Ive often wondered what a string quartet would be like playing trad music.
I dont mean classical musicans playing trad (before people jump down my throat!) I mean trad musicians playing the quartet instruments in a trad style.
Ever heard anything like that?
I would imagine O Carolan's music would suit it , but jigs and reels would be interesting to.
I really love playing my viola with a couple of fiddles. Not sure about a cello though, I just don't thinks it really suits. I've heard that wifey who plays with Alasdair Fraser and it just seems too clunky for my taste. I just can't imagine the bowing being subtle enough and I think the frequency range just adds too much mud.
I'd love to have my mind changed though, if anyone has heard it successfully.
Caroline Lavelle graced our session several times a few years ago and played quick tunes with incredible facility. When she showed up the first time (and we didn't know who she was, bunch of iggerant bleeders that we were) we were a bit dubious along the lines that Michael expressed, but by the time she stopped coming we were all bowled over and were wishing she'd keep turning up (and we still didn't know who she was!)
I think Scott Skinner started his band-musician career as a boy playing the cello - I take it the band was playing mainly Scottish trad, but may be wrong on this score.
I played in a session once. Roterdam Bar Belfast.
With another fiddle play (john weir} a Viola player {one of the Maguire Bro's} - Me the other fiddle,
Sounded good to me All we needed was a Celio..lol,
jim,,
I wish the Bowhouse Quintet site had had sound-clips. It's an interesting subject.
I wonder, though, how the freedom of ITM music, I mean the freedom of the individual player to vary and / or micro-interpret his melody continuously, can be reconciled with tightly organised harmony playing as in Classical music. (Musical suites seem to be a kind of half-way house - several have been composed using trad, by Alistair Anderson et cetera.)
I bought the Fraser / Haas "Fire and Grace" CD recently and I'm not quite sure about it; almost as if the music doesn't know whether it's trad or chamber sometimes. There is nevertheless some nice stuff on the CD (e.g. a nice take on Calliope House) and it's certainly a very different sound.
I got the West Ocean String Quartet site, and there are brief audio clips there from each album track they've recorded. The overall sound struck me as a tad laboured, though they seem competent players. Maybe recording tracks with titles like Unpacking Dreams and A Vague Utopia induced them to egg the atmospherics a bit.
I’m with llig on this. I love it when ideas like this work, but, too often, the addition of a bass line to trad music seems to subtract more than it adds.
I'l check out the suggestions above when I get a chance.
Have a listen to Archetype, a Breton errr .... 'supergroup' (not sure I like such terminology, but there you go) ... they made a great album that features cello, viola and a fairly wild fiddle section. It's not really ITM, though they do one set of Irish tunes. Needless to say it's not, for my tastes, the best track on the album.
Durign the live recording in Ennis a rake of fiddlers including Tommy & Siobhan Peoples joined the Bowhouse. That would explain it, it's also the most straight forward fiddle track of the album so maybe not the most representative.
I've played my cello in sessions up here in Michigan and whether or not it's suitable depends on the tune and the hearer. It's just the thing for O'Carolan and the slower hornpipes and OK, too, for jigs and reels if they're shaped right. STRICT ITM folks don't like it much, and if you're so SITM that you don't care for harmonies, countermelodies, etc., you won't like it either. What Natalie Haas does on Fire and Grace surely isn't trad, but works pretty well to my taste, although seeing her do it is a great joy, also. There are a lot of different ways to use ANY instrument in trad music and some of them work quite well.
I'm trying to find the name of it, there was a CD I'd borrow from the library recently, and I believe it was Scottish orchestra playing various traditional tunes. I only remember it sounding very organized, and well, I guess "nice", but just not the same. Also, I would guess there were at least 20 instruments being played at once, I think it would be better if only 4 - 5 instruments were used.
I will try to find the cd again..
Cello can work... Natalie Haas makes that pretty clear in this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjdOcQNg9N0&mode=
a couple of minutes in (Jenny Dang the Weaver and after) you can start to appreciate the cello's anchoring of the whole thing, and the percussive bowing which adds something nice indeed. It's trickier to do a quartet though... harmony parts and all...
If I remember correctly, the cello used to be decently common in Scottish trad. I personally really like Fraser and Haas. I think her cello playing adds a lot, but it seems more suited to Scottish than Irish music. That said, I've had some good fun playing trad with a cellist friend of mine, and wouldn't at all mind if a cellist who knew what they were doing with trad showed up to a session.
