Hello Richard,
A distinction should be made between playing for dances and playing for
pleasure. Dancers need the music to be quite fast otherwise they feel
clumsy and uncoordinated; to move along and feel light on their feet they
need speed - which the player has to provide. When the piper is simply
playing for his/her own pleasure then the music can take over and set its
own tempo.
Cheers,
Richard S.
Richard York wrote:
I find this very reassuring, Matt!
I'm still bashing away at Peacock, and only recently took note of the
metronome settings in the recent edition, some of which are, to me,
stratospherically fast.
I've been wondering if these were based on general practice, either
current or historical, or other evidence, or personal editorial
preference.
I know that in other traditional dance music I play, slow is often
increasingly better, but was ascribing my falling well short of these
"target" speeds here to my lack of nsp experience & skill.
- but I also noted that on some recent CD's I've heard, some of the
pieces feel as if they're played slower than the figures given, and
they feel right to my untutored southern ear. I'll have to go check
now with CD & metronome!
Best wishes,
Richard.
Matt Seattle wrote:
On 6/9/09, Di Jevons [1]<[email protected]> wrote:
I do think however there is a danger that 'life and bounce' can be
mistaken
for 'breakneck speed'
Well said, Di. Going further, 'life and bounce' are (imho)
incompatible with 'breakneck speed'. Try, for example, to play a jig
with any kind of lilt AND to play it fast, and you'll soon stop
wanting to play it fast. This is so obvious to me now, but I admit it
took me years to arrive at the obvious.
Breakneck speed with accuracy IS impressive, as Paul points out with
some irony; it is unattainable for many (self included), and more
importantly - do you want to be impressed by music, or caressed by
music?
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