Interesting Music Sources

[Heather Rose Jones]

Apropos of sharing useful sources for SCA singers, I ran across a book in 
the U.C. Berkeley music library that should be on the "want" list for 
vocalists who want to do English-language, non-Renaissance songs. It's:

"The Early English Carols" ed. by Richard Leighton Greene (Oxford: The 
Clarendon Press, 1977)

It's a collection of all known English carol lyrics from the 16th century 
and earlier, arranged generally by topic, and with an excellant 
introduction on the nature and uses of the carol. Its only major fault is 
in having no musical notation whatsoever, but in many cases none is known 
for particular lyrics. I've been working on trying to adapt some of the 
earlier ones -- treading the fine line between keeping as close to the 
original as possible but making it more understandable to those who don't 
speak Middle English. I was particularly amused to run across a 15th 
century version of the song I learned in childhood as "The Fox Went Out 
on a Cloudy Night".

Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn