DonnaHebert

Lesson #4: The art of ‘groove’ – (Smith College: 2014)

March 5, 2014 by DonnaHebert

FREE WORKSHOP AT SMITH COLLEGE – Bring your instrument! Download handouts below.

I was 23 the summer I fell into fiddling. Four contradances was enough to do it. I started sitting on the stage. Next thing you knew I was talking to the musicians. Word filtered back through them to the caller that I used to play. Then one day at the Concord Scout House “NEFFA on Sunday” dance, the caller walked up to me at the break with a fiddle under his arm. “Here,” he said, thrusting it into my hands. “Sit in the back. There’s music in the bag. Don’t mess with the beat.” It was 1972. The caller was Dudley Laufman, the fiddler was Allan Block and the pianist was Bob McQuillen. That was how I came to play with the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra.

Yup, there was music in the bag. Two huge LL Bean bags full. My sight-reading skills did not include reading sixteenth notes at 120 beats per minute, so I bought the LPs to listen to. Over and over and over. I bought three copies of each record. My Sears Silvertone record changer was primitive enough to allow me to slow the record down by almost half. With my thumb. Then I could record the resulting, octave lower output on my mono Sony tape recorder, my first ear training tool. Made the tunes sound a bit ‘wubba wubba’ but the rhythms popped out. Still, the fiddles were buried in the big band sound. The LPs only lasted awhile before I destroyed them with my primitive ‘learning by ear’ technology, laughable by today’s standards. And I still didn’t have the fiddle knack I was looking for.

So, I began watching the fiddlers at the dance. Allan Block was the clear leader (he sat next to the piano, and had a microphone). After awhile, I stopped worrying about hitting every note on the page and began to play less and less, kind of trancing a little on the repetitive nature of both the dance and the tune. Must have been a modal tune, maybe Em/D, one of those where it’s easy to zone out. Next thing you know I’m copping Allan’s right hand movements and [hot DAMN!] sounding just the least little bit like him. Not all the notes, but the rhythms, and I’m dancing inside!

Not long after, Allan took me under his wing and showed me the really cool basics (link to lesson #3) of bowing rhythms. Within a few years, I was “messing with the beat” in my own bands, a practice I honed and practiced by subdividing and syncopating dance phrases at thousands of contradances. Talk about altered states. To this day, my right hand groove owes a whole lot to Allan Block.

We lost Allan last year, and Bob McQuillen left us in February 2014. Big giant shoes to fill. Bob was a prolific composer of fiddle tunes (more than 1500), all dedicated to friends. Perhaps his best-known tune is “Amelia,” a waltz in D major.

We’ll use “Amelia” as part of this lesson. It’s a lovely piece, using all the chords we need to review in D major. We’ll learn the tune, learn to follow the chords and find some harmonies and maybe a countermelody or two. Then we’ll play some faster tunes in the two most common ‘modal’ patterns we find in Celtic music. Both Irish and Scottish minors are almost entirely Dorian (Em/D, Am/G, Dm/C, etc) and Scottish bagpipes carry a flatted seventh in their scale, so are naturally Mixo-Lydian (A/G, D/C). “Swallowtail Jig” is from my “Fiddling Demystified for Strings”:

Marching Down 5th Ave. is a Mixo pipe march in A that I wrote the week my daughter went off to live in an NYU dorm on 5th Ave. She called me every day walking up 5th Ave. to acting classes in Chelsea. The tune is played AABBCCDD. Rhythm players often leave the third out of chords behind ‘modal’ tunes, making the third even more bendable.

Swallowtail Jig is a standard in the contradance and Irish fiddling repertoire. It’s a great Irish Dorian tune, and can carry a lot of ornament or not very much, your taste being the deciding factor. Pick and choose from the menu of ornamentation shown in the tune. This is my classic “what you see in a fiddle tunebook” and “what we really play” example, showing both the basic, un-styled setting, and a fully-styled one. [NOTE: Remember that taking away is as important as adding. Try adding fewer ornaments and stretching rhythms instead!]

