|
 |
|
|
COMMENT(S): Building harmony: a pipes|drums Feature Series
Published: May 11, 2009
Author: dnicoll | (report inappropriate content) |
| An excellent article.
I personally find it easier to think of the chords having the names of the notes on the pipe chanter rather than the closest note based on 440 A, and tune the keyboard to 478 A or thereabouts. (I actually use a guitar where the chords are very easily transposed).
There are times when the chord approach doesn't work well, though. I love the sound of the B minor chord B,D,F... (that would be C minor in the B-flat scheme of the article), but when I put even a short B against a long D in the harmonies for The Water is Wide, it seems that I was the only one who liked it.
Dave |
Published: April 26, 2009
Author: JanetteMontague | (report inappropriate content) |
| Yes, when put like that, it's a wonder harmony is possible at all. On a violin, you can make minute micro-second adjustments to adjust sounds. But does a piper, I wonder do that through blowing pressure. Take a macro-example. When tuning with a tutor at my band, I tend to blow slightly harder or less, to tune to him (of course I'm meant to be steady blowing). Now take a top grade player, whose pipes are very well tuned, and he plays harmony with someone or others - do you think it possible that the musical piper, will make hardly-discernible adjustments in his blowing, to 'tune-in' with the harmony player and vice versa. In a situation, that is, where the two sounds being produced, by dint of the different bagpipe tuning, are not quite 'in' with each other? If the chanter notes are tuned very well, should they not all produce an ok sound against the drones? I can understand the 'notes against low A bit' because you're referring there to the fact that a perfect fifth, for instance, isn't necessarily a perfect fifth when it comes to pipes. The volume variation one is an interesting one. On a piano there's that variation isn't there too? Funny, because I don't think other instrumentalists are as bothered or aware of that when writing harmony . Blowing pressure and weather - wow yes. But there again, a melody could be blown off course by the players or the weather. Nuts-and-bolts points though to ponder more about. Fascinating. Does anyone have anything to say about the interval of a fourth, particularly F-C on pipes? |
Published: April 25, 2009
Author: Bagpipermann | (report inappropriate content) |
| The tuning issue is something that I have been pondering about lately concerning "dischord" in bagpipe harmony. I tried to elude to this earlier when discussing violins and pianos vs the GHB in another discussion. I don't know how to express my thoughs perfectly regarding the technical verbage, but the issue as I see it is mainly twofold. The lack of the ability to soften sounds via a type of vibrato or tonal offset on the pipe can cause unpleasant sounds when playing some chords and the relative tuning of the different chanter notes vs the drones or "low A" can cause others. Then there is the further challenge of the volume variation of the notes as we move from bottom to top hand. In addition the weather and the steadiness of blowing pressure further adds to the complexity. |
Published: April 24, 2009
Author: JanetteMontague | (report inappropriate content) |
| I'll track down that CD and have a listen. I've not heaard the piece before - that version anyway. Look forward to it. And yes, that's of course such a valid point re the tuning and it's a thing I'm newer to, but learning more about it as time goes on - this or that note being ' x' no. of cents flat of a piano G or whatever. However I'm hopeful the constraints can be worked within - in fact that's all the more a musical challenge, which I for one would not be daunted by! Bring it on!! It's interesting reading and re-reading Bill Livingstone's article. Loads to think about and mull over. |
Published: April 24, 2009
Author: Calum | (report inappropriate content) |
| Bear in mind the limitations of our tuning system. If we take a bagpipe and tune the low G, A, and D perfectly with reference to low A and the drone, the low G will not make a perfect fifth with the D. Problem, particularly in those great dual tonic tunes we all love so much. |
Published: April 23, 2009
Author: JamieGreen | (report inappropriate content) |
| I was listening to a CD just this morning Janette that made me think of previous discussions about harmonies. The Vale of Atholl, Live N Well CD. Have a listen to MacIain of Glencoe on it. I think you'll approve.
