Toby Rider wrote:
I think his stratshpeys had too many different notes and not enough
repetition to be good step dance strathspeys. :-) The very same
qualities that make them good tunes to listen to, make them not as
powerful for step dancing.
I believe Skinner probably would have been
Wendy Galovich wrote:
Okay, if you're speaking from a "Winston perspective"
My comment:
I'm speaking from a Cape Breton fiddle music perspective or perhaps more
correctly from a Scottish music, Cape Breton style perspective, not a
Winston perspective.
Wendy:
Also the sheer number of tunes
In my e-mail just sent [8:30 pm AST] the following sentence:
In musical notation this would be two sixteenth notes, one eight note
and a one
sixteenth rest. should read two thirty-second notes, one eighth
etc
Alexander
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To
Stuart Eydman wrote:
Anyway, I've measured a few birls selected at random from a number of
Cape
Breton fiddlers (using the 1970s Topic album of tapes by John Shaw) and
I
conclude that, if anything, the birls are in fact longer than the
Skinner
ones I looked at previously
My comment:
The length
SUZANNE MACDONALD wrote:
Interestingly Skinner was playing them much closer to that of a
classically trained fiddler unfamiliar with the tradition, time ratio
1:1:2, that is to say exactly as written.
David Johnson says that the birl in Scotland is also played in the time
ratio 1:1:6
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
SUZANNE MACDONALD wrote:
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
Toby Rider wrote:
...Have you heard those old wax recordings of Skinner? That's what makes
me think of him as trying to be a "classical" sort of player...
That's interesting. I've always thought that the reason Skinner played
like that was stylistic and a product of its time. Listening to
Regarding birls and Skinner.
My former ethnomusicology tutor Dr Peter Cooke of the School of Scottish
Studies was a bit of a pioneer in using technology as an aid to
understanding the fiddle traditions - hence my own interest in the
scientific approach. Peter's view is that the human ear really
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
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
SUZANNE MACDONALD wrote:
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.
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
In an e-mail dated 14 Jan. I stated that the birl in Cape Breton was
played [on the fiddle] not as written, i. e. two sixteenth notes
followed by an eighth but two thirty-second notes followed by a dotted
eighth. So far so good. But my arithmetic analysis following was in
error. The time ratio
I've enjoyed the thorough discussions on the birlin' ..but I was also
interested to know if anyone has ever used an ornament I was told was
called a "Cape Breton Wiggle"? Perhaps there's another name for it but
this is all that I know it's called. I brought this up this past Oct.
but didn't
I've tried several of the suggested techniques, and haven't had any success.
Sort of like I've hit the "birlin' wall..."
I'll go back to my room now... grin
Derek Hoy wrote:
I think there's an unhealthy obsession now with the 'correct' way of
playing,
particularly 'regional styles'.
I've tried several of the suggested techniques, and haven't had any
success. Sort of like I've hit the "birlin' wall..."
Ouch :)
Derek
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To
subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Derek Hoy wrote:
I've tried several of the suggested techniques, and haven't had any
success. Sort of like I've hit the "birlin' wall..."
Ouch :)
Don't worry, the wall will come down. Just like the real one :-)
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture
One tune I find myself doing up-down-up cuts/birls on is "The Sound of
Mull." I don't arrive there on purpose but if I forget to plan ahead on
this tune, they end up that way, which is upside-down for me. (I don't
mind back-to-back cuts though.) "The Sound of Mull" isn't shown with cuts
in the
Derek said:
I seem to recall discussing this with Stuart Eydmann once- Stuart had some
evidence that 'down bow on the first beat' was not so common among self-taught
traditional fiddlers.
I was giving a fiddle workshop in Talinn, Estonia where a Swedish fiddler observed
that I
Oops!!
My earlier e-mail today [January 16] should have read "eighth" notes
not eight. Sorry.
Alexander
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music Culture List - To
subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
Stuart opined:
The principal conclusions are:
1Skinner could certainly do it
2The birl is very fast ( 0.320 sec, approx)
3The third note is considerably longer than the first two in the
proportions 1 : 1 : 3
This is a birl as part of the melody of the tune - for many
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd like to hear more of this and your
other Skinner recordings.
