I was reading an interesting article on traditional Appalachian music, and this bit caught my attention:
TUNES changed a lot, first with the introduction of the banjo after 1860, and then with the popularity of the guitar, starting in 1910. Early tunes tended to be more rhythmic as the fiddler was often playing alone. With the luxury of percussive rhythm from other instruments, tunes became more elaborate and melodic. Having a chordal structure also evened out irregularities as the guitar produced the even backup of a measured beat. The guitar also greatly redefined singing traditions in the same way. It evened out rhythms and gave singers a ‘floorboard’ to mount their songs.
Presumably similar shifts have taken place within Irish traditional music, as well. Obviously, any music has a tremendous amount to do with the instrument it’s played on, but can anyone elaborate on specific ways particular instruments have influenced Irish traditional music in the past century or so?
Originally the tonal and stylistic qualities of the fiddle mirrored those of the ballad.
It’s often said that the introduction of fretted banjos and guitars changed the original archaic way of playing where the fiddler would use microtones and generally not follow the tempered scale. A fretless banjo can follow the fiddler and play the same scale but the guitar both straightens out rhythms and forces the music into the tempered scale. I’ve always wondered about that since frets were added before old time fiddle/banjo really got going. Of course, there were a fair number of fretless banjo players, particularly in the Round Peak area.
I’ve also wondered if Irish fiddlers in the same era used scales that differed from tempered. Certainly by the time that records were made, pianos and other instruments were used to accompany Irish music so it’s very difficult to know.
On the contrary the pianos make it very easy to know - you can plainly hear the clash with the fiddler’s natural thirds! I’d say most fiddlers up until the present generation used various non-tempered intervals and you can still hear plenty of them today. And remember that fiddle strings are tuned to perfect fifths, an interval that doesn’t exist on the piano. So any time a fiddler plays two open strings together, it’s “untempered”.
But the instrument that has really f*cked things up is surely the one I’m trying to learn at the moment, the accordion. And not just in Irish music!
Pat Sky wrote in the intro of Ryan’s Mammoth Collection that “Many gneres in triple or compound time (such as the jig) have all but disappeared in most parts of the U.S., with the exception of New England. This is due, in my opinion, at least in part to the popularity and influence of the five-string banjo. The banjo, played in the style of early blackface minstrelsy and retained in rural tradition as clawhammer style, accomodates duple meters only.”
As examples he mentions the section in Ryan’s of 2/4 tunes called Jigs, such as Kitty O’Neill’s Champion Jig, which has been recorded by Tommy Peoples and Kevin Burke. There’s an article about this tune online.
While the early banjo tutors don’t contain very many 6/8 tunes, they do contain some. One of the most thorough books, by Converse, contains a few and so does the Buckley tutor. The only other tutor I have is Briggs and I don’t believe he has any. Presumably these tutors reflect something about the practice of blackface minstrelry since the authors were minstrels. It’s true that 6/8 is more difficult than duple meter and the practice of playing jigs may have died out in the mountain regions.
Well I guess you can tell I don’t really listen to much of the earlier recorded Irish fiddle playing. Maybe I wouldn’t detect the out-of-tuneness if I did, although I have played with some out of tune fiddlers and it was pretty obvious.
A lot of early recordings of Irish fiddling have the fiddler patently ignoring the piano. An interesting comparision to make is between how Michael Coleman and James Morrison played Paddy on the Turnpike, Coleman played it after the Sailor on the Rock, Morrison just called it the Turnpike, if you want to hear these recordings. Coleman’s setting has very bluesy notes, the B waffles between flat and natural, whereas Morrison plays the notes much more definitely one or the other. Both were from Sligo and of the same age but Coleman apparently didn’t much care about the backing, whereas Morrison led his own band and put more care into the overall sound.
Musicians have very much gotten in line with accompaniment over the years.
The guitar also greatly redefined singing traditions in the same way. It evened out rhythms and gave singers a ‘floorboard’ to mount their songs.
