A Performer's Guide to Medieval Music

Rating:
Summary: Begin here
Review: I agree with the other review of this book, the
Bagby article is wonderful in its insight and also
its discouraging the adoption of riffs from contemporary
cultures (a la "world music") while finding inspiration and advice in them. Non-western musical traditions have has its own genius and integrity witout insulting them by pasting them onto western practice. They should be studied for their own worth.
The articles about theory and practice in this book are the most practical I've ever seen in a book on the subject. Following Margriet Tindemans' advice in chapter 34 will definitely get you somewhere.
If you are going to buy only one book on the subject it should be this one. If you are going to buy several, this one should be the first.

Rating:
Summary: Sheep guts, neumes, and poetic imagination
Review: This collection of essays attempts to give a fairly complete overview of things we need to know to do a credible job of recreating medieval music, including poetic and dramatic forms, modes, tunings, the ever-elusive question of notation, and specifics about the instruments. This last is particularly helpful when one is moving sideways out of one's own area of expertise (eg, singers wanting to know more about how to direct the instrumentalists in suitable accompaniment textures, lutenists seeking to create a repertoire out of 14th and 15th c vocal forms, sensible people curious about the hurdy gurdy's fall from grace, etc.). Within any given essay are plenty of challenges to commonly received knowledge, with abundant references and citations. Illustrations, though sparing, manage to make departures from the ones usually given. In all, this book is bound to serve as a standard reference for years to come.

For a taste now, if nothing else, anyone involved in recreating medieval music simply must read Benjamin Bagby's essay "Imagining the Early Medieval Harp." He presents a quest, and captures many hints to point to a truly passionate and organic reconstruction of authentic performance practice. Why do we go to such efforts to assemble these hints and scraps of the past? Why would we even think of limiting ourselves to musical instruments barely exceeding an octave? Imagine, with Mr Bagby, the legend of Tristan with his 8-10 stringed harp, described in a 13th c account as "playing such sweet tones and striking the harp so perfecly... that many who stood or sat nearby forgot their own names." This is a possible ideal even today: Read on!

Even more is given in the late Barbara Thornton's interview "The Voice," wherein very specific techniques are shared for cultivating a medieval imagination. Like a language itself, this imagination is also a receptivity to many emotional nuances and inflections that are simply not communicated by any other kind of music.

As Ms Thornton reflected, it was just as hard for a medieval person to gain mastery of medieval tradition as it is for us today. "The building blocks in medieval tradition are known and available." You'll find a treasury of them here.