Monday, January 17, 2005

 

That violin's tuning is flat baroque!

I got my Walter Mahr baroque violin today, and I'm in love. First of all, the instrument is gorgeous, aesthetically. The varnish is a deep, reddish orange, the figuring on the back is tiger-striped. The fingerboard and tailpiece are ebony - I'd have preferred ebony veneer over maple, but this is quite lovely in any event.

The sound is quite nice to my ear. Rather than tune it to the "canonical" baroque tuning, A=415 Hz, I tuned it up to A=432 Hz, just shy of modern concert tuning, and to where my new Highland pipes like to tune. It's got a lot of projection for a baroque instrument, and is light as a feather. The nut-to-bridge distance is barely smaller than a modern violin, so good intonation comes fairly easy. Double-stops are very easy, almost too easy, on this flatter bridge. And the lack of a chin-rest presents no problems to me.

I've been playing on it all evening, and I think my old student violin is getting lonely...

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

 

"Why do you keep wasting my time with these 'toys' of yours?"

That's what my pipe instructor told me when we started to work on my 440 Hz concert A pipes. He retracted his slurs against the maker when I reminded him that it's a Hamish Moore chanter, and we commenced to rain curses down upon the name of the man who makes the reeds.

That proving unproductive, I mentioned that I had got a Bill Durham reed to work at 432 Hz, and figured another might at 440. Durham makes a fine reed, it's what we use in band and what I use in solo, and I wanted to work with that.

We tried a variety of reeds, all of which tuned about right, but had serious turbulence, but only on E. Then John remembered something a bandmate in CAPD told him about what to do when a reed did this, took a razor blade, and shaved off a bit of the shoulder of the reed - the details I'm sketchy on - and suddenly it was sounding pretty good. He then put together one bass drone reed and one tenor drone reed (we didn't have time for the other, and were running 30 minutes over my lesson as it was), and as I predicted, they were 1.5" and 1" longer, respectively, than the standard drone reeds. I'm going to play these in for a week and see how they settle in, and we'll do the second tenor drone and try again on the others next week if necessary.

He felt that it sounded a bit too shrill and shawm-like, despite being lower pitched, but it's always dangerous to judge a chanter without drones, since a chanter alone always sounds shriller than with drones. I liked the high-hand notes a lot, especially with the drones. The low A was a little unstable, we'll have to watch that. It's an iterative process.

In the end, John admitted, "It could just be the pitch that's throwing my perception off. I'm used to hearing bagpipes in bagpipe pitch, and when I hear this, my brain starts judging it against an oboe. It sounds like an unconstrained double reed, which, surprise, it is!"

So in the end, I'm fairly happy so far. I've got a good strong reed for 440, a good strong reed for 432, and a weak back-up reed for 440. What I need to do is play this for more musicians who aren't necessarily pipers to get their sense of the sound - because pipers are going to have 474 stuck in their head. Anders liked the sound of the 432 Hz reed, and I want to run the 440 setup by him.

At the same time, I bought one of my instructor's copies of the complete bound edition of the Piobaireachd Society books 1-15. A very nice tome, and it'll be helpful as I start to learn more piobaireachd.

Saturday, January 01, 2005

 

So there's a hand, my trusty fiere...

The original tune

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, 
And auld lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my jo
For auld lang syne,
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,     
And auld lang syne!

We twa hae run about the braes  
And pou’d the gowans fine,
But we’ve wander’d monie a weary fit 
Sin auld Lang Syne  
For auld lang syne, my jo
For auld lang syne,
But we’ve wander’d monie a weary fit
Sin auld lang syne!

We twa hae paidl’d in the burn
Frae morning sun till dine 
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin auld lang syne
For auld lang syne, my jo
For auld lang syne,
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin auld lang syne

And there’s a hand my trusty fiere,
And gie’s a hand o thine 
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne
For auld lang syne, my jo
For auld lang syne,
And we’ll tak a right guid-willie waught,
For auld lang syne

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp!
And surely I'll be mine!
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my jo
For auld lang syne,
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne,
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

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