Kate Dunlay or David Greenberg wrote:
>
>
> Anyway, I don't think fiddlers play a flat C# so much in A major. I think
> the "supernatural" C happens in those tunes like the King tunes, which are
> in A mixolydian/dorian, in which case the example is analogous to what I
> described above.
Messing around with slight variations and realise that on guitar, for
accompaniment, you can't easily flatten a note fractionally (it takes a
peculiar chord shape and a difficult extreme bend from the note below to
get the above). But the sharpened high G when playing pipe tunes in A
(sharp relative to the open 3rd string which represents the low G of the
small pipes) is easy to achieve and to control. There's a particular
degree of sharpening which sounds just right even when the low G is sounding.
Of course fiddle players, not being hampered/helped by frets, can
flatten notes.
Viols, lutes etc with tied gut frets must also have been unable to play
slightly flattened notes, only sharpened ones by extra string pressure -
vibratos etc must always have been towards the sharp side.
David
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