pennsicdance: BD tempi, was Re: ball suggestions

[Vivian aka Rosina]

My understanding of Italian Bassadanze and Burgundian Bassedanses is that
they each got one note per bar (i.e. the time to do a double) and the
musicians were to play with this. The Italians, from what they have in the
BD sections of balli, favoured duple time. So sometimes the music appears
as 2 equal notes (of the same pitch) per bar, sometimes, as in Rostiboli, 
it is written out as 6 equal notes, sometimes it is more syncopated, but
I believe it always clearly shows the duple nature (that is, that you
can divide the bar into 2 equal parts), and if it is subdivided after
that, each half is split into 3 parts, so a total of 6.

(In pieces where they only supply one pitch per bar it can make the
dance hard to follow, as different musicians may come up with quite different
ways to ornament it, unlike a dance such as Petit Vriens, where the
original music is a very recognizable tune.)

There are 3 tenors in Cornazano, but they can apparently be used for any 
of the 4 tempi, so I don't know how valuable they are for gaining info
on the tempi of BD.

The Burgundians, so I was told, favoured dividing their music into triple,
so that each bar has 3 equal parts. Thus the difference in how the doubles
are often done in the SCA, with an Italian double generally being "Step 
and Step, Step pause pause", while the Burgundian is usually "Step and 
Step and Step and".
Since both types of music are generally subdivided so that there are 6 beats
one can do either type of double to either type of music ... however one
won't be stepping on a strong beat all the time, which can be confusing.

However, looking through Jackman (who has usually given his interpretation 
without the original, unfortunately) it looks like the Burgundians mostly
just gave one note per bar, and when they did give more, it can also
often be divided into duple time, and then subdivided into 3 more. I am
not, however, a musican, and I certainly have not made an exhaustive study
of the academic literature out there ... it has probably been discussed
to death in all the periodicals I ought to be reading ...

Note that I do _not_ think there is any evidence of the Burgundians
dancing their BD at twice the speed of the Italians. If you take a
piece of music in 6/4 (where it has been divided into 2 parts, and 
each half subdivided into 3, resulting in 6), a duple time Italian BD 
can be done to it no problem. However, if you are used to doing your 
BD in triple time, the usual instinct will be to use one bar of music
for 2 bars of dance, as then you'll have 3 strong beats for each double, 
rather than having to step on weak beats. Thus you will wind up dancing 
twice as fast.

One solution used in the SCA is to divide the music into 6 parts,
but not stress it in either a duple or triple manner.
Ex of Duple = Strong weak medium Strong weak weak
Ex of Triple = Strong weak Strong weak Strong weak
Ex of both = Strong weak medium medium medium medium.
The last example allows both duple and triple trained people to hear
their own expected rhythm, and still finish the dance at the same time
as everyone else.

And, of course, since dancers were expected to vary everything, they
may have been using the different doubles that we use, and others, and
delighting in how they contrasted to the varying musical patterns that 
the musicians were doing. Not advised, however, when just starting out ...

Rosina