Re: [scots-l] Scots Music Quiz
On Fri, 28 Mar 2003 16:16:47 + (GMT) Nigel Gatherer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2. What the connects the titles of these old Scottish reels: John of Badenyon; Och a Chiallain; Cuir sa Chiste Mhoir Mi. Oh oh oh... I know this one. :-) In the Cape Breton tradition they are commonly known as the wedding reels. Working from memory of John Campbell's ramblings during workshops... The first Cape Breton fiddle recording ever made was of the wedding reel set and was recorded by Angus Chisholm, Dan J. Campbell (John's father) and Angus Gillis. The record company paid them $100 Canadian and traveling expenses. Marcia Palmater uses that recording as the opening theme for her weekly radio show, Downeast Ceilidh. Wendy 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] Looking for some background information
I have been asked to help gather some background information on a tune - Inis Oirr and its composer, Thomas Walsh. Can anyone help? Thanks, Wendy 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] Dance in Watertown, MA (USA)
Well, to get a good spot on the dance floor.. :-) On Monday 25 February 2002 16:38, John Chambers wrote: This must set some sort of record for early arrival at a concert. | Wendy, If you are there and get this, would you mind bringing both | fiddles? See you soon. I've parked down by the street. | Jeffrey | - Original Message - | From: Wendy Galovich [EMAIL PROTECTED] | To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2002 2:56 PM | Subject: [scots-l] Dance in Watertown, MA (USA) | | Spring Dance | | Saturday, April 6, 2002 | 7:30 PM - 12:00 AM | | Canadian American Club | 202 Arlington Street | Watertown, MA USA | | Featuring Recording Artists: | Jerry Holland, Violinist | Doug MacPhee, Pianist | | John Campbell, Violinist | | Step Dancing by Four On The Floor | | Norman MacEachern, Prompter | Also Mabou Sets | | Admission $12.00 | Complimentary Coffee, Tea Goodies | | Sponsored by John Campbell | (978) 897-7031 | Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To | | subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: | http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html 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] Dance in Watertown, MA (USA)
Spring Dance Saturday, April 6, 2002 7:30 PM - 12:00 AM Canadian American Club 202 Arlington Street Watertown, MA USA Featuring Recording Artists: Jerry Holland, Violinist Doug MacPhee, Pianist John Campbell, Violinist Step Dancing by Four On The Floor Norman MacEachern, Prompter Also Mabou Sets Admission $12.00 Complimentary Coffee, Tea Goodies Sponsored by John Campbell (978) 897-7031 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] Tempi
On Wednesday 06 February 2002 06:06, Nigel Gatherer wrote: STRATHSPEYS Jeffrey Friedman says they dance Strathspeys at 60. I'm not a dancer, but musically that seems VERY slow to me [3]. JMM states the limits as between 160 and 188. That upper limit seems fast to me, but nothing compared to the 202 reached in some Cape Breton recordings [2]. Now to Jimmy Shand and his Band; listening to a few Shand Strathspeys gives measurements of 130, 133 139, 139, 141 and 142; this seems right to me as a musician, but I can't speak for a dancer. Alastair Hardie's count of 126-138 seems to concur. snip [1] Flowers of Scottish Melody, 1935 [2] ...as notated in 'Traditional Celtic Violin Music of Cape Breton' Kate Dunlay and David Greenberg [3] Jeffrey - are you sure it's not half-note measurements you mean? Nigel - Jeff was referring to Scottish Country Dance strathspeys, not Cape Breton. For SCD aren't the strathspeys supposed to be counted two to the bar, rather than four to the bar as in Cape Breton? I *can* tell you that if you tap your foot for four downbeats the SCD teacher is almost certain to tell you you're playing it wrong because it's not what they need. Ian, Anselm?? Wendy 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] Name of pipe strathspey
On Wednesday 06 February 2002 20:26, Toby Rider wrote: Does anyone know the name of the pipe strathspey that Brendan plays right after Dusky Meadow, but before the John Campbell reel in this set: http://barra.tullochgorm.com/mp3s/scottish/MabouRidgeSet.mp3 I can't put a name to this tune! Thanks! Toby Pretty Marion Wendy 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] Jerry Holland's new book
On Monday 28 January 2002 23:29, Toby Rider wrote: Does anyone know where I can buy a copy of Jerry Holland's new book domestically? The last time I ordered from Paul Cranford, it took about 3 months for it to arrive. Thanks! Toby Toby, why don't you contact Kate Spencer at Maple Leaf Music? That book is listed on her site - http://www.mapleleafmusic.com Wendy 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] Chisholm?
