pennsicdance: ball suggestions

[Monica Cellio]

> > What are the criteria for acceptable Pennsic bassadanza music?
>
> For Italian, something like the existing arrangements you've done
> would be great.

Ok, I was reading a sub-text that apparently wasn't there: that
written arrangements for these dances tend to be too complicated
to easily sight-read.  (And these are dances that would probably
not be danced a lot outside of Pennsic, so you won't get a lot of
musicians who already know them.)

> > Have the musicians tried improvisation?
>
> I haven't seen it at Pennsic. One challenge with that is that it would
> work best with a single person playing a loud instrument doing the
> improvisation.

At a music/dance event several years ago in, I think, Myrkfaelinn,
Tibicen taught an improvisation class and we then applied the techniques
that night at the ball.  What we did (this was for burgundian) is to
have someone playing the tenor note on an instrument with sustain,
most other musicians playing three notes with a promise of consonance,
and one person (Tibicen) doing more complex improvisation above that.
It seemed to work, and dissonances didn't get in the way.  There
were only about six of us, though; I don't know what would happen
if you had twenty musicians.

She'erah