Vance and Ed, I had promised myself to stop commenting so often, but Vance's comments bring back a memory. I was trained musically by an old curmudgeon, the church choirmaster in the Episcopal church in a small town in New Jersey. I joined the choir at age 10 in 1945, not for the glory of God or the music but because we got fifty cents for each two hour rehearsal twice a week, and a dollar for the Sunday service. We actually travelled, not like the Westminster Boy Choir around the world, but we did get to travel New Jersey.
Rehearsals were all vocal exercises, with occasional work on an anthem. Skip Helms, his name, taught music to his choirboys. One thing he often said was "every instrument ever invented was an attempt to imitate the human voice", and that is the memory that Vance triggered with his comment on the perfect instrument. The other dictum was dynamics, which I mention in another message sent before this. He probably lied when he told us the story of being a young organist and told "the hymn was too slow", then the next week played the same tempo but with dynamics and was told "that's just right". But he made his point. Perhaps I'm too much oriented to those days, and that learning, but I yet hear all music - be it modern or ancient - in the framework of the sound and song that Skip taught several generations of choirboys. Sight reading was assumed, if you couldn't do it that was your problem. The sense of the music was our legacy from Skip. I leave Vance's message below intentionally, to retain the context. Notes can be made by plucking strings, music is another thing. Best, Jon > Dear Ed: > > You wrote: "I think the vocal model extends to purely instrumental > pieces in the Renaissance because vocal counterpoint is really the > basis of Ren music." Thank you for pointing that out, I had forgotten that > tasty little tid bit about early music. The voice was considered the most > perfect instrument and of course, in the development of human history, the > voice had to have been the first instrument of music. So you are correct, > the common corner stone of tempo and performance is rooted in the vocal > music that inspired the instrumental compositions or are directly related to > them. I had made the comparisons concerning The Earl of Essex Galliard > being played to fast, which as you know is also an ornamented version of > Dowland's Can She Excuse. I had forgotten to make that link in my opinion. > > Vance Wood.
