Piva: Renaissance music (no accordion)

[Anyanka]

Ive just listened to the four tunes on Pivas new website; I love this sound!

Eric Moulder, the founder of Piva, was woodwork teacher to the Fettler (aka Moleman or The Husband), forty years ago and is now a renowned maker of renaissance instruments. Hes going to help the Fettler make me a shawm, so that I can make lovely squawky medieval noises too.

 

[Glenn]

Very well recorded. It brings out the simplicity of the instruments and the elegance that it somehow conjures up in my brain.
I don't find those medieval sounds squawky though. Maybe in a previous life I was a medieval instrument maker ( or indeed a medieval instrument).

 

[Anyanka]

It might get squawky when I play... and it will definitely get loud (that's the nature of the shawm).

 

[donn]

Personal experience with this stuff is only recorders, but from what I've heard about the shawm, whoever's playing it in "Hunt's Uppe" must be very skilled. More typically suited to a small ensemble with a cymbal player, for the purpose of scaring of demons. That proto-bassoon thing in the video clip sounds pretty good, too, evidently a curtal or dulcian. I'm sure it's fiendishly difficult too, the fingering must be quite weird, but at worst it's just out of tune. This is why I play bari sax and not soprano.