On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 9:43 AM, <[1]barr...@nspipes.co.uk> wrote:
If I can change the tune in question to illustrate a point.
or rather, to miss the point (IMO)! The point is that, in a tune such
as Oyster Wife or Wild Hills or 'Skye Crofters' or Swallow's Tail,
which all have the modal centre of A throughout, drones tuned to A/E
make good musical sense. In tunes which have a modal centre shifting
between A and C (Cuckold, Peacock Follows, Fairly Shot, Little Wat Ye),
A/E drones disguise this shift to the point of obliterating it. That is
my point, made in an earlier response. Of course I recognise that I am
against the tide with this view, and that's fine by me.
As for the Oyster Wife, IMO it is the ONLY tune in Peacock's Tunes
which suits a change of drone tuning, and in my experience it has
plenty to recommend it. I even like it so much that my version has
twice as many strains.
Fraternally and grumpily yours! :-)>
Oyster Wives' Rant which appears in Peacock's Tunes is also well
known in another tradition as Mullen Dhu. In that tradition it is
played against A drones and becomes yet another Scottish tune with
not a lot to recommend it. When the Northumbrian pipers got hold of
it, I am sure they would have played it against G drones and played
in this way it becomes to me a very exciting and harmonically
interesting tune.
In the days of the simple chanter, Northumbrian pipers mercilessly
butchered tunes from other traditions to fit them to the pipes. -
Anyone remember the story of The Bed of Procrustes? In doing so we
got such gems as The Bonny Pit Lad.
I remember well being at a 'G' music session with Johnny Handle
playing accordion and at one time he stopped playing, and at the end
of the tune said, "That's a real pipe tune. Ye cannot put any chords
to it."
I don't think we should expect our music to always obey rules
derived from other traditions.
From an earlier e-mail
Quoting [2]gibbonssoi...@aol.com:
But is the best thing we can say about it that it's grammatical?
So is Chomsky's 'Colourless green ideas sleep furiously',
though it is totally meaningless.
The sentence may be meaningless but it is still pleasant to the
ear, and very challenging in a 1960s sort of way.
Barry
--
References
1. mailto:barr...@nspipes.co.uk
2. mailto:gibbonssoi...@aol.com
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