"By all means, please do post a thread on Norman music! I can find a fair amount on the liturgical side but very little on the secular. The time span I am interested in is 1050 to 1150, or so. The area of greatest influence liturgically was Cluny (and the abbey there). Falaise, the home of William the Conquere, might be another source. And I am especially interested in whatever cross-over there may have been between the Norman and Anglo Saxon music that may have existed at the competing courts in 1066 in Britain. I would be most interested to hear what anyone has to say on this! Many, many thanks.

I told her there were all sorts of knowledgable people here.

No wonder I can't write a good folk song. Attempts at blues are dismal as well.

and if I may croon from my soapbox for a wee second longer: FS for dummies--women as prizes???? Yeah, yeah, I know, political correctness is hardly retroactive.

Truth is you fellas would hardly know what to do with us if you won us anyway!! ;-)

Love to see those new songbooks, Joe.

"Truth is you fellas would hardly know what to do with us if you won us anyway!! ;-)"....I have to disagree with the generalization..(sure , I saw the ;-))*grin*....I won me a good one about 17 years ago, and she tells me every day what to do with her...

She will be amused by the divorce stuff, since she has been thru that.

rich r

Shula

William Chappell's " Popular Music of the Olden Times" has a little ( very little ) on this period in England. Only one tune transcript, of VERY dubious quality, but some interesting quotes. From John of Salisbury, about 1170...

" The rites of religion are now profaned by music; and it seems as if no other use of it were made than to corrupt the mind by wanton modulations, effeminate inflexions, and frittered notes and periods.......sometimes descending to the bottom of the scale, sometimes mounting to the summit; now softening, and now enforcing the tones, repeating passages, mixing the grave sounds with the more grave, and the acute with the most acute, that the astonished and bewildered ear is unable to distinguish one voice from another."

Another quote from Giraldus Cambrensis.....

" The Britons do not sing their tunes in unison, like the inhabitants of other countries, but in different parts. So that when a company of singers meets to sing, as is usual in this country, as many different parts are heard as there are singers, who all finally unite in consonance and organic melody under the softness of B flat. In the northern parts of Britain, beyond the Humber and on the borders of Yorkshire, the inhabitants make use of a similar kind of symphonious harmony in singing, but with only two kinds of diferences, or varieties of tone and voice, the one murmuring the under part, the other singing the upper in a manner equally soft and pleasing.........hardly any melody is accustomed to be uttered simply, or otherwise than in many parts by the former, and in two parts by the latter..... not all the English, but only those in the North sing in this manner.

There is also an anecdote about a Norman minstrel who had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Henry I. Apparently he'd made a few sarcastic verses about the king, and his lfe had a somewhat discomforting closure. Bards were still respected and financed by the new "nobility" and apparently the satires, which had such frightening effect on the Celtic mind, were still viewed with concern by the Normans.

Giraldus Cambrensis also had this to say about Irish, as compared to British music...."For their modulation on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons, to which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the harmony is both sweet and gay...."

Good hunting, Frank.

Cheers,
Alan