Hi Matt, et al,
Dick Hensold St. Paul, MN
651/646-6581
Traditional Folk Music, Early Music, and Cambodian Music
Northumbrian smallpipes, recorder,
Medieval greatpipes,Swedish sackpipa, & beyaw.
[1]www.dickhensold.com
On Jun 10, 2009, at 5:14 AM, Matt Seattle wrote:
...Richard Y mentioned All The Niight I Lay With Jockey - I'd
recommend you also
listen to Chris Ormston's recording.
I play this tune on Border pipes (not NSP) and one thing I noticed
recently was how the arpeggios in the last strain - which I previously
thought of as mere padding - can come alive if the initial note of
four is held as long as possible without making the next three
impossible - does this work for any NSP players here? There's also the
Clough procedure, which Chris does in his repeat, of filling out the
arpeggio, B/c/dgd rather than Bcgd. There are other ways of varying
what appears to be the most boring part of the tune...
I thought that was what I did with that variation-- it's typical of
what I would do. But when I listened to my recording, a clip of which
is available at:
[2]http://www.dickhensold.com/mp3s/All_the_Night_I_Lay_with_Jockey.mp3
, I found I did something different. BTW, I don't consider that strain
to be mere padding. The previous strain is sweeping scalar figures,
emphasizing melodic contour, and the strain in question contrasts the
previous one by using the repeated arpeggios to emphasize the beat,
which is what I try to do in my version. The repeated Bs, which fall
on the beat, help to emphasize it since B's are sort of a live note on
our pipes, owing to the particular resonance the B has with the drone.
As it happens, my rhythmic treatment of this strain is also an example
of the kind of rhythmic subtlety I was referring to in my first post,
and can serve for a pedagogical experiment, if you'll please bear with
me. This experiment would give some idea of the effectiveness of
directed listening for ear-training.
Here's how it would work: Listen to the clip above, especially strain
6 (which starts at about 1:01 in the clip, and goes to the end of it),
and try to hear what I'm doing with the rhythm to emphasize the beat.
In a later email, I will describe what I'm doing. If my description
matches your observation, you would be in group A. If you're not quite
sure what I'm up to (rhythmically, that is), or the description DOESN'T
match, listen to the clip again and see if having read the description
makes it possible for you to hear the rhythms described. If, after
reading the description, you can then hear what I'm doing with the
rhythm, then you would be in group B. If, after reading the
description, you CANNOT hear what I'm doing with the rhythm, then you
would be in group C. You could then all email me off-list and tell me
what group you're in, and I would count how many were in each group. I
would then be able to tell by the numbers in each group whether the
description (or directed listening) was effective. I'm guessing it
would take you 5-10 minutes to do this (assuming you listened to the 15
seconds in question several times).
The description will be in a following email.
I really appreciate anyone who takes part in this impromptu,
unscientific, ad hoc little experiment. I think often about trying to
explain music to people, and I really hate wasting everyone's time when
the explanation isn't working!
--
References
1. http://www.dickhensold.com/
2. http://www.dickhensold.com/mp3s/All_the_Night_I_Lay_with_Jockey.mp3
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