"A Concord of Sweet Sounds - Shakespeare's Musical Influences"

'Round these parts, they call me Note-taking Nate...

Ok, so technically I should be writing about ancient Greece, but real life is not so neatly organized!  As such, the other night I ended up doing some research for this project (i.e. enjoying a really cool concert) by attending The Yale Collegium Musicum's performance of the music found in Shakespeare's plays.

 I didn't know what to expect - something between folk music and court music, perhaps?  Overall, the music they performed felt slightly folky, with harmonies that hinted at Bach chorales -- until the last two lines of every song, which erupted into madrigal-like polyphony.  Interesting.
Wikipedia sez: "During the first decade of the 17th century, the madrigal moved away from the old ideal of an a cappella vocal composition for equally balanced voices, into a piece for one or more voices with instrumental accompaniment."

So that was the trend of the day - also, this music was to be performed by actors, not vocalists, so I'm going to assume that maybe the music was kept a bit simple for those purposes as well.

Grant Herreid's lecture included some historical tidbits (which, after all, is the real purpose of this blog).  For example, Shakespeare's plays often called for the entrance of a noble to be accompanied by a trumpet fanfare - but at this point in Western music history, trumpets were still the domain of the army and not "musical" instruments. And if the trumpeters' union (guild?) found out you were playing a trumpet without their say-so, they would "change the size of your lips" so that you couldn't play for a while.

Apparently, scholars are guessing that this lead to the creation/usage of some instruments that sounded like trumpets but didn't look like them, so as to prevent the player from getting punched in the face.

Like perhaps the Mute Cornett?

Or the infamous Serpent?

Or the perhaps the Zink?

(new band name: the Zink Serpent)

(even better band name: Serpent the Zink)

Anyway, the performers were great, and it was an evening well spent.  I don't have time to really REALLY research it at this point, but now I have good fodder for when we get to the 1600's.

Coming soon: REAL info on ancient Greek music, including a composition challenge!  Wee-haw!