On Tuesday 16 October 2001 12:16, Christopher Rennie wrote: Hello All, Many thanks, Toby, for the info. I am unfamiliar with Angus as a performer (obviously), but he is worth giving look on your recommendation. A little story John Campbell related to his Ceilidh Trail students this past summer.. In 1935 John Campbell's father Dan J. Campbell, Angus Allan Gillis and Angus Chisholm traveled to Montreal to make the first recordings of Cape Breton fiddle music. Of course at that time, there was no way to correct recorded mistakes after the fact. Afterward, the three of them were discussing the recording session, and one of them commented that they probably had made some mistakes, and after a pause, Angus Chisholm replied, Yeah, but there's not many that can find them. :-) There *was* a mistake on one set of two strathspeys and one reel - one of them didn't pick up quickly enough in changing from The Braes of Mar to the second strathspey. The record company paid them a whopping $100 + traveling expenses for the recording. Wendy 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] Tunes?
Jack Daniel's Reel is in the second Jerry Holland Collection. On Monday 27 August 2001 07:59, BD Renaudin wrote: Hi, I'm looking for these S Brechin and H Wrigley reels recorded by Seelyho : Sometimes it doesn't work/The Lucky Cap/The Potato tree/ Also : Jack Daniel's (by JM Rankin)/Paddy's leather breeches/Wee Todd (trad) Douglas Adam's fancy/The fastest Gasman/The Video Kid (D Pincock) Do you know where to find them (Abc, tunebook, etc... ?) Thanks in advance Dominique Renaudin http://perso.club-internet.fr/d140557/index.html Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html 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
On Thursday 02 August 2001 00:09, you wrote: The worst culprits seem to be fiddlers, who often have the attitude Damded if I'll tune to an accordion. (Since I'm also a fiddler, I can get away with such an observation. ;-) Ha ha.. I guess I should have added, if I'm playing in a group I do tune my A to everyone else's and work from there. :-) Wendy 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
On Wednesday 01 August 2001 13:46, you wrote: In an e-mail whose subject was What makes a style Scottish? Nigel Gatherer wrote: I was also fascinated by Alexander's statement: The ear's perception of a note can vary so greatly that the literature uses two terms; frequency...and pitch...and the two can vary by as much as a whole tone... I often disagree with what an electric tuner says is in tune and make minor adjustments to suit my ear. I wonder if this is an illustration of that difference? My comment: I have no doubt whatsoever that that is what is happening. I don't claim to be an expert in the workings of electronic tuners but I think they are such a menace that they should be barred from use. This is what I think is happening. An electronic tuner is measuring the fundamental but what your ear is measuring, hearing, on a note on an acoustic instrument is much more. What your ear hears is a composite of the fundamental and as many as twenty harmonics which the ear perceives as a single tone. The number of, and the relative intensity [loudness] of the harmonics influences the ear's perception of the fundamental, and in making music perception is reality. Might this variation in the harmonics also explain another phenomenon: two instruments are tuned using the same electronic tuner, and when checked against that, appear that they're in tune with each other, and each one sounds in tune by itself, but.. when played together, they sound *out of tune* with each other. Could the differences in the harmonics of individual instruments create that effect, if the tuner is measuring the fundamental? I'm not a big fan of electronic tuners either - my favorite tuning device is a tuning fork.. no batteries to run down, and no annoying little needle jumping around alternately indicating both sharp and flat on the same string. Wendy 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
On Wednesday 01 August 2001 20:38, you wrote: An electronic tuner is measuring the fundamental but what your ear is measuring, hearing, on a note on an acoustic instrument is much more. 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. - Kate Hmm.. I was wondering about the harmonics in that situation too. I think the ringing fork actually *does* cause sympathetic vibrations from the A string when the frequencies (or pitches, whichever it is depending on what the fork is generating) match. When I tune using the tuning fork, the ringing gets noticeably louder when the string's in tune. Wendy 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] What makes a style Scottish?
