SUZANNE MACDONALD wrote:
All of this brings us back to the beginning of this discussion, the
pitch of the seventh note in a Scottish fiddle tune, specifically G# in
the key of A major. The pitch of the seventh note is dictated by the
ratios of the just intonation scale. Playing this note somewhere between
G and G# is something which violin instruction books warn teachers is a
natural tendency, is something which many fiddlers do and is an example
of what Lionel Turtis refers to when he says but how many do not [play
in tune]. In summary a note whose pitch lies about half way between G
and G# is not in the equal tempered scale, is not in the just intonation
scale, and does not designate a tune as Scottish. It is simply out of
tune.
If I can go back to something I said a long time ago at the beginning of
this thread, which grew into the current discussion/argie, and which
I've already repeated once:
The sharpened note is not out of tune. It is imitative of the *correct*
sharp pitch of the appropriate note on (in this case) Border pipes. Each
type of bagpipe - great Highland, Scottish smallpipe, Border,
Northumbrian and to a lesser extent the more elaborate and almost
microtonal Irish inventions which look crossed with a clarinet - not
only has a traditional overall pitch which often isn't A=440, but also a
traditional relative pitch for each tone. To my ear the modern highland
bagpipe usually sounds most 'normal' and the conical bore Border pipe
the most extreme, but I've heard Northumbrian ones which are similar -
one local player has a vintage set which gives him space at sessions,
since no-one can join in with anything he does without retuning.
Many fiddle tunes are also pipe tunes, and fiddlers take great pride in
playing them in a manner which makes this ancestry audible. Part of the
skill in doing that lies in imitating the tones (sorry, I don't like
using the word 'note' instead of 'tone' in the context of a pitch) of
the pipes.
And that is one thing which can make a style sound 'Scottish' - back to
the original difficult question. Combined with other refinements of
style, tempo, bowing, ornaments etc.
If it's worth another comment from a non-fiddler but occasional repairer
of old fiddles, my friends tell me the following also applies (after
attempting to play my repaired fiddles):
Pre-watershed date in fiddle design - apparently around mid-19th c - the
fingerboard is closer to the body and the bridge much lower. Also, the
radius of the fingerboard may be a little flatter. I've had a couple of
these old fiddles and sorted them out, but 'orchestral' or classically
trained violin players don't like them. They prefer the modern design
where the angle of the neck is much steeper and the bridge is pretty
high, lifting the strings well away from the body. It permits clean
bowing of individual strings. The old flatter design is better for
playing against the chest, instead of under the neck, and lends itself
to drone-effects as it's relatively hard to avoid playing two strings
together unless you bow right next to the bridge.
Since Scots country fiddles were made, or imported, with the flatter
'old' geometry until some time after this had changed, some of the
'drone hits' you hear in traditional playing (slightly random but
rythmic with it!) are really just a result of this. Players with modern
orchestral fiddles where the strings are more widely radiussed, using a
modern trained bow action, now have to learn to hit these deliberately.
Odd thing is that similar brief bursts of 'drone' occur in smallpipe
playing and in some squeeze box styles, apparently the pipe thing is
another 'feature of the instrument' occurrence, not sure about the
squeezeboxes or whether they are just imitating the effect by hitting a
bass or chord button briefly.
Now I may be told that exactly the same things happen in Irish or
English, Welsh or Appalachian music (or if Jack's reading, Turkish)
so this may not be Scottish style. But it's certainly a feature of
Border fiddle playing, combined with a robust attack, if recent
recordings are properly representative.
David
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