Is there a name for a fast change in bow direction, used when playing two consecutive notes of the same pitch on the fiddle? If my cuts were better, I'd perhaps be tempted to use them rather than change bow direction. Is there a name for this? Is there any rule of thumb for choosing a cut or a change of bow direction?
I'm trying to imagine just how fast this change in bow direction is. In a 'normal' jig or reel, isn't it just a change in bow direction? Sure, one note may be shorter than the other--say, in a jig, you shorten the middle eighth note in a group of three--but that's it.
Then there's the snap the Scots like to use in their strathspeys, and yes, that does take some practice to get right. But again, it's just an abrupt change in bow direction. The quickness comes from minimizing the motion--down to a flick of the thumb and index finger. So that's similar to a bowed triplet, but with just two notes produced.
Also, the only way to get better on your cuts is to use them.
I think it may actually be considered a triplet with the last note being the "tune note." This how I think of it, and I could be mistaken. Given this, these are my thoughts-
I don't know of any "official" term for the ornament, but I think "bowed triplet" is an apt term and a triplet using three consecutive notes of the same pitch could be called a "treble" as I have often heard it called, although these terms seem to be interchanged.
I use three notes up the scale starting with whatever note I would use for a treble, and it can be interchanged with a short roll.
The speed of the bow change is the same as for a treble and will change depending on the speed of the tune. Martin Hayes uses this device often (although many, many others do) as do Donegal fiddlers generally.
To me, this has been the hardest skill to master. It has a "walking and chewing gum" aspect to it, unlike the treble where only one note is played, but it is all mental.
I learned how to do them by playing the three notes slowly, bow separatly and then repeating them, gradually building up speed. Play it on the bow at the 3/4 mark closest to the tip using only about 1" of bow.
If I understand you right, that's just a bowed triplet, with different notes fingered. I call that a chromatic bowed triplet. E.g.: |(3BBA Bc dAFA| (as in the 4th bar of Drowsy Maggie).
Another technique that gives that quick repetition of notes is the double hammer-on. It's almost a trill: |EAA EAB {BcB}c3| (From the slip jig, Paddy O'Brien's).
Here, you're delaying landing on the c by hammering onto it twice from the B below. At speed, it can sound like a bowed triplet, but softer. And the rapid left-hand finger strikes happen all on one bow stroke. Because the hammer-ons do take up time, the c note ends up shortened to more of a c2, but I posted it as a dotted quarter note because that's the note length I would typically use this ornament on. (With thanks to Sean Smyth, who taught us this at a workshop last year.)
I think the original question was regarding simply changing the bow direction to seperate a couple of notes, say fdd. Pipers call this tipping, if you want to use some of our gibber-jabber.
I'm still grinding away at these changes (on the fiddle) - I notice you can seperate notes in another way, more flowing. The bow looks like an ocean wave, somehow, in contrast to actually consciously moving the arm back and forth. No gracing involved here, either. Maybe a slight pulse in the bow pressure, and a less abrupt change of direction. It's quite like trying to master the "tight" (non-legato/staccato) piping - lots of dreary repetition and excercise. Any jig with lots of these repeated notes I've found helpful - Paddy O'Rafferty, the Leg of the Duck, the King of the Pipers. Black Rogue.
Yes, simply separating two notes of the same pitch is easiest either with a change in bow direction or a cut, depending on the situation. In jigs with repeated notes, I usually just change bow direction. For me, the key to getting the sound and timing right is to lighten up on that middle note of the three:
|fdd cAA|BAG A2...| So in the opening bar, I'd play the first d and the first A shorter and somewhat lighter than the surrounding notes. Kevin Burke once demonstrated that you don't have to sound those notes at all--our brains fill in the 'missing' piece because we're so accustomed to hearing it. Not that he was recommending going that far, just showing that it works. I think it's also easier to get a flowing sound to those bow changes if you come into them from slurring onto the downbeat before. Then the up-down motion on the repeated notes is very small--from the fingers, not the arm.