I also taught a world music class for kids through an after school string program. For better or for worse, to be hands on I had to make it so that everyone (violin, viola, cello, bass) could play at least of bit of whatever music we were studying. What I ended up doing was splitting everyone into melody and bass, somewhat like the Fire and Grace CD. This seemed like the best course of action, since my kids were not virtuosos who could all play the melody, and I am definitely not interested in orchestrally scoring ITM. It worked out decently well, and I think the bass helped my mass of beginners stay relatively on track. (We played Connaughtman's Rambles and the Concertina Reel, by the way...)
Alistair Anderson's "Steel Skies" album of the 80s took the form of suites of his tunes with scripted parts. It's curiously hard to find info on this album on the web (tho' it's surely there), but as far as I remember the line-up was this:
Fiddle,
Fiddle,
Mandolin, doubling as whistle,
Concertina, doubling as Northumbrian pipes.
So it was quite "toppy" in the main; though I think a viola was played also, at times.
I thought it was a delightful record although by no means everybody liked it. The music was fluid, the instrumental lines merging or running in harmony as the arrangements dictated, and the players seemed to have musical breathing-space. From what I can remember, a bass instrument would most probably have put lead boots on the thing.
AA has made several albums since, and presumably developed this sort of thing further, but I haven't heard them.
Many of the Lunasa arrangements involve something of this nature - yeah I know its not everyone's cup of tea. Double Bass, with one melody instrument predominating and another doing some harmony or countermelody. I know the guitar is definitely outside the idea of the string quartet and yes I realise flute and pipes aren't string instruments!
I was ready to start a discussion about ITM roles for the viola and other CGDA-tuned instruments when I saw this quartet thread, which is a more general case. I have been experimenting with several CGDA-tuned "tenor" instruments (banjo, mandola, tenor guitar) and wondering whether I can use them effectively in ITM. With or without capoing on the second fret and playing down a string, one obvious technique would be to play in unison (or octaves) with the other melody instruments. This seems to fit best with the musical tradition but since most tunes are suited to the range of the fiddle, there is often awkward fingering or notes outside the range of the instrument, so why not just play a GDAE-tuned instrument? Another possibility would be to play harmony parts, more in keeping with the orchestral role of the viola but not so much with ITM. Scottish music is often composed for several voices and lends itself well to standard orchestration but at that point it diverges sharply from ITM session music. I'd like to know what techniques CGDA players use in ITM, maybe even with a few examples to jump start the imagination. From other discussions on this board, I know there are several violists and possibly a cellist or two out there.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Brendan Voyage yet.
TG4 showed Liam O'Flynn and a string quartet playing parts of it.
I think classical players should stick with composed or arranged and written music so nobody is led to believe that it's ITM.
There's a beautiful version of the song Blackwaterside on Altan's CD Blackwater with a string quartet.
'I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Brendan Voyage yet.'
Well, really The Breandan Voyage is not generally something that comes anywhere near the subject of the thread.
The pipes, representing the boat, not the orchestra, including electric guitar and drums, do not fit 'the string quartet' format very well.
Saw Flynn play it last october with the National symphony Orchestra in Kilkee last october and enjoyed it too. Enjoyed the orchestra doing Dvorcak nr 9 before the break more though.
Yesterday, just a few hours after reading this thread, I was listening to a classical radio station and heard a string ensemble setting/adulteration of some Carolan tunes. It was something larger than a quartet, so that might have colored my impression, but the first thing I noticed was that the tune was somewhat obscured by the arrangement. I would’ve probably enjoyed it if it’d been just a quartet. For me, the string quartet is a near perfect medium.
String quartets? orchestral arrangements? why, what for. Very clever and astoundingly intellectual but surely in ITM less is more?
Save it for Hollywood and the BBC epics if it has to be done. I'm sure Kenny Everett would be able to advise 'in the best possible taste'.
Trad String Quartet?
Trad String Quartet?
Ive often wondered what a string quartet would be like playing trad music.
I dont mean classical musicans playing trad (before people jump down my throat!) I mean trad musicians playing the quartet instruments in a trad style.
Ever heard anything like that?
I would imagine O Carolan's music would suit it , but jigs and reels would be interesting to.
Let the grilling commence!
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Kess
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Try listen to the Bowhouse Quintet, Live in Ennis CD and maybe to a lesser extent the West Ocean String Quartet. That should give you an idea.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Trad String Quartet?
http://www.lochshore.com/run/artists?5
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Patkiwi
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I really love playing my viola with a couple of fiddles. Not sure about a cello though, I just don't thinks it really suits. I've heard that wifey who plays with Alasdair Fraser and it just seems too clunky for my taste. I just can't imagine the bowing being subtle enough and I think the frequency range just adds too much mud.
