[Cynnabar] St. Cecilia at the Tower?

Thu Aug 18 11:39:23 UTC 2011

Hi Jadzia-

    Thank you for a well thought out and well written reply, it didn't sound
defensive at all - I hope my initial question didn't come across as too
aggressive!

    Given your reasoning, I think that an early period  music event sounds
like a reasonable event for Cynnabar to put on.

Regards,
-Gregoire.

On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 6:30 PM, Monique Rio <mrio at umich.edu> wrote:

> 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.
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> >> >
> >
> >
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>
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