All workshops will be held at The Chapel, Marjon, Plymouth PL6 8BH
Booking essential. £9 per workshop. Free to students 21 or under.
Book all three as a package for £25 (7% discount).
Email greenwoodconsort@aol.com or ring Mark on 07999 560861.
Workshop one
Singing for Charlemagne
Wednesday 7th January 2026 7.15pm-8.45pm
Learn the eight short plainchants to memorise the church modes.
Learn how the chants became politicised during Charlemagne's rule.
Learn the shorthand "notation" of neumes.
Group singing in unison.
No exposed singing.
You will need some sight reading skills and confidence in pronouncing Latin.
Workshop two
Talk Like A Troubadour
Wednesday 14th January 2026 7.15pm-8.45pm
Learn three songs (sent out in advance) to build your troubadour repertoire.
Learn to pronounce Old Occitan.
Learn the three approaches to interpreting the rhythms.
Group singing in unison.
Opportunities for solo singing and feedback.
You will need to learn the songs in rough outline before the workshop from notation.
Some knowledge of Latin, French, Spanish or Italian will be helpful in approaching the Old Occitan texts.
Workshop three
Flow My Tears
Wednesday 21st January 2026 7.15pm-8.45pm
Learn interpretation of Dowland's songs in a masterclass setting.
Learn historical English pronunciation around 1600.
Learn to work with harpsichord and bass viol accompaniment.
Solo singing of a pre-prepared Dowland song of your choice, with feedback.
Live accompaniment with Ian Hiscock (harpsichord) and Mark Bennett (bass viol).
Workshop one - Singing for Charlemagne
Plainchant is said to have been dictated by an angel to Pope Gregory the Great (Pope from 590-604AD).
By the time of Charlemagne's European empire (800-887AD), many more chants had been created and existing ones varied from place to place. One of the many reforms attempted by the Carolingian administration was to standardise the chants, to get the whole of Europe literally singing from the same hymn sheet.
This created uniformity but it also extinguished local traditions and erased devotionally-inspired music. Feelings ran high as people sought to protect their local heritage. There was even violence.
In this workshop, we will be looking at the eight "model" plainchants that were issued in written form as part of books known as "tonaries". These served both as an inspiration for non-liturgical composition and as a theoretical basis for singers to learn the eight "church modes" - the scale systems of their day.
We will work as a group to memorise these short plainchants, using memory techniques known in the medieval world. This gets to the heart of the medieval experience: written works were only ever back-up copies and reminders. Learning was by heart and carried with you throughout life, so that it interacted with every new experience, framing it and contextualising it.
All of our singing will be done as a group, so individual voice quality is not a focus. Technical work will be on posture and on breathing. The texts are in Latin, but there are only eight texts of one sentence each. The biggest demand of the session will be on stretching your ability to memorise. The experience of the singing will be meditative rather than athletic!
Workshop two - Talk Like a Troubadour
The troubadours were the first group of European secular composers to have their music written down and circulated. Not only that, but biographies (vidas) were written about them and even the stories behind the composition of individual songs (razos). They were mostly aristocrats in Southern France in Northern Spain in the 12th-14th centuries, and they wrote their songs in the Occitan language, as a badge of their elite status and cultural identity - even when Occitan was not their first language for some of them. We know more about them and their music than about any other group of composers in Europe before the Renaissance.
One thing we don't know, though, is the rhythm of their songs. We have the song lyrics: about 2,250 of them. For about 1 in 7 of these, we have the song melodies (only about 300 survive). A handful of these appear to indicate a rhythm, but the vast majority only show the pitches without any indication of how long or short each note was supposed to be.
This is a rich and passionate repertoire that singers deserve to have access to, but the scholarship needed to interpret these songs is often a barrier.
We will learn and apply four "rule-of-thumb" approaches that allow us to bring these ancient melodies back to life.
- isorhythmic - all notes the same length
- isosyllabic - all syllables the same length
- modal - all syllables in one of six fixed patterns of long and short notes
- declamatory - following the stress patterns of the spoken Occitan language
We will a few simple rules of pronunciation that allow us to pronounce Old Occitan in an informed way. The language was written as it sounded, much like modern Spanish or Italian, so it's only a small jump to be able to read and sing the words, especially if you already have some background in Latin or a modern Romance language.
Most of the singing will be in unison as a group, but there will be opportunities to share your own interpretation and get individual feedback. At times we will be accompanied by improvisation from Ian Hiscock on the medieval harp and portative organ. Three songs will be sent out in advance for you to prepare, but keep an open mind about rhythm, as we will try these songs in very different ways.
Workshop three - Flow My Tears
2026 is the 400th anniversary of John Downland's death. Judging by his works, he'd probably be happier for us to celebrate his death than his life!
Dowland's songs were written with lute accompaniment, and the scarcity of modern lutenists poses a problem for modern singers. Thanks to the Stainer & Bell editions of Edmund Fellowes in 1925 with scholarly revisions by Thurston Dart through the 1960's, singers have been able to work with piano accompaniments in high and low voice versions.
More recently, we all have access to the facsimiles of the original publications, thanks to IMSLP. Lutenists have unprecedented access to their repertoire, which includes music that is still unpublished and unedited. Guitarist can find some arrangements, or they can tune the G string down to F#, put a capo on 3rd fret and play straight from the original tablature!
But what about historical voices? How much do we know about what "good singing" was supposed to sound like? Did diet and health have any effect on the pitch and range of people's voices? What was the pitch anyway?
In this workshop, we'll be trying to answer some of these questions, drawing on sources that describe music and rhetoric as well as historical information. We will explore the layers of metaphor in the lyrics and some meanings that are less apparent today. The most concrete information we can use concerns pronunciation, and since a singer's vowels are central to the tone they make, we'll be examining and applying ideas from Professor David Crystal's extensive study of English pronunciation around 1600.
We will look together at the song Flow My Tears as a case study, and participants will have the chance to share a song they have prepared, accompanied by harpsichord (Ian Hiscock) and bass viol (Mark Bennett) and get specialist feedback from Mark and Ian. Attendees are equally welcome to sing their prepared song or to just listen to the masterclass and soak up the discussion.
When applying, please let us know whether you would like to share a song and get feedback, or just to listen and take part in the general workshop. If you are preparing a song, please let us know which one and in what key. Pitch will be A=415Hz, so a semitone lower than modern pitch.
How to get there
The University College of St Mark and St John (Marjon) is very close to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, so the area is well signed.
https://www.marjon.ac.uk/about-marjon/plymouth/how-to-get-here/
The chapel itself is an octagonal building surrounded by a grassy quad. You can find the exact location at What3Words: ///tags.lines.prices
For advice, contact Mark on greenwoodconsort@aol.com or ring on 07999 560861.
