Re:early tunes, modern instruments

Richard Desmond & Mike Parker (rich-d@dircon.co.uk)
Tue, 6 Aug 1996 09:33:49 +0100

>Cindy wrote:
>>
>>I would add that Sue Richards commented that the idiom was somewhat un-
>>familiar to her, as a judge. I've been thinking how that might be
>>remedied-perhaps we can get Bill Taylor to do a workshop sometime, for
>>judges and interested parties. Since he won the nationals playing I think
>>early Scottish music, I wonder who was the judge, how did Bill do it,and
>>how did this judge compare what he played to other performers.
>>
> Hi, Cindy- It would be GREAT to have Bill do a workshop on early
>
> Scottish music. I would love to know more. About Bill's competition, I
>think
> I was one of the two judges that year, and he was absolutely
>brilliant. I
> had always been (gasp) prejudiced against small harps until I heard
>him play
> that day; I changed my mind. I have always appreciated early music,
>although
> I didn't play it then, and could recognize what he was doing. He lived
>at
> that time in the D.C. area, and I knew him to be a scholar, so trusted
>his
> judgement.
>
<much snippage>
>
>
>>Oh, well as I am on the subject, another question for the masses...why are
>>strathspeys wanted on the harp -they were not to my knowlege played on harp
>>but written for fiddle. (My historical bias is flashing crimson!) Oh well,
>>I am not really a diehard purist-a strathspey sounds good on a harp, I guess.
>>
> Because:
> 1) Strathspeys are NOW the distinctive form of Scottish music. I
>can't
> imagine claiming to know Scottish music and not knowing a strathspey.
>Being
> specialized in Early Scottish music is cool, but I feel that the
>Champion
> should know some contemporary repertoire as well. We can't stay
>forever in
> the past.
> 2)Strathspeys sound good on the harp, so why would you not want to
>
> do them? Should the pipes not play strathspeys? Would you really only
>allow
> fiddles to do them because they did them first? Come on.
>
>
> Cheers- Sue Richards

Hi there,

I'm not deliberately trying to be offensive but..........

How would the average concert audience feel if they went to a concert of
lute music, billed as authentic, to find it played on a Spanish guitar? Why
bother to learn to play harpsichord when we have Steinways?

What I stabbing at is that small lever harps are not early instruments and
whilst a lot of early music will fit on them, it is no more authentic than
playing it on a stratocaster (which also works and can be great fun with a
fuzz box;-).

We have a reasonably reliable concept of the sorts of harp used in the past
and many wonderful makers copying them so if you wasn't to play 17th C
Scots music and nothing else why not invest in either a clarseach or a
large gothic.

What is the fascination with modern folk harps..or rather with early
repertoire on modern folk harps... and this mythical authenticity? How can
we play authentically on an instrument that has a totally different
construction and requires a completely different technique..and how many
players are prepared to learn to tune in something other than equal
temperament (One year, at Fort William, I had an argument with a judge who
commented that my harp was not in tune...it was just in perfect quarter
comma, which I proved with a tuning meter)

We are stuck between stools as regards the place of our instruments but
until we, the players, start being honest with ourselves about just how
much we actually know and just how truthful our performance is we have no
hope of getting a wider understanding. It is just as unauthentic to play
O'Carolan with nails as it is to play it on a pedal harp. Both work but
neither is the way that he played himself and as we don't have any reliable
information as to the music he actually played, we cannot recreate it with
any degree of certainty but we can arrange the melodies sympathetically,
either to a modern idiom or to our limited understanding of harp music of
the period. I genuinely believe that many of the tunes would have been
performed in full baroque style and used as chamber music, but not by the
composer who was trained by a harpist from the local tradition rather than
in classical harmony,which the diatonic nature of his instrument would have
largely precluded.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't be playing this wonderful music but let's
at least not cheat ourselves over what we do.

Be happy,

Mike.