Pennsic XLIV: Saturday, Peace Week
Sat Aug 1 07:36:05 EDT 2015
I must have forgotten to turn the Kindle off after I stopped the alarm yesterday. Its battery was dead when I checked it before I went to sleep last night. ☹ I hooked it up to the iSound battery and it was charged by 05:30 when I woke again.
At 05:30 I needed to pee. I was peeing a lot yesterday, with drinking extra water after donating blood. TMI: [But I hadn't been emptying the pee bottle in the tent every day, because it wasn't filling very fast. This morning it was too close to full to risk it, and] I had to hike up to the porta-potty. I'm not sure how much more sleep I got after that, but I was asleep again today when the alarm went off.
Saturday 17:40
I'm back fairly early from classes. I didn't have any classes with Erin today (other than KWC rehearsal).
When
Duration
Where
Name
Instructor
Description
09:00
1.0
A&S 8
Making Better T-Tunics
Baroness Aldermoureis Ventzke
Now that you have made your first t-tunic, learn some pointers for making the next one better.
10:00
2.0
Performing Arts Rehearsal Tent
Pennsic Choir: Open Rehearsal
Pennsic Performing Arts
This year's concert features songs of the early to mid-16th century in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Coronation of François I of France.
12:00
1.5
A&S 4
Viking Hiking
Mistress Marsi of Hadley
Hike like a Viking: a discussion of our own experimental archaeology using the equipment and technology available to Norse culture areas. We experiment by using the equipment and technology available to Norse cultures in the Viking Age. Our current primary area of exploration is in overland travel (i.e. hiking).
14:00
1.0
A&S 4
10th-Century Wilderness Survival
Sir Stefan Ulfkelsson
Covers basic items necessary to survive in most environments. Emphasis will be placed upon Norse and Norse-related cultures around the 10th century. The 10 areas of equipment with their Norse versions will be shown and discussed. This is an expansion of the experimental archaeology of the Viking Hiking class.
14:00
3.0
Performing Arts Tent
PA Afternoon Series: European Music Exhibition
Pennsic Performing Arts
Come and enjoy an afternoon of European music. Experience the history of composers and a variety of instruments and vocal music from the 11th-16th centuries. Bring your voices, instruments, and play along!
The tunic class was good, although I haven't made my first tunic yet, so some things were a bit beyond me.
The KWC continues to grow, and today we first worked on the S/A and T/B pieces. (AKA the women's and men's pieces, except we have some women singing tenor. ☺)
The 2 Viking classes (Hiking and Survival) were excellent. Experimental archeology is trying to do things or live as people would have at the time, based on what we have learned from surviving documents (not always accurate) and archeological findings (sometimes misleading). These are people who are making the equipment (i.e. everyday household items) and using it.
The European Music Exhibition was wide ranging (as is European music). Some performers were very good; some not so much. Some will be giving full concerts in the coming days. The Mass Project was represented, with 4 of us singing the Kyrie of the Missa de Angelis (chant) and the brief "et incarnatus" section of the Credo of Tomas Luis de Victoria's mass setting based on the motet O Magnum Mysterium. We were pretty rough, but that little snippet is really beautiful and some of that came through. In our defense, the Mass Project is very much not a performance group. (That was another 2 hours of possible classes lost, though, plus the half-hour gap in the Viking schedule.)
I'm told that in recent years Pennsic's music has increased from 2% to 10% of the classes.
After 13:30 there were dark clouds in the sky and it looked like it might rain. They cooled the day quite a bit, but did not bring rain.
Colleen is in camp now. I guess she didn't want to use the large spare tent, since her own tent is set up. That's not surprising; she has always made minimal demands on the the camp.
dglenn is the only one we're hoping will still arrive sometime soon. (Maybe DGlenn will use the spare tent, instead of going through the trouble of unpacking and setting up another. They're probably about the same amount of space, and the spare is on less of a slope.)