You can download the learning aids below for the workshop on March 13 at Smith College, where I teach fiddle instruction and performance.

I was lucky. I could study Allan Block’s right hand from behind and intuit rhythms from his movements, all the while listening to Bob McQuillen’s rock-solid groove. This workshop format allows me to be the groove-master in the room. I can turn my back on the class, and instead of them trying to figure out what I’m doing while mirrored, participants can follow my actual movements and pick up the rhythms more easily.

Wish you could all be there. It’s an honor to pass on the lore and the music of such great players.

LEARNING AIDS (download by clef )

>> Amelia © Bob McQuillen (used with permission). Treble • Alto • Bass
>> Amelia – chord chart in D major with all 3 minor substitutions
YouTube of Glen Echo dance 2/17/14 playing “Amelia”

>> Swallowtail Jig (traditional). Treble 1 – Treble 2 • Alto • Bass

>> Marching Down 5th Ave. © Donna Hébert Treble • Alto • Bass

>> C-D-A-E Diatonic triads and broken (2-note) chords. Treble • Alto • Bass

>> Common progressions with 2-note chords on D & G strings. Treble • Alto • Bass

>> Common-tone chords (chord pairs and the other chords they share). Treble • Alto • Bass

>> Chord Wheel from Fiddling Demystified for Strings

Guest blog: Andrew VanNorstrand: Fiddle Tunes and Three-Dimensional Truth

December 26, 2013 by DonnaHebert

Andrew VanNorstrand (right, with brother Noah at left) describes perfectly the mental and emotional process of fiddling. I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I asked to share his observations, which are reprinted with permission from Andrew’s 12/16/13 blog, The Deep Blue Green.

Fiddle Tunes and Three-Dimensional Truth

What exactly is a fiddle tune? Say you want to play a fiddle tune but you don’t know any. So you go out and buy a book like the Portland Collection or the Fiddler’s Fakebook or something like that. And you open it up and pick a tune and play it through. 32 bars of notes in a particular sequence with chord suggestions. Start at the beginning and stop at the end. Is that a fiddle tune? Is that music? It only takes about 35 seconds to play a fiddle tune once through so maybe repeat it a few times. Seems like a good idea. Dum di dum di diddly dum, dum di dum di die-do. Okay then, I guess that’s it. Wow, fiddle tunes are really super easy. Maybe try playing it faster. Done. Maybe try playing it like, way, way faster. Done. Maybe try playing through 40 more tunes in the book. And… done. So is that it then? Didn’t make any mistakes, played all the notes. What else is there?

This is a scenario I encounter pretty frequently at music camps, especially with folks coming from a background in classical music. These are very capable and accomplished musicians who want to learn how to play fiddle tunes. Which is awesome by the way. But it can get really frustrating for them because while they obviously have no problem playing fiddle tunes accurately there’s still something missing in the overall sound. Something that just doesn’t quite connect. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly. Fiddlers do have some cool “tricks” up their sleeves. Different genres of fiddle music have different stylistic ornamentation so you can add in some double stops or triplets or slides (shout out to the dreaded bluegrass “chops” workshop). There’s often more than one version of a tune so you can learn a whole bunch of variations from a bunch of different sources and switch back and forth between them. Sometimes there might even be space for a little solo of some kind so you can be brave and try out a little improvisation. So is it a fiddle tune now? It’s certainly a lot more complicated. But I’d be willing to bet that it still doesn’t actually sound right.

