Fiddleblog

Christmas seal

December 25, 2008 by Donna

Waking early this Christmas morning, I am grateful for the small things. My daughter is asleep in her room. After yesterday’s rain, there will be no snow today, making our Christmas journey easier.

And at the moment, I’m in the grip of an interesting ‘earworm’. I can’t seem to shake the insistent progress of a particular fiddle tune in my head. It’s a funny, crooked, droney little thing called “Fisherman’s Song for Calling the Seals,” very Scottish indeed, appealing to my latent Celt. I learned it from an Ossian recording, “Seal’s Song”.

There are no seals to call here in Amherst, Massachusetts, but there’s something in the tune that calls to my blood. Closing my eyes, I’m in a boat off a lonely Scottish isle with a wee whistle between my lips blowing this tune to seals, hoping to see a few this Christmas Day. Fey lot, we fiddlers!

Since tunes are meant to be shared and it’s Christmas, it seemed like a nice present! Have fun opening it!

How to learn a tune by ear

December 2, 2008 by Donna

Listen repeatedly and sing along with the source, then transfer the sung phrases to the instrument. [Don’t worry if you can’t sing in tune. Your voice is helping you to punctuate the rhythm of the tune.] Go back to singing when your lose the tune – it’s best when the tune crawls into your ear and won’t leave. Sing and play. Sing and play. Play and sing. Time means nothing. Above all, don’t worry. It’ll come if you just keep listening.

When you have the notes, listen some more for rhythms and figure out the bowings that create them. Think about using the up-bow more to create subtlety, tying notes across the beat on a upbow to camouflage the movement. The upbow is your friend.

Now listen some more for harmony, chords and countermelodies. Figure out how the chords progress in this tune. Is it major or minor? A I-IV-V or Modal progression? Mine the tune for clues to harmonic movement. Then find a short line for each phrase. Try to stay on one string, visiting two at most and staying off the E string entirely for most harmony or counter lines. Often one phrase will lead you into the other, but you do need to ‘feel and find’ or actually know the chord progression. I’m a feel and find gal and learned chord names and the theory behind it later. Trying all the options lets you hear extra stuff – some of which is glorious amongst the notes you’d never play again. Aren’t you relieved now to know where the notes to avoid are located?

Now that you’ve found the chords, use them to play with rhythm. Find backup double-stop riffs that make the tune dance. Get so deep into the groove that you have to rock those rhythms with your bow. Here’s where time can really stand still, a paradox of your play with rhythm, but oh so true! Listen some more for variations and study how a small but constant varying of rhythms creates the new flavoring for the tune.

Above all, learn to love the many ways you can combine three, three and two rhythms into a bar of eight sixteenth notes. Syncopation is your friend, man! Find some great conga or djembe players and play jigs and reels while they pour those rhythms into your ears. Now THAT’s a jam session! Call me up and I’ll be there!

Raven’s Wing

December 1, 2008 by Donna

A bird, a canyon, a day of wonder and sorrow

I was traveling out west in March 2008 with fiddler Jane Rothfield and guitarist Max Cohen and we visited the Grand Canyon. It was a beautiful day, clear, glorious and and majestic, with ravens soaring overhead as we walked the trail at the canyon’s edge. It was also a sad day because my father was dying in Florida. As we left Hermit’s Rest, one raven landed in our midst. Fixing me with a beady eye, the bird whuffled its throat feathers in and out, clacked its beak and seemed to speak to me particularly. We were enthralled – I even snapped this photo.

The long moment ended; the raven took flight. Stunned, we just stood, silent and then piled into the car. Just as we left, the call came through. It was my brother and my father had passed just as the raven spoke to us. Several weeks later, in memory of my dad, Rodger E. Hinds, I wrote a slow air with Max Cohen and called it “Raven’s Wing.”

The story has even more layers. Upon hearing the about the bird and listening to the music, my mother told me about my father’s World War II airborne unit, the Ravens (301st Bombardment Group, Army Air Corps). This was new to me, as was the the photo of his insignia with three ravens on a blue background. Their newsletter is even called “The Raven.”

As the years go by, a raven often visits in the yard. Not a crow, much bigger. Not the same raven, of course, but I greet him as if we were related. Who really knows?

Max and I play this tune at the Fiddlers Summit in Shepherdstown WV in 2010.

Mother’s Day 2014: Impromptu jam on “Raven’s Wing” at La Grande Rencontre. Cathedral del Gesu, Montreal. With Bruce Molsky, Pierre Schryer, Quinn Bachand and Robin Bulliaume.