Re: [scots-l] Arrochar
Where is this tune written down Kate? Oh, it's actually already in the DunGreen Collection, but I'm revising. I never actually had that particular Five MacDonald's LP in my hands before yesterday, so I hadn't realized the tune was on any recording by that name. I had thought maybe it was a made up name to sound similar to "Bridge of Bamore" because the two tunes are similar. Well, it still could be a made up name. Or maybe Dan R. MacDonald made the tune and nobody knows it; he was in Scotland so he did use some Scottish place names in tune titles. I don't know of an Arrochar in Nova Scotia. Some names aren't on the maps anymore though. Just because I read it that way - phonetically - I would like to propose that Arrochar is really Arichat, and that the bridge is the one over Lennox Passage from Louisdale to Arichat. Given local dialects and someone writing down what they heard, not what they saw, it's as good a possibility as any other. Jay Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] May the road rise up to meet you (fwd)
Title: Re: [scots-l] May the road rise up to meet you (fwd) There is a really nice version of this on Folk Legacy's New Harmony, sung by Sandy and Caroline Paton. This version is copyrighted by Sandy, and I have copied him on this response. You can reach Sandy Paton at Folk Legacy Records, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Jay Can anybody help? Thanks -- Forwarded Message -- Date: Monday, June 16, 2003 10:35:58 +0100 From: Gavin Skinner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Subject: May the road rise up to meet you Hi - I have been asked by a friend to find out if there is a tune or a dance to the traditional gaelic blessing : May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand. (or something similar!) Can anyone help? Thanks! Gavin. -- End Forwarded Message -- Iain Anderson - DBA (ISYS) University of Bristol City Clickers Step and Clog Instep Research Team "Never give a sword to a man who can't dance" Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] acoustics question
Picking up on Alexander MacDonald's comments, I'd like to step in with my thoughts. The acoustic (or semi-acoustic) guitar is a resonating chamber which will amplify the sound. As a chamber, or enclosed space, it has a certain volume, or capacity. Try this experiment in a quiet place: Take two guitars not of the same type (which would then have the same approximate capacity). Hold the guitar so that you can hum into it. Hum a scale, as best you can, only do it continuously so that there are no steps or intervals. At some point in the scale you will hear your voice sound more alive - that is the guitar "talking back" to you. And the guitars will not do it at the same note (or pitch), but at a different frequency. You have hit the natural resonance of the instrument, be it a G# or Db or some other note. Any note you play on the guitar will inherently sound more alive. And when you amplify a guitar, it will resonate more at that frequency, or some harmonic of it. I believe that this is what is happening, that the top is oscillating more at a certain frequency (thus causing feedback) because it is now driving the pickup more, and then feeding back on itself to increase the oscillation. When your friend put in the dowel rod, he found the "sweet spot" to dampen the oscillating tendency of the instrument. A guitar (or fiddle) top is a vibrating plate, but it doesn't vibrate evenly over all the surface. So until he found that magical spot, the top was oscillating (or vibrating) out of control enough to cause feedback. Once he found the place to dampen it, the oscillating stopped. Alexander is "spot on" in many regards about vibrating frequencies, but I don't think the dowel rod, even though it does change the natural frequency, will necessarily affect the sound that much on a guitar (although it might!) A fiddle or other higher-pitched instrument would suffer greatly because of their "intense harmonics", but a guitar has an extremely broad and rich acoustic range without the intensity of the higher harmonics which would make it more noticeable. I think that would solve the problem. Your friend might also talk with a luthier about gluing a small block of wood on that spot to dampen the vibration. The luthier would not use wood glue, but rather hide glue so that the block could be removed without difficulty or damage. And the luthier might have other suggestions also. And I hope this furthers Alexander's answer. Regarding f-holed arch top guitars, I don't believe they resonate in quite the same way as a flat-top, and that they are more heavily constructed and are also made for a more-solid "presence" rather than brilliance as an orchestral instrument. But then the only arch-top box I ever owned was an inexpensive Hohner many years ago, so I'm on much thinner ice here... Bob Re Toby's question on "feedback" I'm going to venture an opinion of this from an engineering view point [ I am a retired member of that profession] All "structures" have a natural vibrating frequency. They can be very destructive in such things as buildings and bridges or just troublesome in musical instruments. The most famous destructive example is the the Tacoma Narrows Bridge [Washington State?] where the bridge self distracted because the geographic area, prevailing wind speed, etc., combined to produce a frequency which was the same as that of the bridge. It is quite dramatic to see [its all on film] six foot "I" beams twist like a ribbon in the wind. Musical instruments like other structures also have a natural frequency at which the wood vibrates. An acoustic instrument, I