On Wednesday 11 July 2001 15:40, you wrote: Wendy Galovich wrote: Please don't be offended but I have concluded that you haven't read or do not understand the two quotes which I included in my last e-mail. Um.. Actually I did read and understand them, and my own conclusion is that the main problem here is one of semantics and context.. more on that below. The last line in the Turtis quote bears repeating here, I am concerned that we may be boring others on the list with this discussion. If you wish to communicat further perhaps we snould do it off list. Not yet. I have a question for you that I would like to ask in the forum of the list, because I think it would benefit many of us, if you would be so kind as to answer it; it has to do with the semantics issue, and revolves around the definitions of the following terms: - tempered scale - alternate scale I am not disputing exact scientific/musical definition of the tempered scale (which is not new information to me or to most of the rest of the list), nor am I challenging your comments about alternate scales per se. But the practical reality here is that English language is such that we often we find ourselves having to use it in an imprecise way, not out of ignorance but simply because the language lacks a specific word or short phrase to precisely describe the particular concept we're trying to express. We're in the midst of just such a situation, where the above terms end up getting used, with the intent of a slightly different definition, as follows: 1) tempered scale: a scale structure in which the individual pitch intervals are *approximately* 1.059, but with fine adjustments to correct each note so that it is in tune, in relation to its neighboring notes. (This is the concept I had in mind when I said that the CT and MA fiddlers tend to stick to the tempered scale. 2) alternate scale: a scale in which the pitch of one or more of its notes deviates from the tempered scale as described in 1). Both of the above are *rough* working definitions, if you will, employed for the sake of being able to discuss the concepts described without having to use the entire description each time; I'm well aware of what you've already said about each. In truth I've seen quite a few occasions on a number of lists where pitch intervals have been discussed using that framework, by participants who were well aware of the scientific and musical theory behind them, and understood that they were using the terms in a very loosely-defined way, but did so because they *needed* an agreed-upon parlance for discussing the *concepts* in 1) and 2). So what we really need, if we shouldn't be using those particular terms to describe those concepts, is a better set of terms. I am personally not aware of any terms that fit this particular need, but it's pretty clear to me that we have to do that before any productive discussion of the concepts can occur. Can you help with that? Thanks, Wendy 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] What makes a style Scottish?
On Tuesday 10 July 2001 13:54, you wrote: Wendy Galovich wrote: This is obvious if you're going to break the tempered scale down to that degree. Comment: 1. What is obvious? ..U.. the statements you made in the paragraph to which I was responding: that in a literal sense it is impossible to play *exactly* in, or tune an instrument *exactly* to, equal temperament, because we aren't even capable of hearing the minute differences in pitch to enable us to do that. At least that is what I understood you to be saying, but if not, please correct me. 2. I didn't break anything down. The ratio 1.059 is by definition the interval of a semitone in the equal tempered scale. More about this later. Um.. First, if you're going to quote me, I'd very much appreciate if you'd do me the courtesy of including enough of the quote so that what I originally said is clear. Maybe you misunderstood the context I was referring to.. was that why you omitted the rest of the paragraph when you quoted me above? Anyway, for clarity's sake, here it is again, this time in its entirety. Especially pertinent to the point I was trying to make is the last sentence: This is obvious if you're going to break the tempered scale down to that degree, but it doesn't address the context of my original comment, which was a response to your assertion about fiddlers playing, as you said, out of tune. From the perspective of common sense it's clear that in that context we must necessarily speak of tempered or alternate scales as far as they are discernible *by the human ear*. When I said break the tempered scale down to that degree, I wasn't being *literal*, but simply merely pointing out that the level of precision you're referring to is overkill in a discussion that was originally about using alternate scales in one's playing. However, that doesn't mean it isn't useful information. I did very much enjoy the refresher on string properties and equal temperament.. thank you for posting that! Wendy 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] Jack or other net experts: help!
