Mini-vacation starts tomorrow

The Somerset Folk Harp Festival actually starts today, but I *am* saving leave for maternity leave. So I'll be attending tomorrow and Saturday.

My tentative schedule:
Friday:

Arranging Pipe and Fiddle Tunes for Harp: not so much because I want to arrange pipe and fiddle tunes, but because I expect the information on intros, bridging and arrangement may apply to other melody-only pieces, like medieval monophony. Otherwise, I'll take The Art of Relaxed Performing.

Wire Harp Master Class with Ann Heymann, the premier reconstructor of ancient wire technique. (There's a class on "Authentic-sounding medieval music" at the same time, but I'm afraid it will rehash a lot of what I already know about modes and simple interval accompaniment.)

Scandinavian Harp Ensemble, to explore the modern folk music of the descendants of the Vikings.

Saturday:
Improvising on early music melodies. It's medieval, it's improv, I'm there.

Wire Harp Fingerings: Bunting and ap Huw figures, another Heymann class. There's a historical harp show and tell at the same time, but again... I figure I know half the material, and am not in a position to make use of (read: buy another harp using) the other half.

Telyn Rawn: the horsehair harp, yet more Heymann. Gerald of Wales gives a singularly odd description of a Welsh harp made from horsehide and strung with horsehair, and most everyone has always thought Gerald just didn't know what he was talking about. Some folks actually tried building a harp as he described it, and this is a show and tell of the result. Way cool!

I attended my first Somerset back in... 2000?, and this is only my third. (They're expensive.) But I always come away with some new musical insights and a lot more excitement and energy. The follow-up can be... lacking (I have two or three books on Norwegian and Finnish music purchased in 2003 or so, largely untouched, and Ann Heymann's "Coupled Hands" technique book, read but not practiced...) but it's all good. I feel sometimes like I'm storing up nuts and, when the right season comes, I'll have the materials on-hand to do the work I'm finally ready to do.

Square One

I feel like I should be taking notes. About calligraphy.

I've been mostly focused on one general research topic for the past few years: medieval music. I've been branching out a bit into medieval poetry as well. Ah, let's call it medieval performance. And I've gotten pretty deep in, to the point where I can just glance around and see all the unanswered questions I have, all the different routes to furthering my knowledge.

That can make it hard to remember what it's like to get started in a new field.

I've got my two beginner's books on calligraphy and my felt-tipped pens. If I were to try an A&S entry right now, my documentation would be something like, "And this is Unical, as described by Duffin and used in (some manuscripts). I'm using a felt-tipped pen because I'm still learning; a metal nib dip pen would be better, and a quill would be most appropriate." And my references would be two books.

Because what more can there be, right? "This is a period handwriting style, I've duplicated it, therefore this is period."

Of course there's more. There's layout and design and decoration (or lack of same). There are materials used. There are thousands of manuscript pages one could look through to learn... who knows what? Variations on technique or style? Methods of correcting errors?

I'm sure there's even more. But, having just barely scratched the surface of this art, I don't know enough to know what questions to ask! Which, in its way, is a positive. First, the trip itself, the "journey to knowledge," is fun and exciting in its own right, and I look forward to it. But second, if I "knew everything," I'd feel compelled to try and do everything, and paralyze.

Apprentices were not plonked down, lectured until they were stuffed full of lore, and set to work making masterpieces. They were given simple tasks, with explicit guidelines. When they mastered those, they could move on, and on, to more complex tasks and to understanding why the guidelines were the way they were. I'm at this apprentice stage, or even a pre-apprentice stage in which I'm learning the most basic skills an apprentice would need to do useful grunt work. It seems appropriate that the scholarship reflects that level of artistic involvement.

Quote of the Day

"Of course, if you think Buddhist monks and musical vibrations are altering your water, you probably need a stiffer beverage in the first place."

- WaPo's Dana Milbank, discussing bottled water hearings on the Hill. Dude, if your name is two letters away from "Stupid," you might want to give careful consideration to the causes you champion.