[Cynnabar] St. Cecilia at the Tower?

Wed Aug 17 22:30:59 UTC 2011

This is a very good question and one Aaron and I have thought quite a
bit about. I hope this doesn't come off as overly defensive...

1) The major reason for not just expanding Terp to include music is
this: overlap between musicians and dancers is huge. In our Barony
alone, the primary dancers are: Alina, Magda, Ermenrich, Kasha, Aaron,
Arin, and myself. Only Alina and Ermenrich aren't in the choir. In the
greater dance community it's a similar situation. Dancers are often
musicians, musicians (even more likely) are often dancers. I know of
several musician/dancers who I never see playing music because when
they go to dance events they're there to dance. Period. Lots of
dancers don't think that Aaron and I dance because they only see us
playing music. Terpsichore is one of the few events where we aren't
forced to choose between music and dancing, and it's really nice.

2) Even if I could fill 3 tracks of music classes at Terpsichore, our
site wouldn't be big enough.

3) We would probably have to have a truly open pit for the Terpsichore
ball***, and that would not be cool. One of the things Terp is known
for is the quality of Ritornello. The reason the band is as good as it
is is that we practice the music as a group for several months
beforehand. If we were billing Terpsichore as a Dance /and/ Music
event then the musicians that came for the music part of the workshop
would understandably want to play music during the evening
festivities. The reasonable thing to do would open the pit to the
attendees. As the organizer, I'd feel pressured to do so in any case.

Having been in many and directed a few open pits, the minute you open
it up the quality goes down for perfectly understandable reasons. A
few those reasons are: people's familiarity with music vary widely,
people's ability to take cues from the director vary widely, and
people's skill on their instrument vary widely. At Terpsichore this
first is really important. A lot of new or not-well-known
reconstructions of dances are done, so even for those of us who play a
lot, there are a good number of new dances for us to learn every year.

The other option would be to have separate things for the musicians to
do--similar to the Hafla for the Middle Eastern Dancers--but then
you're asking the members of Ritornello to choose between two great
options, and I think in the end the overall quality of everything
would be diminished: the band, the musician focused activities... and
quite frankly even the ball itself.

4) Dancers want their musicians to dance. The better the musicians
know the dances they play the better they can play the music for the
dancers. Tempting the musician/dancers away from dancing with shiny
music classes and musical activities does not improve the standard of
dance music playing in our Society.

5) Branding: Right now Terp is known as a Dance event. Changing that
image would take years. Plus, from experience with KWDMS, dance events
have a hard time supporting more than one music track. I went to just
about every music class at KWDMS this year. There were a lot of
musicians at that event, but only a handful of classes drew them away
from the many dance classes offered. More often than not
dancer/musicians choose dance classes over music classes at dance
events.

6) There really ought to be a separate music event in this kingdom.
The East has one. Once upon a time there was a Musicians Day in the
Middle Kingdom. There are at least 2 major dance events in the kingdom
and a variety of smaller events but not even one get together for
period musicians (There are some bardic events but these are not
primarily focused on period music.) In the mundane world of Early
Music and Dance there's a thriving series of Early Music Workshops
where no dancing is done at all, and people pay 100s of dollars to go
there. Granted the caliber of teachers we'd have compared to those
workshops aren't the same, but my point is, it's not a crazy or new
idea to have an event dedicated to Early Music. They exist elsewhere.
People attend and they even pay lots of money to do it.

7) I personally have no interest in building a music component at
Terpsichore. While I'm definitely more of a musician than a dancer, I
like that we have an event where I can take and teach dance classes
knowing I'm not missing out on any music classes. Also, until I knew
there was a strong core of people attending all the music classes, I'd
feel I'd have to sit in on every music class. Meaning I wouldn't teach
any dance classes and I wouldn't go to any dance classes. If we had
separate musician activities so we could keep Ritornello mostly
closed, I would hate to have to choose between the two.  Also, I'd
also have a hard time encouraging people to go to Terpsichore for the
music over the dancing. So adding an Early Music component to
Terpsichore is simply something I do not want to do.

***Truthfully, the pit now isn't actually closed... it's more of if
Aaron and I know who you are or you come well recommended we will
probably let you play with us.

Hope that clarifies things-
-Jadzia

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 4:20 PM, Greg Less <greg.less at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Monique-
>    Thanks for the info! Would it perhaps make sense to expand the scope of
> Terp to include a musical teaching/workshop aspect instead of adding another
> event to the calendar?
> Thanks,
> -Gregoire.
>
> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 2:46 PM, Monique Rio <mrio at umich.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I've attached a copy of the Proposal I handed out at the meeting on
>> Monday, but to answer the question...
>>
>> Ceclia at the Tower is a workshop event for musicians. Specifically
>> for musicians who play European Medieval and Renaissance music. Right
>> now in the Middle Kingdom there are no events like this. (Although,
>> apparently many years ago such events existed.)
>>
>> At the last Knowne World Dance and Music Symposium there was a music
>> class track that was really successful. After the event a number of
>> people mentioned they'd love to have a full event for just music. I've
>> been thinking about hosting a music focused event for a while, and it
>> seems like now is the right time to do it. Aaron and I know a lot of
>> the musicians in the kingdom already, we've been helping plan workshop
>> type events for several years, and there's already some interest.
>>
>> So... it's like Terpsichore, but for musicians instead of dancers.
>>
>> Hope that clarifies things-
>> -Jadzia
>>
>> ----------
>> http://www.blowthyhorn.com ~ Choir Directing & Early Music
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 2:13 PM, Greg Less <greg.less at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > HI All-
>> >    Could we get a deeper explanation of this event and how it is going
>> > to be
>> > differentiated from Terpsichore at the Tower?
>> > Thanks,
>> > -Gregoire.
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > Barony mailing list
>> > Barony at cynnabar.org
>> > http://lists.cynnabar.org/listinfo/barony
>> >
>> >
>
>
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