12th December 2016
Present:
Sympkyn of the Moor, hammered dulcimer
Katherine of Glastonbury, harp
Emrys Tudor, violin and viola
William de Cameron, tenor recorder
Elena Harper, rebec and harp
Yvonne Gywnn, various recorders and experimental harp ;)
Tunes played:
Tonight we learned the music for the Canary Dance (probably called Il Canario) by I'm Sorry I Have No Idea - no doubt there are many bits of music used to dance the Canary but I only know one so that's the one I taught everyone.
The rules for playing this music are simple - no dots allowed. We only ever play this by ear.
Surprisingly I didn't get lynched for this and everyone has so far dealt with it admirably :)
I'm hoping to apply this rule to more music in the future but for now this is a great start. At the core it's a simple enough little tune with a very basic chord structure backing, which means it is easy to freeform improvise around (the group as a whole hasn't hit that point yet but trust me, we will).
Then our set of:
- Washerwomans bransle
- Pinagay
- Scottish bransle
Not comfortable at full dance speed yet but getting more familiar each time we do them.
I understand there are a couple of other groups of bransles that are/can be traditionally played as a set, I've written down some that were suggested to me and will put together some ideas for next year.