In the end, it's all about bow control--being precise with how long or short a stroke you use on any given note, and what bow speed, and how much or little pressure, and subtle changes in pressure during the bow stroke, and how much or little silence you leave before starting the next stroke. These are all choices and can be consciously controlled. Give it 20 years and your hand will do what it needs to do to produce the sounds your mind is imagining as the tune unravels from your fiddle.
For clarity, I think russell is talking about just turning one note into two by changing the bow direction, not separating two notes. I learned this ornament in a Patrick Ourceau workshop. He didn't call it anything. He just said "do this" (or, "do zees" because he's French, but you get the idea...).
I like it. I've just started sprinkling it around in all my tunes. I use it to chop up shorter notes that I wouldn't normally ornament. My habit is, I use a cut or a more complicated technique when I'm ornamenting a quarter note and I use the bow reversal when I just want to punch an eighth note a little.
OK, here's the tune Patrick taught us (Mrs. Johnson's):
R:reel
M:C|
K:G
Bcd/2c/2B G2BG | DGBG D/2D/2GBG | Bcd/2c/2B GBAG | E/2F/2G AB cAdc :|
Bcde dB ~B2 | dBgB aBgd |1 Bcde dcBc | A2 ag fdcA :|2 fgfe defg | a3 g fdcA||
In the second bar in the A part (DGBG D/2D/2GBG) that D is doubled up - two sixteenth notes instead of an eighth (I suddenly can't remember how to spell eighth! It looks so wrong!) I seem to recall he continued on an upbow for the following phrase, and came into the D on a downbow. So the double D was the *only* change of bow direction anywhere near that bar of music.
Or maybe my memory fails me. Patrick and I were both pretty plastered during the workshop, not to mention the rest of the students... Could be he came in on an upbow and went out on a down...
Keery that looks like a pretty standard device widely used by many fiddlers. I don't know that there's a name for these things. I've always thought of them as a bowed triplet with the first two notes the same. (Naming everything gets very boring, as a half-hour spent with Grey Larsen's 150 pages on ornamentation will soon demonstrate.)
The way you've notated it is more accurate that the more usual convention, which would be (3DDG BG.
Yep, to me that's a chromatic bowed triplet, not merely splitting the eighth note into two sixteenths. But clearly we're talking about the same thing. And if you do your triplets 'roomy' rather than 'crunchy,' you can tinker the amount of time each note gets, making it sound either more, or less, like a full triplet.
In Bill Collin's jig, the two A's must be separated, either by a cut or by changing bow direction. This is easy enough.
dAA BAB|def a2f|aba fge|dBB gfe|dAA BAB|def a2f|aba faf|1 edc d2A:|2 edc d2e||
But a fast reel is harder. In the Star of Munster
c2Ac BAGB|AGEF GEDG|EAAG ABcd|e2af gfed|
I start to get into a rhythm of one stroke per pair of notes, but the two A's force me out of the pattern. I guess this is a case where a cut would come in handy.
Russell, your problem might be the bowing pattern you're relying on. A couple of single bows shouldn't derail your rhythm. In fact, a whole measure of single bows should fit right in, if you want it to. On the other hand, endless pairs of notes slurred together would go stale quickly, to my ear.
We've been talking about bow control a lot on different threads lately. In Irish trad music, bowing is not about adhering to certain patterns. Rather, it's all about using the bow consciously to emphasize certain notes, primarily because they're 'strong' notes that provide the pulse for dancing (and secondarily, there are some notes that beg to be emphasized because they're central to the particular melody).
In Russell's two examples above, I would use single bow strokes 99.9 percent of the time to separate those AAs, both in the jig and in Star of Munster. Not as part of any 'pattern,' but because they're weak notes and don't need the articulation of a cut (in the jig), and a change of bow direction is a nice clean way to empahsize the second A in that 3rd bar of Star of Munster--no open string cut needed (though I might do a cut if playing the tune very slowly, for which I reserved the 0.1 percent .
Will is right on the mark with his last comment. I recall being at a short Kevin Burke workshop and an old-time player asked him what the bowing patterns were in Irish fiddle playing are, and he responded "there aren't any."
