Shrewsbury Singing

One of the difficulties in open air Renaissance Faire performance is that the players can often be heard quite a distance. This can be an impossible situation if you're, say, a harper trying to busk in the same county as a bag piper.

The Pearwood Pipers joined all of the madrigal singers at Shrewsbury on the main stage for a giant madrigal-fest. There's nothing quite like singing bass in the company of seven or so other accomplished bass singers.

However, several rounds of fa-la-la-la-la-ing later, the belly dancer dumbec ensemble fired up.

Let's just say Fair Philomena loses out to Fatima.

So as we prepared to sing Strike It Up Tabor, I said, "Hey, can't we sing this to the time of the belly dancers?"

And, uh, I just happened to have a tambour in my hand.

So the next thing I knew, I was shimmying in the center of the World's Fastest Rendition of Thomas Weelkes' little song.

In retrospect, I'm pretty sure that Thomas Weelkes was not born in the wagon of a traveling show. Which is too bad.