mmcnealy | Song of the Wild Hare

I get wild hare ideas sometimes, and yesterday was a prime example.

I decided that I should learn some songs that my persona would sing, either for entertainment, or just doing chores around the house. I know several English songs from the 1500's, but no German songs either in English or German.

I decided that this needed to be remedied. So off I went to do some research, and found all sorts of fun stuff that I thought I'd share.

First off, its quite easy to find neat songs in lots of other languages! (I'll post the German stuff in a separate post).

The Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads collection has a nice selection of broadside ballads and song sheets. It works great if you know the title of the song or the first line because the search by date function isn't available.

A database of vocal music of the "French" Renaissance has midi files, PDF trascriptions of the modern notation and a scan of the original work in period notation.

I think this one was the coolest find though, especially if you are doing DUTCH
The Dutch Song Database contains more than 125,000 songs in the Dutch and Flemish language, from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century. Its organized quite well, so you can find all the songs that have the same tune, or have similar words. Plus there are MP3's of many of the songs.

The neatest part is that they did a recording project of the Souterliedekens, which are rhymed psalm translations in Dutch, set to popular tunes, published in Antwerp in 1540. It is the first complete Psalter in any European vernacular.

Since these psalms were set to popular songs, the tunes for lots of other songs from the same period have been saved.