OK, so you weren't talking about that little thing I mentioned, but I'm ging to keep on about it just to be ornery. It isn't a normal triplet because, the bow *only* changes direction on the ornamented note. It moves continuously into and out of it. Also, it should be very precisely two sixteenths, not something between a triplet and two sixteenths.
Kevin's kinda infamous for saying such things, and then promptly demonstrating how he uses the Georgia shuffle to get all the molecules in the room dancing to the same beat in Pinch of Snuff.
My point being, us Irish trad fiddlers do end up using patterns, but only for a phrase or two, and then we like to do something completely different the next time around the tune. That's different than, say, the old timey fiddler who might latch onto the figure eight pattern for the A part of Drowsy Maggie and then never bow it any other way.
An Irish trad fiddler might play:
|E2 BE dEBE| (up on E2, down on B, up on EdE, down on B, up on E and slur up onto the next E2)
or
|(3EEE BE dEBE| (down-up-down triplet, then down on B, up on E, down on d, up on E, down on B, up on E)
or
|(3EEE BE (3EEE BE|(3EEE BE AFDF| (down-up-down triplet, slurring the last down of the triplet onto the B, then up on E to wind up for the next triplet)
or
|EGBE dEBE| (make up your own bowing
If you want to explore the tune, your bowing has to be free to follow your imagination.
Kerri - I would most likely play |DGBG D/2D/2GBG| with an up bow on the G before the ornamented D, then down, up on the two D's, down on G, up on B, and down on G again. To me, that's a bowed triplet.
If you slur from the G to the first D, then change bow direction, and then slur from the 2nd D back to the G, it doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard an Irish fiddler do. If you slur onto the first D, change bow direction, and change again to get the G, then you're back to a bowed triplet, starting on a slur (albeit probably an up-down-up triplet).
I'm sooooo confused...please help me understand.
P.S. I used to wonder if I was just being crazy anal, nit picking at stuff like this. But after workshops and playing with the likes of Sean Smyth, Kevin Burke, Brian Conway, and Cait Reed, I'm convinced that many respectable fiddlers are at least as detailed in their understanding of what gets played.
Yeah, it wasn't anything I'd heard either. Patrick was using a lot of really long bowing, and according to him, the workshop was based on the playing of a legendary fiddler from Ireland (whose name I can't recall at the moment). I have a friend who records his old ITM albums at half speed on a reel to reel and plays them back so he can hear everything, and I swear I've heard every variation on a bowing pattern you could possibly imagine on his old (70s) records, including this one (although I admit it's uncommon).
Somebody at the class who was still sober notated the entire lesson, complete with bow directions, ornaments, etc. I may still have a copy somewhere, but don't get yer hopes up. Besides, I don't know how to indicate bow direction with ABC.
I'm interested, so if you do find it, just give us the measure in question, and spell out the bowing as I just did. It's clumsy, but accurate, and expecting a little effort on the reader's part is okay by me. I'm always game for learning something new, especially from fiddlers whose sound I enjoy, like Mr. Orceau's. I'll have to go listen to him skirling through Jug of Punch now and see if I can catch this little bobble/bauble.
OK hang on... I'm going to change my tune (heh, literally!) I may have put the ornament in the wrong spot.
try BG|D/2D/2GBG DGBG| instead of BG|DGBG D/2D/2GBG|
now go:
up BG| down D/2 up D/2 keep going up GBG then down D up G down B up G |
As you said "I would most likely play |DGBG D/2D/2GBG| with an up bow on the G before the ornamented D, then down, up on the two D's, *down on G*, up on B, and down on G again. To me, that's a bowed triplet."
Where I indicated with these **, just keep going up.
Will-regarding your p.s.-
It really depends on the approach one takes. Some fiddlers are very analytical (Brian Conway, James Kelly) and can tell you exactly what they do, when they do it and why, while others go on intuition honed by experience (Kevin Burke, Martin Hayes).
Another thing Kevin said is that until he was well into his thirties and teaching did he really "know" exactly what he was doing so that he could explain it to someone else and would have a hard time doing it twice in a row.