think, would be more susceptible to this than would say a solid body guitar because the latter's natural frequency would tend to be out of range of much or most of the musical frequency spectrum than would the former. When the instruments natural frequency is amplified it "feeds back" that frequency to the instrument causing it to vibrate more and more and would self destruct like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge were there sufficient sustained energy. In recognition of this problem some amps are equipped with a "notch filter" which allows you to find your instruments natural frequency and then to suppress it. Usually this can be done without too adversely affecting the overall sound. Another helpful feature in some amps is phase reversal which doesn't suppress the frequency but causes them to be unsynchronized. Re your friend's modifying his instrument. Any modification will change its natural frequency. That will eliminate the troublesome frequency but not necessarily the problem. The natural frequency will shift to another frequency which could be just as much of a problem. It would also change the overall sound of the instrument, particularily a violin which has so many intense harmonics all of which would be influenced by this. I hope this is helpful, Toby Alexander Mac Donald Posted to Scots-L -
[scots-l] a bit of humor
from the September edition of Granite Skyes, the monthly newsletter of the Strathspey & Reel Society of New Hampshire... ANNALS OF MEDICINE An English doctor was being shown around a Scottish hospital. At the end of an extensive tour of the operating rooms, medical, surgical, and pediatric units, he was shown into a ward with a number of patients who showed no obvious signs of injury. He went to examine the first man he saw, and the man proclaimed: "Fair fa' yer honest sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin' race! Aboon them a' ye tak your place, painch tripe or thairm: Weel are ye worthy o' a grace as lang's my arm..." The doctor, somewhat taken aback, went to the next patient, who immediately launched into: "Some hae meat, and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit." And the next patient: "Wee sleekit cow'rin tim'rous beastie, O what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi bickering brattle I wad be laith to run and chase thee, wi murdering prattle!" "Well," said the Englishman to his Scottish colleague, "I see you saved the psychiatric ward for last." "No, no, no," the Scottish doctor corrected him, "this is the Serious Burns Unit." Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Re: [scots-l] Tuning and Electronic Tuners
> >An electronic tuner is measuring the fundamental but >>what your ear is "measuring", hearing, on a "note" on an acoustic >>instrument is much more. The electronic tuner doesn't measure the fundamental based on an A440 scale - it frequency-divides based on the fundamental which it is set up to measure. Thus, with a variable pitch (tunable) tuner, you can change the fundamental A440 to A444 or A436, or some other frequency. I don't know enough about the algorithms to know whether they use pure pythagorean ones, or something else, but based on the relative base (again, A440) they can derive all the other 12 tones in the scale, plus allow you to adjust individual strings by a few cents. And this is just _my_ two cents... > >I prefer a tuning fork (I almost wrote pitch fork by mistake!). Does the >ringing of the fork include the other harmonics etc. and might that be why >I like it better? I think I also like it because I amplify it right on my >fiddle bridge so it seems like my own instrument making the sound. At a >session, when I can't hear a pitch fork, I just tune to what seems to be >the average A. > The tuning fork provides the fundamental - your instrument amplifies the sound and provides the harmonics, including vibrating the strings. You aren't getting conflicting overtones/lingering notes from the other adjacent notes which you are playing. Note the decay (slow disappearance) of the sound as you hold the tuning fork to the instrument. While this is dependent primarily on the mass of metal which vibrates at 440hz, and which we call a tuning fork, it will also vary from instrument to instrument, depending on the density of the wood and other factors. Bob Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
[scots-l] The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
According to the liner notes on "Black and White Ewan MacColl, the Definitive Collection" (Green Linnett, 1991) The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face was written for Peggy in 1957. The recording was compiled by Ewan and Peggy's sons Neill and Calum, as were the liner notes, we presume. I believe when Roberta Flack came out with the song in the early 70's she also said this song was written for Peggy. And we have heard Ewan say the same in concert. > > >> Did Ewan MacColl write The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for his daughter >> Kirsty or is that mythology? >> >Peggy Seeger implies, when talking about this song, that it was about her. >She does not say so directly but it's pretty clear that either Ewan used the >song when courting her or wrote it at this time. However, that time seems to >have been not very long after Kirsty's birth. Peggy's songbook provides some >of the best biographical stuff relating to Ewan, but it's highly biased and >much stronger on Seeger family stuff really, with Ewan's other relationship >and children naturally not getting a look in. Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music & Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
