SCA music stuff
Oct. 23rd, 2001 09:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioOur local SCA group has traditionally hosted an event dedicated to music and dance every couple of years, give or take. The day consists of several tracks of classes and, generally, two balls. (The first is modelled on what we know of real balls in the 16th century, which are more performance than social dancing. The second is the typical SCA social dance. Both are lots of fun; they are very different.)
It's been more than two years since we did the last one of these, so people are starting to drop not-so-subtle hints, like walking up to the usual suspects and asking what the date of the next one is. So Ts'vee'a is in the process of organizing something, and she hit me up to help organize the classes. This makes sense; I do have a laurel (the SCA's highest arts award) for music, after all. :-)
This got me thinking about a class I tried to teach a few years ago, at Pennsic, that I think was a failure. Pennsic is a multi-day event, so it's the perfect place to schedule something that's going to take 4 or 5 hours. (In a one-day event, you won't get takers.) I did a composition workshop, modelled on writers' workshops: you send in your piece in advance, along with whatever notes you have about the style you were trying to do and stuff like that, and everyone gets everyone else's submissions and we all get together to discuss. Sounds fun, but I only got two takers and they weren't very talkative. It turned into individual tutoring, sort of. I felt pretty unhappy about it. It takes me a while to psych myself up to do any sort of presentation (other than music performance) in front of groups of people who aren't already close friends, and when something like that happens I can just feel my self-esteem getting crushed that much more.
The topic came up last night, and someone suggested an alternative approach: do a shorter class (an hour?), bring a piece (or part of a piece) to arrange, and, as a group, develop it. e.g.: What shape of bass line does this melody imply? Now what would you do with the inner parts? Ok, that's a functional alto line, but what would you do to make it more interesting to sing? And so on.
I wonder how well this would work. I wonder if I can be clever enough to choose (or create) a piece, or snippet of a piece, that will trigger the most common problems in composition/arrangement.
Fortunately, I've got a while to figure out if I can do this; the event hasn't even been approved yet, and we're currently shooting for late April.
It's been more than two years since we did the last one of these, so people are starting to drop not-so-subtle hints, like walking up to the usual suspects and asking what the date of the next one is. So Ts'vee'a is in the process of organizing something, and she hit me up to help organize the classes. This makes sense; I do have a laurel (the SCA's highest arts award) for music, after all. :-)
This got me thinking about a class I tried to teach a few years ago, at Pennsic, that I think was a failure. Pennsic is a multi-day event, so it's the perfect place to schedule something that's going to take 4 or 5 hours. (In a one-day event, you won't get takers.) I did a composition workshop, modelled on writers' workshops: you send in your piece in advance, along with whatever notes you have about the style you were trying to do and stuff like that, and everyone gets everyone else's submissions and we all get together to discuss. Sounds fun, but I only got two takers and they weren't very talkative. It turned into individual tutoring, sort of. I felt pretty unhappy about it. It takes me a while to psych myself up to do any sort of presentation (other than music performance) in front of groups of people who aren't already close friends, and when something like that happens I can just feel my self-esteem getting crushed that much more.
The topic came up last night, and someone suggested an alternative approach: do a shorter class (an hour?), bring a piece (or part of a piece) to arrange, and, as a group, develop it. e.g.: What shape of bass line does this melody imply? Now what would you do with the inner parts? Ok, that's a functional alto line, but what would you do to make it more interesting to sing? And so on.
I wonder how well this would work. I wonder if I can be clever enough to choose (or create) a piece, or snippet of a piece, that will trigger the most common problems in composition/arrangement.
Fortunately, I've got a while to figure out if I can do this; the event hasn't even been approved yet, and we're currently shooting for late April.
(no subject)
Date: 2001-10-24 11:06 am (UTC)I guess the class would have to begin with a high-level overview of the rules and aesthetic of the style. I've done that as a one-hour class; I wonder if I can boil it down to 10 minutes. Maybe I should just teach both classes back to back. There's a logistics problem, though; the class involved recorded examples, and I find I'm now reluctant to drive a boom box on Shabbat. Maybe I need a shabbos goy for the class. :-) (I actually ahven't answered the stereo-on-Shabbat question for myself; I've simply avoided it thus far. On the other hand, I let people stick microphones in front of me on Shabbat, and maybe that's not that different. Hmm.)