If only we could ask Scott Skinner! Well, can I offer the next best thing?
I've been working on some old Skinner recordings, clearing out some of the
noise so that you can hear just what he
Just two cents: wire harpers do this quite handily. We just roll our
fingernails on the strings...one-two-THREE.
For what it's worth, I think I do it on the beat. Sometimes it's hard to
tell, if I'm playing fast enough!
--Cynthia Cathcart
Posted to Scots-L - The Traditional Scottish Music
01 1:27 AM
Subject: Re: [scots-l] Birlin'
At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote:
I was mostly joking about the "every now and then" bit, but I'm a long
way
from having mastered the technique. I figure if it feels right, I simply
need more practice. This may sound weird, but
Wendy Galovich wrote:
At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote:
I was mostly joking about the "every now and then" bit, but I'm a long way
from having mastered the technique. I figure if it feels right, I simply
need more practice. This may sound weird, but I found it helped me to
Re many e-mails of the subject of "Birlin", here's my take on the
subject. The birls are called "cuts" [translation from Gaelic] in Cape
Breton. They are written in the Scottish books as three repeated notes,
two sixteenth and one eight, [in my Irish books they are written as
triplets] but in
Happy New Year!
Suzanne MacDonald asked:
"Also I have hand-written music notated by the leader of one of
Scotland's best known Strathspey and Reel groups which included tunes
composed by Dan R. Mac Donald in which the birls were eliminated.
Astonishingly, one tune in particular "Trip
If I'm thinking correctly as to what a "birlin' " sounds like..I've
head Alasdair Fraser play this ornament many times and each timeit
sounds like a very fast, accurate "bow" triplet with the same "exact"
number of notes ( triplet - 3 ) every time he plays it. Sometimes,
serveral times
On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 01:27:13 -0500, Wendy Galovich wrote:
At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote:
I don't play with
my hand that way most of the time, but it did help to learn the movement
needed.
Ah, we differ a bit there - for me adopting that bow hold was an
end in itself. I
Jeri Corlew wrote:
On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 01:27:13 -0500, Wendy Galovich wrote:
At 07:25 PM 1/13/2001 -0500, Jeri Corlew wrote:
I don't play with
my hand that way most of the time, but it did help to learn the movement
needed.
Ah, we differ a bit there - for me adopting that bow
Of course,
sometimes ornaments are just for pleasure as well.
Birls are easier on the pipes than on the fiddle, but _good_ birls are
difficult on both.
Jan Lane
- Original Message -
From: "Derek Hoy" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2001 10:49 PM
S
Almost all Cape Breton players play birls with a down-up-down bow.
I've always played this ornament up-down-up but
recently have been making an effort to learn the reverse, for pretty much
the same reasons you listed above. I didn't realize the CB fiddlers played
this ornament down-up-down, but
Stuart Eydman said regarding his scientific analysis of Scott Skinner's
birling technique as heard on one of his recordings:
The principal conclusions are:
1Skinner could certainly do it
2The birl is very fast ( 0.320 sec, approx)
3The third note is considerably longer than the
I've heard Irish fiddlers bounce bows for what I call a triplet, but this
is extremely difficult to control. I've heard classical violinists playing
traditional music do a form of it as well - lifting the bow after each
short stroke. This sounds exactly like a classical violinist playing
Different styles do these differently- basically wee bowed triplets on the one
note.
Some folks like them nice and neat- 3 clear notes. As Toby mentioned, Tommy
Peoples is famous for his- they're like electrical crackles. He has a
particular technique, which looks like he is flicking the
Wendy Galovich wrote:
At 09:40 PM 1/11/2001 -0500, Keith W. Dunn wrote:
Is anyone on the list familiar with a fiddle ornament called a "birlin'
"?
I read a short synopsis of how it's done in the book "Caledonian
Companion" by Alasdair Hardie but it was only a short explanation. It's
used
Is anyone on the list familiar with a fiddle ornament called a "birlin'
"?
I read a short synopsis of how it's done in the book "Caledonian
Companion" by Alasdair Hardie but it was only a short explanation. It's
used in the tune "James Hardie" by J. Scott Skinner. To me, it always
seems to be
38 matches
Mail list logo
