Music and Livelihood

I am not going to be able to work as a performer for the rest of my life. There are a number of reasons for this, and none of them are up for discussion in this post, but my current strategy is not working and is unsustainable. However, I am a musician through and through: when I am not making music I am pretty miserable. So I've been thinking lately about how to make a living as a musician,...

Our Cheerful Voices let us raise

Cheerful Voices by Kathryn Rose Our cheerful voices let us raise, And sing a parting song; Although I'm with you now, my friends, I can't be with you long: For I must go and leave you all, It fills my heart with pain; Although we part, perhaps, in tears, I hope we'll meet again. A final shape-note tune to end Cheerful Voices. If you're still short of Christmas presents, you can either download...

Cheerful Voices: Hark! Hark! Glad tidings charm our ears

Hark! hark! glad tidings charm our ears, Angelic music fills the spheres; Earth spreads the sound with decent mirth, A God, a God is born on earth! A God is born! the valleys cry; A God is born! the hills reply; Evening repeats to wondering morn, A God, a God on earth is born! Another lovely bit of shape note music from Southern Harmony. I think this would lend itself to trumpet instrumentation...

O Oriens

O Oriens, splendor lucis aeternae, et sol justitiae: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis. O Morning Star, splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death. Today's antiphon feels appropriate, in the northern hemisphere. Solstice is around this time, and we address Christ as Dayspring, Morning Star,...

Cheerful Voices: What wondrous love is this?

What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul, What wondrous love is this, O my soul! What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss To bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul, To bear the dreadful curse for my soul! When I was sinking down, sinking down, sinking down, When I was sinking down, sinking down, When I was sinking down beneath God's righteous frown, Christ laid...

Cheerful Voices: Dou way Robyn/Sancta Mater

Dou way, Robyn, the child wile weepe; dou way Robyn. Sancta mater gratiae, stella claritatis visita nos hodie plena pietatis. Veni, vena veniae mox incarceratis, solamen angustiae, fons suavitatis. Recordare, mater Christi, quam amare tu flevisti; juxta crucem tu stetisti, suspirando viso tristi O, Maria, flos regalis, inter omnes nulla talis; Tuo nato specialis nostrae carnis parce malis O,...

Cheerful Voices: She moved through the fair

My young love said to me, "My mother won't mind And my father won't slight you for your lack of kine" And she stepped away from me and this she did say: It will not be long, love, till our wedding day." As she stepped away from me and she moved through the fair And fondly I watched her move here and move there And then she turned homeward with one star awake Like the swan in the evening moves...

Cheerful Voices: The Song of the Vineyard

Cheerful Voices by Kathryn Rose My truelove had a vineyard upon a hill so high, He dug the ground and planted the best that you can buy, He hollowed out a winepress and built a wall and tower; At harvest-time he gathered but every grape was sour. Now find the guilty party, you masters of the law; My truelove in his vineyard could not have laboured more. A vineyard so ungrateful with grapes so...

Cheerful Voices: There was an old woman who had a little pig

Cheerful Voices by Kathryn Rose My grandfather used to sing this to me. He sang a sort of postlude, too, to a different tune which I have now forgotten. I don't know why pig mortality was something my grandfather was singing to me about, or indeed whether two grown-ups dying of broken hearts is really appropriate material for a four-year-old, but I don't remember it bothering me at all. Some of...

Gaudete

First a little music -- the second track from my album, Cheerful voices, available at Bandcamp. As I've written there: This carol is from the Piae Cantiones, a cllection of Scandinavian sacred music published in 1582. Only the music for the chorus is given; the traditional tune for the verses is taken from other songs from around that time. Thanks to Ruth Moss for the English half of the chorus....