I think they may have also done the same setting of the tune when they played at the concert hall in 2006 but I'm not sure. |
Published: April 17, 2009
Author: JanetteMontague | (report inappropriate content) |
| I've been reading Bill Livingstone's article again and again and listening to the examples. Some of these sounds which were/are regarded as anathema in piping must surely be to do with lack of exposure to them by pipers and drummers don't you think? Taking the G triad sounding against the long E in Journey to Skye for instance, there's absolutely nothing there that I find the least bit offensive (as a sound I mean, not just in this piece). However, I played it (on the piano) to some people in amongst other chords, and asked them after each one to tell me if they heard it as a pleasing sound or a discord. Out of the five people, four thought it was a discord, and one was undecided. The five people are fairly middle-of-the-road music types, in to folk music. The next thing to consider is the actual instrument. It could be true to say of course, that there might be some sounds which just don't work on bagpipes. But I don't think that's it. I think it's that, for the most part, as in other musics, people in the Western world are used to certain sounds, and maybe particularly in folk music, the harmonic and chordal structure plays it pretty safe. I used to hate the sound of jarring major seconds, and even worse minor seconds. Until that is, I was asked on a course, to study the interval of a major second for a week, and to come up with improvisations using mainly this interval. Anathema! However, by the end of that week, I loved the sound of the major second. It actually sounded very familiar, concordant, pleasant even, safe and perfectly ok as a sound. Bill talks in the article about what's happening in the act of hearing sounds and about what the ear expects to hear and how it reacts when the expected doesn't happen. So I wonder whether this has a lot to do with harmony in the bagpipe music repertoire. Perhaps pipe bands need to lock themselves in a hall for a fortnight and play dissonant sounds, to get used to them! Of course, the judges would need to come too. It might seem like torture at first, but hey, if it opened up a whole new world of colours and sound hues for greater expression of the music, how worth while would that be!! |
Published: April 13, 2009
Author: JanetteMontague | (report inappropriate content) |
| 'a judge has to hear and understand it on his first listen.'
Yes granted. If judges (to lump them all together, which is unfair I know) - were to be more musically literate in the general field of music, including styles, harmony and counterpoint, compositional techniques, as well as all the performance issues, they would be more likely to 'get it' on a first hearing. All the more reason for much more in-service training and continuing professional development for judges. If everything has to be held back because judges don't understand the music, that's as bad as a gifted child being held back because of the limitations of its parents, or a bird having its wings clipped incase it flies too far. There's a great case to be made for more continuing prof dev for judges, or a different selection procedure in the first place. It's a shame if musical gems get swept up off the floor and binned because a judge somewhere won't see the beauty in them. In that sense, you can understand why a band would choose to just go forward and make and play its music, and not be held back by the competition system. I take your point though, that for the moment, that's life I guess. (The above of course doesn't apply to all judges, some of whom undoubtedly know their music). |
Published: April 13, 2009
Author: Calum | (report inappropriate content) |
| Janette, the key here is the last few paragraphs of the article. I can't tell you how often a piece of music has ended up on the cutting room floor because at the end of the day, a judge has to hear and understand it on his first listen. |
Published: April 12, 2009
Author: JanetteMontague | (report inappropriate content) |
| At last - the second of this series! I intend to read and listen many times through, but this is more like the thing! It was an interesting emotional journey through the article. My heart sank when I read about the adjacent ebony and ivory notes, as I love the sound of major and minor seconds and can hear the bagpipers of the furure use them to great effect. However, despair turned to great interest as I read on. I was encouraged by the accuracy of the factual information, so often not found in articles on piping and drumming. In the first example however, the GBD chord under the held E in the melody, is a simple and unoffensive 6th chord, - unoffensive that is to the general musician - but newer to the piper! In the same example the nails on blackboard high A against G is music to the ears imho. Now we're talking! Leaving Ayrshire (from whence incidentally I am writing) sounds like basic harmony to me - albeit nice, and effective. I liked the example where the harmony was used to produce the effect of or actual chordal support for the melody - was that the John Cairns Double Gold piece - although I liked it I thought someone had run amok with a paint brush and some pruning would have made it even better. Hearing the Foxhunters piece from 1987 made me wonder why on earth - if that was being heard then - harmony/counterpoint/ counter-melody writing has not advanced more than it has. The 'Minor' examples, because of the number of major 'chordal-implications' I thought struggled to be 'minor' but I enjoyed them nevertheless. What a relief to hear someone talking about dissonance. It's greatly missing and underused. Imagine if we all sat smiling all day long and nobody ever cried or got angry. Dissonance and its resolution is the way to go imho, with bagpipe music. Suspensions are waiting there to be used to enormous effect on bagpipes. I think the instrument was built for them! All in all, a great article, and encouraging to read it, and hear the examples, but I still say, we are at the beginning in this area and there is a long way to go. But if people pay heed to whats written in the article, and study the subject more and more, we can look forward to some great sounds in the future. What adjudicators eg at the Worlds would make of such advancements doesn't bear thinking about. | |
| |
|
|
|
