Then if you play Renaissance HG in a renaissance context, why are you playing a piece of music, loosely based on a 13th century piece found in a Manuscript from Alonso the Xth reign in Spain, which I doubt very much was accessible to street musicians in the 15th century.
anyways, I think that there we cannot know in any way, what street musicians played. We know what court musicians played in the Renaissance, based on the manuscripts and publications ( printed music came out with Gutenberg's printing method, and the first published lute tablatures were in 1508), but to say that medieval and renaissance street musicians played what had been written or published is a far fetched. Rather composers often based their music on popular tunes from the oral tradition In any case my initial comment was not so much an attack on the style of music, but rather on how poorly played the instruments were and how unmusical the piece was with that interpretation. Furthermore these Renaissance and medieval are of nothing more than just a big bash, with no educational value whatsoever. I do not pretend to be a great musician, nor to be authentic, but I don't go around parading on youtube either. ( can't wait to see the replies on my comments :-) Bruno Cognyl-Fournier www.estavel.org On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 6:40 PM, bighatlady <[email protected]> wrote: > Well, in addition to my sarcastic first comment - I do want to say > thanks to all who complimented the performance. I do not for one > minute aspire to set myself up as a professional HG player and I'm > usually the best HG player at the faire by virtue of being the only > one. For purists, I do play a renaissance style HG - and it is a > renaissance faire (minus all the elves, storm troopers and vampires of > course). > I do aspire to play authentic music and since I am aware of no "one > way" in which 500 year old songs must be arranged, we take liberties > to arrange the songs in the ways that we think will best entertain our > audience. We are goofy, stupid and very slapstick. I'm curious why > some people think that human nature has changed so very much over > time. You only need to read Shakespeare or Chaucer to know that a > good brawl, love scene or smutty comment keeps people entertained. > There are so many miniatures of minstrels, dancing, skipping and even > bashing each other over the head with their instruments - that to > believe that only authentic music is serious music is pure nonsense. > I often wonder - what did the street minstrels do? those not paid > by the court, untutored in reading music with less than perfect > instruments- how did they keep body and soul together? I think they > did what street musicians do today - kept it loud and lively. I'm a > classically trained musician and I've done the chamber music stuff but > I really feel the most kinship with the past when playing at a faire. > If I can make my rather "plebian" audience clap and dance to a 500 > year old tune, I think perhaps I've captured something essential of > the tune - more so than by reading any arrangement that's been written > down since. > Oh yes - although I don't show any more cleavage - the Friar does > hoist his tunic and do a little knock-kneed dance for a different > number we do. If any of you faire performers are ever in > Massachusetts, feel free to look me up - we love to have guest > performers... > > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "hurdygurdy" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<hurdygurdy%[email protected]> > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy > > The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at > http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from > new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "hurdygurdy" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/hurdygurdy The rules of posting, courtesy, and other list information may be found at http://hurdygurdy.com/mailinglist/index.htm. To reduce spam, posts from new subscribers are held pending approval by the webmaster.