Martin Hayes says that unless he can understand someting in very simple terms that he can wrap his head around is he able to play it, although the end result may be quite complex. He related a story about Charlie Parker where someone recorded and transcribed a performance of his. Some time later, they approached Charlie and asked if he could play from the transcription. Charlie looked at it and said "I can't play this, this is way too complicated."
Sorry for the digression from a very particular topic.
Agreed, Russell. In fact, Brian Conway's approach strikes me as way more analytical than my own. I like cranking away at a session and being utterly surprised with what comes out of my bow. And it's usually weeks before I realize what's going on and learn to fully control it and understand it.
25 years ago, Kevin Burke taught more 'seat-of-the-pants' than he does now. Even playing a straightforward tune like Silver Spear, he would branch off in so many directions it was hard to pick up one bowing concept. His years of teaching have made him very articulate and insightful now, though.
Teaching does that to a person. I started teaching music when I was 15, and I'm sure that's why I tend to break things down into 'teachable moments.'
Kerri - if Patrick really bows it that way, I know about 2,000 fiddlers who would say, "Why?! What's the point in that long, cross-string, up bow?" And I'd have to agree. I would still bow those notes as a bowed triplet, down-up-down, with the D's fairly short and clipped, essentially as a way of delaying and articulating the G. In fact I do just that on those very notes in some tunes (comes to mind that it works well in Joe Burke's jig: |DFA DGB| becomes |D/2D/2FA D/2D/2GB|).
Maybe it says a lot about my bowing, but I get more lift and momentum bowing the triplet there than slurring it all together.
Will, the answer to "why" is "just because". It sounds different. You're not "slurring a triplet together". You're doing something else entirely. (Assuming you're doing it right, that is.) It isn't that Patrick, specifically, does it. It's that Patrick taught a workshop (drunk) a few years ago in Toronto where he modelled the lesson on another player's rendition of a tune (gasp) in which he *claims* the bowing pattern is as I stated above.
And I use it because I like it. It's a bit of a thrill as well to see that nobody else uses this as an ornament in my circle of friends.
What I like about it isn't the way that one broken eighth note sounds, it's what using that ornament in that particular place does to the rhythm following the upbow (after the ornament). Even now I can't explain it, but it ought to be clear that bowing "down-up-down up down up down up" will sound different than bowing "down-up up up up down up down up..."
However, I'm too drunk to explain myself properly. Excellent cabaret night at my friend's new half-built theater. Spent the night playing folk songs to help raise money for drywall.
Alright, I can't let it go... In a wholistic sense, the downbows in Patrick's rendition of this tune were few and far between, sparse and carefully placed. In my present fog, my memory asserts that his bow was going up almost continuously, and the downbeats were a carefully placed hiccup in the rhythm of his unstoppable upbow machine. Therefore, he didn't throw in a downbow after the "doublet" because he didn't *need* one.
I could be full of poop, but it's interesting to think about. For me.
And to me. What you're saying gibes well with my sense (especially in reels) of 'upbowness.' A lot of significant stuff happens during up bows, and the down bows add punctuation.
Good stuff here--a lot to think about in terms of how you phrase a tune, the length of phrases, and different ways to use the bow to articulate phrasing. Sigh--I wish we'd all do more of this--sharing what we learn at workshops. This is really helpful for those of us out in the hinterlands....
partial bowed triplet
partial bowed triplet
Is there a name for a fast change in bow direction, used when playing two consecutive notes of the same pitch on the fiddle? If my cuts were better, I'd perhaps be tempted to use them rather than change bow direction. Is there a name for this? Is there any rule of thumb for choosing a cut or a change of bow direction?
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by russellrapport
Re: partial bowed triplet
Never heard of a name for this, but as there are only two, not three notes, why not "doublet"?
The rule of thumb is: do what sounds better. Don't know what sounds better? Keep listening to your enormous collection of traditional music.
--Larry
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by lsanger
Re: partial bowed triplet
Or "duplet" ?
Trevor
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by lazyhound
Re: partial bowed triplet
I'm trying to imagine just how fast this change in bow direction is. In a 'normal' jig or reel, isn't it just a change in bow direction? Sure, one note may be shorter than the other--say, in a jig, you shorten the middle eighth note in a group of three--but that's it.