I like to think about this a little differently. Take some classic tune like Sally Ann or Old Joe Clark or Turkey in the Straw. Now think of the notes in one long ribbon and instead of a repeat sign at the end, wrap that ribbon around so it connects to itself in a big circle. Now think of every single time that tune has been played by every single fiddler that’s ever played it as having it’s own ribbon. And these tune-ribbons just keep wrapping themselves around and around, crossing each other, overlapping each other, twisting and turning until you’ve got this giant three-dimensional ball of a tune. And believe me, old fiddle tunes are massive. They’ve been rolling around pubs and campfires and dance halls and living rooms for centuries. People have poured their lives into these melodies. They’ve crossed oceans and mountains and prairies. They’ve soaked up sun and rain and whiskey and tears to the point where they are literally overflowing with joy and heartache and memories. When you play an old fiddle tune, it’s going to weave it’s own unique path across the face of this huge globe; intersecting at every note with a thousand other paths yet still different because it’s YOU playing it. On your instrument. Right now. And that’s never happened before.

Sometimes we talk about variation, ornamentation and improvisation as if these are tools or techniques; as if they are distinct and separate from the melody, which is somehow morally superior. But that’s not it at all. Whatever you play IS the melody. And you are responsible for every note. Fiddle tunes exist in a constant state of change where every single note has to be played not because it’s correct but because it’s the note you meant to play. There is no safe zone where the tune is some kind of neutral third party. Old Joe Clark doesn’t sound so easy anymore. Here’s the thing… music has to be about stuff. Even (especially?) a simple fiddle tune has to be about something. The raw physical existence of this world is really more than we can handle and we need music and art and stories to help us process life. Nobody cares about the notes you play. I’d say nobody even hears the notes you play. What people hear is the meaning; the reason you chose those notes. Tunes played accurately but without depth have this eerie zombie effect that’s hard to explain but immediately recognizable.

And this is really how I think about truth. Picture that giant fiddle-tune-ball I was talking about earlier. How does the tune go? What does it sound like? Well, walk up real close to it and you’ll hear a beautiful melody. But then the ball shifts a bit and you hear it differently. Still the same tune but in a new voice. Was the first one wrong? Roll the ball some more and the tune just becomes deeper and richer and more varied. And I think that can be scary. There’s this temptation to say “Wait a minute, what’s the real tune? How does it actually go? What’s the real truth?” but there isn’t an answer. Even if you back up and try to see the big picture, there’s always the other side that’s hidden. That’s just the nature of human perspective. Absolute truth exists but we are fundamentally incapable of understanding it. And that’s okay. That’s why we have fiddle tunes.

Andrew VanNorstrand is a fine fiddler and teacher and performer who plays for dances and concerts with the Andrew/Noah Band and the Great Bear Trio. You can find him at many dance festivals and dance camps, including Fiddle and Dance camps at Ashokan. He and his brother, Noah, are trailblazers in the ongoing contradance music tradition. The torch has been well and truly passed!

The Andrew/Noah band are at http://www.andrewandnoah.com
The Great Bear Trio are at http://greatbeartrio.com/Great_Bear_Trio/Home.html
Listen/watch them (Noah is fiddling, Andrew is on guitar) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtgyvNFfWEw
Photo: Noah and Andrew VanNorstrand (Angela Goldberg photo)

Lesson #3: Rhythm bowing patterns for jigs and reels

September 9, 2013 by DonnaHebert

How we divide and subdivide rhythms is the real mystery in fiddling. Jean Carignan, the great Québecois fiddle master, was asked by another fiddler how long it would take to play like him. Raising his left hand, he said, “about ten years, if you work hard.” Raising his right hand, he said, “the rest of your life.” With an endless variety of rhythm choices available, you’ll run out of time before you run out of syncopation!

Rhythm defines fiddling and makes it danceable. Groove is the heart of what we do. How those grooves are pulled out of a melody varies from one country, or region within a country, to another. Rhythms are laid over the downbeat, which either falls directly on the one, or is anticipated or delayed slightly. Beat placement is the ‘floor,’ then the grooves sit on that like furniture. Only when those two right-hand fundamental skills are in place can the left hand start fooling around with triplets and slides and pull-offs and hammer-on techniques (the last added layer of tune decoration). Authenticity in fiddling depends on that groove being there FIRST.

