with everyone except for the late-joining violinist and violist before at red-dragon last October, and the violinist came to Terp this year and played with us on violin during the first set and played the bodhran the rest of the time. They've all improved immensely since October.
Still, there were challenges. Things like maintaining a steady beat, staying together, not slowing down, intonation... all things you expect, really, in new-ish musicians. Sometimes that kind of thing bothers me, but here it doesn't. I think it's because with these musicians I can do something to try to help... while at an event like say Crystal Ball, such a thing would be inappropriate. It also helps that the musicians and dancers at Tirnewydd are soo appreciative of us being there. It's probably more appreciation than we deserve, but it is really nice and it certainly makes us want to come back for Red Dragon.
Before court I learned about the Kamancheh. Isabeau brought her two kamanchehs with her and did a demonstration for us. I'll admit, before she played I was a little dubious. There are a lot of people who gush over their expensive, eccentric period instrument and can't play anything on it. But she played it very well, and it was really cool to hear. It sounded a bit like a viel.
There was also a tour of the Byzantine Catholic Church where the event is held. Actually that's not quite an accurate statement. The event is held on the grounds and in their fellowship hall, not in the actual church. Also tour is an overstatement. It was more of a Q&A with the priest. Still it was pretty neat. I learned that the Byzantine Catholic Church is under the pope, but their practices are very Eastern Orthodox. I also learned that their liturgy is completely sung and there's a big thing about teaching the new members the chants. Hearing that and seeing the saints and hearing about their rich history made me all nostalgic for Catholicism. But then he got to talking about the resurrection, and I started thinking decidedly heretical thoughts, and well... it's hard to be an official Christian if you don't believe the resurrection is important. Alas.
After the event aelkiss and I sang shanties while people were mopping. (Felice had said something about wanting to leave the building in better condition than they found it this morning. I think that's an excellent attitude. I'm not sure if Cynnabar has that tradition. We certainly try to do enough or maybe a bit more than enough, but I'm not sure we scrub the sinks, wash the toilets, and mop the floors before we leave event sites...) Some people liked the singing. One kinda sorta made fun of us... although I don't think it was intended to be hurtful. Others were probably indifferent. I like me my communal singing, and the Morris sponsored pubsing hasn't happened at all this year. :(
Speaking of communal singing... at the after party there was more singing. Yay! Most of it was traditional stuff, a fair amount was standard ren-fest repertoire (most of which I'm tired of, but that's alright), and eventually we degenerated into Jonathan Coulton and Da Vinci's notebook and They Might be Giants. As far as dengenerateness goes that's fine by me.
However, something not so awesome happened during Re: Your Brains that's worth mentioning. Lots of people knew some of the words to thing song. I think me and maybe Aaron were the only people who could sing it on pitch, but I didn't know it quite well enough to take hold of the song and lots of people were trying to "help". So it was a mass of people singing (yay) a song about zombies (yay) but not anywhere near something like on pitch (not so yay.) Apparently our lack of musical quality offended someone and the person told us to stop singing. (That's a nice way of putting it.)
Looking back, there are several interesting things to note about this incident. For one, it's kind of amusing that the freak out was over a song about zombies, who, let's face it, aren't exactly known for the impeccable singing abilities. Second, it honestly didn't bother me that much. I've had this kind of thing happen before where I meet people who don't value singing (no matter the quality) the way I do. In the past it really hurt. Now it slides off, which is good. Although if I think about it I can't help feeling a bit cynical.
Speaking of singing, I'm still sooo not happy with my singing voice.... and I know I'm doing something wrong since my voice usually hurts after performance singing. I sang my pieces relatively on pitch though, so that's happy. :)
All in all the singing was fun and there were some really awesome moments where me, Felice, the bassist from the dance band, and aelkiss sang shanties accompanied by aelkiss on the drum. Definitely my favorite times were when drum was the only accompaniment. So cool.
And I learned about Western Spoon Fighting. If ermenrich or charles_midair ever have the opportunity to learn about Western Spoon Fighting, I highly recommend that they take that opportunity. Bringing it back to Cynnabar would be a great benefit. Just sayin...
On the way back, as often happens, aelkiss and I dream up things we want to see happen in the SCA music world. There are ideas. It will be awesome. I will talk about things when the dreams are more solidified.
Whee! Yay musics!