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"Filking W/ History" Final Draft, Pt. 1
Dec. 16th, 2009 08:23 pm
FILKING WITH HISTORY______________by Judith Fitzhenry the Uncertain
In the history of the SCA, the practice of singing / writing filk songs (original lyrics written to a pre-existing tune) crossed over from the sci-fi convention / fandom community which also fostered many of the early SCA members. As more information about early music became available and more historical music became more widely regarded as A Very Good Thing, filk songs began to acquire more and more of a bad reputation in some circles (No matter how funny or clever the words are, hearing a modern tune can jar someone out of the in-persona mood they might specifically attend SCA events to attain). For some people, this is a passionate debate subject, but that debate is not the subject of this article.
When I began playing, I was fortunate enough to land in the company of several early music mavens who mentioned that the PRACTICE of filking (or contrafacting, to use the musicology term) IS historical, as evidenced by 16th-century black-letter ballads and broadsides, and other records which show connections between songs with different words to the same tunes. Since I don't compose music, using historical base tunes was a good "fit" for me when I wanted to write songs about my friends, and Cool Things I Heard About. The more early music I was exposed to, the more simple tunes I found which lent themselves to contrafacting. It seemed like a Very Good Idea to me to promote songs like these as "base tunes" for other SCA song-crafters to utilize, in a resurgence of contrafacting as a historical pastime.
The songs listed here have been chosen because they sound (to me) easily adaptable to new lyrics (the tunes are simple and "ear-catching"), or they have already been given new lyrics and arrangements by others--historically, or by SCAdians I know, or in a few cases, by myself. This is not meant, in any way, to be a complete list of all the categories of pre-1600 music which is now available to us (especially with the Internet and the existence of mp3's). The interested student is encouraged to "keep digging" in other areas of Early Music. Many of these pieces are secular. Of the songs which originally sang of religious subjects (especially the Cantigas de Santa Maria), I want to be clear that I would not / do not mean to promote any religious practice at an SCA function. I'm there for the tunes. Since my persona is 16th century, the list of songs begins with that era and works backwards. Many of the recordings cited here contain sound samples on Amazon or CDBaby or allmusic.com.
16TH /EARLY 17TH CENTURY
ENGLAND -- This is the longest list I have, broken down into several sub-categories:
Songs which are found in Playford (some of these also serve as base tunes for 16th and 17th century broadsides):
--Sellenger's Round--Musica Subterranea (While the dance steps are from a 1670 edition of Playford, the music dates to 1591's My Ladye Nevell's Book, among other sources.)
--Upon A Summer's Day -- The King's Noyse, uses lyrics from "I Smell A Rat")
--Heart's Ease--Musica Subterranea
Other Broadside base tunes :
--Packington's (Paggington's) Pound -- Musicians of Swanne Alley, uses lyrics from "Caveat for Cutpurses" ; Baltimore Consort, uses lyrics "Unto the Prophet Jonas"
--Greensleeves (Baltimore Consort -- begins with a 4/4 time arrangement)
--Stingo (M. of Swanne Alley--instrumental; Steve Hendricks' website has lyrics, "The Little Barley-Corne")
--Watkins Ale (Baltimore Consort)
Other 16th/17th Century English Tunes:
--Now O Now I Needs Must Part by John Dowland (The King's Noyse)
--Fortune My Foe (M. of Swanne Alley)
Two SCAdians have extensive websites with lyrics and/or midi files and/or and sheet music for pre-1600 and some 17th Century songs -- Steve Hendricks (http://sca.uwaterloo.ca/Hendricks )and Greg Lindahl, ska Gregory Blount of Isenfir ( http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/music.html ). Singer / historian Lucie Skeaping has also published a collection called "Broadside Ballads" with a number of tunes and lyrics dating to before 1600, and listing some 16th Century music collections. Please go check them out, and tell your friends 8)
16th-Century Germany-- A number of composers created tunes in a style called "Tenorlieder"-- meaning just what it sounds like, the Tenor line carries the lead vocal. I'm still checking these songs out myself, so in addition to composer names like Henrich Isaac and Ludwig Senfl, I mention Caspar Othmayer, whose song "Es ist ein Schnee Gefallen" has been contrafacted (modesty forbids). There are recordings of works by these composers made by Fretwork (with tenor Charles Daniels) and Piffarro.
16th-Century France: Arbeau's dance manual "Orchesographie" (which contains many bransle tunes used in the SCA) was published in the 1580's. Some bransles were known to have been composed by Michel Praetorius. The rest of my current experience is dominated by the information from a single recording, but it's (in this minstrel's highly biased opinion) a REEEEEEEALLY GOOOOD recording: "La Rocque 'n' Roll" by Baltimore Consort. A few of the composers/compilers whose works they used were Praetorius, guitarist and music publisher Adrian Leroy, and Jehan Chardevoine.
--Torch Branle --Baltimore Consort
--Official Branle -- Musica Subterranea
--Une m'avois promis -- Baltimore Consort ( In the 1550's, Leroy and Ballard published a series of books for Renaissance guitar. **DROOL**...ahem...sorry...)
--Mignonne, allons voir si la rose--Baltimore Consort. In spite of this song's vaguely misogynistic lyrics, by Pierre de Ronsard ("Come see if that rose outside has withered yet...as your beauty inevitably will." 8P ), Chardevoine's collection ("Le Recueil des Plus Belles et Excellentes Chansons en Forme de Voix de Ville") contains a number of beautiful melodies.
