Performed in St Nicholas church on Thursday. It was great. I performed in Strings Group, choir, and the folk band. Strings group played John Rutter's Suite Antique. It is lovely music and went mostly fine. The choir was spectacular - Berlioz and Les Miserables.
The folk band went like the wind but went well. We played McKechnie's Farewell, Contrazz and Randy Miller's Reel - all tunes I offered. We played without the music and I had a lot to learn (tune and harmonies). The audience seemed to enjoy it and so did I.
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I was invited to a Creative Scotland celebratory event tonight the The Scottish Parliament in my role as Director of the Scots Music Group. Lau were entertaining us and there was also dance. I enjoyed it.
Pllayed hungarian fiddle last night, down at Out of Blue. Fitted in a rehearsal for Thursday as I am performing on Thursday afternoon. I went to a workshop last night with Jani Lang in Out of the Blue. Lot of good folk musicians there. We learned about gypsy music from Transylvania and played two good tunes. It was very interesting. The style is heavily ornamented. There were also a lot of good musicians there. I enjoyed it. Here's a video of Jani Lang's band. I am currently working on one the major Strathspeys called the Marquis of Huntly. Its composed by William Marshall and is a difficult tune. The bowing is difficult - snaps, arrow bowing, loops and stops. The key is quite difficult (G minor). The runs are difficult - particularly one that has a turn at the end of it. I have listened to recordings of the tune and it sounds like people have changed the bowing to slurs and missed out the turn altogether. I don;t think I have found one yet that is played completely as notated. I suppose that might be an option. But at the moment I am bowing it close to the versions in Henderson's Flowers of Scottish Melodies and The Caledonian Companion. Still about five weeks to go until the recital.
I have also been working on reel to go with it, John Cheap the Chapman by Nathaniel Gow - also taken from Henderson's. It is full of leaps across two strings; string crossing requiring the fingering to straddle (difficult if you have small hands); and third position and back down at speed. Its a good tune. They are both a challenge. I have been practicing slowly. I have also been working on the two Shetland tunes I am going to play. I would like to play one slowly - possibly solo. The tune is so irregular that I am trying to decide if its easier for the listener to understand that way. Also planning to play it on my hardanger using scodatura. I've had a good week this week. Had my violin lesson yesterday and was told that it was all coming together - played the best ever. I also have been revisiting the two Shetland tunes I plan to play. I met up with a friend (great fiddler doing her Masters just now) to hear how she has approached it. She is studying Shetland and Greek folk music just now. She has given me a lot to think about. Her approach is rather different. She goes into recital and truly improvises. I have blogged earlier about this tune being very close to Norwegian tunes. She showed me an extract from Da Mirrie Dancers where the tune is transcribed (although both of us don't recognise the bar divisions). There are some background notes which seem to confirm that the tune is based on a Norwegian Halling (one of the types of tunes played on the hardanger) I am hoping to get my hardanger strung up this week and if its OK I will start experimenting with a raised G string. Not much time really until January. Still working on my G minor set. The tuning, string crossing and jumping up to third position is a challenge. Hard to get it clean. I have the first half but the second had needs more work. The Fiddle festival has been on this weekend. I went to four of the workshops. These are always a good source of inspiration. Its a great opportunity to hear and see international fiddlers. The highlights for me were:
Here's Celtic Fiddle Festival playing in 2010 I have been working on tone a lot lately. My tone is always massively better at the end of my lesson than at the start. I always need to warm up and pick things apart really slowly and then put them together again before my tone is best. Trying to get more depth to the bow whilst keeping my bow hand completely relaxed. I am making week on week improvements (according to my violin teacher) and my sound is now quite a lot different to six months ago. Getting a pure sound over fast semi quavers is hard.
I am also trying to commit the tunes I am working on to memory. We had a brief discussions about memorising in class. Many classical players don't commit to memory, whereas in playing traditional music, you would never see a musician with music (and many don't read). I don't find it difficult to memorise the broad shape of the tunes. However there are phrases that are very similar and its easy to play the wrong one. I suppose the listener would not know the difference but I do! I find that if I am concentrating on one thing eg sound/clarity, something else can go - for example whether its an up or a down bow. The only answer is more practice to try to completely internalise it. I am meeting someone this week who has played the Muckle reel of Finnigart recently (which I m planing to perform in January) to get their slant on it. Should be interesting. She plays it in a GDGD tuning with a fair amount of improvisation. I am playing the tune with another and it would be a major job for me to do this. I don't think its advisable. But I have been experimenting playing the tune with a raised G string (scodatura) in an AEAE tuning. I think this might be achievable provided I don't double stop with the G string in the first tune of the set. It also means some changes in fingering. I think i may play a C sharp instead of flat. I am also thinking of playing this on my hardanger. I played this last year, in the white (which means unvarnished), for my recital and for my Grade 6 exam. My partner has been making it for years. It still isn't quite finished in that it goes through coats of varnish and should have very decorative rosing on it. We have done the first bit (helped by the wonderful luthier Colin Adamson). It has been baked in his baking cabinet to give it a bit of colour and has one coat of varnish on it now. But I don't think it will be possible to do the amount of work and get it ready to play for January. So I've asked my partner to string it up now so I can try these tunes on it. It will look a bit rough. But the remaining coats and rosing can wait until February. Unfortunately the sound post has come down so I hope that when we get it back up it sounds as good as it did. Ensemble playing has been interesting. I find all the classical stuff a challenge but I really enjoy it far more than I thought I would. I am highly impressed at the soloists paying Locatelli's Challenge in strings group. I have blogged elsewhere about writing a reel recently. Our folk band were looking for things to play and maybe an original, so I sent in the music and we played it last week. It is quite an odd feeling to hear it coming back at you. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. Finally, we went to see the RSNO on Friday - Vaughn Williams, Fantasia on Thomas Tallis - lovely. Strings! Its been a busy week for performance this week. I performed with the folk band on Monday and today I played Telemann with Strings group.