Saturday 20:08
I'm not getting any kind of a buzz from fuzzy navels made with this 42-proof schnapps. ☹
I had a look ahead through the next 2 days of class schedules. I start losing another hour tomorrow for Chorulus Pennsicus rehearsals. We have only 3 rehearsals and the dress rehearsal - and the dress rehearsal is our recording session, so things need to be sorted out and polished pretty quickly. But we are the select crew.
I've been going over the music before it gets dark. I'm not "off book" yet for the Chorulus music, but I should be able to go through the pieces at any reasonable speed with the notes correct and without tripping on words.
And I've looked more at the Pilgrimage Project music, much of which we're singing transposed. I think I've got all the tunes in my head now, which means I can sing them in other keys. There's still a lot of texts, and only a few are in Latin (Catalan and Gallacian Portugese are common in the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat), so I'm going to be stumbling a lot on the words. The "pilgrimage" is Tuesday afternoon. We're going to be singing these over and over as we rove the grounds, so I may know a lot of the words by the time we're done. And this is meant to be a continuing tradition (I think this is the 3rd year), gradually adding a few pieces each year, so I should be in good shape for it next year.
These pieces (the Cantigas of Santa Maria) are really fun. They've got interesting tonalities (modes) and rhythms and great tunes. I doubt that The Church expected atheists to be enjoying them 750 years later. ☺ We're going to end our trek with libations, which is probably not what the pilgrims were expected to do.
The blood-drive tokens look a lot like pilgrim badges. I've got 4 now, and I'm trying to figure out how to attach them to my hat. I've also got a favor from a royal personage years ago that would blend in with them. And I have a cloisonné Maltese cross I made last year; that seems appropriate for a pilgrim. I put it on the finger-loop braid I made yesterday.
Saturday 23:33
Dinner was at a more typical hour tonight, around 22:00. Matzo ball soup (chicken).
Sunday 00:43
It's chilly tonight, and I thought the shower tent might be cold. But we don't have running water tonight, so there will be no shower. ☹
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/756541.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
I must have forgotten to turn the Kindle off after I stopped the alarm yesterday. Its battery was dead when I checked it before I went to sleep last night. ☹ I hooked it up to the iSound battery and it was charged by 05:30 when I woke again.
At 05:30 I needed to pee. I was peeing a lot yesterday, with drinking extra water after donating blood. TMI: [But I hadn't been emptying the pee bottle in the tent every day, because it wasn't filling very fast. This morning it was too close to full to risk it, and] I had to hike up to the porta-potty. I'm not sure how much more sleep I got after that, but I was asleep again today when the alarm went off.
Saturday 17:40
I'm back fairly early from classes. I didn't have any classes with Erin today (other than KWC rehearsal).
When
Duration
Where
Name
Instructor
Description
09:00
1.0
A&S 8
Making Better T-Tunics
Baroness Aldermoureis Ventzke
Now that you have made your first t-tunic, learn some pointers for making the next one better.
10:00
2.0
Performing Arts Rehearsal Tent
Pennsic Choir: Open Rehearsal
Pennsic Performing Arts
This year's concert features songs of the early to mid-16th century in honor of the 500th anniversary of the Coronation of François I of France.
12:00
1.5
A&S 4
Viking Hiking
Mistress Marsi of Hadley
Hike like a Viking: a discussion of our own experimental archaeology using the equipment and technology available to Norse culture areas. We experiment by using the equipment and technology available to Norse cultures in the Viking Age. Our current primary area of exploration is in overland travel (i.e. hiking).
14:00
1.0
A&S 4
10th-Century Wilderness Survival
Sir Stefan Ulfkelsson
Covers basic items necessary to survive in most environments. Emphasis will be placed upon Norse and Norse-related cultures around the 10th century. The 10 areas of equipment with their Norse versions will be shown and discussed. This is an expansion of the experimental archaeology of the Viking Hiking class.
