[scots-l] projecting at dances

[Kate Dunlay or David Greenberg]

it still leaves me puzzled about how musicians fared at
dances there. In the days before electricity were people much quieter than
they are now?

I think this must have been true. At Cape Breton dances today, the sound systems are so powerful that people shout to each other in order to have conversations! Obviously, if they wanted to dance in pre-amplification days they would have had to be quieter. Maybe they would stand outside the hall if they were having a serious conversation. When they danced to the pipes, which would have been quite often outside in the early days, there was no such volume problem!

Were the bands bigger (I'm thinking about the
pre-accordion era)?

Probably for the bigger functions the bands were bigger. At least I know that McGlashan (18th c.) had a dance band, it wasn't just himself and a cello.

Did musicians play louder?

Yes and no. Baroque violins were not as loud as modern violins. However, you will notice that some fiddlers today have no idea how to project their sound because they've always had a microphone in front of them when they had to project. The older fiddlers must have learned to project. Also, in Cape Breton at least, they sometimes used high-bass tuning with more ringing strings, which projects more. If all else failed, perhaps the dancers could hear the stamping of the fiddler's foot!

- Kate D.
--
http://www.DunGreenMusic.com
Halifax, Nova Scotia
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