Progress report: "Hector the Hero", bagpipe-version :-)

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 0

As 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

• This topic was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by ulla_petersen.