May Workshop Recap
Ed provided a grand tour of Scottish traditional fiddling during the May gathering. Starting with the march The Free Gardener he demonstrated the use of ornaments such as slow or ‘lazy’ grace notes and unisons for the left hand as well as using hook bowing for the right hand to bring out the ‘marchy’ character. He emphasized the need to take the most time possible on the long dotted 1/8th notes and occasionally modified the notated rhythm to match the feel he wanted.
In addition he showed us the way to identify the repeated phrases of the tunes. For example, looking for a question / answer / question / second answer pattern. This works for many tunes, and in this march the pattern is modified in the B part. A new question phrase is followed by a long strain starting quietly and rising in pitch and loudness - the new question is repeated and the tune ends with a reprise of the ending of the A part.
In the double tonic strathspey Lt. Howard Douglas, Ed used four bows in the first measure, slurring the notes, then digging into the low C note on the back string. He talked about ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’ notes - using a grace note from below to add discord. He used an ‘echo’ note (d) at the end of the A part to keep the rhythm going, and in the B part he bowed the runs of 16th notes as separate notes, emphasizing the 4th beat of the following dotted 1/8th.
Ed played The Random Jig with even 1/8th notes (except where the notes repeated) to avoid sounding like a 6/8 pipe march. In the arpeggio rich B part he said to remember to accent the beat notes (two per bar) and to think of the third 1/8th note as a pick-up to the next group of three. Ed suggested a trick to avoid the string crossings in the C part - just repeat the beat - ignoring the octave jump.
Prior to Ed’s workshop, our Vice President, Deb DellOrfano, led a brief annual meeting. She read the following report from Anne Baier, our President:
“We have had a very successful year, thanks to our volunteer board and committees. Last summer, the board met several times at Anne’s house and brainstormed ways to attract more and younger members. We came up with a new name that we thought would sound more welcoming. Thus New Hampshire Scottish Music Club was chosen. It is officially registered with the State of NH. In the fall, a committee of 5, spearheaded by Gordon, started working on creating a new website. The website was launched in December. Since the fall, we have added 11 new members and 2 previously lapsed members have returned. We have given two successful concerts and will be sponsoring the Mari Black concert on June 4th, preceded by an open jam. We hope that many of you will participate on June 4th, if you can.
“Thanks for a great year!”
Anne Baier
