On Friday, February 6th, 2015, I was sitting in class listening to a Music History lecture, when my teacher, Dr. Jamie Weaver, played a recording of “La Quarte Estampie Royal”, from Le Manuscrit Du Roi, an instrumental piece from the 14th century France. I was intrigued. As a fiddler throughout my high school year, studying a variety of genres, I recognized much of the ornamentation as similar to Celtic tradition, namely Cape Breton tradition.
The first things I noticed about the recording were: 1) The piece was played on an instrument that had a rather tinny sound and drone notes. 2) The piece was performed with a large amount of ornamentation. 3)The piece was written in 3/4, and felt in 1 because of the accents and percussion part.
I began …show more content…
I observed, based on the rhythms and form of the piece, that this piece was intended for social dancing. I also recognized the word “Estampie” as a form of dance I once heard at a Cape Breton concert I attended. Therefore, I placed the accents and ornamentation carefully to allow for a clear articulation of the desired rhythm. At this point, I began enjoying the music and just playing it how it seemed to flow. I purposefully stopped analyzing and allowed the music to be what it was intended to be - an early form of entertainment meant for enjoyment. As I played the piece, I considered the musicians who would have originally performed the piece and the oral tradition it would have been passed down through. I noted the refrains that appear regularly and supposed that the original musicians would have probably improvised the “verses” and played a common refrain together. I imagined the instrumentalists showing off to each other when it was their turn to solo, just as my friends and I do when we play music for fun. In order to imitate this group style of playing, I decided to drone the “improvised” verses to the upper string and the “group” refrains to the lower string. I also considered that each group would have put their own style on it, depending on the musicians and their background. I considered that, similar to Appalachian music, also in the oral tradition, that it was most likely traced through …show more content…
Although the piece would have most likely been performed by a group, there was just one of me. I had created a form of accompaniment by using drone strings, but it was still just one instrument. Therefore, I started looking through my collection of modern instruments to find instruments that could be adapted to sound like medieval instruments, and pulled out Garage Band and started recording.
I first chose to pull in percussion, like in the recording. I picked an Bodhran - a single-headed frame drum with Irish origins and played with either the hand or a small stick called the “tipper” or “cipin”. For my class performance, I had a friend play along. I purposefully just told them that it was “a dance in 3” and allowed them to experiment with the rhythms they felt went along with the piece. For the recording, I played a simple 3 beat pattern.
The next instrument I added was a mountain dulcimer. An appalachian instrument, the mountain dulcimer is simply a box with a fretboard and 3-4 strings. I recorded two tracks. The first was a percussion track, where I copied the rhythm of the drum on the open strings, using an old saxophone reed like a pick to give a dull sound. The second track was a chorded part, where I simply played a slow strum on each of the chord
The first things I noticed about the recording were: 1) The piece was played on an instrument that had a rather tinny sound and drone notes. 2) The piece was performed with a large amount of ornamentation. 3)The piece was written in 3/4, and felt in 1 because of the accents and percussion part.
I began …show more content…
I observed, based on the rhythms and form of the piece, that this piece was intended for social dancing. I also recognized the word “Estampie” as a form of dance I once heard at a Cape Breton concert I attended. Therefore, I placed the accents and ornamentation carefully to allow for a clear articulation of the desired rhythm. At this point, I began enjoying the music and just playing it how it seemed to flow. I purposefully stopped analyzing and allowed the music to be what it was intended to be - an early form of entertainment meant for enjoyment. As I played the piece, I considered the musicians who would have originally performed the piece and the oral tradition it would have been passed down through. I noted the refrains that appear regularly and supposed that the original musicians would have probably improvised the “verses” and played a common refrain together. I imagined the instrumentalists showing off to each other when it was their turn to solo, just as my friends and I do when we play music for fun. In order to imitate this group style of playing, I decided to drone the “improvised” verses to the upper string and the “group” refrains to the lower string. I also considered that each group would have put their own style on it, depending on the musicians and their background. I considered that, similar to Appalachian music, also in the oral tradition, that it was most likely traced through …show more content…
Although the piece would have most likely been performed by a group, there was just one of me. I had created a form of accompaniment by using drone strings, but it was still just one instrument. Therefore, I started looking through my collection of modern instruments to find instruments that could be adapted to sound like medieval instruments, and pulled out Garage Band and started recording.
I first chose to pull in percussion, like in the recording. I picked an Bodhran - a single-headed frame drum with Irish origins and played with either the hand or a small stick called the “tipper” or “cipin”. For my class performance, I had a friend play along. I purposefully just told them that it was “a dance in 3” and allowed them to experiment with the rhythms they felt went along with the piece. For the recording, I played a simple 3 beat pattern.
The next instrument I added was a mountain dulcimer. An appalachian instrument, the mountain dulcimer is simply a box with a fretboard and 3-4 strings. I recorded two tracks. The first was a percussion track, where I copied the rhythm of the drum on the open strings, using an old saxophone reed like a pick to give a dull sound. The second track was a chorded part, where I simply played a slow strum on each of the chord