It went pretty well. It felt tighter than at rehearsals. Tricky changes in tempo. We also had rehearsal class. Its getting close to the time for auditions for Consevatoires and so some people were rehearsing for that. Interesting points about stage presence and trying to get this right - try not to be too nervous or it can come through in the playing. Play piano at your normal volume - its easier to control. For those that aren't nervous don't be too relaxed or it can look as though you don't care. I am working hard on the runs and the bowing in the strathspey I am playing. Not rushing and trying to make every note clear. The bowing is difficult. I have also been working on a very tricky reel that I am playing. G minor is a hard key to play on the violin and its difficult to keep the intonation accurate. The reel has jumps across two strings and also a lot of string crossing. My hands are quite small so I have to actually flatten my finger to span both strings. Oddly I find that if I slow right down to practice I start to not remember the notes. Its a bit like typing slowly. You can lose the thread and overall sense of what you are playing. However I am trying to keep slow and plrac at 60 bpm. I have also been trying to work out the best way to get up into third position in this particular. The sequence of notes does't allow you to look at where you last played (as is often the case) to get your bearings. For me, I'd like to slide up to the A and drop back to the G. But its getting it completely accurate that is difficult. Its a move that its worth getting used to. It's also time to start rerunning the tunes I played a few weeks ago to keep them under the fingers. They have been on the back burner while working on my own new material and on the ensemble pieces. I play form memory at recitals and if I leave them too long they begin to be hard to remember. Had a GREAT weekend at one of the SCO Connect weekends in Aberdeen. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try playing in a full orchestra, learn more about ensemble playing and to benefit form the experience of working with some of the SCO musicians.
We were conducted by Ben Gernon who was very gracious and encouraging to us all. He has recently been a finalist in the LSO Donatella Flick Conducting Competition. We played Beethoven, Coriolan Overture and Schumann Symphony No 3 ‘Rhenish’ (movements 1,2). It was challenging but good fun. We did a performance at Queen's Cross Church, Aberdeen on Sunday 28th October The weekend rounded off with us giving a performance. Loved it all. The SCO are performing both over the winter. I shall be going. There are more weekends coming up in March (orchestra and chorus) and May (Wind Farm). The last performance class before half term raised an interesting point for me. There were a number of great performances. For me though, I was struck by what was said about that its better to pick a programme which is easy and play well rather than a difficult one which is more of a technical challenge. Hmm. I don't really want to spend year playing within my limitations. I took the opposite approach last year. I suppose it was a risk.
I am planning to sit Grade 8 (traditional fiddle) which relies on a choice of repertoire that has a sufficient level of difficulty. So I have to pick things that will meet that aim as well as to perform. But if its really all about the performance then maybe I need to revisit this. Anyway, my lessons are going well. I am currently playing a couple of tunes in G minor, one Strathspey and one a reel which goes up into third position with a lot of string crossing. They are challenging and its difficult to get them clean. I am trying to discipline myself to pay attention to every single note and to practice more slowly. I find this quite difficult. I am also trying different bowings. I have also been working on one of my own tunes this last week. I wrote it in the summer and I made contact with a brilliant musician Nick Pynn. He plays in the Edinburgh Fringe every festival but lives in Brighton. He has recorded it for me on mandolin and various other things (he plays practically everything). He sent the rough track back to me about a week ago and I am really thrilled with it. It is quite amazing to hear your own composition played by another musician - especially one as good as Nick. I have been recording a couple of fiddle parts and then they will be added soon. It has been a great learning experience. Its been a challenge to play at the standard required for a recording. Interesting performances last Thursday. We talked a bit about:
The other interesting thing that happened this week was my old fiddle teacher sent me a recording of her recital (she went to Newcastle to do her Masters specialising in Shetland music). Completely by coincidence she had played the Muckle Reel of Finnigart (which I blogged about earlier). Sounded amazing. She had loosely interpreted it, rather than sticking faithfully to the tune and was playing it in a different tuning to get more double stopping through it. She also sent me Peter Fraser's recording which she had managed to find - it is pretty much as I play it. We have had a few e mail exchanges about it and I hope to meet up with her soon to get a few ideas about my version. Borrowed a violin to try out but I don't think I'm going to go for it. |
Fiona Harrison
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