John, Anthony was describing the dance step, which does sound like tomato soup, BUT, the -to- is a lead in note and the -ma- is the first beat of the bar.
Tunes which have "infected" the repertoire include the slow waltzes - Sweet Hesleyside, Rothbury Hills, The Cott etc, (though Winster Gallop's popularity astounds me too)! There weren't many slow tunes in the repertoire before these came along, but there were lots of reels, 3/2s, 6/8s, 9/8s which sound well played with detached fingering. Those tunes were developed alongside the refinement of the instrument by musicians grounded in a regional musical dialect, and therefore show off the pipes at their best. My concern is that these days many pipers don't really understand this, or don't want to understand, and will play anything, so the need for good technique becomes diminished and the tradition ultimately suffers. It's already happening - there are a number of talented youngsters who made a promising start, only to be shepherded towards Celtic music and open fingering. At the recent NPS concert, which must have been the largest ever gathering of NSP players, only the London group showcased the old repertoire. I don't think we'll get stuck with 100 stock tunes, though. Some of us still try to compose in the traditional idiom, including variation sets. As for everyone playing in the same way, I recently pointed out that George Atkinson and Joe Hutton played by the rules, had the same teacher, yet had different styles, so it's not necessary to break the rules in order to get variety. Impolite enough? Chris -----Original Message----- From: john_da...@hmco.com [mailto:john_da...@hmco.com] Sent: 03 January 2009 20:39 To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [NSP] Rants and reels I enjoyed the most recent NPS Journal very much. There was lots of good stuff there to ponder and incorporate into my playing. Good articles raise more questions, so here are couple that came up for me. Anthony Robb described the rhythm of a rant as "tomato". That enhanced my understanding of the rant rhythm, but I'm still confused. The reel rhythm, I take it, is the common bump-ditty, which of course has subtle variations depending on local tradition. But I hear "tomato" as 6/8, not 2/2 or 4/4. If "bump ditty" is spelled out "strong, weak, strong, medium" in stresses per bar, how is the rant "tomato" rhythm spelled out? Chris Ormston's article was very interesting, but I didn't get the full gist of what he was saying because I think he was being polite. Chris could you spell out in "over seas layman's terms" which tunes have infected the repertoire, and which tunes are basic? I hope traditional NSP playing never reduces it's repertoire to a stock 100 tunes to be played exactly alike by everyone the way Highland piping has, but as an "over seas layman" it would be very interesting to learn what one of the very best NSPipers considers to be the top fifty tunes I should strive to learn, and which tunes I should avoid completely. As a side bar question: I was told recently that "the Mason's Apron" is a Northumbrian tune. It's played all over the British Isles, but I didn't realize it was from Northumberland. Is that true? many thanks, John -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
