[Bards] I need knew songs
Michael Silverhands
silverhands at sbcglobal.net
Tue Dec 12 11:33:05 PST 2006
On Dec 12, 2006, at 1:19 PM, SuTillery at comcast.net wrote:
> Along the same lines, what is the best way to pick up a more
> medieval sound. Most of what I know is childe ballads set to
> probably 18th and 19th century tunes. Good sources for northern
> England would be lovely.
>
> AEla
Not to be facetious, but the best way I can think of would be to
learn some songs documented from the Medieval period, in the original
Medieval language, from someone who has researched the style that
would be "correct" for that time, place and type of song. Learning
modern songs (and by "modern" I mean anything post-period) and trying
to "filk" them to a "period-ish" style or sound can be done, but why
go that route when there are actual period songs available?
For example: the Cantigas de Santa Maria[1], in 13th c. Galician[2],
is one of the earliest collections of monophonic (solo) songs from
that period. There are numerous sources for these works on the web,
and several great recordings to learn from are available. Here's a
web site with lots of info, including a link to a page with MIDI
versions of many of the cantigas: <http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/
cantigas/>.
Or just try to catch Istanpitta (a professional ensemble headed by
Master Avatar) when they're performing the cantigas in concert. :-)
Michael
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantigas_de_Santa_Maria>
[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galician_language>
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