Medieval Influences and England role in Prog Rock
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Topic: Medieval Influences and England role in Prog Rock
Posted By: vitoryabe
Subject: Medieval Influences and England role in Prog Rock
Date Posted: September 12 2016 at 17:30
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Hi! I would like to know what you guys think about the medieval influences that can be found in prog rock. Why it's so common to find artists and concept albuns constructed based in this theme ? One more thing, probably related with the previous question. It's evident that England was one of the main countries to develop this genre. So, what you guys think about it ? There is some regional or cultural explanations for this fact ? Thank you!
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Replies:
Posted By: The misanthrope
Date Posted: September 12 2016 at 17:44
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England is essentially the birth place of prog rock, so it stands to reason that English history would find its way into the music. In a broader social context the British live side by side with medieval history, it is part of their collective memories. Fantasy literature and the hippy movement where also popular. Tolkien's books played a part in influencing a lot of bands from England. Jimmy Page and Robert Plant both admit to being Tolkien fans whose work they reference in their songs. Rush though Canadian also where fans of Tolkien, they even had the song called Rivendale on their fly by night album. Others like Ian Anderson felt a deep reverence for England's agrarian past.
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Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: September 12 2016 at 18:22
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And I think it had something to do with the influence of folk music on Prog -- there's lot of British folk that has medieval or pre-industrial themes. During Prog's heyday, Medieval Folk Rock was going strong in England and Germany. A considerable amount of Prog and Folk Rock (and of course Prog Folk) certainly drew on medieval, renaissance and baroque music, and many Prog groups explored a pastoral sound. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: brainstormer
Date Posted: September 12 2016 at 20:45
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I find the Medieval music that I like the most like Codex Montpellier and many others isn't represented much in Prog Rock. You just need to explore it a lot and know where to look. It's unearthly and show's it wasn't the dark ages after all. We just have no understanding of those times. Codex Montpellier - Amor potest conqueri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2quJJXW-ASU
------------- -- Robert Pearson Regenerative Music http://www.regenerativemusic.net Telical Books http://www.telicalbooks.com ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net |
Posted By: Icarium
Date Posted: September 12 2016 at 23:03
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ironicly few people actualy knows how medieval music sounds like, and mostly medieval music known printed is gregorian chant music, or what-ever its preferred to called, exept one might assume the lute was popular in the traditonal music scene, recieting ballads while playing lute. -------------  
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 00:23
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^ I agree with Robert and Chris I also think "Medieval" is going back too far - aside from Gryphon and perhaps Gentle Giant I don't think there is any Medeival influence in Prog. The folk revival of the mid 1960s could barely go back as far as the 16th century for its material (there is only one song in the Child Ballads that dates from the late Medieval), most traditional British folk songs date from the 17th and 18th centuries and were first revived during the late-Edwardian and Victorian eras and the tunes themselves were considerably younger - medieval instruments were hardly ever used during the folk revival (Mandolin and Hurdy Gurdy are later than Medieval). What we did see is a romantic reimagining of bygone days, (for example psychedelic fashion drew upon the clothes and styling of Edwardian and Victorian eras and mixed them up with Fin de Siècle, Art Nouveau, and Pop-Art), so what you get is kind of distorted pastiche of what someone thinks the music of olden times ought to sound like and not what it did sound like (a bit like Kanye West thinking he is a "rock star") - the stereotypical medieval music we tend to associate with that time owes more to Hollywood than it does to Blondel. Note here that Prog folk band The Amazing Blondel, named after the 12th century minstrel, actually played a reimagined/reinvented form of Renaissance music (ie sounds like Renaissance music but actually isn't). One way of looking at "why England?" (and not to be too parochial here - this is one of the rare occasions where I do believe it is English rather than British - English musicians absorbed Scottish, Irish and Welsh traditional music as their own) is not that English musicians took American Rock'n'Roll and added other forms of music to it, but like the Italians and Germans did with their takes on "Prog Rock", they adapted it to fit the "local" music they were familiar with. For example trad English Folk wasn't added to Rock'n'Roll and Rock bands didn't "go folk", it was Folk that rocked up and Folk bands went "electric". However, the Folk revival of the 1960s (on both sides of the pond) came after Rock and Roll and were contemporary with Beat music (aka British Invasion) - English popular music traditions before Rock and Roll was Skiffle (musically a kind of hybrid between Jazz and Folk) and Music Hall (not to be confused with Vaudeville). When a Liverpool Skiffle band changed their name from The Quarrymen to The Beatals and became a Rock and Roll band they kept their English roots and adapted Rock and Roll to fit what they knew and were familiar with, having grown up with music hall, church hymns and brass band music. So when they finally settled on the name The Beatles and started writing music of their own they drew upon those musical influences and "rocked it up", and when they were introduced to music that was unfamiliar to them (Classical, Indian and Avant Garde to name but three) incorporating it into their music was a natural thing to do. Looking at it that way, it's not so much that English musicians broke away from the verse-chorus song-writing structure and the "traditional" 12-bar and 16-bar blues format of Rock and Roll, but held-on to their more traditional roots when making rock music.
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Posted By: Kingsnake
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 01:14
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Jethro Tull - Minstrel in the Gallery And of course Gryphon and Gentle Giant. Maybe Kate Bush. You can also try Red Jasper.