I'd love to have my mind changed though, if anyone has heard it successfully.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Caroline Lavelle graced our session several times a few years ago and played quick tunes with incredible facility. When she showed up the first time (and we didn't know who she was, bunch of iggerant bleeders that we were) we were a bit dubious along the lines that Michael expressed, but by the time she stopped coming we were all bowled over and were wishing she'd keep turning up (and we still didn't know who she was!)
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I think Scott Skinner started his band-musician career as a boy playing the cello - I take it the band was playing mainly Scottish trad, but may be wrong on this score.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I played in a session once. Roterdam Bar Belfast.
With another fiddle play (john weir} a Viola player {one of the Maguire Bro's} - Me the other fiddle,
Sounded good to me All we needed was a Celio..lol,
jim,,
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I wish the Bowhouse Quintet site had had sound-clips. It's an interesting subject.
I wonder, though, how the freedom of ITM music, I mean the freedom of the individual player to vary and / or micro-interpret his melody continuously, can be reconciled with tightly organised harmony playing as in Classical music. (Musical suites seem to be a kind of half-way house - several have been composed using trad, by Alistair Anderson et cetera.)
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Trad String Quartet?
you can look at www.wosq.com for the other guys, West Ocean is more leaning towards the classical than Bowhouse.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I bought the Fraser / Haas "Fire and Grace" CD recently and I'm not quite sure about it; almost as if the music doesn't know whether it's trad or chamber sometimes. There is nevertheless some nice stuff on the CD (e.g. a nice take on Calliope House) and it's certainly a very different sound.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by domnull
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Trevor - you're just the chap to add something here, being a classical cellist and a fiddle player.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by domnull
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I got the West Ocean String Quartet site, and there are brief audio clips there from each album track they've recorded. The overall sound struck me as a tad laboured, though they seem competent players. Maybe recording tracks with titles like Unpacking Dreams and A Vague Utopia induced them to egg the atmospherics a bit.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I've just been listening to the West Ocean String Quartet site too. I think it's the vibrato, even on the polkas, that jarred
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I’m with llig on this. I love it when ideas like this work, but, too often, the addition of a bass line to trad music seems to subtract more than it adds.
I'l check out the suggestions above when I get a chance.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I was referring to llig's previous reply. Haven't heard the West Ocean yet.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Have a listen to Archetype, a Breton errr .... 'supergroup' (not sure I like such terminology, but there you go) ... they made a great album that features cello, viola and a fairly wild fiddle section. It's not really ITM, though they do one set of Irish tunes. Needless to say it's not, for my tastes, the best track on the album.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by pavlf
Re: Trad String Quartet?
The bowhouse quintet appears at the first track on Siobhan Peoples myspace profile, don't now why (?)
If you wan't a listen http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=162560476
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by TradLad
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Durign the live recording in Ennis a rake of fiddlers including Tommy & Siobhan Peoples joined the Bowhouse. That would explain it, it's also the most straight forward fiddle track of the album so maybe not the most representative.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I've played my cello in sessions up here in Michigan and whether or not it's suitable depends on the tune and the hearer. It's just the thing for O'Carolan and the slower hornpipes and OK, too, for jigs and reels if they're shaped right. STRICT ITM folks don't like it much, and if you're so SITM that you don't care for harmonies, countermelodies, etc., you won't like it either. What Natalie Haas does on Fire and Grace surely isn't trad, but works pretty well to my taste, although seeing her do it is a great joy, also. There are a lot of different ways to use ANY instrument in trad music and some of them work quite well.
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by justjim
Re: Trad String Quartet?
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1423
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Kenny
Re: Trad String Quartet?
The Methera Quartet are along these lines: http://www.myspace.com/methera
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Andy V
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I'm trying to find the name of it, there was a CD I'd borrow from the library recently, and I believe it was Scottish orchestra playing various traditional tunes. I only remember it sounding very organized, and well, I guess "nice", but just not the same. Also, I would guess there were at least 20 instruments being played at once, I think it would be better if only 4 - 5 instruments were used.
I will try to find the cd again..
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by Kylies
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Cello can work... Natalie Haas makes that pretty clear in this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjdOcQNg9N0&mode=
a couple of minutes in (Jenny Dang the Weaver and after) you can start to appreciate the cello's anchoring of the whole thing, and the percussive bowing which adds something nice indeed. It's trickier to do a quartet though... harmony parts and all...
# Posted on March 3rd 2008 by drone
Re: Trad String Quartet?
If I remember correctly, the cello used to be decently common in Scottish trad. I personally really like Fraser and Haas. I think her cello playing adds a lot, but it seems more suited to Scottish than Irish music. That said, I've had some good fun playing trad with a cellist friend of mine, and wouldn't at all mind if a cellist who knew what they were doing with trad showed up to a session.