On Sat, 10 Mar 2001, David Kilpatrick wrote: This is an appeal to anyone with internet know-how. In the last few days, blank subjectless message from many different people whose email addresses start 'david@' have been arriving. Now I find that other people (same criterion) have been getting blank subjectless message from me. These originate at times when my computer is not connected, so it is not a virus on my system, and presumably not a virus on theirs. A few weeks ago a spambot mailed a huge list - any address beginning 'david@' and I notice the same spambot also mailed just about every other possible name or address configuration. Anyone have any idea how a system, somewhere, can be sending blank emails 'to and from' addresses on a list which it holds, and why on earth it would do so? And how it can be stopped, as the messages seem to come from individuals but do not? I find it worrying that messages - even blanks - can be sent which appear to originate from me. Disable Javascript in your mail client if you're using one that will run it. I recently came across an article that discussed vulnerabilities inherent in having Javascript running in your email. For example it is possible for someone to send you a message containing some script (which you don't see) that instructs your mailer to surreptiously send them a copy if you forward that message to anyone else. The article mentioned Netscape, Outlook and Outlook Express as the primary targets for this kind of abuse, but there may be others. There are some real privacy-protection advantages to using a mail client that won't run scripts. Does anyone know if the Outlook family of mailers can be abused in the same way with VBScript? If they can, I'd avoid those mailers altogether, since M$ apparently doesn't see the need to provide you with any way of disabling VBScript. Wendy 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] Birlin'
On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, SUZANNE MACDONALD wrote: Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 12:33:01 -0400 From: SUZANNE MACDONALD [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [scots-l] Birlin' Toby Ryder wrote: Is that surprising? I find it to be not in the least bit surprising. Skinner did alot of things with his playing that were very "classical" in nature. For me it is surprising. Skinner was hardly unfamiliar with the tradition. I find that the "classical" label is placed on Skinner too frequently and without foundation and always with a negative connotation. I also fnd it odd that this view is held by many people in Cape Breton and yet they are playing more of his tunes than anybody else's. Alexander With all due respect, Alexander, this last stetement completely baffles me, and for the sake of learning I'd really appreciate some clarification. Yes, there is a common body of Skinner's tunes floating around in the Cape Breton repertoire - airs, reels, and some moderate and slow strathspeys - and of course the variations he composed for Tullochgorm. I'm aware of those. However it seems to me that at the dances and concerts I've been to on the island, and on the recordings I have, there is a sampling of Skinner tunes, but the Gows', the Lowes', Marshall's and MacIntosh's to name a few of the older composers. Among the more recent composers whose tunes I've frequently heard played in those venues are Dan R., John Campbell, Donald Angus, Kinnon and Joey Beaton, Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert.. the list goes on. However if I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like you're saying that there are more Skinner tunes in the Cape Breton repertoire than of any of the composers I just named off. That puzzles because it doesn't seem to line up with what little experience I've had of the tradition. Could you please explain further? Thanks, Wendy P.S. and what about that one composer named "Traditional"? I always thought the biggest chunk of the CB repertoire were his tunes.. :-) 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] Birlin'
On Tue, 20 Feb 2001, SUZANNE MACDONALD wrote: Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 22:29:25 -0400 From: SUZANNE MACDONALD [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [scots-l] Birlin' Wendy Galovich wrote: However it seems to me that at the dances and concerts I've been to on the island, and on the recordings I have, there is a sampling of Skinner tunes, but the Gows', the Lowes', Marshall's and MacIntosh's to name a few of the older composers. Among the more recent composers whose tunes I've frequently heard played in those venues are Dan R., John Campbell, Donald Angus, Kinnon and Joey Beaton, Jerry Holland, Brenda Stubbert.. the list goes on. However if I'm understanding you correctly, it sounds like you're saying that there are more Skinner tunes in the Cape Breton repertoire than of any of the composers I just named off. That puzzles because it doesn't seem to line up with what little experience I've had