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Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 01:17
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Prog and its influences reminds me of the Pre-Raphaelites: a beautiful misinterpretation (or re-interpretation) of the past-times recreated using the latest available instruments and technology of its eras. It also started out in the UK and influenced artists all over Europe + just like art historians pretty much have disqualified that whole movement*, popular music writers decided to leave prog out of the story of rock. - but the people have never stopped loving them. *as sentimental nostalgia and an impure & vulgar b*****ditation etc... ------------- 
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 01:43
^ good analogy  ------------- What? |
Posted By: Kingsnake
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 03:04
Posted By: Watchmaker
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 03:37
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From the "Songs from the Wood" Wikipedia page: "Filled with imagery from medieval Britain and ornamental folk arrangement" and "The descriptive term "folk music" has been dismissed by Anderson and Barre as not relevant to the album. Folk has a strong connotation of American singer-songwriters performing activist songs in coffeehouses, whereas Songs from the Wood was composed and performed as a tribute to the UK. Anderson said that the album was "for all the band members... a reaffirmation of our Britishness." " It is strange that I have never been to Britain, but I always feel like home when I listen to albums like this one. |
Posted By: Kingsnake
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 03:49
| In dutch (The Netherlands) we have a strong difference between folkmusic and 'volksmuziek'. |
Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 05:09
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Why should England be the explanation for "medieval influences" ? I do recall that the 14th century also happened in Germany. And France. We get krautrock and hot jazz from each of those. ;-) ------------- |
Posted By: Manuel
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 05:50
| Amazing Blondel had a lot of medieval influences in their music, and they also played lutes and many other instruments of the time/era. Gryphon of course, and many others had, to a certain degree, influences from the medieval period. i'm guessing that a lot of the classical music was written during that period, and the classical influences in prog were expressed in that way. |
Posted By: WeepingElf
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 08:31
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There probably were several factors contributing to prog rock originating in England. One may be that England had a leftist romanticism, while in most other countries, romanticism tended to ally with the nationalist right. One may be that the British Isles (but the Celtic nations more so than England) had and still have a very vibrant folk music tradition. (But some other countries do so, too.) Perhaps it is also of importance that in England, contemporary classical composers held on to tonality longer then elsewhere. The continent had Stockhausen, Boulez and other serialists; tonal composition was almost extinct. England had Tippett and Britten, who composed in more accessible ways. There are other things contributing to it, such as the art schools and of course that England was the place where rock'n'roll came of age. ------------- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf "What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes." |
Posted By: The misanthrope
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 09:27
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Watchmaker wrote:Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 09:28
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Sometimes 15th and 16th Centuries traditionals are mistakenly called medieval. I don't think there's much from the fall of the Roman Empire to Charlemagne in the prog music. Pentangle have played some very old things. There's a medley on their double live which includes music from the 13th century, but apart of them, Blackmore's Night and Angelo Branduardi it comes mainly from the Renaissance age (I can be wrong, of course). Branduardi in particular has rearranged madrigals in his first albums but he has also released a collection of albums called "Futuro Antico" (Ancient Future) which contain mainly classical medieval music. http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=22817" rel="nofollow - http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=22817 ------------- Curiosity killed a cat, Schroedinger only half. My poor home recorded stuff at https://yellingxoanon.bandcamp.com |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 10:09
^That's true, but it's become rather like describing Western art music as classical even if it's not of that period. In terms of medieval folk rock, which I referenced before, well... I'll be lazy and quote wikipedia:
------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: ALotOfBottle
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 12:24
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I had a thread about a similar thing a while ago. I guess I put my questions there wrong, I was using wrong adjectives and terms, which led to some misunderstandings. My understanding was sort of wrong, too. Anyway, there is definitely a strong influence of English art music of the middle ages (as I like to call it). Some bands really had great abilities to put those influences into prog framework, Gryphon being the most obvious one. Also Jethro Tull and Gentle Giant. There are also strong influences of English renaissance and baroque music in some prog, which one of the authors of one of the books that I've read (Edward Macan, I think) describes as an influence of Anglican musical traditions. EDIT: Now that I'm thinking, Luca is right - most of the things heard as "medieval" actually come from renaissance and baroque, which would make even more sense, if anyone was asking why it's English music of the period that sounds a bit different from the rest of Europe. Gryphon's influences are indeed rather renaissance than medieval. ------------- Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden - step out of the space provided. |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 16:08
Focus?? ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 13 2016 at 23:21
The band or a critique? ------------- What? |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: September 14 2016 at 12:48
The double question mark could indicate both. Oh, and "A [Ford Focus] is not a car. It's a way of life." Maybe not a good life, but a life none-the-less. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: aglasshouse
Date Posted: September 14 2016 at 13:34
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England is of course the cradle of Prog. That combined with England's...colorful medieval culture and history, it's bound for that time's music to leak into something as eclectic as progressive rock. ------------- http://fryingpanmedia.com |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 15 2016 at 06:52
 Let's recap a little: When we talk of the Medieval we are referring to period of history between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. This is a period that ended 500 years ago sometime around 1500CE. What followed was called the Renaissance - this is defined as "the revival of European art and literature under the influence of classical models in the 14th–16th centuries." ... it's called a "revival" because it was an attempt to revive stuff that existed before the Middle Ages even though the people back then had very little evidence of what Classical Rome and Greece where like 1000 years earlier. Just like now, all they had was a few ruins and a handful of myths, so they re-invented what they thought it was like. Basically the Renaissance was a whole load of new made-up stuff that people thought that ancient Greeks and Romans would have made. Similarly, by the 19th century (which was merely 200 years ago) very little was known of the Medieval period so it was known as "The Dark Ages" as very little evidence of that time survived (for one reason or another) and we were "in the dark" about it. Therefore just 300 years after the Medieval period people knew sod-all about it so they too invented a whole load of made-up stuff that they imagined it was like. Legends and myths were presented as historical fact (King Arthur and Robin Hood for example) and because nostalgia is generally a positive thing, they romanticised it quite a bit. Modern Medieval Festivals/Fayres/Fetes/Pageants (as featured in The Simpsons and The Big-Bang Theory tv programmes) owe everything to this 19th century romanticism. And like-wise, that di-do-dol-dilly-lilly do and hey-nonny-no musical stuff that appears in Hollywood Medieval movies isn't Medieval at all but made-up music of what they thought it should have sounded like back then. No one knows what really knows what secular Medieval music sounded like. Obviously there are no sound recordings from the Dark Ages and most musicians passed on music "by ear" rather than by written manuscript, especially non-secular and folk music but also religious music. Most of the written manuscripts that have survived are of religious music, not secular and all of it from the middle and late Medieval (i.e. the last 300 years or so of that 1000 year period). Also the music notation used back then was not as informative as modern notation so were more a memory aide to "by ear" learning than a means of documenting and preserving tunes and music. However, all this knowledge, and the interpretation of it, is relatively new, it certainly wasn't that well known in the 1970s and played no part in the so-called "Medieval Folk" revival of the late 60s/early 70s. We have a good idea of what the instruments looked like and can reconstruct many of them (crumhorn, serpent, sackbut etc.) but we can only make educated guesses of the music they made with them based upon what the religious music (madrigals etc) sounded like... Most of what we commonly recognise as Medieval sounding is more often Renaissance or Elizabethan in origin, and that goes for Amazing Blondel, Spirogyra, Third Ear Band, Quintessence, Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant and even Gryphon (to some extent - case in point there being anything they played on Medieval instruments sounds like Medieval to us even when it isn't). Are these bands (and their Progressive Rock music) influenced by the Medieval? and the only answer to that is: no, not directly - at best you could argue they were influenced by the idea of Medieval, and Minstrel In The Gallery is a good illustration of that, it invokes a feeling that it should be influenced by Medieval music and culture but it's really faux-medieval. Also, can we dispel this pervading myth that Merrie England is some romantic bucolic idyl of warm beer and hog-roasts surrounded by buildings of Medieval and Elizabethan charm where we all sit around drinking tea while watching bloody cricket. We've had an industrial revolution, won and lost an empire and been at war with practically every nation on the planet in the past 300 years - very little of Tudor England and four-fifths of sod all of anything from before then remains, and most of that is either falling down or in ruins.