Then there's the snap the Scots like to use in their strathspeys, and yes, that does take some practice to get right. But again, it's just an abrupt change in bow direction. The quickness comes from minimizing the motion--down to a flick of the thumb and index finger. So that's similar to a bowed triplet, but with just two notes produced.
Also, the only way to get better on your cuts is to use them.
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
Will, perhaps Russell is thinking about the very quick up-down or down-up as part of a shuffle?
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by Henk Bos
Re: partial bowed triplet
I think it may actually be considered a triplet with the last note being the "tune note." This how I think of it, and I could be mistaken. Given this, these are my thoughts-
I don't know of any "official" term for the ornament, but I think "bowed triplet" is an apt term and a triplet using three consecutive notes of the same pitch could be called a "treble" as I have often heard it called, although these terms seem to be interchanged.
I use three notes up the scale starting with whatever note I would use for a treble, and it can be interchanged with a short roll.
The speed of the bow change is the same as for a treble and will change depending on the speed of the tune. Martin Hayes uses this device often (although many, many others do) as do Donegal fiddlers generally.
To me, this has been the hardest skill to master. It has a "walking and chewing gum" aspect to it, unlike the treble where only one note is played, but it is all mental.
I learned how to do them by playing the three notes slowly, bow separatly and then repeating them, gradually building up speed. Play it on the bow at the 3/4 mark closest to the tip using only about 1" of bow.
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by russell_hopper
Re: partial bowed triplet
If I understand you right, that's just a bowed triplet, with different notes fingered. I call that a chromatic bowed triplet. E.g.: |(3BBA Bc dAFA| (as in the 4th bar of Drowsy Maggie).
Another technique that gives that quick repetition of notes is the double hammer-on. It's almost a trill: |EAA EAB {BcB}c3| (From the slip jig, Paddy O'Brien's).
Here, you're delaying landing on the c by hammering onto it twice from the B below. At speed, it can sound like a bowed triplet, but softer. And the rapid left-hand finger strikes happen all on one bow stroke. Because the hammer-ons do take up time, the c note ends up shortened to more of a c2, but I posted it as a dotted quarter note because that's the note length I would typically use this ornament on. (With thanks to Sean Smyth, who taught us this at a workshop last year.)
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
I think the original question was regarding simply changing the bow direction to seperate a couple of notes, say fdd. Pipers call this tipping, if you want to use some of our gibber-jabber.
I'm still grinding away at these changes (on the fiddle) - I notice you can seperate notes in another way, more flowing. The bow looks like an ocean wave, somehow, in contrast to actually consciously moving the arm back and forth. No gracing involved here, either. Maybe a slight pulse in the bow pressure, and a less abrupt change of direction. It's quite like trying to master the "tight" (non-legato/staccato) piping - lots of dreary repetition and excercise. Any jig with lots of these repeated notes I've found helpful - Paddy O'Rafferty, the Leg of the Duck, the King of the Pipers. Black Rogue.
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by Kevin Rietmann
Re: partial bowed triplet
Yes, simply separating two notes of the same pitch is easiest either with a change in bow direction or a cut, depending on the situation. In jigs with repeated notes, I usually just change bow direction. For me, the key to getting the sound and timing right is to lighten up on that middle note of the three:
|fdd cAA|BAG A2...| So in the opening bar, I'd play the first d and the first A shorter and somewhat lighter than the surrounding notes. Kevin Burke once demonstrated that you don't have to sound those notes at all--our brains fill in the 'missing' piece because we're so accustomed to hearing it. Not that he was recommending going that far, just showing that it works. I think it's also easier to get a flowing sound to those bow changes if you come into them from slurring onto the downbeat before. Then the up-down motion on the repeated notes is very small--from the fingers, not the arm.
In the end, it's all about bow control--being precise with how long or short a stroke you use on any given note, and what bow speed, and how much or little pressure, and subtle changes in pressure during the bow stroke, and how much or little silence you leave before starting the next stroke. These are all choices and can be consciously controlled. Give it 20 years and your hand will do what it needs to do to produce the sounds your mind is imagining as the tune unravels from your fiddle.