14:00
3.0
Performing Arts Tent
PA Afternoon Series: European Music Exhibition
Pennsic Performing Arts
Come and enjoy an afternoon of European music. Experience the history of composers and a variety of instruments and vocal music from the 11th-16th centuries. Bring your voices, instruments, and play along!
The tunic class was good, although I haven't made my first tunic yet, so some things were a bit beyond me.
The KWC continues to grow, and today we first worked on the S/A and T/B pieces. (AKA the women's and men's pieces, except we have some women singing tenor. ☺)
The 2 Viking classes (Hiking and Survival) were excellent. Experimental archeology is trying to do things or live as people would have at the time, based on what we have learned from surviving documents (not always accurate) and archeological findings (sometimes misleading). These are people who are making the equipment (i.e. everyday household items) and using it.
The European Music Exhibition was wide ranging (as is European music). Some performers were very good; some not so much. Some will be giving full concerts in the coming days. The Mass Project was represented, with 4 of us singing the Kyrie of the Missa de Angelis (chant) and the brief "et incarnatus" section of the Credo of Tomas Luis de Victoria's mass setting based on the motet O Magnum Mysterium. We were pretty rough, but that little snippet is really beautiful and some of that came through. In our defense, the Mass Project is very much not a performance group. (That was another 2 hours of possible classes lost, though, plus the half-hour gap in the Viking schedule.)
I'm told that in recent years Pennsic's music has increased from 2% to 10% of the classes.
After 13:30 there were dark clouds in the sky and it looked like it might rain. They cooled the day quite a bit, but did not bring rain.
Colleen is in camp now. I guess she didn't want to use the large spare tent, since her own tent is set up. That's not surprising; she has always made minimal demands on the the camp.
dglenn is the only one we're hoping will still arrive sometime soon. (Maybe DGlenn will use the spare tent, instead of going through the trouble of unpacking and setting up another. They're probably about the same amount of space, and the spare is on less of a slope.)
Saturday 20:08
I'm not getting any kind of a buzz from fuzzy navels made with this 42-proof schnapps. ☹
I had a look ahead through the next 2 days of class schedules. I start losing another hour tomorrow for Chorulus Pennsicus rehearsals. We have only 3 rehearsals and the dress rehearsal - and the dress rehearsal is our recording session, so things need to be sorted out and polished pretty quickly. But we are the select crew.
I've been going over the music before it gets dark. I'm not "off book" yet for the Chorulus music, but I should be able to go through the pieces at any reasonable speed with the notes correct and without tripping on words.
And I've looked more at the Pilgrimage Project music, much of which we're singing transposed. I think I've got all the tunes in my head now, which means I can sing them in other keys. There's still a lot of texts, and only a few are in Latin (Catalan and Gallacian Portugese are common in the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat), so I'm going to be stumbling a lot on the words. The "pilgrimage" is Tuesday afternoon. We're going to be singing these over and over as we rove the grounds, so I may know a lot of the words by the time we're done. And this is meant to be a continuing tradition (I think this is the 3rd year), gradually adding a few pieces each year, so I should be in good shape for it next year.
These pieces (the Cantigas of Santa Maria) are really fun. They've got interesting tonalities (modes) and rhythms and great tunes. I doubt that The Church expected atheists to be enjoying them 750 years later. ☺ We're going to end our trek with libations, which is probably not what the pilgrims were expected to do.
The blood-drive tokens look a lot like pilgrim badges. I've got 4 now, and I'm trying to figure out how to attach them to my hat. I've also got a favor from a royal personage years ago that would blend in with them. And I have a cloisonné Maltese cross I made last year; that seems appropriate for a pilgrim. I put it on the finger-loop braid I made yesterday.
Saturday 23:33
Dinner was at a more typical hour tonight, around 22:00. Matzo ball soup (chicken).
Sunday 00:43
It's chilly tonight, and I thought the shower tent might be cold. But we don't have running water tonight, so there will be no shower. ☹
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/756541.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]