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Posted By: WeepingElf
Date Posted: September 15 2016 at 10:22
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Touché! ------------- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf "What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes." |
Posted By: ALotOfBottle
Date Posted: September 15 2016 at 11:27
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^^Word. ------------- Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden - step out of the space provided. |
Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: September 15 2016 at 11:57
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Nice discussion on Robin Hood's favourite sounds. Gentlemen, consider yourself saluted. Dean you should be a teacher. Even when you talk about stuff I already know you still manage to entice me. Also Gryphon do sound like the middle ages. Why? Robin wore GREEN short shorts. ------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: September 16 2016 at 06:46
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"no, not directly - at best you could argue they were influenced by the idea of Medieval" This - it is all in your mind. Minstrel In The Gallery is a rock album, based mostly on black music (drum's) and El-guitar (very 1900's) nothing medival in there. Even the melody is very much 1900's. ------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: chutchison92
Date Posted: September 16 2016 at 09:34
that may be cuz what u shared a link to is abit more, i dont know how to put this, overtly midevial? not saying its worse. but i feel like prog is drawing on endless other genres (duh) and among those are midevial/mystical/fantasy/jazz/classical/awesome influences but its always eclectic. Bands that get really focused on one subgenre usually end up being considred in thier own stand alone subgenre (think van der greaaf generator and jazz rock) and that was a dope song u posted but its very focused one one aspect of what cud be midevial prog. i love the 2003 esthetic of this site
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 16 2016 at 09:35
Very nice, and I would suggest quite historically correct. I would even go so far as to suggest that the English/British, were also less influenced by the Roman Catholic religion and thus able to maintain some cultural traits alive because of it, in many of what we call today "the arts". In the rest of Europe, a lot of these were wiped away, in favor of the work that the RCC demanded, and tried to make sure you believed in. That seems to be the romantic ideal, as would be suggested by Dean's assessment, and I agree with it. However, many of these are still alive in Europe, however, they are "minor/small" in relation to anything that we discuss. I was just listening to Macedonian music, and it would be considered "medieval", by the same way we are discussing things here, but no one knows those musicians, or listens to them to validate the work that was wiped away by wars and religion. It might even be older than that and have connections to an even older relation going back to the Greeks and Meravinglians, or something else. And then later ... we say ... influenced by ... yeah ... the idea of is a much better/easier way of saying it. Ohhh, goshdang it ... we just ripped "progressive" apart!
------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: silverpot
Date Posted: September 16 2016 at 17:42
"Meravinglians"  Sorry.  |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: September 16 2016 at 22:00
I would disagree on at least one song, "Cold Wind to Valhalla". Ian Anderson's lyrical wordplay is based on kennings, compound descriptive expressions that replace single nouns or verbs, and are found throughout Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse poetry. Speaking of Tull, here's something from circa 1513 AD... ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: September 17 2016 at 15:12
The band! Elspeth of Nottingham. Le Clochard. Delitae Musicae.The cover to The Hamburger Concerto. Many other parts of tracks. Akkerman's use of the lute. ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 09:17
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To quote Moshkito "I would even go so far as to suggest that the English/British, were also less influenced by the Roman Catholic religion and thus able to maintain some cultural traits alive because of it....." (snip) Mosh, it would be quite nice if you actually read up on some English history. We had a small but highly influential Catholic prescence in the UK - in the 16th century, one of our kings suppressed the power of the Church and in the 17th, we had a civil war based around the accession to the throne of another king who happened to be Catholic. Neither of these two events occured in the "medieval" era in the UK. Trust me. I have a History degree and I live here. To suggest that "medieval" music was anything to do with a specific religion is about at the standard of your normal posts. If you don't know, please stop giving us a best guess, eh ?
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Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 09:23
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Back to the OP. Was the "medieval period" specific to England ? Nope. Do we know what "medieval music" sounded like ? Nope. Could a French prog rock band be influenced by "medieval England" ? Yep. And also French medieval music and imagery, of course. Wonder which is more likely ? Bit of a stupid question, then. Let's expand on that. I have a lot of Eastern and Moroccan influences in my music. I'll just check. Oh. No turban. No curly slippers. What a surprise. "Perhaps it was down to me being English and England having an Empire and lots of curry restaurants". Or perhaps..... not. The fact is that a lot of Prog bands were English. Psychedelia before that had included an element of whimsy and a hearkening back to childhood. Some prog artists picked up on the imagery of the medieval period, the rest followed suit. Being English, what were they expected to most likely play ? Turkish polyrhythms ? Non English bands tended to copy the styles they heard. As always happens with a "new" genre. Simple as that. ------------- |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 09:34
Humorously enough, when I offered Tull's "King Henry's Madrigal" (first appearing in print in 1513 - whereas the arbitrary date set by many historians for the end of the Medieval Epoch ended only 20 years previous in 1492), the song itself is a version of Henry VIII's "Pastime With Good Company" which Henry Tudor wrote while he was still a staunch Catholic and was eventually accorded the title Defender of the Faith by the pope for his treatise Assertio Septem Sancramentorum in defense of the Catholic dogma of the Seven Sacraments. It was written as an attack against...Martin Luther. So much for Mosh's anti-Catholic rhetoric. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 09:48
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Back to the original topic. Gentle Giant's Octopus is suffused with madrigal-influenced vocals, most notably "Knots": And of course "Advent of Panurge" refers to the great medieval work Gargantua and Pantagruel by Rabelais.
------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 09:56
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England_in_the_Middle_Ages 1485 - "early modern period". At least it was when I was at University. (Not that I was at Uni in 1485, of course. ;-) ) Martin Luther - 10th Nov 1483 to 18th Feb 1546. Luther is definitely one of the fathers of the Enlightenment, although that doesn't kick in for quite some time afterwards. His ideas are ahead of his time, but definitely not medieval. Henry VIII we all know about. King from 1509 to 1547. He is not generally seen as being a medieval ruler. Yep, Henry Tudor was a staunch Catholic. He reigns from the start of the early modern period. So Catholicism was there in England prior to 1483. Mosh is saying that medieval England is nothing to do with Catholicism, if I've read his post correctly. Actually, there was a minority Catholic element to English society which was very well connected. Anti Catholicism really comes in with Henry VIII. If you're claiming the medieval period ends in 1492 (I'd prefer 1485, really) then you're talking about a period where the Catholic church in England exerts power and influence which is only later broken by Henry VIII. What Mosh is confusing, and Dean has pointed out, is that we don't really have much music from the "medieval" period in England. We do have music from later periods, which may sound "medieval" to Mosh, but actually come from later periods in music. England seperated from the Catholic Church of Rome in 1534. The dissolution of the monasteries began in 1536. Neither of those are in the "medieval period". We actually had an English Pope in Rome in the 12th century. Now, that's medieval. ------------- |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 10:21
I said an "arbitrary" date of 1492, coinciding with European expansion and voyages of discovery. The actual end date of the Middle-ages is quite fluid, some historians using 1453 as a marker (the Fall of Constantinople), 1485 (as you cited), 1492 (as I cited), all the way up to 1500: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Middle_Ages Which is why I never try to cite Wikipedia, as the dates are dependent on whomever is writing the article. 