# Posted on September 1st 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
For clarity, I think russell is talking about just turning one note into two by changing the bow direction, not separating two notes. I learned this ornament in a Patrick Ourceau workshop. He didn't call it anything. He just said "do this" (or, "do zees" because he's French, but you get the idea...).
I like it. I've just started sprinkling it around in all my tunes. I use it to chop up shorter notes that I wouldn't normally ornament. My habit is, I use a cut or a more complicated technique when I'm ornamenting a quarter note and I use the bow reversal when I just want to punch an eighth note a little.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
Kerri, can you give an example in abc, in an actual tune?
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
OK, here's the tune Patrick taught us (Mrs. Johnson's):
R:reel
M:C|
K:G
Bcd/2c/2B G2BG | DGBG D/2D/2GBG | Bcd/2c/2B GBAG | E/2F/2G AB cAdc :|
Bcde dB ~B2 | dBgB aBgd |1 Bcde dcBc | A2 ag fdcA :|2 fgfe defg | a3 g fdcA||
In the second bar in the A part (DGBG D/2D/2GBG) that D is doubled up - two sixteenth notes instead of an eighth (I suddenly can't remember how to spell eighth! It looks so wrong!) I seem to recall he continued on an upbow for the following phrase, and came into the D on a downbow. So the double D was the *only* change of bow direction anywhere near that bar of music.
It sounds cool.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
Or maybe my memory fails me. Patrick and I were both pretty plastered during the workshop, not to mention the rest of the students... Could be he came in on an upbow and went out on a down...
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
And it was at ten in the morning! Or was it eleven?
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
Keery that looks like a pretty standard device widely used by many fiddlers. I don't know that there's a name for these things. I've always thought of them as a bowed triplet with the first two notes the same. (Naming everything gets very boring, as a half-hour spent with Grey Larsen's 150 pages on ornamentation will soon demonstrate.)
The way you've notated it is more accurate that the more usual convention, which would be (3DDG BG.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Jeeves Tones
Re: partial bowed triplet
Oops just noticed above that Will had this one covered. Sorry.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Jeeves Tones
Re: partial bowed triplet
Yep, to me that's a chromatic bowed triplet, not merely splitting the eighth note into two sixteenths. But clearly we're talking about the same thing. And if you do your triplets 'roomy' rather than 'crunchy,' you can tinker the amount of time each note gets, making it sound either more, or less, like a full triplet.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
In Bill Collin's jig, the two A's must be separated, either by a cut or by changing bow direction. This is easy enough.
dAA BAB|def a2f|aba fge|dBB gfe|dAA BAB|def a2f|aba faf|1 edc d2A:|2 edc d2e||
But a fast reel is harder. In the Star of Munster
c2Ac BAGB|AGEF GEDG|EAAG ABcd|e2af gfed|
I start to get into a rhythm of one stroke per pair of notes, but the two A's force me out of the pattern. I guess this is a case where a cut would come in handy.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by russellrapport
Re: partial bowed triplet
Russell, your problem might be the bowing pattern you're relying on. A couple of single bows shouldn't derail your rhythm. In fact, a whole measure of single bows should fit right in, if you want it to. On the other hand, endless pairs of notes slurred together would go stale quickly, to my ear.
We've been talking about bow control a lot on different threads lately. In Irish trad music, bowing is not about adhering to certain patterns. Rather, it's all about using the bow consciously to emphasize certain notes, primarily because they're 'strong' notes that provide the pulse for dancing (and secondarily, there are some notes that beg to be emphasized because they're central to the particular melody).
In Russell's two examples above, I would use single bow strokes 99.9 percent of the time to separate those AAs, both in the jig and in Star of Munster. Not as part of any 'pattern,' but because they're weak notes and don't need the articulation of a cut (in the jig), and a change of bow direction is a nice clean way to empahsize the second A in that 3rd bar of Star of Munster--no open string cut needed (though I might do a cut if playing the tune very slowly, for which I reserved the 0.1 percent
.
