And now for something different...

Hello Solfa Scholars!

One of the main bright spots in my week this semester is participating in an early music sight-reading group on Wednesday mornings. It's really fun! There's a group of five students and a faculty facilitator (who is quickly becoming one of my very favorite people), and we've been singing lots of super-cool early Renaissance pieces, causing me to feel newly inspired by and interested in this wonderful period in music history. So, I'd like to share some of this great stuff with all of you!

Rising Level 2's

For the first two days, look at Ottman 16.80. On day 1, work through the rhythm and locate the place where you will need to use a "fi"...isolate it and sing through it (hint: if you're having trouble singing that spot, switch to C-do for two measures or so....that "do'-ti-ti-la-do'" figure is highly characteristic of this era, and is called a Landini cadence...you may remember it from your music history classes). On day 2, sing through each voice part.

For the next two days, look at Ottman 20.25 and 20.26. Before you tackle these, look at the text under "Section 2: Composed music" to know what to do with the sharps above the staff...they do indicate that you should sing those pitches as sharps, so definitely do so. You may choose to sing mm. 5-6 of 20.25 in G-do, and 20.26 is easier than 20.25, so you may want to do it first.

Finally, choose any of these pieces and work through the rhythm. If you feel inspired, sing through them as well....notice the composer's name. Yup, you guessed it -- he's the guy with the cadence.

Rising Level 3's

Using this piece, accomplish the following tasks:

Read through one voice part per day for the first three days (the piece is essentially in 9/2, and I would advise alternating between D-la and A-la solfa, depending on what seems to work better on a phrase-by-phrase basis).

Then, analyze the verticalities created between the top voice and the middle voice one day, and the verticalities between the middle voice and bottom voice the next.

Finally, look for the vertical sonorities of all three voices. In particular, take note of the cadences -- how they are approached, and what sonorities indicated a feeling of "finishedness" at this time.

Rising Level 4's

Look at this fun little piece....and yes, this is about the guy with the arrows and tights.

First, keeping track of your tonal center (F/A-flat) will be the key to being able to deal with the accidentals in this piece (mostly fi and di), so look through each part and be able to find the F at the end of each phrase.

Next, learn one voice part a day on solfa for the next 3 days. Notice that there is some sharing and repetition of musical material...

Finally, sing through the parts on words (the bottom two parts are the same, word-wise, so do those two one day and the top voice another day). Ruh-roh! How did Mr. Cornysh do with his text accentuation? It's a leetle funky, no? Do vee seenk zees may be a French influence? And what the heck is a "lemman"? And, hmm...do we detect a poetic/musical form here? Extra points if you can derive it for me, and double extra points if you can tell me whether it is one of the formes fixes of this era.

Enjoy!