I was not inferring that Henry VIII was a medieval king. I was inferring that the song in question had its roots in a 14th century Italian mode of playing, and hence medieval in influence. If anything, Henry was not Prog.
Oftentimes, people hear someone like Jeff Beck or Ritchie Blackmore playing "Greensleeves" and immediately think it is "medieval", when in fact it actually dates to the 16th century and is believed to have originated from the Elizabethan period. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 10:25
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No no, not disagreeing with you at all. ;-) Americans will tend to cite 1492, for obvious reasons. I tend to go for 1485. As I'm originally from Lancashire. I laughed my head off at "Greensleeves", I'd forgotten that one. ;-) For anyone with a proper interest in medieval music, this is a good page. We all might note that it's not confined to English music. The medieval ages happened elsewhere as well. Inconveniently for this thread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_music ------------- |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 10:39
Yes, people fall into a trap of considering early modern/Renaissance music as "medieval" when it is not. There is not much popular accord for the troubadours' chansons, rondeaus or virelais in rock music. Much that Fairport or Steeleye played is not medieval but folk tunes found in Child Ballads, wherein only a handful can be dated prior to 1600. There is not much of a market for something like this which is actually medieval (but cool nonetheless - love this from Maddy Prior and June Tabor): Of course, a few Italian monks made some big bucks off of "Chant" but that is an anomaly. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: brainstormer
Date Posted: September 18 2016 at 21:52
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this is awesome too Wer ich eyn falck - Invicto regi jubilo Henrick Finck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01d8ziftE1Q You might feel your heart singing it. It would make an awesome prog song if it's gentleness was left unaltered but still electrified.
------------- -- Robert Pearson Regenerative Music http://www.regenerativemusic.net Telical Books http://www.telicalbooks.com ParaMind Brainstorming Software http://www.paramind.net |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 01:26
The other thing to mention here is Henry's break from Rome was political not religious and he was not part of the protestant movement sweeping northern Europe, the English reformation is a completely different beast to the protestant reformation. The anglican church was (and to some extent continues to be) far closer to catholicism than to any of the post -reformation protestant religions. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 02:45
The Child Ballads do not contain any tunes, they are a collection of lyrics. There is a reason for this of course, and that is because the people who sang them couldn't read or write music. When you think about it hymn books don't contain music either because both folk songs and hymns could be, and often were, sung with different tunes and sometimes hymns were sung to folk tunes and vice versa. A case in point here is Bunyan's hymn 'To Be A Pilgrim' has been sung with several different tunes but the definitive version that we know today was adapted by Vaughan Williams from a traditional Sussex folk tune then his version was later used by Steeleye Span for their version of the Irish folk song 'Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye' which was traditionally sung to the tune of 'When Johnny comes marching home'. It's the advent of sound recording that married a particular lyric with a particular tune and gave us the definitive versions of songs that we now recognise, there could be several centuries separating tune and lyric so a medieval song may have a medieval lyric but not a medieval tune. [While not stunningly relevant to this particular discussion (though not wholly irrelevant either), sound recording has also led to the establishment of definitive versions (née: arrangements) of every piece of classical music ever composed too as even the most comprehensively annotated manuscript was (until then) open to interpretation and improvisation (aka: 'variations on a theme...').]
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Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 03:50
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All this inspired me to look through my collection of medieval and renaissance music to see if I could find out if anything was based on more than just the words. Of course most confirms that the actual music is mostly educated guesses based on later versions and knowledge of instruments used etc. The exception (in my collection) is perhaps Llibre Vermell de Montserrat - Catalonian Pilgrimage songs & dances from the 14th century - which was actually written down by monks in that period of time with note sheets. It has been recorded many times (by Jordi Savall/Hespèrion XX, Ensemble Unicorn, New London Consort...) but my favorite remains Atrium Musciae's 1972 recording. Beautiful music mostly praising Virgin Mary but also contains five dances and not purely a religious mass. The monks had a mission from writing them down: " http://www.amaranthpublishing.com/LlibreVermell.htm" rel="nofollow - As it happens that the pilgrims , while holding night vigil in the church of the Blessed Virgin from Montserrat, sometimes desire to sing and to dance and even so during the day, in the Church Square, where only virtuous and pious songs may be sung, some suitable songs have been written down here for this need. These should be used in a respectful and moderate manner, so as not to disturb those who wish to continue their prayers and religious contemplations." - to replace the alarmingly secular songs so to speak.  -------------
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 09:11
Excellent.  And of course this confirms what I said earlier:
What we see in this example manuscript is of course the melody line to be sung together with the words, except all the notes are shown as being the same length whereas in a sung version of the song they are in fact different, and we also see some weird looking notes called "ligatures" that cover several pitch-lines that we don't have in modern notation. So, medieval notation such as this gives the singer an indication of whether the next note goes up or down, and roughly by how far, but gives no indication of the rhythm the notes are sung in. As I said, these manuscripts were a memory aid because to be able to sing that song you would have to know how it sounded first. Also, these manuscripts only show the vocal part, the rest of the musical accompaniment isn't given - the musicians would have either known the song anyway or jammed a generic accompaniment for it. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 10:39
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^Thank you for the clappies! And also for additional info and... well all your informative posts. I'm a little closer to understand the kind of musical jigsaw puzzle with more missing pieces than ones intact - early music scholars and musicians has got to deal with. Bless them for trying anyway. - I'm off to locate my album of ancient greek music. Are you telling that may not be a 100% accurate rendition as well? -------------
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 12:53
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Most of what has passed are examples of what's not medieval and how it's related to prog, or medieval and not related to prog. Which is not surprising. To actually answer the OP's question, I suggest this happy little ditty from Pentangle called the Lyke Wake Dirge. The song's lyrics are in an old Yorkshire dialect of Northern English and are a Christian chant to guide one's departed soul from Purgatory to Heaven. Some the lyrics are believed to date back to Germanic Pagan religions which date from the Iron Age up until the Anglo Saxon conversion to Christianity in the early Middle Ages. The lyrics, below, are translated. The early hymnal like phrasing was notated some time in the 19th century, as the original tune has long since vanished. As others have stated previously, these types of songs were memory tools used almost elusively for religious purposes. Songs that were fun, and they did exist in droves, were considered the work of idle hands and the Devil. Great times! I believe that this is as close as a true medieval song ever got to prog. At least is was performed by a prog group. Lyke Wake Dirge: This ae nighte, this ae nighte, Every nighte and alle, Fire and fleet and candle-lighte, And Christe receive thy saule. When thou from hence away art past, If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon, If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane From Whinny-muir whence thou may'st pass, If ever thou gav'st silver and gold, But if silver and gold thou never gav'st nane, From Brig o' Dread whence thou may'st pass, Every nighte and alle,
