Personal circumstances have prevented my participation in the list of late but I have enjoyed following the recent discussions. I hope no one minds if I ramble on in one single message.
On tempi its all about horses for courses. Every performance of traditional music is unique in terms of performer. audience, instrument, setting, function, amount of drink taken, mental stability of the piano player etc.. and there never has been nor ever will be a universally applicable right or wrong tempo. However we cannot ignore the influence of the Scottish Country Dance Society on many bands seeking prestigious engagements, recording and broadcasting work. The change in Shand's playing away from the pre-SCDS music of the Wypers and early Hannah as noted by Nigel and others can be ascribed in part to his desire to catering for more than the local, working class dance scene which he grew up in. Peggy Duesenberry has shown in her PhD thesis the BBC had a major influence on the playing style of broadcasting artists during the middle decades of the twentieth century but found little evidence of direct control of the tempi of dance bands concluding that the BBC either allowed some latitude or most bands were already conforming to an already established norm influenced by the Scottish Country Dance Society. I would be particularly interested to know of the examples of 10% tempo variations in re-released recordings mentioned by John Chambers - can you give us some examples John? The grace note has echoes of the birl discussion of some months ago. Non traditional players are often thrown by the presence of grace notes on the written page and I think that is what is being referred to here. In most circumstances in fast music a fiddle grace note is fitted in without any real or apparent robbing of time from the melody note which follows - if it is overdone then it just does not sound right. I think it was CPE Bach who wrote on the "true" way to perform gracenotes (presumably in keyboard music) which classical musicians often drag up to defend their case. Classical musicians see the grace note and immediately strive to give it an emphasis and value which it does not deserve or require. In slow airs and strathspeys there is more latitude and fiddlers might push things around a bit more. As Jack suggests there is scope for some scientific analysis - Note that I presented a paper on the birl at the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention at Aberdeen University last July and that it is to be published by them some time this year. On improvisation in Scottish fiddle music Kate is bang on. In Scotland today there is a whole range of approaches to playing the fiddle (an none the worse for that!) - some accommodate change while others do not. However, as she says, it is a complex subject and "improvisation" needs to be defined. As in many traditions there is a stock of ornaments, motifs, "licks" and figures which the individual player can call upon at will to vary or add interest to the melody but on the whole variations are conservative and rarely stray too far from the accepted norm. Many Scottish fiddlers work within an environment which accommodates this but to others it is an alien concept. This is quite unlike the jazz musician's improvisation where the melody might be "taken for a walk". That said, there are a number of Scottish musicians (mainly in Edinburgh, it seems) who work to bring jazz style improvisation into traditional music although with varied results. Again the influence of the printed page, the BBC, the classical tradition and the establishment of communal performance in Strathspey and Reel orchestras from the 1880 onwards (which outlawed personal expression and variation) worked against improvisation. Again, Peggy has shown how throughout the 20th century the BBC employed classical musicians (or sometimes traditional fiddlers from the classical end of the spectrum) in most situations where Scottish fiddle music was required and this had a considerable reinforcing affect on the centrality of the "refined" approach to the music. The Irish tradition too is largely conservative but, lacking these influences, there has been a greater emphasis and respect for personal innovation within the tradition. However with most non solo star performers the player plays the tune much the same way every time. Michael O Suilleabhain has written on the subject of innovation and improvisation in the Irish tradition, in particular in the music of Tommy Potts, and has been something of a champion of it. Again there are exceptions to the rule and it would appear that American Irish fiddlers have been most active in introducing new forms of unrehearsed, real time improvisation into solo fiddling - Liz Carroll gave an excellent illustrated talk on this at he Fiddle 2001 Festival in Edinburgh. On the subject of 2/4 notation note that Hardie in "The Caledonian Companion" uses it in a number of cases stating, in one: "Although this tune (Mr Alexander Laing's Hornpipe - Leuchold) appears in Marshall's Collection in C (common time), the more modern 2/4 notation has been employed here, as it is felt to give a better idea of the pulse". I'm sure James Scott Skinner also made a plea for this notation in his "A Guide to Bowing..." but I can't lay my hands on my copy at present to check the reference. In terms of Alexander's search for an understanding of "rhythmic drive" as opposed to simply tempo this was considered by my university tutor Dr Peter Cooke in relation to the character of the Shetland fiddle tradition and he used audio analysis technology (in the Linguistics Dept - modern PCs are just as good) to explain the internal rhythmic variation in traditional players which gives the music its particular lift, lit and drive. The "Scotch snap" is a short note on the beat followed by a long one and is a common motif in Scottish traditional music and song and is not restricted to fiddle. "Snap bowing" on the other hand is said (by Hunter) to be the "one of the most fundamental strokes in strathspey playing" where the dotted quaver is followed by a semi quaver and played with the bow "moved in the same direction for both notes, either up or down, with the shortest stoppage of the bow between the dotted quaver and semi quaver. This means that the semiquaver is cleanly detached". I hate this kind of technical description and imagine would be fiddlers all over the world struggling in isolation to make sense of what is meant. Thanks for your patience. Stuart Eydmann Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
