Musica Subterranea is a group of musicians who met in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) and decided the challenges for getting good music for dancing were just too high. We started producing new recordings of dance music appropriate for SCA period re-enactments in 1997, and we are continuing to this day. Our motto is “Get The Music To The People!” So, we make our recordings as easily available as possible. Currently, the best source for our recordings is via Bandcamp.com.
Our Music Director, David Lankford, is an accomplished researcher and composer who has created new arrangements for Musica Subterranea based on primary source material from the renaissance time period. Additional arrangements have also been contributed by members Drea Leed and W. P. Sterneman. Our music is arranged from period sources, are original compositions, or are derivative works based on material from other musicians used with permission. Arrangements are also carefully matched to the reconstruction of the steps for the intended dance.
Members of Musica Subterranea have played live music for many SCA dance events throughout the Midwest, and we have been lucky to meet many musical friends who join us as guest artists. Our violinist, Kathi Coutinho (Lucia Braganca di Firenze) and our viola player, Julie Oller (Francesca), usually lead the charge for live gigs, so let them know if you’re interested in joining in!
See the other pages here for more details on our albums of digital music, our current projects, and fun info about our members and alumni!
Musicians: please visit our sheet music collection for access to our arrangements as well as some original compositions.
Hey! This looks good! I might suggest a few tweaks to the wording, but it’s HERE and it’s UP!! Thank you Lara 🙂
Only one of your “CD’S” is available as a CD!
I have no use for mp3. How do I get your first and third albums on CD?
Thanks,
Gary Allen
Hi Gary! Thanks for reaching out! CD Baby is a great service, but the real hard plastic CDs have to be produced by us and sent to them to get distributed. So, you can always get the MP3s from them, but we need to provide the physical CDs. Presently, we’re working on getting all 3 CDs reprinted. If CD Baby is saying they’re out of stock, then I’m sorry, you’ll have to wait until we get the reprint project done. But please do watch this space for the announcement. I’m hoping that we’ll get it done by October. You can also watch the SCA Dance oriented social media venues and mailing list for the announcement.
Thanks so much for your interest in our music! Keep in touch, and I promise you’ll get fresh new CDs just as soon as possible!
Sincerely yours,
Sophia the Orange
Producer, Musica Subterranea
I was going through my CDs yesterday and discovered that I already have your three CDs! I had completely forgotten I had them. I will want to acquire your fourth CD when it’s available.
I have your sheet music collection dated 2003. Do you/will you have a second volume (or an expanded version of the original)?
Thanks again,
Gary Allen
I’m wondering if your reprint project has come to fruition? .. If so, I’d love to buy a full set to give to our Queen at an feast in about a week, for she loves to dance. I also need to replace the 3rd CD, which I gave to my Laurel. [Note – if physical CDs aren’t possible in that time, can I get jewel case liner files & permission to burn MP3s purchased from CDBaby to make my own?]
Dear Musica Subterreana
I have recently started to instruct dancers here in Drachenwald and need to stock up my collection of SCA medieval music. We play a lot of Gaita here, but I like variety. My CD player, however, does not do MP3 – please let me know when and how I can order your CDs, I am thinking about ordering the full set.
Greetings from Germany!
Will you be offering your fourth volume of music on CD? As I’ve said before, I can’t use MP3.
Again: do you/will you be offering another volume of sheet music for sale?
Thank you Gary for your continued interest – there’s good news on the way! This weekend (Jan 29, 2016) Musica Subterranea will be getting together to record music for a new CD. We will ALSO be getting our ducks in a row to reproduce CDs 1-3 (I think #4 the Pentamere album is still well stocked). We plan for all our CDs to be available for the big SCA50 event in June 2016.
There are currently no plans for a second or expanded volume of sheet music, but we will certainly discuss the possibility.
Molto grazie,
— Lucia
Hi Gary,
Thanks for your interest in more sheet music. I’m pleased to say that we will in fact be making more sheet music available sometime in the near future, though it may take a while to take shape. Stay tuned for more info as it becomes available.
For now, what I can say is that I’m planning to put some of our music here as PDF files and make a front-end page to help organize/navigate through these files (by title, genre, etc.) The idea will be to make much of our existing body of work available in sheet music form. Once our upcoming album is released (planned for June 2016) we will be including some of that content as well.
As for collected volumes of sheet music… if it looks like there is sufficient demand for a second volume of our collected arrangements, we’ll print some up to have them available to sell. Otherwise, we’ll just plan on making them available for people to download and print on their own, as needed.
Regards,
Dafydd
The sheet music collection is now available! There is now a link in the menu (upper left, in page sidebar) where musicians can browse our arrangements, adaptations, and original compositions.
Hi Folks!
I’m an English Country Dance leader, and came across Dafydd’s dance “Burley Mariners” on the Lambertville ECD video site. The video there says that it’s a 4-couple adaptation of a 3-couple dance. Would it be possible to get a copy of the dance instructions as originally written? Thank you so much!
Good afternoon!
I’m reaching out on the behalf of History Alive Inc, a historically-themed theatre company based out of Salem, MA. We’ve been avid listeners of many of your pieces for rehearsal purposes, and I would love to include some of your music in our season trailer for 2019. I’m happy to list credits in the video itself, as the finished trailer will be posted on our company’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Please let me know, thank you!
Best,
Macey