of the tradition. Could you please explain further? The Gows published about 300 tunes [infamous for plagiarizing some of them] , Marshall about 250, Skinner about 600, Lowes collection is mostly traditional compositions. Skinner was not only the most prolific composer but he and Marshall are in a class by themselves. Winston Fitzgerald was, in the view of many, Cape Breton's most influential fiddler. If you check "Winston Fitzgerald, A Collection of Fiddle Tunes", edited by Paul Cranford, you will find that Winston's most popular composers were; Skinner, Henderson [ J. Murdock] Dan R. Mac Donald and Marshall in that order with Skinner having more tunes than all the others combined. Many of the local composes you list have added significantly to the repertoire. As you point out most of these are of relatively recent vintage. Okay, if you're speaking from a "Winston perspective" I can understand your comments better. I do have the book you mention and a number of his recordings. And there is no denying the impact Winston's playing has had on the present generation, and some of their choices of tunes. My question still isn't quite cleared up, however, because when I asked it I wasn't thinking of just one player (however influential), but all of the Cape Breton fiddlers I've been fortunate enough to hear either in person or on recordings. Also the sheer number of tunes by each composer doesn't really answer the question of how many of them actually get played, how often, and in what venues. The other unanswered piece of the question, which I didn't spell out (my fault!), is where do Skinner's compositions fit into Cape Breton step dance tradition - specifically the strathspeys. The reason I'm still questioning this is that while I can think of quite a few "listening strathspeys" by Skinner, I can only come up with only one that is sometimes associated with him that is commonly played for step dancers - Devil in the Kitchen - but The Scottish Violinist credits a W.M. Ross for the composition, and Skinner for the fiddle arrangement. So perhaps looking at it from that viewpoint is my particular "tunnel vision".. but the step dancing strathspey stands out in such sharp relief for me as an important, distinctive part of the Cape Breton musical tradition that I still don't see Skinner as a significant influence on *that* part of it. Fair enough? Wendy 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] Local Sessions.
At 06:39 AM 10/11/2000 -0400, you wrote: Jeff (suffering the recent slings of an egomaniacle pompous bossy fiddler) Friedman Ah, I know the one you mean.. one of our *local* experts :-) Wendy 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] Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 20:31:01 -0600
At 07:26 PM 10/6/2000 -0700, you wrote: I'm seeking advice from fiddlers: I've heard that all "cuts" should begin on a down bow. Is that good advice and is it always true? When inserting a cut I do seem to think it is easiest to begin on a down bow. However... I'm playing around with bowings in the tune 'Crossing the Minch' (aka 'McNabb's Hornpipe') and seem to think that it's easiest to slur the two eighth notes prior to the cut on a down bow (to give emphasis to the first note and soften the tune a bit) and then begin the cut on an up bow. It seems to work and I'm getting good speed on it. Any bowing advice from anyone familiar with this tune? Dianne Anderson mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] Since I just caught up on this, and will come back to it later when I'm not rushing out the door, let me first ask, what style do you play? There are going to be *some* differences (as you've already seen) depending on the answer to that question. Wendy 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] string materials
At 05:26 PM 9/27/2000 +0100, "David Kilpatrick" wrote: We're not sure about the pitch of voices in the past; one of your problems with singing anything from 18th c Scottish MS is that the intended pitch is at least one tone, maybe 1.5 tones, lower than the notation makes it appear, due to the change in concert pitch to our higher 440=A tuning. The commonest pitch of the period was A=415 and there are thousands of surviving woodwind instruments at that pitch. A tone down was far less common; a few organs in continental Europe were built a tone above modern pitch. I don't think anything as low as A=400 was found anywhere except in France or after 1700. David Greenberg's A=415 fiddle sounds very convincing for music of this period. Jack, if the pitch change was relatively small - a semitone or a touch more - why are we told that so many fiddles had to be rebuilt entirely to take the increased tension of the 'new' orchestral pitch in the early 1800s? I thought the general shift between 1750 and 1830 was about 1.25 tones. I'm going to jump in here and try to answer this at least in part. There were actually *two* significant changes that happened, I believe, close to the same time. One certainly