My tow cents.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
Will is right on the mark with his last comment. I recall being at a short Kevin Burke workshop and an old-time player asked him what the bowing patterns were in Irish fiddle playing are, and he responded "there aren't any."
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by russell_hopper
Re: partial bowed triplet
OK, so you weren't talking about that little thing I mentioned, but I'm ging to keep on about it just to be ornery. It isn't a normal triplet because, the bow *only* changes direction on the ornamented note. It moves continuously into and out of it. Also, it should be very precisely two sixteenths, not something between a triplet and two sixteenths.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
Kevin's kinda infamous for saying such things, and then promptly demonstrating how he uses the Georgia shuffle to get all the molecules in the room dancing to the same beat in Pinch of Snuff.
My point being, us Irish trad fiddlers do end up using patterns, but only for a phrase or two, and then we like to do something completely different the next time around the tune. That's different than, say, the old timey fiddler who might latch onto the figure eight pattern for the A part of Drowsy Maggie and then never bow it any other way.
An Irish trad fiddler might play:
|E2 BE dEBE| (up on E2, down on B, up on EdE, down on B, up on E and slur up onto the next E2)
or
|(3EEE BE dEBE| (down-up-down triplet, then down on B, up on E, down on d, up on E, down on B, up on E)
or
|(3EEE BE (3EEE BE|(3EEE BE AFDF| (down-up-down triplet, slurring the last down of the triplet onto the B, then up on E to wind up for the next triplet)
or
|EGBE dEBE| (make up your own bowing
If you want to explore the tune, your bowing has to be free to follow your imagination.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
Kerri - I would most likely play |DGBG D/2D/2GBG| with an up bow on the G before the ornamented D, then down, up on the two D's, down on G, up on B, and down on G again. To me, that's a bowed triplet.
If you slur from the G to the first D, then change bow direction, and then slur from the 2nd D back to the G, it doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard an Irish fiddler do. If you slur onto the first D, change bow direction, and change again to get the G, then you're back to a bowed triplet, starting on a slur (albeit probably an up-down-up triplet).
I'm sooooo confused...please help me understand.
P.S. I used to wonder if I was just being crazy anal, nit picking at stuff like this. But after workshops and playing with the likes of Sean Smyth, Kevin Burke, Brian Conway, and Cait Reed, I'm convinced that many respectable fiddlers are at least as detailed in their understanding of what gets played.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
Yeah, it wasn't anything I'd heard either. Patrick was using a lot of really long bowing, and according to him, the workshop was based on the playing of a legendary fiddler from Ireland (whose name I can't recall at the moment). I have a friend who records his old ITM albums at half speed on a reel to reel and plays them back so he can hear everything, and I swear I've heard every variation on a bowing pattern you could possibly imagine on his old (70s) records, including this one (although I admit it's uncommon).
Somebody at the class who was still sober notated the entire lesson, complete with bow directions, ornaments, etc. I may still have a copy somewhere, but don't get yer hopes up. Besides, I don't know how to indicate bow direction with ABC.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
I'm interested, so if you do find it, just give us the measure in question, and spell out the bowing as I just did. It's clumsy, but accurate, and expecting a little effort on the reader's part is okay by me. I'm always game for learning something new, especially from fiddlers whose sound I enjoy, like Mr. Orceau's. I'll have to go listen to him skirling through Jug of Punch now and see if I can catch this little bobble/bauble.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
OK hang on... I'm going to change my tune (heh, literally!) I may have put the ornament in the wrong spot.
try BG|D/2D/2GBG DGBG| instead of BG|DGBG D/2D/2GBG|
now go:
up BG| down D/2 up D/2 keep going up GBG then down D up G down B up G |
As you said "I would most likely play |DGBG D/2D/2GBG| with an up bow on the G before the ornamented D, then down, up on the two D's, *down on G*, up on B, and down on G again. To me, that's a bowed triplet."