If ever thou gav'st meat or drink, If meat or drink thou ne'er gav'st nane, This ae nighte, this ae nighte, Translation:
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Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 17:08
I'm aware they are lyrics, Dean. Frances Child was a folklorist and linguist, not a musician. What I was emphasizing was the songs played by Fairport and Steeleye were, for the most part, folk tunes that were not medieval. I suppose I could've added they played the unaccompanied ballads from Child's collection to the accompaniment of popular airs writ decades or even centuries later. Yes, I could've written that. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 19 2016 at 23:36
Not that it's a big deal, but you said (and keep saying) "tunes". ------------- What? |
Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 02:07
I had to think of this song as well. The Wiki entry says that it was documented for the first time in 1686 and it says that this song has been sung in 1616 (post-medieval), but it is assumed to have been sung long before Shakespeare's funeral. Anyway, the language in which it has been written looks to me as if it can be placedsometime between Wycliffe and Shakespeare. The language is somewhat closer to German and Dutch. It is not difficult for my Dutch brain to translate Lyke-Wake to Lijkwake (Lyke/Lijk = corpse, Wake/Wake = vigil). ------------- 
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 04:13
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 06:38
The [song's] language contains a few Late Middle English words but is written in Modern English, given that Middle English is a transition from the Germanic Old English language and that modern English is also called a Germanic language then similarities to modern Germanic languages are to be expected. "Lyke" meaning corpse sort-of survives today as "like" (the etymology is somewhat convoluted but essentially if one thing is like another it means "they have a similar body") - problematically, "Lyke" is Southern not Northern. Words like "fleet" for "home" and "whinney" for "thorn" are derived from Old English (for example, "fleet", is derived from the Old English "flett", where we get the modern English word "flat") and the use of "bane" for "bone" and "nane" for "none" merely shows the difference in pronunciation that vowel sounds underwent from Middle English to Modern English. Here the "a" in "bane" is pronounced as a short 'or' sound, like the "a" in 'wash' and 'want' and "nane" is therefore pronounce to rhyme with it. Unfortunately Pentangle actually mispronounce both these words in their version of the song as they've applied modern pronunciations to the old spellings - much like everyone who pronounces "Ye" using the "y" sound instead of the "th" sound, (see " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_%28letter%29" rel="nofollow - thorn letter ") so Ye is pronounced "Thee". Therefore "bane" should be pronounced "bone" and "nane" should be pronounced to rhyme with it (rather than using the modern pronunciation of "none" that rhymes with "nun"). Similarly "nane" and "flame" are supposed to rhyme in the original (verse 7) as should "shoon" and "on". However, vocabulary isn't as useful as grammar in determining the historical origins of a language, and the grammar in the version shown here is decidedly "Modern English" as the translation shows (in terms of grammar they are practically identical). Vocabulary can give clues to the region of origin of a particular piece as borrowed vocabulary is strongly linked to a region's history. Other than the title itself, there doesn't seem to be any Old Norse derived words in the piece to indicate an Northern English or specifically Yorkshire origin, and unless a piece is written phonetically detecting dialect (and accent) is pretty much impossible. The only real clue here is "nighte" and "lighte" - generally the superfluous "e" (as in Ye Olde Shoppe) isn't sounded so "nighte" is pronounced "night" just as "christe" is pronounced "christ", which is how Pentangle pronounces christe but not how they pronounce "nighte" and "lighte". However, in the lyric there is the rhyming couplet of "fleet" and "light" in the third line of the first verse that is supposed to match the repeated "this ae nighte" phrase in the first line. This means that night and light are pronounced "neet" and "leet" to rhyme with "fleet", which would be how Pentangle sing them except instead of "fleet" they use the 14th century French word "slaete" (slate), that they pronounce as "sleet" to make it rhyme. All well and good we may assume, albeit that Pentangle don't sing the song in a Yorkshire accent so "sleet", "neet" and "leet" sounds wrong to my (Yorkshire attuned) ears. So accent aside, at first this seems very Yorkshire except "night" and "light" don't actually rhyme in the Yorkshire dialect where "light" would be pronounced "leight" (like: "late" with a longer 'a' sound). This suggests the actual pronunciation of all four words (i.e., including "slaete") isn't quite as it first appears. Returning to "fleet" - perhaps this is the word that is being mispronounced - since the old English form is "flett" and the Modern English form is "flat" then maybe the Middle English pronunciation should be closer to "flate" (i.e. "fleight") so now the sequence of vowel shifts: flett, flate, flat appears to be far more reasonable than: flett, fleet, flat. So now the pronunciation of these words becomes "neight", "leight" and "fleight" (and even "slate") and the rhyme is preserved. It could still retain its Yorkshire origin and it makes the "leet" bit a lot less irritating (for me). Curiously, this then makes "flight of stairs", meaning a series of stairs between landings, a hell of a lot less avian (which seems an incongruous explanation to me) and far more down to earth The Medieaval Baebes version (on their debut album) doesn't rhyme night with light at all and uses "nicht" instead - which pushes it far too north (to Scotland) for my liking, but hey-ho. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 07:57
^As I stated, who am I to argue with those more learned that I?  ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 09:00
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^same here, if the experts say (to quote Wikipedia verbatim): 'The song is written in an old form of the Yorkshire dialect of Northern English', then I'm not going to argue with them either. Just because I don't see any dialect words there doesn't mean it isn't written in dialect and just because they say it was written in that dialect it does not actually mean that's where the song originated. Not being privy to the background data that makes them certain it is written in a Yorkshire dialect I'll happily take their word for it. The only reason I posted anything at all in response to Robert's post was to point out that English (Old, Middle and Modern) are all Germanic languages and that a modern English word derived from Lyke=corpse is still in use today. However.  That's not going to stop me having a little fun playing detective with the words, especially when I see written rhyming couplets that do not rhyme when vocalised (in any English accent). ------------- What? |
Posted By: Icarium
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 09:10
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i believe most medieval european ttradional music was either rythmic conga-like rittual music, harmonical choral works or melodic woodwind and proto-guitar like instruments.
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 09:49
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 09:50
 I thought that was world music! Now I'm confused!
