Now, the point is, when you roll the E on the chanter off the knee generally it IS out of tune, but if it’s Johnny Doran who’s out of tune, who gives a profanity!
The next point (and I’m not directing this at any one in particular, especially not Kevin) is that tuning took a back seat to the desired effect inherent to lifting the chanter. If Doran was as concerned with matching pitches to a concept of non-mutable absolute frequencies, he wouldn’t lift the chanter in the first place.
As for Willie Clancy, people are just going to have to accept him, and many other traditional musicians, especially those from past generations, exactly as they are. Part of that acceptance is learning that, and this must be applied with reserve and common sense, that their concept of pitch and by extension what makes something “in tune” does not necessarily match ours. Am I arguing that Clancy’s regs were not flat in the recording in question? No, but I am bringing up 3 points:
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The concept of fixed pitches in a scale is not necessarily one agreed on by traditional players. You’ll likely find this ~more~ often the more you go back in time, and perhaps more concentrated in certain geographical areas.
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Certain expressive effects were desired over adherence to absolute fixed pitches.
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Certain expressive effects were created by pushing pitches of notes in a manner that some people will hear as decidely “out of tune.”
But as for Clancy’s flat regs on whichever recording, with the pipes, some days pipes are more in tune than others, and often there is wisdom in not messing with your reeds. In addition, I believe that in traditional “performances,” the 3 points I mention above directly contribute to different values and tolerances both by traditional performer and their audience on what constitute scale pitches and by extension, tuning.
Has something changed over the years
Generally, yes. To mention a couple things, the prestige of the “educated” classical music’s academic development of equal-tempered scales, and ideas of tuning/pitch has overtaken the more rural tradition’s “backward” (I use that term to make a point) concept of music. The other thing being that an increasing proportion of people approaching traditional music do so from a non-traditional background, and are already born and raised into not just an equal tempered world, but one where people don’t play with pitch and sound the same way to achieve expressive effects-- the ultra-traditional approach to music is an alien one, and strikes many people as out-of-tune.
), nor do I know the name of the programme so that I can look it up (I have a feeling someone’s going to tell me!). I do agree with you about his playing and also with what Peter was saying. I can make allowances for players whose intonation is - er- not “spot-on” (as a harmonica player playing with fiddlers don’t y’know!! :roll: ) but to my ear the enjoyment of the performances was definitely, to put it delicately, “got in the way of.”
I guess that would be my problem. But there was a lot of helpful stuff too, as you said, that helped a person know how to think about intonation in this particular sort of music.