Choral Public Domain Library

Hello fellow CPDLers. I have yet to fully investigate this site but it looks wonderful. I sing with a small informal group in a small town in Australia. Our repertoire is quite wide-ranging, but our main focus is on Renaissance music about which I would like to learn more. We try to avoid the very well-known madrigals like "Now is the Month of Maying" and are always looking for unusual secular melodies (SAB and/or SATB). Most of us have no formal music training but have basic music-reading skills. We sing mainly for our own pleasure, but are beginning to think about performing locally.

Oh, and we sing unaccompanied. The singers choose the music. We have no director, but do have a conductor who does her best to bring some order to our happy chaos.

I believe there's somewhere on this site where one can request music... I shall be requesting "We be Soldiers Three". Can't seem to find it anywhere.

Welcome to CPDL. If you try the "advanced serch" function, you can find more than 1000 scores classified as "madrigal".

I'm not familiar with madrigals, so I have no info about "We be Soldiers Three". Unfortunately the main contributor of madrigals to CPDL, Brian Russel, passed away some weeks ago. I hope some expert about madrigals may help you.

Max

"We be soldiers three" is from Deuteromelia (1609) by Thomas Ravenscroft.

There is no need to post an edition to CPDL because a Facsimile scan of the original
print is freely available from
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft ... small.html

Note that it is in triple time, meaning that three black notes make one white note.

Have Fun,

Christoph

Welcome to CPDL!

The index to that site has the tenor part in modern notation, in case that's helpful.

By the way, I've sung a modern edition of the same song with more verses. Page 43 of the link below shows some other verses to this song:
http://books.google.com/books?id=tiUNAA ... t#PPA43,M1

When you move to the next page (the navigation menu on top of the image does not very much look like a menu) you will find the bass voice and all verses:

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ravenscroft ... small.html

Thank you all so much for your welcome and for your generous help.

We be Soldiers Three..... I've looked at the sites suggested above (thank you all). There doesn't seem to be anywhere for the altos (I'm an alto). It seems odd that there isn't a four-part arrangement of this song somewhere. Is there some way we could adapt the original STB for our SATB, or SAB, purposes? Unfortunately none of us is an arranger, and we couldn't afford to buy a copy each of the "War Songs" book suggested. I suppose the altos could sing the tenor part and the tenors join the basses? Haven't really thought this through, but wonder if anyone else has any ideas about this.

The original three part version can be sung as is with SAB. Note that the terms "tenor", "treble" and "bassus" often did not specify voice ranges but rather voice functions (e.g. "tenor" typically denotes the voice carrying the "meaning", i.e. the melody). From singing through the parts, it seems to me that actually the melody voice is the "tenor".

The "treble" part is in a convenient mezzo soprano range (c'# - c''), the "tenor" part in a convenient female alto range ("b-a') and lies often above the "treble" part. The only problem for your choir is probably the high f in the "bassus" part (first three notes in the second line), which can easily be solved by singing the f an octave lower.

Concerning the notation, make sure that three black notes make one white note. The coloration (e.g. the third note in all parts) is used to distinguish a note that is only two black notes long from a white note (three black notes long). The clefs are C clefs.

Have fun!

That's tremendously helpful thank you cdalitz. I think we'll really enjoy We be Soldiers Three (once everyone has worked out the "new look" notation).