I’ve provided a general guide here, meant to assist my students and others curious about what makes fiddling, well, FIDDLING! To learn more about any one style, immersion (obsession, really!) is key. Find people who play that style well and ask them to help you (with Skype, you can find mentors anywhere). And never stop listening!

The bowing patterns in the JPG below (download a pdf copy) are written in D major, using only the open A string. When there is a slur noted, the note moves up a whole tone and then comes back down. Most examples are two bars long. A few are only one.

I give permission for my students and other string teachers and students to use this as a learning resource, while I retain all publication rights. If you want to reprint this in a book or just want to reblog it, please contact me first.

For more fiddling lore, check out the sample pages for “Fiddling Demystified for Strings.” and of course my other lessons in the sidebar at right. Happy Fiddling!

Lesson #2: Jiggety-jig to the dance

July 24, 2013 by DonnaHebert

Dance your way to lightness!

If you want to learn to play jigs, it helps to learn to dance first. Fiddle music is dance music, and even if you don’t dance often, knowing how makes you a better musician. [Find a contra-dance in your area.] Contra-dancers love jigs and these tunes energize the crowd! And once you’ve danced to a well-played jig, you know what that groove sounds and FEELS like.

It all comes down to one common denominator, regardless of the regional style – LIGHTNESS. Even a heavily accented pipe march in 6/8 gets ‘under your feet’ and makes you walk lighter.

Focus on the bowing

Just WHERE and for how long the downbeat and offbeat stresses fall are the essence of jig timing. ANY left hand ornaments have to fit over that timing, so get the timing just right before tackling the ornaments. The first of each group of three eighth notes usually gets played a little longer and stronger than the two that follow it. But this is a subtle difference. Again, dancing to the music yourself helps to put these rhythms INSIDE your body, so coaxing them out of your arm is much easier!

Don’t overplay the accents or they’ll sound heavy and ponderous instead of light and bouncy. The most common mistake of string players is to give the three eighth notes in a beat equal time and volume. Unfortunately, that kills the timing, which needs room to breathe. Danceability is the bottom line, and here’s where you find it (no kidding!):

The – space – between – the – notes

Fiddlers don’t FINISH everything and we are constantly listening for the places where we can leave things out (and you thought all we did was add notes to tunes!) We leave space to anticipate or delay a downbeat, to syncopate a phrase, to perform a left-hand ornament. Space is a beautiful thing. But to leave space successfully, a player needs a pretty solid sense of the ‘one’ beat or downbeat for every bar. Fortunately, DANCING is a great way to ‘naturalize’ rhythm into your body! Do you see a theme here?

Finding the groove

Listen closely for the beats – it’s our job to mark them. I like to find a spot just a bit behind the downbeat. I can stay there in the groove for a long time, nudging the tune forward from behind. If I get in front of it too far, the beat is chasing me and I’m running away, getting faster as I play. Settle on one spot that makes it EASY to play. That’s your cue that you’re doing it right.

Less really is more here. Use the bounce/balance point of the bow (the weighted center, where you can hold the stick parallel to the floor) as ‘home’ position. You’ll get more bounce out of your jigs. When you play there, it takes almost no weight to get a good sound and a light bounce. From there, you can use bow speed instead of weight to produce micro-dynamic changes in volume.

Advice from a fiddler who used to: AVOID playing at the tip of the bow. There is no real ‘bounce’ or power at the bow’s tip. It’s inefficient, offering poor control of dynamics and nuance. Yeah, I know, it LOOKS easier. But trust me, it’s not, and if you play hard at the tip, you can easily hurt yourself (like I did).

The only formula I can offer is to listen to the best fiddlers you can find and play along with them on recordings.* And if they’ll let you sit in the back and play along with the band at contradances, do it! You’ll also get to dance! There’s no better way to hone your timing on fiddle tunes than by playing for dancers!

The Amazing Slow Downer

OK – what’s a jig?