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Posted By: WeepingElf
Date Posted: September 20 2016 at 10:04
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Most of the music that is performed at medieval fairs, jousts, role-playing conventions and similar events is not genuine medieval music. As others have said here, most people have all sorts of misconceptions about what medieval music was like, and this includes people who organize medieval fairs, and many of the musicians who perform there. For instance, most of the instruments played in the medieval scene are either instruments from contemporary folk traditions from various corners of Europe which may preserve some archaic features but are almost certainly not unchanged from the Middle Ages, or they are instruments that in some ways resemble medieval instruments but are actually modern inventions using modern playing techniques. There are, for instance, bagpipes which use the same fingering as a modern recorder flute, or a lute is tuned like a guitar. Also, you often hear folk instruments from different countries play together, such as an Irish bodhrán, a Swedish nyckelharpa and a set of Sardinian launeddas in the same band. And often, all these instruments are tuned in 12-note equal temperament, which of course was unknown in the Middle Ages. And if the instruments aren't truly medieval, the music played on them usually isn't, either. You must be an expert in medieval notation to read medieval notation. Most musicians aren't. They use transcriptions into modern notation which are often imprecise or outright fanciful. Sometimes only the lyrics are medieval and the notes modern, usually based on folk songs. Sometimes even the lyrics aren't medieval, at best being translations of medieval lyrics into modern languages. And so on. Authentic performance of medieval music requires a lot of research. You need a profound knowledge of music history and philology. You need to know how medieval notation systems work, and transcribe them properly. You need instruments built after genuine medieval instruments or descriptions thereof. You need to know how medieval languages are pronounced. And all that. Most bands playing at medieval fairs don't take the trouble - and most people in the audience wouldn't appreciate it if they did! ------------- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf "What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes." |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 21 2016 at 02:01
I'd carry on with or without your permission  Discussing this one song is far more interesting than discussing the thread topic and I believe goes a long way to illustrate how and why the thread topic is essentially a false one. Returning to your point about the "silver and gold" verse (as I was writing my reply to Robert as you posted yours I didn't address it in my post):
I have to say I'm not wholly convinced either. If ever thou gav'st silver and gold, Every nighte and alle, At t' Brig o' Dread thou'lt find foothold, And Christe receive thy saule. For the pagan explanation it is believed that the Brig o' Dread is the Bifrost of Nordic mythology and the sliver and gold would be an advance payment for crossing the bridge. A toll by nightly subscription is starting to sound a bit flaky already, in Greek, Roman and thus early Roman catholic christian religions payment for entering the underworld was a one-off payment based on the myth of Charon requiring payment to ferry the dead over the rivers Styx and Acheron, but this is not a Nordic or Germanic tradition. And there is another slight problem with the Bifrost explanation, and that is Heimdallr the Nordic god who guards the bridge, since he doesn't demand payment and as 'the whitest of white' gods he's pretty much unbribable - gold and silver isn't going to get you across the Rainbow Bridge to Aesgard. The song is an account of a christian soul's journey through purgatory to heaven, (much like Dante's Divine Comedy or Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress), so leaving this odd bit of alleged paganism in the middle doesn't make a whole lot of sense in that narative. But more than that it is trial of consequences - if you've done certain charitable things throughout your life (every night and all) then you can continue on the journey otherwise it's straight to hell for you. The three charitable acts are giving clothing, money and food & drink. One of the reasons Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1530s was because they had become incredibly wealthy (and with that wealth came corruption). There were many ways in which they could accumulate wealth but four applicable ones here were by collection, tithe, donation and cash for instant absolution, all of which were basically people buying their way into heaven. The idea that giving money to the church would ease the path of a soul to heaven was universal in the Middle Ages and, IMO, the song merely shows that custom. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 21 2016 at 03:05
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Ah-ha! Found me a proper Northern English/Nordic connection. Previously I had read that "whinney" was derived from an Old English word meaning "thorn" and took that as true, I now believe this is false. A Whin or Whynne is a Middle English word that means Gorse or Furze so Whinney-Muir now refers to a gorse moor, which makes a lot more sense than the given translation of thorny moor - gorse moors are common in England and particularly in Yorkshire, which is famous for its moors. "Whin" is of Old Norse origin ( https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=hvein&action=edit&redlink=1" rel="nofollow - hvein ) which ties-up with the Northern English connection and there is a pub just outside Wakefield called The Whinney Moor which may have taken its name from the song for all I know but it is a Yorkshire connection at least. This still doesn't fix the song in the Medieval of course as the transition from Middle English to Modern English didn't happen over night or across the whole country at the same time so a lot of the [now obsolete words in the] Middle English vocabulary would have persisted for some time, especially in remote areas.
------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 21 2016 at 04:34
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 21 2016 at 07:06
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^ Also that verse doesn't appear in every version of the song, for example The Pentangle version omits both 'silver and gold' verses (as does the Mediæval Bæbes version - however, as much as I admire Katherine Blake's vision for the Bæbes, no one is ever going to hold them up as an example of medieval authenticity). This also contains the only vaguely Yorkshire dialect bit, which is of course the contracted "the" in 'At t' Brig o' Dread thou'lt find foothold,' but unfortunately that doesn't ring true for me as "the" isn't contracted for any of the other occurrences of "the" - this lack of consistency in the text is puzzling but since that verse appears in some versions and not others there maybe another explanation, for example the version posted on page 3 is a hybrid and the two verses that mention silver and gold are lifted from elsewhere, which is very possible as the use of 'thou'lt' is also inconsistent with the other verses where 'thee' is used instead. Also, it's not how Yorkshire is generally spoken anyway but a caricatured misconception often used for comedic purposes. Depending on the region of Yorkshire (it's a big county and there isn't one accent or dialect) the "t" is either seldom, if ever sounded (though a silent pause or 'uh' sound may be added) or it is tacked onto the end of the previous word, for example 'down pit' or 'downt pit' so since 'At' already ends in a "t" then the dialect form could more accurately be written as 'At Brig o' Dread...' <Monty Python fans may recall the http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=YPSzPGrazPo" rel="nofollow - Northern Playwright sketch - Graham Chapman never uses the contracted 't'>. The use of the double-negative ('thou ne'er gav'st nane' -> 'thou never gave none' = 'you gave none' or 'you never gave any') could give an indication of either (medieval) Middle English or at least (early modern) Yorkshire Northern English, but double-negatives were (and still are) commonplace all over England - Shakespeare uses them and they appear in the King James bible so cannot be used to push the date back further than the late 16th/early 17th century. Rather than being the grammatical error we regard them as today, they were used more as an emphasis - 'no not never not no how' emphatically means 'no' regardless of how many negations there are.
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 21 2016 at 13:48
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^Kudos on your excellent research into the "rogue verse" of Lyke Wake Dirge. Aside from being a nifty bit of scholarship, it does bring to mind why this type of critical scholarship is not employed in the studies of music histories more often. This is probably the reason why we won't accept some these "historical conclusions", as is the case with Lyke Wake Dirge being a song that predates European Christianity, on face value.Btw, the two truncated versions of Lyke Wake Dirge were probably a coincidence. It's not unusual for a song of this type of repetitive sounding verses to be edited. The "silver and gold" verse sticks out like a sore thumb and was probably an easy candidate to be tossed away. Again, I really enjoyed your research into this vague, almost unknown, but extremely perplexing song.
