on 15/12/2000 9:12 am, Rob MacKillop at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
(snipped offer from me to record Rob playing stuff)
>
> Sometime. A new CD is taking shape at the back of my mind. The problem is
> that if I record Auld Lang Syne with you and put it on my website, no record
> company would be interested in recording it. But this opens up the debate
> about CDs or MP3 files for download - a bit off topic for this list. Making
> a CD is fairly easy. Distributing it is much harder. Yes, this is definitely
> off topic. Maybe we should discuss it privately, David?
The copyright question etc, 'first cut' is off-topic but you, Rob, are a
mutli-instrumentalist with a range of skills from authentic interpretation
of antique MS on antique instruments, to writing arrangements for the
aspiring steel string guitar folkie wanting to be Scots and not just
'celtic'. Your classical record company might want a perfect lute recording
or one on your alto guitar, so don't do that for 'net' consumption. Set the
early Auld Lang Syne tune/s into steel string DADGAD or Open G, or standard,
or (see below) DADFAD and do some recordings on the everyday instrument.
Then you can disseminate the earlier tunes in an accessible form to
vernacular musicians.
>
> I transcribed 'Old Long Syne, by Mr Beck' from the lute tablature - for
> those new to this, lute notation is different from standard musical
> notatation, and different again from guitar tab. The piece is in F major,
> but starts off in the relative minor, Dm, which gives it the reflective
> quality I mentioned on an earlier posting. This brings to mind the
> observation that there are very few Scottish tunes in true minor keys,
> despite the generally received wisdom that the sad Scottish lament is a
> minor affair. I remeber at school, the music teacher playing a major
> interval on the piano and saying 'this is a happy sound!', then playing a
> minor third, and saying 'this is a SAD sound!'. Well we Scots, more than any
> other nation I know, have the ability to make a major interval sound sadder
> than a minor one. Something must have happened in our history to make us a
> sad bunch. I wonder what it was?! Now there's a new thread...better not
> start...
>
I blame the double tonic. And the gin... or the whisky. Sorry, it must have
been ginger ale, not tonic. Or just water. Or nothing. But never ice.
Seriously: that full-tone 'drop' of the whole sung or played scale in double
tonic pieces can somehow provide a 'darkness' - think of the sheer number of
things which pretty much use just D major and C major. Also the 1-5-8
backing habit which just misses out any third to give you clues about major
or minor, but so often finds itself sitting behind a minor 7th - which of
course is also present in the full-tone drop of a double tonic.
To my ear, having 'come at' Scots music from outside with 30 years of 'not
so much Scots' learning, listening and playing it's that avoidance of the
'cycle of fifths' or the 'three chord' construction which gives so many
Scots songs and tunes their quality.
If I'm sitting down with a Grieg-Duncan page open, looking at a song and
messing with the guitar, I am cautious about what the apparent key signature
means. I have to play the melody line, then sing it, before thinking about
drones or harmonies. The average 'English' player would look at the song and
try to use (say) Dmaj, Amaj and Gmaj while failing to spot that the C sharp
shown in the key signature is never actually used, and whenever an E is
sung, a C major (or Am7) chord is called for despite the song being firmly
resolved into D. I know it probably isn't as simple as that, but this
substition of the major triad chord of the 'flat 7th' for the usual triad
chord based on the fifth is common, and imparts such a character, that at
least to me it appears to contribute to the Scottishness of a piece.
Now you *will* tell me that this is actually a modern and slightly American
inflection of the ear and it only sounds this way because that's how too
many 'celtic' instrumentals choose to treat things... and REAL Scots music
is entirely different.
David
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