Jack Campin Wrote:
Tunes in A are often pipe tunes and hence might be expected to be given
piping intonation. Tunes in G are never pipe tunes. So this is exactly
what you *would* expect if the choice were a musical one.
My comment:
There are pipe tunes in G. More importantly it is impossible for a
fiddler to play in the "piping intonation" or any intonation either than
the "just" one. More on this in my reply to John Chambers.
John Chambers wrote:
So you'd think that fiddlers with a classical background would know
and understand that different musical groups use different intonation
rules. Traditional Scottish music shouldn't be anything other than
yet another sort of intonation, to be mastered if you want to pass as
a Scottish fiddler.
My comment:
It is impossible for a fiddler/violinist [or a trombonist or a singer]
to play/sing in "another sort of intonation". Quoting L. Lloyd , "It is
easy to play out of tune, it is a superhuman feat to play 'off the note'
with exactly the mistuning required for equal temperment, for we may be
sure that the player has no physical means of reproducing equal
tempertment with accuracy". As I said in an earlier e-mail the ear can
measure the "just intonation" intervals but it can't measure deviations
from them nor can it measure intervals which would produce other than
just intonation ratios. The comment also applies to all temperments or
to "another sort of intonation".Add to this another complication, the
equal tempered scale isn't really equal, the fifth being infinitesimally
"off" and the third being considerable so. The pipe scale is even more
"unequal" and impossible for a fiddler to replicate.
Consider also that when you've tuned your fiddle in fifths, you have
preselected the pitch of four and sometimes five of the notes in the
diatonic scale in the most-used fiddle keys and they are all in the
"just intonation" scale. In other words in order to have another sort of
intonation you would have to start by mistuning your instrument to some
specific rule which for the above reasons is also impossible.
.
Kate Dunley wrote:
However, I have heard Cape Breton fiddlers use pitches between B and
B-flat
(especially in the high octave) when playing tunes in G
mixolydian/dorian
(such as Paddy on the Turnpike, which uses both B and B-flat already).
And
I have to say that it sounds nice to me that way, with the pitch a bit
ambiguous. You get that teasing, bluesy flavour.
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. Alexander, do you often observe a low C# in A major or
were you just going by Perlman's description?
My comment:
I have noticed that different CB fiddlers use different "notes" in tunes
like Paddy on the Turnpike, i.e. tunes called double tonic tunes by some
. Some use Bb, some B, and some in between. I have also noticed that
some players play an F# in both the first and second turns [strains]
but others F in the first and F# in the second. Pity the poor piano
player. What chord is he/she to use. Given that a good fiddler is
constantly checking and "fine tuning" his intonation and that CB music
sessions are frequently impromptu, image the interplay that is going on
when the piano player anticipates an F natural and or a Bb, then gets
one or none. It wouldn't surprise that on the second time through each
goes in a different correcting direction, or that the fiddler plays an
in-between note, or that the mismatch between the two instruments sounds
that way.
Re low C#'s in A major, I'm not familiar with the PEI fiddlers. I have
observed the same thing in CB fiddling but not among the major players.
Alexander
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