For allergicone!

Yahoo appears to have eaten my previous post to the SCA-RETARDS SCA-BARDS list, so let's try again, shall we? The subject was songs on the theme of death. Period ones - a concept that an awful lot of list members cannot seem to get through their thick skulls even though that was what was specifically asked for.

"Ad mortem festinamus" from the Llibre Vermell might do you:
Lyrics and midi file can be found here:
http://brassy.club.fr/PartMed/LiVerm/LiVerm.html

Scroll down for full lyrics and translation. http://www.sarband.de/Programs/Fran%8Dais/FR-Llibreall.html
Samuel Piper did some notation for it here: http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/filk.and.the.sca.html

And there's "Man Mai Longe", lyrics can be found here:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/articles/filk.and.the.sca.html
And of course, I can't FIND the book that I think has notation for it.

If you want something late period in more recognizable English, there's always Orlando Gibbons' "The Silver Swan," which is about as short and sweet as it gets. Or the depressing "Never Weatherbeaten Sail."
Campion, just barely after 1600.

Taiko continues

And I continue to struggle with my left hand. Did all right on the drill work on upright drums tonight. We added more lines on "Matsuri Daiko." I'm starting to get that line I was having problems with last week, but it's not natural yet. And of course, they added a couple of more lines.

I am by no means the worst one in my class - that would have to be the woman who missed the very first session and has been floundering to keep up ever since. They made us play bits of drills by ourselves tonight. I at least have got the rhythms mostly in my head now, know how to listen to others as we rotate through a drill so I don't lose my place, and have managed not to get so flustered by playing all alone that I make a complete hash of it. But I'm definitely somewhere in the lower end of the middle of the pack.

Spent the two minute water break pounding on a tilted drum with just my left hand. Nobody else was drumming, so I could actually hear what the strokes sounded like. I think I've figured out how to strike from that angle a little better, but at the same time, it's audibly not as strong as my right.

The last class of this session is June 17. That's only four more. Unless I make a breakthrough next Tuesday, and I see no reason for that to happen, I'm going to re-take the beginner class for the next 9 week session. I am not ready for the intermediate/advanced class.