Bardcore: memes, early music and modern performance
Medieval music is both a fascination and a mystery. That may go some way to explain why bardcore, or covers of modern songs in an old-timey style, has become such a phenomenon. Put away that hurdy gurdy for now and listen to my analysis of bardcore, its influences and its early musician predecessors.
Yes
The eleventh century
Musike!
Not many people were literate, let alone musically literate, so music would be memorised and improvised. But there are still plenty of manuscript records of musical notation to look at!
Images:
There are too many images to list them individually so here are links to the places where they can be found.
DIAMM (the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music)
This is an invaluable resource for searching for historical music sources. It's easy to use and points you in the direction of the right archives.
I love the British Library blog! It features articles written by academics and it highlights items from the collections.
Early Music Instrument Database
It does what it says! A database all about the different early music instruments.
Managed by early musician Ian Pittaway, this website will tell you all about the music and instruments of the past, as well as how to get your hands on a beloved hurdy gurdy.
Footnotes:
02:02 Algal the Bard, YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/alvariu
02:06 the_miracle_aligner, 'Pumped up kicks 1066 A.D Cover in Old English (Anglo Saxon tongue) BARDCORE', YouTube video, 17 Jun 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcKqhDFhNHI
02:08 Beatmar von Verseburg, 'Toxicum (Britney Spears - Bardcore / Medieval Cover)', YouTube video, 30 Dec 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=49Z7zcGqqw4
02:13 Hildegard von Blingin', YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/user/9freakydarling9
02:15 Hildegard von Blingin', 'Bad Romance (Bardcore | Medieval Style Cover)', YouTube video, 3 Jun 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2zpbcW-h-c
03:35 John Caldwell, 'English music from the Norman Conquest to the death of Dunstable', in Medieval Music (London: Taylor and Francis, 1978), pp. 198-208
03:44 Universidad de Alcalá, 'Concierto The Gregorian Chant Choir of Spain', YouTube video, 24 Oct 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm2tX7iSEzU&t=2691s
04:47 Sarah Fuller, 'Early polyphony to circa 1200', in Mark Everist ed., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 46-9
04:51 Elizabeth Eva Leach, 'The fourteenth century', in Mark Everist ed., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 87-104
06:00 Nigel Wilkins, 'Instruments and Their Music', in Mark Everist and Thomas Forrest Kelly eds., The Cambridge History of Medieval Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), pp. 451-474 (p. 454)
06:38 Peter Bull, 'Peter Bull - Hurdy Gurdy', YouTube video, 22 Nov 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4AeV9CCO0E
07:02 Lukas Boch, 'Bardcore: Im Interview mit der einzigartigen Hildegard von Blingin‘', Mittelalter Digital, mittelalter.digital/artikel/bardcore-hildegard-von-blingin-interview/2
07:05 Hildegard von Blingin', 'Somebody That I Used To Know (Bardcore | Medieval Style Cover with Vocals)', YouTube video, 21 Jun 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch1aVmjvYTI
07:12 'Sumer Is Icumen In', British Library Medieval Manuscripts Blog, 25 Jun 2012, blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2012/06/sumer-is-icumen-in.html
07:59 Elmira Tanatarova, 'Exploring Bardcore: YouTube’s obsession with medieval covers of Lady Gaga', i-D VICE, 23 Jun 2020, i-d.vice.com/en_uk/article/v7gbqj/bardcore-youtube-music-trend-medieval-covers
08:04 Megan Brearley, 'Bardcore has me "shooketh"', The Varsity: University of Toronto's Student Newspaper, 13 Sep 2020, thevarsity.ca/2020/09/13/bardcore-has-me-shooketh/
11:00 Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, 'Introducing the hurdy gurdy', YouTube video, 21 May 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyBYRlB6VW4&t=72s
12:00 Cecil Sharp, English Country Song: Some Conclusions (London: Simpkin and co., 1907), pp. 134-6
12:40 Helen Dell, '"[A] single, true, certain authenticity": The authenticity wars in English twentieth-century folk and medieval music revivals', Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, 10.4 (2019) 439-451
12:45 kurtjohan, 'Stockholm Early Music Festival', YouTube video, 22 Mar 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=BApdiYbojyw
13:04 Tenebrae Choir, 'Miserere mei, Deus - Allegri - Tenebrae conducted by Nigel Short', YouTube video, 15 Oct 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3v9unphfi0
13:10 OfficialLondonTheatre, 'Six performance at the Olivier Awards 2019 with Mastercard', YouTube video, 9 May 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJbaU4j0JCo
13:20 John Potter, 'Issues in the Modern Performance of Medieval Music', in Mark Everist and Thomas Forrest Kelly eds., The Cambridge History of Medieval Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018) pp. 609-625
13:27 Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. 'What are period instruments?', YouTube video, 22 Jan 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLpAaIqJPck&t=2s
13:40 Daniel Leech-Wilkinson, The Modern Invention of Medieval Music: Scholarship, Ideology, Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 3-15
Further reading:
Cesarino Ruin, 'Teaching Medieval Music Today: New Approaches to Paleography and Music History', Musica Docta, 6.1 (2016) 69–76
Laurence Wright, 'The Medieval Gittern and Citole: A Case of Mistaken Identity', The Galpin Society Journal, 30 (1977) 8-42
Yu-Hui Huang, Xuanli Chen, S. Beck, D. Burn and L. Gool, 'Automatic Handwritten Mensural Notation Interpreter: From Manuscript to MIDI Performance,' ISMIR (2015) 79-85