writing music

[cellio]

An SCA friend wrote a poem that I decided to try to set to music, because we'd like to perform it at Darkover at the end of November. My partial draft went over well at the last practice, so I just sent out my first complete draft.

I decided to start by seeing if there was a period-appropriate melody that I could adapt. I went looking for Troubador/Trouvere melodies, but on the way I bumped into a (German) minnesang that worked pretty well as a base. The first section is almost a straight copy of the minnesang -- just a little tweaking to fit the text. The other two sections I wrote in what I hope is a compatable style, and then I wrote a simple bass line (that is, an instrumental line to go under the singer) using contemporary models. The original melody contained no Bs at all, leaving open the question of whether they would have been flat or natural if present. I've had my head in renaissance (and later) music too long; this should be obvious, I suspect, but I haven't been spending many cycles on medieval lately. Drat.

Writing/adapting this felt good! I wonder if it has broken the block that I've had for a long time with another text I've been wanting to set. For the longest time I just could not come up with a melody that fit both the period and mood of the text, but it's been a couple years since I tried so it's time to pull it out again. (No, author who might be reading this, I haven't forgotten.)

Comments

[madfilkentist]

I'd need to look at the piece, but the lack of B's and B-flats is probably itself a defining characteristic of the mode used. But I'm not particularly familiar with medieval music, especially non-church music.