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Rehearsal Blog: Elizabethan Music & Dance Festival

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Renaissance guitar, krummhorns, dulcien, and recorders

But will they play nice together?

Well, as promised, I will be blogging as we put together our season of shows for the OSF Green Show. First up:

Elizabethan music & dance!

We have three shows to cover, 2 featuring dance, and one featuring Elizabethan Ballads and instrumental music. Today, Pat O’Scannell and I are preparing for the arrival of our musical collaborators, Beltain. We will be blending into some ballads from the Beltain repertoire, and they will be learning a couple of things we know. In addition, we all share material from the Morris and Playford dancing traditions that we all learned through the oral process at the Renaissance Faires, long before either Pat or I came to OSF.

Beltain will be singing and strumming some big beefy blarges and other mandothangs, so Pat and I will be adding all of the other instrumental parts, on a variety of our favorite Renaissance instruments, including shawm, dulcien, krumhorns, tenor gamba, renaissance guitar and….what else…oh- recorders, whistles and percussion. I think that covers it. So where to begin?

Tuning.

And so we did. It did not go smoothly, but that’s why we start a week in advance. We began by bringing the tenor gamba up to A 440 Hz. Immediately, the high g string broke, taking several other strings out to sea with it. Forty five minutes later, the gamba and the guitar agreed for up to five minutes at a time.

This is progress. As, my friend Jon Winsett once said, ” The Renaissance in music would have only taken ten years, were it not for gut strings.” He is almost unbearably correct on this point.

Next came the woodwinds. Pat’s alto shawm likes to be a little sharp. Normally, I am very happy with that, but today the dulcien just would not come up. It was great in g minor, but very flat when we moved into d mnor. This has to do with this particular instrument’s idiosyncratic relationship to the tempered scale! Reed surgery was deemed necessary, but postponed until after lunch, followed by coffee and krummhorns. These were forcibly persuaded to agree with the shawm (more or less), and we called it a day!

Next time, we will play some music…

July 4th Weekend: Morris Dance Blowout

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Getting ready for the Renaissance Music and Dance Festival next weekend at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. July 1 & 3 we’ll feature a high energy Morris Dancing Blowout with the Pipe & Bowl Morris. On July 2, the band takes stage, with a concert of Elizabethan Ballads and instrumental flights of fancy, featuring virtuoso Pat O’Scannell with special guests Beltain.  See you there!

For more information about all my upcoming events at the Green Show, please visit my website. suecarney.com I’ll be blogging about my productions as we build them.

Ukulele Season

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New Mahalo Uke

The international Uke craze continues unabated. This week, there was a wonderful excuse give in to uke fever (more on that later), and purchase this small toy. I know- this Mahalo is a cheap knock off, and a connoisseur would not find anything exceptional (or perhaps even acceptable) here. But it cost $29.99 and it’s bright orange. Bright orange! Only the Clarke penny whistle offersShiny Mahalo Uke a lower cost per note played over the lifetime of the instrument, combined with anything as vivid as these colors. (Mahalo Soprano Uke also comes in bright blue, bright green and canary.)

Happy strumalumming!

Mahalo Uke Pegbox

Shiny Mahalo Uke Bridge

OSF Mockingbird Sessions

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Mockingbird Sessions: Washboarding is Fun!!!

One of the week’s more unusual assignments. Got a call to record some cues for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2011 production of To Kill a Mockingbird.

What made this unusual was the choice of implements- washboard and spoons! Has anyone out there ever heard me play either of these? Most assuredly not. Great opportunity to learn something totally new! Picked up the washboard (with 3 thimbles) at OSF, and got to work.

The mechanics of the washboard are a little different than most instruments. Firstly, the dominant stroke is upward. So the movement is toward yourself, unlike regular drums, where the stroke is aimed downward, and away from yourself. The brain eventually adjusts, but at first the usual reflexes must be defeated. The next little glitch is that the pickup stroke also contains the downbeat, so the next attack after the pickup is with the left hand, not the right. Since a lot of washboarding is based on drumming rudiments, this causes a lot of reversal of the usual strokes. Cool! What a brain massage.

Harper Lee's masterpiece is rich in thimbleism

All in all, a great session at James Abdo’s Brokenworks Productions, in Ashland, OR,with the guys from Milburn Bodeen Music and Sound Design. Can’t wait to hear how it all turns out.

Beatbox Renaissance Jam

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Adam Matta & Sue Carney Mashup

I was down on the bricks at OSF, and Ben Cobb introduced me to Adam Matta (of the Carolina Chocolate Drops), who was performing at the Green Show the next day. We hit it off right away, since we’re both into odd electronic instruments, Theremins, Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. But things got really interesting when Adam found out I was into early instruments. He immediately (and quite generously) invited me to join him onstage for an impromptu set combining his beats with my archaic axes! Since then, our collaboration has grown into something quite wonderful, Adam came out for a week last August to join me in my show, Shakespeare Evolution IV. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Green Show Collaboration Goes Viral with Over 1 Million Views

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Green Show audience member creates a YouTube hit using my CD.

Cute Kitten Videos! Doesn’t everyone have one? Thanks to YouTube’s Cur417, that means me too. While passing through Ashland, Cur’ took in the Green Show, purchased  the CD soundtrack, and went home to combine my “Scherzo” with some monstrously cute home vid footage of the family feline. I had no idea the creation existed, until one day receiving an email from a violinist in Estonia, asking for the  “kitten music” score. What could this possibly mean, but YouTube? I searched, found, and was amazed at how many people had viewed it, even then. Cheers and congrats, Cur 417! And many thanks.

Thanks also to the musicians who performed on the track: Robert Dubow-violin, Kathy Staller-bassoon, David Rogers-guitar, & Bruce McKern-string bass. And, of course, to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, who commissioned the music.