From: yarrowp@mscd.edu
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 11:18:43 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: re: minstrel: Bardic, Period, Etc.
To: Lily Rose <lilyrose@mail.sjcsf.edu>
Cc: minstrel@pbm.com
Reply-To: yarrowp@mscd.edu
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>from Viviana:

(less some snippy snips)

>But the folks in period did not give a rat's ass about documentation,
>authenticity, whatever.  They were too hungry, too cold, and too bored to
>care if the food, the clothing, or the song came with a five page research
>paper.  

Oh, yes.  We all know that *everyone* in period was poor and starving.

>This emphasis on documentation and authenticity is UTTERLY out of
>period. 

Which explains why the Welsh harpers attending the eisteddfodau were 
required to learn the 24 measures of music, and had to demonstrate them 
before advancing in rank.  And certainly explains why Robert ap Huw copied 
Wiliam Penllyn's notebook word for word and symbol for symbol, including 
the 24 clymmau citgerdd.  He couldn't possibly have had an interest in 
preserving, unchanged, a long-standing tradition of bardic performance.

(snip)

>Nor do I think that
>"competitions" should be the primary venue for the performing arts. 

I don't think anyone said they *should* be.

>Sure, there are wonderful period songs and period stories around -- lots
>of them.  And it enhances the experience to hear them.  But we are
>recreating medieval LIFE here.  Documentation and research papers belong
>firmly on the fringes. 

Along with Boethius, Hildegard of Bingen, Anonymous IV, Jacob of Limoges, 
Glareanus, and all those other writers of treatises on how music should be 
and has been performed, along with explanations about how the "ancients" or 
previous generations approached the same problems?

>Lady Viviana Rowe			lilyrose@mail.sjcsf.edu
>Barony of al-Barran, Kingdom of the Outlands

Mistress Vivien o Caer Blaiddiau
Barony of Caerthe, also Kingdom of the Outlands


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