contiga -any descriptions? explanations?

Subject: contiga -any descriptions? explanations?
From: Mr Red
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 05:42 AM

At a recent French & Breton dance dance.mister.red/#nailsworth a visiting Californian couple played two tunes, one of which they described as a contiga.

I don't know which one was impossible to dance to, but the second turned into a bouncy polkaish bop that I have used for a Cajun band that can't play Cajun. We were the only couple dancing by then.

So other than a 13th C Medieval Spanish tune what is a contiga. Time signatures? etc? PS Google is not that helpful. Wiki virtually nothing.

Subject: RE: contiga -any descriptions? explanations?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 13 Mar 16 - 05:52 PM

Are we talking about a cantiga? As in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantiga ?

Subject: RE: contiga -any descriptions? explanations?
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 05:29 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantiga
Cantiga is also the name of a poetic and musical form of the Renaissance, often associated with the villancico and the canción.

Thanks. Goggle only offered contigo Yahoo even less.

But to be honest, the tune we tried dancing to was not a "monophonic song" referred to on Wiki.

if I can get a reliable enough broadband I will listen to this band http://cantigamusic.com/

Subject: RE: contiga -any descriptions? explanations?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 07:55 PM

Most likely they borrowed one of the dancier tunes from the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso X and didn't remember (or ever know) what it was and how to spell it.

http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/cantigas/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantigas_de_Santa_Maria

Practical modern performing edition (I have this):

http://www.gaita.co.uk/publications.html

A facsimile, for the REALLY serious mediaeval music buff:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Cantigas_de_Santa_Maria_%28Alfonso_X_of_Castile%29

Subject: RE: contiga -any descriptions? explanations?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 08:11 PM

Jack beat me to it there. There's plenty of latitude when it comes to setting the cantigas, as there isn't much information about how they were performed, but, as Jack says, there are plenty of dancier settings of the songs with some quite imaginative instrumental ensembles accompanying the voices. I have a CD that I treasure called Cantigas de Amigo by Ensemble Alcatraz with the Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble. The album contains, among lots of other goodies, settings of the seven Cantigas of the album title by Martin Codax. It can't be totally authentic but it's a real gem nonetheless.

Subject: RE: contiga -any descriptions? explanations?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Mar 16 - 09:06 PM

Hi, Mr. Red

I play early music with friends, and we have several cantigas in our repertoire, most of which I received at early music workshops.

Jack's link to a Wikipedia article (above) will explain all about the cantigas. To make the story short, in the middle ages there were many folk tales in circulation about the Virgin Mary. Most of the cantigas put these tales to music, but the article says that some of the cantigas are hymns. They can be in any time signature.

King Alfonso the 9th had the cantigas written down in manuscripts. The monks were not as scrupulous with the music as they were with lyrics. There is at least one MS where they never wrote the music in, and I believe that in places the words and music do not seem to go together.

Nonetheless, the cantigas can be great fun to play. We were doing cantigas at a wedding reception once, and we thought all the guests were ignoring us. However, our guitarist dropped her pick and this caused her to bend way down. When she came up, she said, "There are feet tapping all over the room."