Where I indicated with these **, just keep going up.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
Will-regarding your p.s.-
It really depends on the approach one takes. Some fiddlers are very analytical (Brian Conway, James Kelly) and can tell you exactly what they do, when they do it and why, while others go on intuition honed by experience (Kevin Burke, Martin Hayes).
Another thing Kevin said is that until he was well into his thirties and teaching did he really "know" exactly what he was doing so that he could explain it to someone else and would have a hard time doing it twice in a row.
Martin Hayes says that unless he can understand someting in very simple terms that he can wrap his head around is he able to play it, although the end result may be quite complex. He related a story about Charlie Parker where someone recorded and transcribed a performance of his. Some time later, they approached Charlie and asked if he could play from the transcription. Charlie looked at it and said "I can't play this, this is way too complicated."
Sorry for the digression from a very particular topic.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by russell_hopper
Re: partial bowed triplet
Agreed, Russell. In fact, Brian Conway's approach strikes me as way more analytical than my own. I like cranking away at a session and being utterly surprised with what comes out of my bow. And it's usually weeks before I realize what's going on and learn to fully control it and understand it.
25 years ago, Kevin Burke taught more 'seat-of-the-pants' than he does now. Even playing a straightforward tune like Silver Spear, he would branch off in so many directions it was hard to pick up one bowing concept. His years of teaching have made him very articulate and insightful now, though.
Teaching does that to a person. I started teaching music when I was 15, and I'm sure that's why I tend to break things down into 'teachable moments.'
Kerri - if Patrick really bows it that way, I know about 2,000 fiddlers who would say, "Why?! What's the point in that long, cross-string, up bow?" And I'd have to agree. I would still bow those notes as a bowed triplet, down-up-down, with the D's fairly short and clipped, essentially as a way of delaying and articulating the G. In fact I do just that on those very notes in some tunes (comes to mind that it works well in Joe Burke's jig: |DFA DGB| becomes |D/2D/2FA D/2D/2GB|).
Maybe it says a lot about my bowing, but I get more lift and momentum bowing the triplet there than slurring it all together.
# Posted on September 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
Will, the answer to "why" is "just because". It sounds different. You're not "slurring a triplet together". You're doing something else entirely. (Assuming you're doing it right, that is.) It isn't that Patrick, specifically, does it. It's that Patrick taught a workshop (drunk) a few years ago in Toronto where he modelled the lesson on another player's rendition of a tune (gasp) in which he *claims* the bowing pattern is as I stated above.
And I use it because I like it. It's a bit of a thrill as well to see that nobody else uses this as an ornament in my circle of friends.
What I like about it isn't the way that one broken eighth note sounds, it's what using that ornament in that particular place does to the rhythm following the upbow (after the ornament). Even now I can't explain it, but it ought to be clear that bowing "down-up-down up down up down up" will sound different than bowing "down-up up up up down up down up..."
However, I'm too drunk to explain myself properly. Excellent cabaret night at my friend's new half-built theater. Spent the night playing folk songs to help raise money for drywall.
# Posted on September 3rd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
Alright, I can't let it go... In a wholistic sense, the downbows in Patrick's rendition of this tune were few and far between, sparse and carefully placed. In my present fog, my memory asserts that his bow was going up almost continuously, and the downbeats were a carefully placed hiccup in the rhythm of his unstoppable upbow machine. Therefore, he didn't throw in a downbow after the "doublet" because he didn't *need* one.
I could be full of poop, but it's interesting to think about. For me.
# Posted on September 3rd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
And to me. What you're saying gibes well with my sense (especially in reels) of 'upbowness.' A lot of significant stuff happens during up bows, and the down bows add punctuation.
Good stuff here--a lot to think about in terms of how you phrase a tune, the length of phrases, and different ways to use the bow to articulate phrasing. Sigh--I wish we'd all do more of this--sharing what we learn at workshops. This is really helpful for those of us out in the hinterlands....
# Posted on September 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: partial bowed triplet
Jeepers, I'm rather eloquent when plastered, if I do say so myself.
# Posted on September 3rd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: partial bowed triplet
Heh, I play better soaked than sober, too.
# Posted on September 4th 2004 by Will CPT