Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Old Music is Good Music
On another topic, I've recently been getting a lot of new sheet music. I purchased the Gow Collections and Repositories from Fiddler's Crossing, to add to my copy of Marshall. It's great to have those old bass lines too.
My recent find that's got me the most excited is actually Anders' Xmas gift: 2 volumes of the J&R Glen collection for Highland Bagpipe. These books are about 100 years old, and are in pristine condition. Reading through them, I noticed the following:
1) Way more folk tunes, and less of the "composed" bagpipe music seen in later collections. This means the tunes mostly have only 2 parts, and the melodies are stronger. So much of modern competition music feels like an exercise rather than a tune.
2) They look more like fiddle tunes. The strathspeys, for example, use quadruplets, just like I'm used to seeing in fiddle music, but now wholly alien to pipers. And the presence of doublings on the first note of some indicate that they were articulated like the fiddle quadruplets too - long first note, then a run of 3. The reels are mostly written round, but I'm guessing they were swung.
3) The ornaments are noticably different. For example:
* Low-hand doublings. Rather than starting a doubling with a g-gracenote, this collection uses d- and e-graces to start the low-hand doublings and shakes. This is very similar to what Irish pipers (and flautists) do on their low-hand crans and short rolls; and supposedly this comes from the warpipes. Are the Irish playing the more authentic tradition in this case? Apparently the modern form originates with the Logan tutor, and Army piping rapidly standardized this ornament in its wake.
* Many more half-doublings. Today, we only play half doublings from high A - because we can't play an initial grace note - and from high G, because an initial a-gracenote is sometimes awkward. This collection has half doublings and half-shakes all over the place. The full doubling is both articulatory (from the initial gracing) and emphatic (from the second gracing, like a delayed tap on fiddle). Using half-doublings instead keeps it emphatic, but takes away the articulation, creating a greater illusion of legato. And the delayed tap/half-doubling is very common for Scottish fiddlers, so it makes sense that pipers would use it too.
* I haven't noticed the alternate Taorluaths (w/ the "redundant" low A) yet, but they're probably there, just written differently. My reading of Joseph McDonald is that it's really the second low G that's redundant, but it's really easy to get the "redundant" form from that just with a crossing noise after the e-gracing. The modern taorluath definitely had more bite than the McDonald one, and is easier to cleanly execute.
Very exciting stuff.
My recent find that's got me the most excited is actually Anders' Xmas gift: 2 volumes of the J&R Glen collection for Highland Bagpipe. These books are about 100 years old, and are in pristine condition. Reading through them, I noticed the following:
1) Way more folk tunes, and less of the "composed" bagpipe music seen in later collections. This means the tunes mostly have only 2 parts, and the melodies are stronger. So much of modern competition music feels like an exercise rather than a tune.
2) They look more like fiddle tunes. The strathspeys, for example, use quadruplets, just like I'm used to seeing in fiddle music, but now wholly alien to pipers. And the presence of doublings on the first note of some indicate that they were articulated like the fiddle quadruplets too - long first note, then a run of 3. The reels are mostly written round, but I'm guessing they were swung.
3) The ornaments are noticably different. For example:
* Low-hand doublings. Rather than starting a doubling with a g-gracenote, this collection uses d- and e-graces to start the low-hand doublings and shakes. This is very similar to what Irish pipers (and flautists) do on their low-hand crans and short rolls; and supposedly this comes from the warpipes. Are the Irish playing the more authentic tradition in this case? Apparently the modern form originates with the Logan tutor, and Army piping rapidly standardized this ornament in its wake.
* Many more half-doublings. Today, we only play half doublings from high A - because we can't play an initial grace note - and from high G, because an initial a-gracenote is sometimes awkward. This collection has half doublings and half-shakes all over the place. The full doubling is both articulatory (from the initial gracing) and emphatic (from the second gracing, like a delayed tap on fiddle). Using half-doublings instead keeps it emphatic, but takes away the articulation, creating a greater illusion of legato. And the delayed tap/half-doubling is very common for Scottish fiddlers, so it makes sense that pipers would use it too.
* I haven't noticed the alternate Taorluaths (w/ the "redundant" low A) yet, but they're probably there, just written differently. My reading of Joseph McDonald is that it's really the second low G that's redundant, but it's really easy to get the "redundant" form from that just with a crossing noise after the e-gracing. The modern taorluath definitely had more bite than the McDonald one, and is easier to cleanly execute.
Very exciting stuff.
# posted by Peter @ 10:41 AM 
