VARIOUS FLAVOURS OF E MINOR

From: Helen Cook <hcook@taranaki.ac.nz>

Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1998
Does anyone know how to explain to me why some E minor tunes use a D# and some don't? The ones that do seem to be mostly slow ones like Roslyn Castle. The best example I can think of one that doesn't is The Gypsies, a hornpipe in Myrna Luff's book. Should they all be played with the Ebe drones? They seem to sound right to me, but I still wasn't sure why.

Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998
From: William Marshall <sol_marsh@yahoo.com>
A "correct" minor key tune - i.e. one that obeys the precepts of classical harmony - will have a sharpened leading note, d-sharp in the case of e-minor. This is presumably why, when NSP makers started to fit keywork in the 19th century, a d-sharp (or e-flat as it seems to be more often referred to) was regarded as important. At that musical era players and makers wished to be able to play minor tunes that obeyed the rules which were prevalent at the time. But to us a minor key air with sharpened leading notes tends to have a slightly quaint, "parlour" feel to it. By contrast the modal or "folk" minor that keeps its sevenths flattened sounds more full blooded to us, more modern even, despite the fact that it an older fashioned idea. It seems to me then - as a relative newcomer to the NSP; so forgive any presumption - that the d-sharp key is an anachronism because few of us want to play 19th-century flavoured minor tunes. By contrast an F-natural key, which would occupy roughly the same area of the chanter, would be tremendously useful. Why has it not replaced the d-sharp as part of the standard seven-key set-up? In fact I have ordered a set with this substitution and, within the limits of my technique, am looking forward to an enormous broadening of scope, not least the ability to play C major tunes over G drones and to be able to play Border tunes (such as those in the Bewick collection) that require F naturals for their full flavour.

Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998
From: Mike Crowley <therion@ccnet.com>
Could it be because some of the tunes are written in the harmonic minor and some in the melodic minor?—

Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998
From: Rex Aschenbrenner <aschenbr@cgi.com>
A more thorough explanation than I gave and an easy way to derive modes from major scales can be found at:
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~chrism/neil/modes.html Hope this helps.

An E minor scale with C natural and D# is E harmonic minor. Ebe drones should work for any mode based on E except for locrian, which is a rarely used mode.

Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998
From: Sue Wilkins <Sue.Wilkins@vuw.ac.nz>
Of course, modern classical music theory tends to define a minor key on the basis of the number of semitones in the interval between the tonic and the third. (5=major, 4=minor). What happens at the top end of the scale is largely becoming irrelevant as composers play with the options available there. As far as the ear is concerned it is this interval to the third which produces the characteristic minor feel in a piece of music.
Given that NSP tend to drone the tonic and the dominant, vagaries around the 6th and 7th of a scale shouldn't affect the drone settings particularly.

From: "Ewan Barker" <e.barker@ballarat.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1998 10:24:59 +1000
William Marshall <sol_marsh@yahoo.com> wrote
> By contrast an F-natural key, which would occupy roughly the same area of the chanter, would be tremendously useful
I agree with you that an F natural key is tremendously useful, but I prefer to have it in addition rather than instead. (I think the four extra keys of the eleven key chanter are all well worth having.) However I think that often the easiest way to play flattened seventh tunes is to play them in A. It is in fact easier to get hold of them this way, as all highland and border pipe tunes are written in A. This means a lot of use of the little finger for the tonic, but avoids the difficulty of the sequence F natural -- G. It is always so difficult (for me anyway) to use a thumb key immediately before or after lifting the left thumb.
A good reference for modes in folk music (with an emphasis on English folk song) is:
Robert Noble, "Folk Tunes to Accompany. Book Three. Modes and Minors", Novello.
This has useful appendices including a short history of modes through ancient times, mediaeval chant, art music and folk music.

