Thursday, February 03, 2005
Love That Low Sound
I am truly in love with my new violin. After a week of playing it, I played it and the old one in quick succession - after tuning them both to the same pitch standard. And the difference was striking. The old student violin was very thin-sounding, even when I hit a resonance (like a 3rd finger ringing with the string below), it was very muted, like a nasally 8 year-old singing "nanny nanny boo boo!". The new violin rang out like like an opera singer. It was glorious.
I've been working on repertoire reels a lot, and my ability to play in sessions has gone way up. So far, Elke and I have looked at repertoire reels in the first 6 fiddle club books (along with Scots measures and reel-tempo hornpipes), and now we're going to go back look at the repertoire strathspeys and slow airs in those books, after we spend the next few weeks looking at the Scottish Country Dance style, in preparation for the dance the fiddle club is throwing and playing for at the end of the month.
The new pipes are settling in nicely too. As the reed breaks in, it's settling in between 435 and 440 Hz for the A, depending on the outside conditions, so it's very workable. I need to get some extra reeds for it, though. The range of pressures between where high A cuts off and where low G begins to collapse is greater now, allowing me a little more comfort. And boy does this sound wonderful for piobaireachd! I've been playing Lament for Mary MacLeod and Lament for the Old Sword on it every night, and it's just wonderful.
I'm supposed to start on Struan Robertson's Salute as my 3rd piobaireachd soon, so I'm looking forward to that. The strathspeys and reels are coming along well too, but I'm struggling to get the pointing right on the strathspeys. I'm too round generally, even on the light beats.
Anders is coming down for our 3rd rehearsal this weekend. We're going to go through all our existing sets, once for warm-up, then again rolling tape on them. Once we've done that, we're going to start looking at intros, bridges, and arrangements to spice things up. Should be a lot of fun.
I've been working on repertoire reels a lot, and my ability to play in sessions has gone way up. So far, Elke and I have looked at repertoire reels in the first 6 fiddle club books (along with Scots measures and reel-tempo hornpipes), and now we're going to go back look at the repertoire strathspeys and slow airs in those books, after we spend the next few weeks looking at the Scottish Country Dance style, in preparation for the dance the fiddle club is throwing and playing for at the end of the month.
The new pipes are settling in nicely too. As the reed breaks in, it's settling in between 435 and 440 Hz for the A, depending on the outside conditions, so it's very workable. I need to get some extra reeds for it, though. The range of pressures between where high A cuts off and where low G begins to collapse is greater now, allowing me a little more comfort. And boy does this sound wonderful for piobaireachd! I've been playing Lament for Mary MacLeod and Lament for the Old Sword on it every night, and it's just wonderful.
I'm supposed to start on Struan Robertson's Salute as my 3rd piobaireachd soon, so I'm looking forward to that. The strathspeys and reels are coming along well too, but I'm struggling to get the pointing right on the strathspeys. I'm too round generally, even on the light beats.
Anders is coming down for our 3rd rehearsal this weekend. We're going to go through all our existing sets, once for warm-up, then again rolling tape on them. Once we've done that, we're going to start looking at intros, bridges, and arrangements to spice things up. Should be a lot of fun.
# posted by Peter @ 8:38 AM 
