Articles

Articles by Mistress Adelaide de Beaumont

Bardic Arts

• Research For Bards and Performers
  Develop a unique repertoire from period and traditional sources. Includes tips for finding out whether that supposedly period piece is period after all. Learn to use terms that will help you drastically cut down hits on your web searches.
• Sight Singing: Dots to Do-Re-Mi!
  A (very) brief history of musical notation, with emphasis on producing notes from blobs, followed by tips on how to get from one blob to the next.
• Sonnet More Like Shakespeare — Five Things He Does You’re Probably Not Doing
  Shakespeare’s sonnets are normally taught as though they follow a strict set of rules. Shakespeare’s real genius was in knowing when to break those rules.
• So You Want to Write a Song?
  How to turn an idea into a song, including tips for writing/finding lyrics and tips for writing/finding tunes.
• Step 7: I’m Going to Finish This Thing If It Kills Me
  Honing in-process work; how to get that song out of your sock drawer and into your repertoire. This is a follow-up to my article “So You Want to Write a Song?”
• Best Foot Forward (Fixed Poetic Meters)
  How to tell an iamb from a trochee, and why you should care.
• Documenting Original Bardic Pieces
  Advanced class on writing documentation for kingdom and inter-kingdom A&S competitions.
• How to Bard
  Introduction to the bardic world, including where to go for material and where to find an audience, plus performance tips.
• Vocal Projection and Presence
  Tips on getting more volume from your instrument, plus care instructions, with a brief discussion on period singing style.  (These notes are meant to accompany the hands-on class.)
• Period Filk and Contrafacta
  Yes, “filk” is period.  How to construct a “new” song the way they did in the 16th century (and before), and why using modern tunes is such a bad idea.
• Traditional Ballads
  A survey of English and Scottish “popular” ballads, and how to create new ballads in the same style.
• What is a Mode?
  Advanced class on musical modes, and how to use modes to develop medieval-style melodies.

Other Arts

• Interlacing without Erasing
  A step-by-step instruction on producing “Celtic” interlace, plus a survey of examples of the motif found far from the Emerald Isle.
• The ABCs of English Country Dancing
  Introduction to the terminology of English Country Dance.

Heraldry

• A Primer on Field and Court Heraldry
  How to quickly come up to speed if you’ve found yourself your group’s herald and an event is coming up.
• A Rose by Any Other Name
  An explanation of the rules for registration of a name in the SCA, plus where to look for name ideas.
• The Irish Can’t Spell (and the English Can’t Read)
  Why you’re pronouncing Irish names incorrectly and how to fix it.
• Sententia Bona, or What Makes a Good Motto?
  A discussion of mottos in period and ideas for constructing one for yourself.

Miscellaneous

• Save the Trees! – Running an SCA Lists on One Sheet of Paper
  An easy method for keeping track of bouts for both double-elimination and round robin tournaments, without those cumbersome trees.