Toby Wrote: Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I've heard Alex Francis MacKay do that trick now and again. I noticed him doing that the time that I visited him. I copied that trick for a few tunes I picked up off of him. Just to
make it sound more like the way he was playing them. However I don't use that kind of bowing often enough to remember doing it. :-) Or maybe I do, but I don't think about it because I started doing it in an attempt to copy what I was hearing, as opposed to consciously thinking about the bowing technique which was required in order to get that sound. It does have a cool sound. My comment: You are correct. Alex Francis does use that bowing. It is clearrly the most dominant feature of a style of playing variously referred to in Cape Breton as the "Mabou", or the "Mabou Mines" or in Mabou itself as the "Coal Mines" style. While it was most dominant in the Mabou area, it was not exclusinvely so as you point out. Alex Francis lives about 60 kilometers away which doesn't seem like much today but which, in his formative years, would be half a world away. Alexander Mac Donald Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
