| Current mood: |  happy |
Springtime for Good King Wenceslas
For a while now, I've wanted to have something musical to do at SCA events. I've got my penny whistle, but it's kind of loud and I'd rather be doing something soft in the background. So, when I saw a little zither the other day at Trading Up Music, I came home and did a little research as to medieval zithers. The little modern plucked zithers closely resemble medieval psalteries. For what amounts to a very nice toy, the zither I found has a very sweet tone. So I decided it would be fun to get it and noodle around a bit, as ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
fjorlief puts it. :-)
For the last day or so, I've been figuring out what I know how to play that would be appropriate to play at events. I'm not a purist, you know, so older folk tunes are definitely on the list. So far, it's Greensleeves (of course), an early Lauda, Tis a Gift (my favorite folksong from hippie church camp), Sailor's Prayer (one of my favorites from Duncan's repetoire), Scotland the Brave, Here We Come A' Wassailing, and Good King Wenceslas, which are my two favorite carols. I've been doing a little research this morning and came across this. It turns out that the music for Good King Wenceslas is of Swedish origin, dates to about the 13th century, can be documented to the early 16th century, and is actually a spring carol called Tempus Adest Floridum. I'm going to see if I can learn to sing the Latin, 'cause OMG I'm a dork and it's so exciting to play a song not only that old, but from my medieval persona's neck of the woods.