Compare a sean-nos singer like Joe Heaney to your various strumming balladers, or the “Men Behind the Wire” as Joe reputedly termed them. Shouldn’t backing be discouraged here, at least in select cases? Hasn’t its effect been comparable on instrumental music - were musicians like Johnny Doherty or Willie Clancy “sean-nos players”?
The most obvious impact of an instrument on historical music of Ireland and Scotland has got to be pipes. My pet theory is that Mixolydian and Dorian modes harmonize much better with a drone, therefore, those modes are very prominent in Celtic music. (Not Seltic, thank god). I am sure a music historian can enlighten me.
I’ll make a comment and you all can go back to discussing ITM;
that quoted statement would probably make a lot of folks angry over at Yahoo’s “BlackBanjo” e-mail list, especially the ethnomusicologists.
The author also ascribes the use of double-stopping in Appalachian fiddling to influence from Irish emigrants; more likely the fiddlers were influenced by players of the piob mhor back home, in the 16th century - or earlier. It was old news, probably; I’ve never come across any account of bagpiping in the US in the mountains. A friend of mine likes to point out that are actually very few tunes in common between Appalachia and the Scots/Irish - Polly Put the Kettle On, Moneymusk, a few more on old records, such as Over the Moor to Maggie. Some of those may have been picked up from books like Ryan’s Mammoth Collection (published in the 1880’s) so they were way after the fact.
I play both ITM (pipes) and old time(OT) or Appalachian (clawhammer banjo) and found there is little cross over in the tunes. A few, and perhaps years ago there may have been closer together, but not today. In OT the fiddle is always the lead instrument and a banjo can follow very well. The banjo is just tempered tuned even if it has frets; as I think of it so it, most guitars and dobros just tuned.
On the accordion, its the instrument that makes Cajun music and it is just tuned. Take the same instrument and put it in equal tempered tuning for Irish music. I don’t understand that?
If the pipes are played with a concertina, the concertina is put into non tempered tuning to match the pipes.
Looks like you do whatever sounds good to your ears.
Weird sentence there, Ed! Guits and other fretted instruments I’d always assumed were set up for equal temperment, certainly most guitarists expect to modulate up a storm. The results aren’t always the best, either, [http://www.buzzfeiten.com/]The Buzz Feiten Tuning System[/url] is one way of compensating for some of the defects in guitar tuning, those sharpish thirds especially. People say this is why you don’t hear thirds in metal music, for instance - too dissonant; I always thought it was because they thought they were wimpy.
The indian sitar is a fretted instrument but the frets can be moved (pushed about, sortof) while playing and so I would say it would be more suitable than equal temp. frettted instrument. perhaps some imaginative maker could adapt a banjo or other lutey thing used in ITM with these sorts of frets. of course it wouldn’t work for chords but rather for line work where you push the string if u know what I mean
of course the sitar would not be dynamic enough for the demands of multi keynote music (IM) becuase it is a one tonic instrument. that is not to say you cannot play relative scales on it as you do on a flute but, the thing is, its complex enough just to play it from the standard tonic in mind that most sitarists I know baulk at shifting the tonic.
I dont think the adaption idea is far fetched. Look at the Irish bouzouki inspired by a Turkish gestated Greek instrument for instance.
BTW, for those who play IR. 'zouk - is it fretted equal temp. or just? and what about the Greek one and the related Turkish ones - my hunch is they would be just intoned fret settings. Any comments?
On the non tempered tuning of banjos, guitars and dobros, It may be just the music that I have heard and play.
If these instruments are playing in the key of G, they will flatten the B string a little. Not really sure how the mandolin tunes. Also remember this is music that the fiddlers retune and cross tune a lot. If people tune by ear, I think they will go for some form of non tempered tuning.
Be thankful, we don’t have to get into “wet and dry tuning” as with the accordion. Matter of fact, I’ve heard some uilleann pipes that sounded as if the drones were “wet” tuned.
Good question - I don’t know. My hazy impression of a cittern is that it was cheaper than a lute and played with a plectrum, but I cannot recall the source of that notion.
Lutes I am absolutely certain of, however, because my early music instructor in college had some great lutes. He also had a theorbo - very neat instrument.
