Kevin There's not a single answer as different tunes demand different treatments. Some are actually better in G major with the sharp 7. I did not wish to impose this on my transcription of the manuscript (which is originally 'in G' rather than 'in A') but I do mention it in my text. There is continuing divergence of opinion as to whether Dixon's tunes are for NSP, for BP or a bit of both. You are right that there are compromises in Peacock. I have found the best approach is both to examine as many sources as possible and to find what feels and sounds right. There will inevitably be differences of opinion, historically and at present.
Matt On Tue, Aug 28, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Kevin <[1][email protected]> wrote: Hi to All, a week or so ago on this site i read in a mail a passing comment of playing Dixon tunes on the northumbrian small pipes. i was a little surprised as with a 7 keyed set of NSP i would have thought the tunes were difficult/impossible to play due to the natural 7th note missing in the top and bottom of the scale. the more i thought of it, i wondered how it could be done? do people, who play from the Dixon manuscript, play with A drones and using the A major scale on the NSP starting on the bottom A note as their tonic, and using the natural 7th - above and below the tonic as the A scale would allow for this? this would work fine, and keep in key with the Border pipes key/manuscript setting, but one would be using fingering that would never have been used in the early 1800s or before, runs would difficult etc. or, do people transpose to the G major on the NSP and use the key for the bottom F# (so raising the natural 7th of Dixon to a sharpened 7th) for the 7th note, and using G drones? or, do people pay in D major, and miss out the bottom 7th note all together, and keep the natural 7th on the top note (C natural); playing with D drones? i have been experimenting with these variations. the best i have found is to play in G major, and tune my drones to D,d. this goes well with the bottom F# (sharped 7th), sadly missing out the natural 7th note of the original Dixon scale. occasionally i play in D major with drones tuned in D,d; if there is not a bottom 7 note in the notation, and gives me the flattened 7th note in the top register. these natural 7th notes are often strong and give a real feel to the style of music, but i wonder if this is what Peacock had to think about when designing and compiling music for the early NSP manuscripts? i am wondering what do people do when playing Dixon with NSPipes? Best wishes, Kevin -- [2]http://www.ethnopiper.com [3]http://www.youtube.com/kevnsp [4]http://kevnsp.blogspot.com [5]http://facebook.com/kevin.tilbury [6]http://soundcloud.com/kevnsp -- To get on or off this list see list information at [7]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. mailto:[email protected] 2. http://www.ethnopiper.com/ 3. http://www.youtube.com/kevnsp 4. http://kevnsp.blogspot.com/ 5. http://facebook.com/kevin.tilbury 6. http://soundcloud.com/kevnsp 7. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
