One of these days, I'm going to make a systematic study of what a singer means, when she turns to the band and says, "Key of G, fellas." (I mean I know a tad, but not as much as you could find out reading this article and pondering it for a few weeks.)
The kids are downright aching to play music these days, so I'm trying to figure out what a reasonable family ensemble objective might be with suitably 18th century flavor. I downloaded a new version of Cakewalk yesterday, tooled around with my new fife in the key of F, tried to accompany David Thomas on the guitar in the public house, asked Freeman a few questions about keyed instruments, waxed more confused, then went to playing with the innumerable MIDI settings on banks, patches, and the like, and finally got Cakewalk outputting acoustic grand piano sound on three tracks. I typed in the melody line for a fife tune that was played on the morning of April 19, 1775 at Lexington--the White Cockade. I wondered what harmony or counter melody might sound like in three parts. Here's my first try at three part something or other. (Turn up the speakers, but not too loud.)
Dunno what I did there--whether it's harmony, counter-melody, or just pure "dissonance." It sounds a little too "barber-shoppy" to me for the 18th century. There's a maddening phrase you see quite a bit when you read about 18th century folk music. It usually goes something like this: "crude scores were written on broadsides and in the journals of itinerant country musicians, but the ensemble was expected to come up with their own harmonies."
Now, I just need to see whether any "itinerant country musician" wrote a harmony somewhere, and if someone has been kind enough out there in internet land to sequence it for me--as an example. Then I have to figure out parts for piano, tin whistle (6 keys to choose from), fife (two keys to choose from so far), fiddle, and recorder, and...voice.
Fun, frustrating stuff..
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