Hellos apiece
What, pray, is choyting??
As aye
Anthony
--- On Tue, 14/4/09, colin <[email protected]> wrote:
From: colin <[email protected]>
Subject: [NSP] Re: Style
To: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday, 14 April, 2009, 12:27 PM
I'm quite enjoying this debate.
As a total "outsider", it's very interesting to hear what appears to be
two totally opposing sides.
The first are those that play the pipes in the time-honoured tradition
- both in style and technique and the second those that play for
enjoyment and are not afraid to "bend the rules" if they feel that an
"unusual" technique or sound suits them.
The problem seems to come when the two collide.
I really do feel that we should keep the two separate though because
they cannot be discussed in the same area (chalk and cheese).
For competitions and tutoring, we are talking about the "correct"
method of playing (the "no choyting please" group) which, I think, is
quite correct. Compare it to vegetable growing,
I've seen teeny-weeny carrots win first prize because their roots (like
a bit of string) are several feet long. The orange bit would go in one
bite - but that's competition rules.
Most of us would prefer tiny roots and a real whopper of a carrot but
that doesn't win prizes.
That doesn't mean big carrots are no good.
It's a different outcome you see.
Competitions have strict rules (correctly) but that doesn't mean that
nothing else is valid.
Although I do run with the "proper" way of playing, I feel that any
instrument can be played as the player wishes - be that technique or
style.
I never personally like Chuck Berry or Jimmi Hendrix playing guitar but
many did.
I'm not a jazz fan but accept that sometimes unusual ways of playing
are valid.
One could have a similar debate about the correct way of playing
anything at all.
Yes, closed fingering is how it was designed and we do have a set of
pipes that can be played either way already over in Ireland.
Maybe some people want the same thing with NSP rather than play them
closed and switch to Scottish small pipes for open?
May sound odd to us but the right to "do our own thing" remains. We
don't have to like it, of course :)
We'll never all agree.
Hopefully the two can co-exist.
Colin Hill
----- Original Message ----- From: <[1][email protected]>
To: <[2][email protected]>; <[3][email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 14, 2009 11:47 AM
Subject: [NSP] Re: Style
> If a person ignores this
> completely from
> the outset then the product may not be wrong but it is certainly
> misguided. Let pipers take the music in any direction they
> wish but to
> have any connection with Northumbrian piping as such they must
spend
> time studying the starting point thoroughly before setting
> off on their
> journey.
I wholeheartedly degree with this formulation.
I think the problem is that people are using "style" and "technique"
interchangeably. The instruments I know most about and have taught a
bit are the bowed strings (mainly viola). In teaching I would stress
various basic techniques (such as drawing a steady bow and observing
the point of content, the pressure and the speed, for example)
on-the-string staccato with the bow, off-the-string staccato, "correct
shifting" (left thumb and forearm `a la trombone - the usual modern
correct classical technique) as well as "correct" glissando technique
(use your left thumb as a reference point by the heel of the neck and
slide the fingers up and down - technique advocated by Ruggiero Ricci
q.v. and based on his exploration of Paganini, N.B. whose fingering was
unconventional. Swarbrick also did it, but i think he only used first
and third position) and a whole range of other aspects - irrespective
of what kind of music they intended to play.
I would also encourage pupils to play different "styles" of music
irrespective of what they intended to concentrate on. Bach specialists
should also study Paganini and folk fiddling, for example.
Of course "staccato technique" is essential for gaining control of the
NSP as an instrument but once you've got it I don't think it's a very
musical idea to just go around demonstrating one's staccato technique
like opera singers their brute power and vibrato.
And of course, style and technique inevitably overlap.
> If people dont see the point in doing this then chosing to
> play an out and out traditional instrument seems a bit daft in the
> first place.
>
This is also very true.
On a personal note, I am a very humble musician when it comes to
practical skills (mainly a mid-level hard-practicing semi-pro classical
hack, but with experience in everything from traditional to progrock)
but since I was an adult beginner (a long time ago) and am rather
obsessive about music (the nearest thing I have to a religion!), I
think I tend to reflect on and analyse all the various aspects to a
possibly unusual (or excessive) degree. I also flatter myself by
thinking that some of my conclusions may have a certain validity.
So...
Apologies to anyone to whom my assertiveness - born of enthusiam - may
ever have come over as bumptiousness.
c
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References
1. http://uk.mc12.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
2. http://uk.mc12.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
3. http://uk.mc12.mail.yahoo.com/mc/[email protected]
4. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
