fwd: Re: minstrel: Bards - longish and heading out of SCA p...

[yarrowp at mscd.edu]

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Original Text
From: Patricia Yarrow at HSP@MSCD-SCOPS, on 11/2/98 9:09 AM:
To: Incognito_SMTP at InfoTech@MSCD[<owner-minstrel at rt.com>]

Tangwystyl wrote:
>But it's important to realize that the "24" of the 24 poetic measures is
>an artificial construct -- the result of a cultural predeliction for sets
>of 24s rather than the cause of that predeliction. The 24 poetic measures
>include a number of basic, clearly established metrical forms, filled out
>with the arbitrary inclusion of a subset of the combinations of these
>basic forms that were in use. Many more possible combinations of the basic
>building blocks can be found in actual collections of poetry of the time
>-- combinations that are not included in the official "24 meters". But
>there was a pre-existing notion that certain types of things _should_ come
>in 24s, so the descriptions were altered to fit.

Yes, this is my original point.  Similarly, only a few of the 24 measures 
given in ap Huw appear in the music aside from the textbook illustrations 
in the Penlyn section, while a few such as corffiniwr are used heavily.  
There are also several pieces that fall into measures other than those 
given by Penlyn - see the profiadau discussed in a separate post.  24 was a 
"magic" number.

> It's not a matter of 24-measure long compositions.  (giggle!)  There were 
> also 24 knights in Arthur's court in Welsh tradition, by the way.  

>And 24 principal officers in a noble court (16 for the king, 8 for the
>queen -- probably another example of an artificial 24, since the official
>24 are followed by a handful of "additional officers" that aren't included
>in the count).

Thank you!

Vivien



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