Progress report: "Hector the Hero", bagpipe-version :-)
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Like Roland White said in the “Song Requests for Hanneke Cassel?” forum thread, “Be sure and check back in on the forum and tell us how your progress is coming along”!
Well, for a long time I have wanted to post something audible about my progress, but I kept hoping that somebody else would be the first, so that I could hear if my current level is acceptable for posting in this forum, but it seems that this is not going to happen and someone has to be the first, so here I come! I hope this will coax others to do likewise so that we can listen to and inspire each other and make this great fiddle learning web site even greater!
One of the really good things in FiddleVideo.com is that you don’t just learn a tune; you also hear the artist talking about their considerations regarding how to interpret it. In the “Hector the Hero” videos, Hanneke Cassel talks about playing like a bagpipe: long strokes to simulate the continuous sound of the bagpipe, and raising the thirds to imitate the bagpipe scales, which are not equal tempered (it wouldn’t sound good with the bagpipe’s massive amount of overtones), but use a variations of “just intonation” that produces pure fourth and fifth step (you can read more about bagpipe tuning here: http://publish.uwo.ca/~emacphe3/pipes/acoustics/pipescale.html).
I’m all for that! Actually, the reason why I became interested in Scottish folk music was because a friend of mine started to learn to play that most awesome instrument: the Great Highland Bagpipe, which is a terribly difficult, wild and unforgiving instrument, but also has the capacity for the sweetest sounds if tuned and played with precision. I often play together with him; he plays a practice chanter (i.e. no bag or drones), so I have some experience with imitating a bagpipe scale. My own carbonfibre viola has some of the same properties as a bagpipe: a loud voice with lots of overtones (it is really also a quite wild and unforgiving creature!) and the capacity for very sweet sounds if handled with care and precision, and it sounds really good together with the bagpipe, so I think it is appropriate for playing Scottish music 🙂
As I play viola, not fiddle, I transpose the tune a fifth down to D. And going a step further than Hanneke Cassel, I use the mixolydian scale (major with a low 7th step) which is the scale of the great highland bagpipe, so I change the melody a bit and of course I have to change the chord in the accompagnement, too. I would have liked to have the “clarsach”, the Scottish wire-strung harp, accompany the tune, but the closest thing I could find in my Cubase Digital Audio Workstation was an acoustic steel guitar, whose sound I brightened a bit and added a little reverb. I tuned this “harp” after the bagpipe scale that I’m using, namely:
Viola Deviations from Eq. Temp. in Cents
D 0
C 17.59
B -15.64
A 1.95 (a pure 5th from D)
G -1.95 (a pure 4th from D)
F# -13.68
E 3.91
D 0As you can see, the above scale uses rather low 3rd and 6th steps, which I try to use in the music.
And about my recording:
Imagine that you are a dinner guest in a Scottish castle! You are sitting in a great hall, whose stone walls are decorated with hunting trophies and the coat of arms of the clan-leader who is your host tonight. You and the other 100+ guests have had a wonderful meal and are in great spirits; the tables are now being cleared, and it is time for entertainment! A short, bagpipe-style improvised piece of music make the guests become quiet and then ….
The Great Highland Viola performs “Hector the Hero”: https://soundcloud.com/ulla-peterse/hector-the-hero
Hope you enjoy it 🙂
Acknowledgement “freesound.org” audio samples:
– 242604__edhutschek__theater-chatter.wav
– 324898__adam-n__crowd-shock.wav
– 334941__kubuzz__applause.wav
– 163995__leandros-ntounis__crowd-in-a-bar-lcr.mp3 -
Hi Diane!
I’m so happy that you found this inspiring! Indeed, that’s the best compliment you can give me! 🙂
You are so lucky to live in a place where there are workshops with Alasdair Fraser! Even though Scottish folk music is greatly appreciated here in Denmark, there are no Scottish fiddle workshops. Scottish country dance is quite popular, and so is the great highland bagpipe; we have about a dozen pipe bands in the country, which is quite nice for a country of 5.7 million people, I think, but I haven’t found a single teacher who teaches Scottish fiddle, so I was very happy when I found this website.The great highland bagpipe uses the notes G A B C# D E F# G A (actually, they play about a semitone higher, as they don’t use the concert pitch of 442 Hz) , with A in the drones, which gives us a mixolydian scale on A, which is very much like the major scale, only the seventh degree is a semitone lower than the major scale’s seventh degree. With D as tonic, the mixolydian scale tones are D E F# G A B C D, i.e. only 1 sharp on F, as opposed to D major’s 2 sharps on F and C.
The low third and sixth that I refer to in bagpipe intonation (a kind of “just intonation”, which is a tuning system) mean that the third and sixth degree of the bagpipe’s scale are a little bit lower than they would be if equal temperament was used. Also, the bagpipe has pure intervals from the tonic to the fourth and fifth tones (relationships in frequencies of 4:3 and 3:2, respectively) which make them sound very sweet and pure in comparison with the equal temperament fourths and fifths, which are a little bit smaller, and so actually a little bit false.It sound like you have a very good viola; I would love to hear it! And “Hector the Hero” is a really fine tune for viola.
Using the links below, you should be able to download the sheet music from my DropBox; I have also made backing tracks for you; in case you would like to try bagpipe intonation, there is a bagpipe intonation backing track without the melody (here you can easily hear how the bagpipes just intonation is different from equal temperament; some of the harmonies built on this scale sound very different from equal temperament), and also one with the melody (electronic viola generated by my digital audio workstation; not beatiful, but absolutely correct pitch), in case you need help with the intonation.
If you prefer the equal tempered version, there is a backing track without melody and another one with the electronic viola playing the melody.
I hope that you will have fun with this! And I look very much forward to hearing you play 🙂
Best regards,
UllaSheet music for viola and harp (just in case you know a harp player 🙂 )
https://www.dropbox.com/s/u5gi76swdckeaqg/Hector_the_Hero_viola_and_harp_GHB_scale.pdf?dl=0GBH intonation, harp only backing track:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7ksbxk3sbdrllx4/Hector_the_Hero_viola_backing_GHB_intonation.mp3?dl=0GHB intonation, electronic viola and harp:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eetx4hjodxxdufj/Hector_the_Hero_viola_and_backing_GHB_intonation.mp3?dl=0Equal temperament harp only backing track:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zrol78fv0kitmk2/Hector_the_Hero_viola_backing_equal_temperament.mp3?dl=0Equal temperament, electronic viola and harp:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/scj0nqmz3ao27ru/Hector_the_Hero_viola_and_backing_equal_temperament.mp3?dl=0
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