I also taught a world music class for kids through an after school string program. For better or for worse, to be hands on I had to make it so that everyone (violin, viola, cello, bass) could play at least of bit of whatever music we were studying. What I ended up doing was splitting everyone into melody and bass, somewhat like the Fire and Grace CD. This seemed like the best course of action, since my kids were not virtuosos who could all play the melody, and I am definitely not interested in orchestrally scoring ITM. It worked out decently well, and I think the bass helped my mass of beginners stay relatively on track. (We played Connaughtman's Rambles and the Concertina Reel, by the way...)
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by jasonb
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Alistair Anderson's "Steel Skies" album of the 80s took the form of suites of his tunes with scripted parts. It's curiously hard to find info on this album on the web (tho' it's surely there), but as far as I remember the line-up was this:
Fiddle,
Fiddle,
Mandolin, doubling as whistle,
Concertina, doubling as Northumbrian pipes.
So it was quite "toppy" in the main; though I think a viola was played also, at times.
I thought it was a delightful record although by no means everybody liked it. The music was fluid, the instrumental lines merging or running in harmony as the arrangements dictated, and the players seemed to have musical breathing-space. From what I can remember, a bass instrument would most probably have put lead boots on the thing.
AA has made several albums since, and presumably developed this sort of thing further, but I haven't heard them.
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Many of the Lunasa arrangements involve something of this nature - yeah I know its not everyone's cup of tea. Double Bass, with one melody instrument predominating and another doing some harmony or countermelody. I know the guitar is definitely outside the idea of the string quartet and yes I realise flute and pipes aren't string instruments!
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by Donough
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I was ready to start a discussion about ITM roles for the viola and other CGDA-tuned instruments when I saw this quartet thread, which is a more general case. I have been experimenting with several CGDA-tuned "tenor" instruments (banjo, mandola, tenor guitar) and wondering whether I can use them effectively in ITM. With or without capoing on the second fret and playing down a string, one obvious technique would be to play in unison (or octaves) with the other melody instruments. This seems to fit best with the musical tradition but since most tunes are suited to the range of the fiddle, there is often awkward fingering or notes outside the range of the instrument, so why not just play a GDAE-tuned instrument? Another possibility would be to play harmony parts, more in keeping with the orchestral role of the viola but not so much with ITM. Scottish music is often composed for several voices and lends itself well to standard orchestration but at that point it diverges sharply from ITM session music. I'd like to know what techniques CGDA players use in ITM, maybe even with a few examples to jump start the imagination. From other discussions on this board, I know there are several violists and possibly a cellist or two out there.
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by bjbutler
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Brendan Voyage yet.
TG4 showed Liam O'Flynn and a string quartet playing parts of it.
I think classical players should stick with composed or arranged and written music so nobody is led to believe that it's ITM.
There's a beautiful version of the song Blackwaterside on Altan's CD Blackwater with a string quartet.
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by kuec
Re: Trad String Quartet?
'I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the Brendan Voyage yet.'
Well, really The Breandan Voyage is not generally something that comes anywhere near the subject of the thread.
The pipes, representing the boat, not the orchestra, including electric guitar and drums, do not fit 'the string quartet' format very well.
Saw Flynn play it last october with the National symphony Orchestra in Kilkee last october and enjoyed it too. Enjoyed the orchestra doing Dvorcak nr 9 before the break more though.
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Trad String Quartet?
That should have been 'the pipes, nor the orchestra fit into the String Quartet category very well'.
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: Trad String Quartet?
Yesterday, just a few hours after reading this thread, I was listening to a classical radio station and heard a string ensemble setting/adulteration of some Carolan tunes. It was something larger than a quartet, so that might have colored my impression, but the first thing I noticed was that the tune was somewhat obscured by the arrangement. I would’ve probably enjoyed it if it’d been just a quartet. For me, the string quartet is a near perfect medium.
# Posted on March 4th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Trad String Quartet?
String quartets? orchestral arrangements? why, what for. Very clever and astoundingly intellectual but surely in ITM less is more?
Save it for Hollywood and the BBC epics if it has to be done. I'm sure Kenny Everett would be able to advise 'in the best possible taste'.
# Posted on March 5th 2008 by john knoss
Re: Trad String Quartet?
...in the reverse direction, I wonder what Bartok's quartets might sound like on ITM instruments??!
# Posted on March 5th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: Trad String Quartet?
I would second checking out the Breton band Archetype!
# Posted on March 6th 2008 by iwerzon