In the 1700s, a ‘jig’ was a dance and ‘to jig’ meant to dance, a meaning it still retains. For fiddlers, a jig is usually a dance tune in 6/8 meter, but it originally meant an Irish dance tune in 12/8 meter. Many of those original 12/8s survive today as ‘slides’ in Ireland, while many morphed into 6/8 time.

A double jig has a near-constant pattern of 8th notes, grouped into two beats of three notes each in a bar, with a ‘RAT-a-tat, RAT-a-tat’ rhythm. A ‘single jig’ is actually more of a march in 6/8, with a ‘HUMP-ty DUMP-ty” rhythm. Most tunes combine both single and double patterns in their melodies.

Of course, if you put three of those beats together instead of two, you have a slip jig in 9/8 time. With four beats, it becomes a slide in 12/8. There are other names for jigs, but these three – jig, slip jig and slide – are the most often heard. Jigs can also have more than two phrases. Most reels are played AABB, but you’ll find a significant number of jigs with four to eight phrases instead of two. See Michael Gorman’s “Strayaway Child,” with six phrases, “The Foxhunter’s Jig” with four repeated phrases of four bars each, and probably the most famous slip jig, “The Butterfly,” with three phrases of four bars each.

Where do you find most jigs?

Outside of Scottish and Irish music enclaves, jigs are a northern phenomenon. Originally English, Irish or Scots in their source, they burst out of their islands, sailed to the new world and danced across the continent. While they remain a strong part of Canadian, Irish, Scottish, Midwestern and New England fiddling traditions, in other North American regional styles, jigs were heavily eclipsed by reels and breakdowns in 2/4 time.

Are they major or minor?

The short answer is both, and more! I estimate that of the major jigs, about 80% are in a diatonic major key. [The link is to my first Wholistic lesson blog about diatonic major tunes and chords.] The other roughly 20% are in the Mixolydian mode (one of those Greek inventions), using a major scale with a flatted seventh). I note that with these three scales and harmonic patterns: Diatonic major, Mixolydian major and Dorian minor, you have homes for nearly all the old Irish and Scots fiddle tunes and about 80% of the new ones. In terms of applied music theory, fiddlers use these three scale/harmony patterns on a daily basis.

I also find that more of the Mixolydian tunes tend to be Scots in origin, perhaps related to the bagpipe scale. By comparison, the Dorian (minor) below tends to favor the Irish repertoire. A smart musician would learn these two scales together. Both have a flatted seventh and their only scale difference is in the third, raised in Mixolydian and lowered in Dorian mode. The real link is in their harmonies. Both harmonies move from tonic to flatted seventh and back again. In Dorian, that tonic is minor rather than the Mixolydian major.

Here’s a PDF example of an A Mixolydian 6/8 pipe march with four phrases, scored for fiddle. It’s called Marching Down 5th Avenue, and I wrote it in 2007 when my daughter went off to NYU.

If the tunes are in a minor key, they are almost universally** Dorian. What’s that mean? D Dorian would be a C scale that started on D, spelled D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D. Harmonically, it moves between the minor (in the example, Dm) and it’s flatted seventh (C major) So you are moving from i to VII to i.

**How do I know

weren’t

minor but not Dorian,

Many guitarists who back up Scots and Irish tunes play in DADGAD tuning. This easily allows them to play drones of the 1 and 5 notes in a chord. They often leave out the third altogether, giving their accompaniment that characteristic open sound.

Here’s an example, a jig of mine in Dm and C called Kangaroo Jig. The PDF is scored for fiddle, viola and cello. Violists and cellists can drop the octave or not in the B part – your choice! The mp3 track [Kangaroo Jig/Geese in the Cloverleaf/Paddy Kelly’s Jig] is from the 1996 “Soirée chez nous” recording with my band, Chanterelle. André Marchand plays guitar on the track, Pete Sutherland is on piano and I wrote the first two tunes. The last tune is attributed to, if not composed by Paddy Fahy. Have fun!

Marching Down Fifth Avenue, Kangaroo Jig

Geese in the Cloverleaf