was a change in pitch. But some other changes to the design of the instrument were introduced in order to make it *louder*, to accommodate larger ensembles and larger concert halls. The most significant change was to increase the string length from the nut to the bridge. For this purpose, the bridge height was raised to where it is on the modern violin. The other change that was apparently made was to the length of the neck. As an example, one of the last times my husband and I were at our luthier's, he also showed us a couple of very old instruments that he thought had been reconstructed during that time; on both of those instruments, the scrolls had been spliced onto the necks, rather than the necks and scrolls being all one piece, which is what you normally see. His assessment was that the necks had been replaced in order to lengthen them slightly. Increasing the length of the strings alone would have increased the tension simply to maintain the same pitch, and thus would have required structural changes in the instrument to support it. I had an opportunity this summer to get a good look at David Greenberg's baroque violin, and there is a *noticeable* difference in the size of the bass bar and in the thickness of both the soundpost and the bridge, compared to a modern violin (they are smaller on the baroque violin.) I suspect that the top and back may be carved a bit thinner too, but maybe David could tell us that. :-) The effect of those differences in structure is that the baroque violin doesn't produce quite the volume that the modern violin does, but its sound is incredibly powerful; it has a fantastic dynamic range and responds to a much lighter touch. You have to keep in mind that a well-made violin of any type already treads a fine line between having the maximum amount of flexibility in the top and back, to allow them to vibrate as freely as possible, and being sturdy enough to withstand both the stresses of that vibration and the ten- sion of the strings. So, if it is well-designed for a specific setup, it won't take much of an increase in string tension to damage it. Wendy 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] music store frustration
At 06:29 PM 9/14/2000 EDT, you wrote: Wood type is crucial for the sound and strength of a clarsach. It has to be a hard wood. My harps (that aren't broken) are made out of Scottish Sycamore and Maine Beech and Maple. Maine Beech.. that wouldn't have been out of Jay Witcher's shop, by any chance? Wendy 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] new subscription flood?
At 11:43 AM 9/12/2000 -0700, "Toby A. Rider wrote: On Tue, 12 Sep 2000, Jeffrey Friedman wrote: Regarding the your comments on the Wedding Reels: I've just encountered a couple of CD's by a fiddler named John Campbell. I guess you might say he has an impressive style. I'm being very understated here. I have to ask a difficult question, as your "word" is not one I've encountered regarding this type of music. Define "Attitude", please. I think I can hear it, but can't quite verbalize it. Thanks, Jeff Ha..ha..ha.. When you finally get a chance to talk to John Campbell, you will understand what I mean by "attitude". I'm using "attitude" as a positive adjective here. John Campbell is a lion of a man. I think his style of playing very well reflects some elements of his personality. Granted I don't know him very well, Wendy knows him better then I do. Maybe she can elaborate. I think his playing is very straight-forward, intense and powerful, yet intricate in the way that he's constantly changing subtle things. I think you hit a very important point there. He does keep you guessing somewhat, which in my [limited] experience does seem in keeping with his personality. Over the past year and a half I've been to two individual workshops with him in New Hampshire, and then the week at Ceilidh Trail, a month ago. I wrote to him once after the first workshop, and had spoken with him on phone several times between that and the second workshop, and after the second one he still didn't remember who I was.. But when I arrived at Ceilidh Trail on the first morning, my friend Kate greeted me by telling me that two people had been asking "where's Wendy?" - and that one of them was John Campbell. Hmm.. :-) And you never quite know what he's going to spring on you in the workshops either. I started out that week with the beginner group, and ended up switching to the intermediates on the third day. For the inter- mediates, John's class was the first one of the day. Well, halfway through the class, in the midst of some discussion, he stopped, looked across the room straight at me and said "Play something." There was no getting out of that one..:-) If I remember correctly I stumbled through Jessie Smith. Later I found out he'd been doing that with each of the each the interme- diate students. But he definitely does keep you on toes and guessing as to what's coming next! Wendy Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