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 22 2016 at 03:39
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^ alas I'm one of those grumpy old men who 'shouts at the telly' when watching popular history and science programmes if a tv historian/scientist/professor makes a conclusive statement based on scant evidence. I'm not someone who takes anything at face value. Ironically reading Lyall Watson's 'Supernature' as a teenager set me off on a forty year hobby of debunking pseudoscience and that has taught me to view all science with a critical eye (that some would see as cynicism). The double irony is pseudoscience exists because science can be (and should be) questioned yet doesn't survive scrutiny itself. When history is science (which mostly it is) then every statement is open to scrutiny, especially when those statements deal with conclusions of sociological nature - it would be an exaggeration to say that historians hold up a small pot shard and then deduce a whole social story around it as there is always a wealth of background data and knowledge to support them that we do not get to see (that separates them from the pseudos) - that data creates a context for the shard from where their conclusion was derived... except this isn't the result of deductive reasoning, it's abductive reasoning (post hoc ergo propter hoc) - i.e., it's not the only explanation but it is the most likely explanation. We are never going to have conclusive proof that Lyke Wake Dirge is medieval or has pagan roots, they are likely explanations but but not necessarily the most likely. The evidence does lean towards a Yorkshire or at least a Northern English origin for the first documented version but that's as far as that goes as it doesn't mean that the song originated there in the first place. Talking of TV and truncated versions of Lyke Wake Dirge, it is used in this form as the theme tune to BBC's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Living_and_the_Dead_%28TV_series%29" rel="nofollow - The Living and The Dead tv drama as sung by Howlin' Lord (and not Andrew Bird And Matt Berniger as YouTube claims - though their versions is practically identical). I've yet to find a recorded version of the full song.
------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 22 2016 at 07:03
There is a possible reason why this song is 'almost unknown' and that relates back to the earlier post Dave made in response to Pedro's comment about England not being a catholic country. Had England remain catholic then it is possible that given the hymnal like phrasing of the song it would have preserved it as a hymn and not forgotten it as a folk song - however, it is equally possible that it wouldn't have existed at all for the same reason. This is because the song deals with purgatory, which is a medieval catholic concept that is rejected by all protestant religions. Yet anglican protestants didn't completely deny the basic premise of purgatory and limbo. The anglican church of England officially rejected the idea of purgatory over the period between 1563 and 1571 for several reasons, (but not the same ones Luther gave for European protestants), where putting an end to the commercialisation of salvation by the monasteries was one of them and the excommunication of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I by the Pope being another. However belief in it didn't go away as it takes more than an official dictate to dispel a superstition (having once believed something it's quite difficult to then unbelieve it). The population continued to believe in restless spirits and still prayed for the dead even though officially such prayers had been removed from the book of common prayer in 1571. For example writing in 1600 Shakespeare places the ghost of Hamlet's father in purgatory and evidence of Lyke Wake Dirge existing in 1616 and 1686 further indicates that belief in purgatory continued in protestant England, albeit as a folk tradition rather than an officially condoned religious one. The removal of prayers for the dead from the book of common prayer could be why Lyke Wake Dirge existed at all and why no evidence of its existence can be found prior to 1571. Historians will note that the period between 1616 and 1686 (specifically 1643 to 1660) is not insignificant and marks a time of anti-catholic and anti-anglican puritanism in England that denounced the concept of purgatory completely, which could indicate a different, but not dissimilar, reason for its existence. That's not to say it didn't exist before then or that it wasn't based upon an earlier song but goes someway to explain why we have evidence for it from that particular post-medieval time. This also gives us a different perspective with which to view those two tricky 'silver and gold' verses and why two different versions of it exist - with them it's catholic and without them it's anglican. The structure of the song strongly suggests that the catholic-leaning version pre-dates the anglican-leaning version but it still does not make it medieval in origin. Regardless of whatever religion the songwriter practiced at the time of writing it, if it was written between 1571 and 1616 then it is highly probable that they would have been born catholic so would have included those rogue verses. ...food for thought. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 22 2016 at 13:25
I also agree that conclusive proof is lacking in the case of Lyke Wage Dirge being medieval with some pagan roots, but I still suggested it as a possible medieval song that found it's way to prog, as no conclusive proof exists to prove that it's not. What's enjoyable to me, personally, is being able to challenge and question some of these speculative conclusions from time to time. Or in the case of this song, enjoying the efforts of someone else taking up that challenge and making a good show of it. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 01:01
I'd say "found it's way onto an album by a Prog band" because while Basket of Light is The Pentangles most successful and most Jazz-Rock-Pop-Blues-Folk album, it's not really a Prog Rock album. Also Lyke Wake Dirge is the most traditional sounding (no-Jazz, no-Rock, no-Blues) track on the album albeit sounding more Elizabethan rather than Medieval (wherever the tune came from, it was probably much later than any written copy of the lyric). However, that's all splitting hairs really - whether it's 1780, 1680, 1580 or 1080 make little odds, it's bloody old and was used by, (dammit I'm going to come right out and say it), the most influential Jazz-Rock-Pop-Blues-Folk band in Prog. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 03:10
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However, this song continues to intrigue me. Another thing that goes against any pagan origin is that Northern European pagan religions have no need for the song. The myth of the Bifrost->Heimdall->Aesgard->Valhalla route was only for warriors - Odin populated Valhalla with warriors to fight with him at Ragnarok so chose them for their heroism and not for their charitable deeds or morality - everyone else went to Helheim (the hidden home) when they died ... while the emergent christian religion adopted this as their "Hell", for the Norse and other Germanic pagan peoples this was a morally neutral place, how you acted in life had no bearing on how you were treated in the afterlife. In most non-Abrahamic religions Hell is not a place of punishment as there is no distinction between heaven and hell - the fate of dead who failed to gain access was annihilation or, in certain circumstances, return to the land of the living.
