Duly Noted

In his Etymologies, St Isidore said,  “Unless sounds are remembered by man, they perish, for they cannot be written down.”  He was right in his time, but it didn't take long for people to find a new way to write music. 
"Duly Noted" was an attempt to trace the uneven history of notating music in manuscripts, first with neumes, then with neumes on a staff, to square or diamond-shaped notes on a staff of four to seven lines. There were other methods used in handbooks that didn't quite make it to prime-time. Some of the manuscripts were smaller than a paperback, others were well over two feet tall. 
The best thing I found was the Exultet Roll, which was nothing less than 11th century PowerPoint!  Since this was an event that combined the Stellar University of Northshield with a Scribes and Heralds Symposium, I included lots of manuscripts with heraldry. I also recycled "Now I know my ABGs" -- a history of the alphabet.

ABGs revisited

Rokeclif's chatelaine thought that having classes at our shire meetings would be fun. I got to be the first presenter, with "Now I know my ABGs". It's interesting presenting a formal class to people you know pretty well. Nobody fell asleep.

Stellar University of Northshield

November 7 was a big day. I planned to teach two classes, but ended up with three: numbers, ABCs, and colors -- a veritable kindergarten!

The Numb3rs class was a rerun from Bardic Madness in April of 2008. Karyn and Kudrun compare the way we use numbers in a typical day.

"Now I Know My ABGs" was a repeat from June 20, 2009. I assumed that the audience in Madison WI would be different from the one in Sioux Falls SD.

"A Rainbow of Rainbows" was originally conceived for Bardic Madness in 2006, but I completely revamped it, using PowerPoint instead of color slides (remember slides?). This is an exploration of color theory and uses of color in period, beginning before Aristotle.