Thanks Matt, Anthony, John and Kevin for your thoughts on these tunes. I will
try the ideas you guys have suggested and I guess go with what works best for
me.
I guess it a matter of what you are used to, when i play border pipes I have no
problem with 'discordant' drones, ex. playing in Bm with A drones, but i am
used to just playing mainly G and D tunes (with the occassional venture into A
and E)on the NSP with the appropriate drones. I'll and do more of it and maybe
it will start sounding better to me.
A question I forgot to ask though, are these 2 tunes played much?
thanks again
Derek
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matt Seattle" <theborderpi...@googlemail.com>
To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2012 4:27:50 AM
Subject: [NSP] Re: small coals, and the peacock following the hen
On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 12:26 AM, Anthony Robb
<[1]anth...@robbpipes.com> wrote:
Here is what Forster Charlton, Colin Ross and Roland Wright put
in the
introduction to the second edition to the NPS 1st Tune Book:
"Small Coals and Little Money and Cuckold Come Out The Amrey are
in an
unusual mode for which the drones should be tuned to the notes A
and E.
Any drone which will not tune to either of these two notes is
best shut
off!"
Personally, I agree - others don't.
Where I disagree is in saying they are in the same mode. Small Coals is
a straightforward A minor tune, although with no 6th (F#) it's neither
dorian nor aeolian mode. There is a case for tuning the drones to A for
Small Coals if you insist on the drones being concordant with the home
key or mode of the tune. I don't personally find that an issue, and
neither do other bagpipe traditions, where drones are what drones were
meant to be - fixed, so that tunes in different modes sound like they
are in different modes.
For me, Cuckold is a mixed-mode tune with alternating A minor and C
major strains, where A drones have the effect of masking the C major
sections because, over A drones, these also sound like A minor. So, if
I were an NSP player, I'd leave the drones in G for this tune, which I
am well aware is heresy.
[2]http://youtu.be/71KwJ11O0fI
--
References
1. mailto:anth...@robbpipes.com
2. http://youtu.be/71KwJ11O0fI
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