minstrel: Fw: [Mid] Song lyrics for popular dances

[Vanessa Layne]

> I've seen some lyrics for English Country dances - various lyrics in
> various places, actually, but none for bransles or Italian pieces.

Actually, there's apparently some unknown amount of borrowing between
chansons and balli.  This is new to me as of last week or so, but I
had tripped over the fact that the dance "Bizzaria d'Amore" (Caroso,
1600ish) and the piece "Gut Gsell, du must wandern" (Ammerbach,
1550ish) are the same thing.  I am assuming that the name "Gut Gsell"
comes from a song or madrigal, but the version I know is strictly
instrumental.  So keep hunting, and words might turn up for Italian
works.

I'd like to point out that words are not strictly necessary for singing.
The truly determined can just pick a vowel and go.  

One issue, for those who care about period practice, is whether or not
dances were sung by those dancing.  There doesn't seem to be much of a
singing-while-dancing tradition in the period we do dances from; what
sung dance music we have seems to have been sung by someone not
dancing, for others to dance to.  To a certain extent, this just makes
plain sense: speaking from personal experience, it can be hard to so
something as athletic as an English Country dance and sing at the same
time, and galliarding is pretty much right out.  The more stately
dances are more plausible, but I don't off the top of my head know of
any evidence for doing it.

The real bummer is that there *was* a vibrant sung-dance tradition in
the SCA period, from before the dances we have: carols.  And it's a
damn shame the carol dance form didn't get recorded.  Not even one
example.  :( We got dozens of these songs, some ambiguous pictures,
and not a single step.  And they are in *English* even.  If anyone has
a timemachine and camcorder and needs a project...

-- Tibicen
   dagoura at mit.edu

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