So the only fear of the afterlife the newly bereaved experienced was if the dead failed to get there at all and so returned as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draugr" rel="nofollow - draugr (a living corpses, literally "again walker") to wreak some dreadful revenge on the living as a revenant - in that respect a pre-christian corpse-watch (lychwake) was not to aid the soul on its journey, but to ensure the bugger stayed dead, and if they didn't then someone would be ready to stake their heart or lop off their head. Similarly obstacles along the route to Helheim were not there to test the worthiness of the dead as all dead souls were allowed to pass, but to hinder any living attempting to gain access. For example in a http://norse-mythology.org/tales/the-death-of-baldur/" rel="nofollow - Danish saga of the death of Baldr:
Norse and Germanic stories of journeys to the underworld strongly parallel Greek mythology (Orpheus et al) so it was inevitable that the medieval concept of purgatory would draw heavily from these myths but the ideas of purging, atonement, salvation and absolution are uniquely christian. While there is no denying the pagan origin of the medieval concept of purgatory that consequently resulted in the soul's journey depicted in the dirge, it doesn't justify a pagan origin for the song itself. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 04:22
The origins of purgatory are far more interesting that the origins of heaven and hell, and point to the eternal possibility of regret, change and redemption. Something that human beings can actually aspire to in this life. And, obviously the "after walker" and it's remedy has survived through the ages in the in the eastern European vampire lore, which found it's way into Bram Stoker's Dracula. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 04:40
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^ the idea of purgatory as a means to get people to think about how they act in this life (karma) is noble enough, but unfortunately that you could buy this through 'silver and gold' tainted it somewhat for many non-catholic christians (from Luther through to CS Lewis). It is nobler still to do that in this world without the promise of reward (or threat of punishment) in the next - once you get past that there is little need for a next world at all. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 04:44
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Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 04:55
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Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 06:26
Purgatory exists, and I passed through it very recently : But I'm not in heaven. Not yet .-------------
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 08:59
Hardly. The only thing I'm critical of, is that group's extermination of the arts for almost 1000 years, to ensure that they survived and other arts/cultures didn't. The folks further away, suffered a lot less, to some extent, I imagine.
------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 09:46
 Does that mean you're in the other place?------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 09:50
No, fortunately . It only means that I was in that part of Sicily less than a week ago.-------------
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 23 2016 at 13:27
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Posted By: Davesax1965
Date Posted: September 25 2016 at 09:23
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So now we've had the historical prelude, hands up how many people believe that a large number of prog rock musicians sat down and made a detailed historical study of English medieval music and politics before flipping the power switch on a Mellotron ? ------------- |
Posted By: WeepingElf
Date Posted: September 25 2016 at 09:50
Probably none at all. ------------- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf "What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes." |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: September 25 2016 at 10:06
------------- Curiosity killed a cat, Schroedinger only half. My poor home recorded stuff at https://yellingxoanon.bandcamp.com |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 25 2016 at 14:39
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it's a bit of a strawman polemic because nothing in prog was determined by committee or by deliberate intent. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 26 2016 at 04:33
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Some more food for thought. German ethnomusicologist Britta Sweers' 2005 book titled Electric Folk, about the late sixties/early seventies English folk rock movement, which she considers to be "electric folk', even though Pentangle shied away from using any electric instruments (on their early studio albums), relates Pentangle member John Renbourn's fascination with "medieval and renaissance" music on his solo album Sir John A lot...And Ye Greene Knight. Sir John... is really an album of Elizabethan style songs, along with a few acoustic blues numbers. The compositions were all by Renbourn, so the best description of the former would be "pseudo-Elizabethan." I believe that it's this type of academic inaccuracy that causes a great deal of confusion with the general public in regards to medieval music being incorporated into folk rock and prog music.
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Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: September 26 2016 at 10:32
------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 26 2016 at 11:07
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^I'm sorry my dear chap, but people of faith do not have a monopoly on pain and suffering. This is not the time and place for this discussion, but I would be happy to continue this discussion via a PM. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 00:44
The promise of an afterlife is the most evil and wicked deceit that religion has ever purportraited. I despise any omnipotent god that has the power to prevent pain and suffering in this world but chooses not to. It is a conceit and it is a despicably abhorrent one.  ------------- What? |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 01:36
If we're going to argue my path won't be about how a nice God should make sense to logicians, but rather posting about placebo effect, the power of imagination and the capacity to ignore what we don't like in reality. O'course I'll be far out of my depth as usual... PM? (I've PMed SteveG but he hasn't answered yet).
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Posted By: WeepingElf
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 10:03
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Whether there is an afterlife or not is a difficult question, but is there any need to discuss it here? ------------- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf "What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes." |
Posted By: jayem
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 11:01
...Not that difficult: evidences on how the brain and nervous system work show that an afterlife is more than unlikely, exception made of the concept and fantasy of it. A difficult question remains: should one try by all means to reason someone who believes in it? We'll need to discuss it here if it helps us understand why medieval influences can be found so often in prog. ------------- http://www.digger.ch/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - Support mine-clearing ! https://bandcamp.com/machinechance/?lang=en" rel="nofollow - bandcamp collection |
Posted By: Mr Smith
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 13:43
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and to think none of this would be possible without American music
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 13:58
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Posted By: thepurplepiper
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 14:11
| A lot of interesting discussion in this thread about medieval music and how we don't truly know how it sounds; but I was under the impression that Gentle Giant incorporated medieval (or perhaps I was misinformed and it was a different time period) scales into their songwriting? |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 27 2016 at 18:28
Correct. The Modes (scales) are even older than that, Aristotle and his pupils described these scales back in the 4th century BCE. Using ancient scales does not recreate ancient music, these modes were used in Jazz long before Gentle Giant and none of that ever sounded Medieval (or ancient Greek). ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 28 2016 at 04:34
 Bebop, bebop, bebop. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |
Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: September 28 2016 at 05:05
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but Limenlos: Second Hymne Delphique a Apollon reminds me of Giacinto Scelsi + selected Avant / RIO / Zeuhl-stuff: - I know I know, but still kinda fascinating isn't it? -------------
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Posted By: WeepingElf
Date Posted: September 28 2016 at 09:40
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It has to be noted that in Medieval and Renaissance music, the names of the modes such as Lydian, Phrygian etc. do not refer to the same scales as they do in ancient Greek music. The names were taken from ancient Greek writings and applied to the Medieval modes at a time when people did not know what the ancient Greek modes were like and thus applied "wrongly". The ancient Greek system was much more complex than the Medieval/Renaissance system; for instance, some ancient Greek modes used quarter-tones. ------------- ... brought to you by the Weeping Elf "What does Elvish rock music sound like?" - "Yes." |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: September 28 2016 at 11:31
Correct, I was trying to keep it simple as making it over-complex is an unnecessary distraction. However, you have made the point that others in this thread has been making - without a means of writing down music or recording performance no one knew what music of an earlier era was like. ------------- What? |
Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 29 2016 at 04:15
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Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: September 29 2016 at 05:02
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^But if its anywhere near accurate and this was close to what the ancient greek teens were streaming, and their postmen were whistling to while delivering Ancient Greek Times to the subscribing philosophers and semi gods, I'd say we still haven't caught up with them. -------------
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Posted By: SteveG
Date Posted: September 29 2016 at 10:48
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^Hmm. This is wisdom indeed. ------------- This message was brought to you by a proud supporter of the Deep State. |