From: Dick Hensold <dick@uswest.net>
They certainly *can* all be played with Ebe drones, but if you want to use alternate drone settings you need to pay attention to not only the key, but the mode and harmonic structure as well. The keynote is the pitch center- E in this case. The mode is determined by the position of the 7th - D in this case. A *tonal minor* will have many D#s written as accidentals, because the 7th is normally sharp in tonal systems. A *modal* tune will have D naturals. Also, most modal traditional tunes are called *double-tonic* tunes because the harmonies that their melodies imply go back and forth between, say, Em and D Maj. Such tunes could use a drone setting of either E or D. E Dorian tunes are normally harmonized with a D in the Uilleann tradition, so our ears are used to it.
An E tonal minor tune, such as Roslin Castle, couldn't be harmonized with a D drone; the alternate would be B. Also, not all modal tunes are double tonic, so the subtonic drone won't always work on a modal tune.

From: Rosspipes@aol.com
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998
Indeed why not keep the arrangement as before with the F nat above the D#.The thumb can easily hit the key as it can all the others fitted in around the basic 7 keys of the standard chanter. That is what thumbs were invented for.

From: RTE395@aol.com
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998 11:55:06 EDT
Regarding the advantage of changing the Eb key to F, or keeping Eb and adding F, I wonder, why not an 11 key chanter, or do what Reid did 170 years ago an make a chanter with 14 keys to have all possibilities in a short chanter? The maintenance of the couple of extra keys doesn't amount to much. Or, make it go down to C with 16 keys if the key of C is wanted, which will also accomodate classical 5-string banjo tuning, for Steven Foster songs. Or, go on down to B, or A, like James Reid did, and up to c. Why, if one really wants to play in all these keys and modes, bother with a special key arrangement to fit only SOME of them? Or, what may make more sense; why not just buy a clarinet, or a flute, or a fiddle, and have done with it? There is probably a pretty good reason that the 7-key chanter has become standard: adding enough drones for all these keys, in order to avoid the not-very-good sounds that come from most high tuning beads, would make the thing hardly portable and a maintenance nightmare. There is an awful lot of music out there that really OUGHT to be played on something OTHER than the smallpipes. Going too far afield of the traditional Northumbrian pipe music is a little like playing the William Tell Overture on a musical saw--a great stunt, but.... The whole thing gets even worse when every new chanter has to be triplicated in the three current G pitches. Even discounting the expense in pounds/dollars/whatever, maintaining so much hardware must get a bit wearing. Oh, well, sounds like fun anyway
Bob Graham

Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1998
From: Barry Say <Barry.Say@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
Before I say anything else, let me say that I have no idea why the d# key came to be standard on NSP. Ihave not yet hears a credible explanation.
But, drones of that period only had one tuning bead on the G chanter, so Em tunes would have to be played against tonic drones only. Add the fact that after the high keys a,b, the notes which give the most tuning problems are e (second finger left hand) B (second finger right hand) this is not a good starting point for playing in Em. I agree that d# allows you to play in Em but I suspect it would have been difficult.
Also, there aren’t that many tunes in the repetoire in Em compared to the number in the various flavours of A. A standard set of drones with 4 tuning beads gives a full Aea accompaniment. G# would seem to be a desirable key by this argument.
Subjective judgements are always dangerous, once you say how things feel you lay yourself open to contradiction. When I started discovering "folk" music as a teenager I formed the opinion that the folk minor always had flattened sevenths. When I discovered traditional music, I found the situation was more complicated. ( at this point I was singing to a small guitar)

>It seems to me then - as a relative newcomer to the NSP; so forgive any presumption - that the d-sharp key is an anachronism because few of us want to play 19th-century flavoured minor tunes
It is also used to great effect as a decoration. it allows chromatic runs in the middle of the chanter B.C,C#,D,D#,E,F.

>By contrast an F-natural key, which would occupy roughly the same area of the chanter, would be tremendously useful. Why has it not replaced the d-sharp as part of the standard seven-key set-up?
Because there is a clash between the keypad end of F nat and the left thumb.
Certainly, the touch end of the key could be brought down to be in the same position where the d# would be expected. The key would be longer ( nearly 2" as opposed to 1.25"). This would however go against the principle that the touch-ends of all chanters should conform to the placings on the seventeen-key chanters

>In fact I have ordered a set with this substitution and, within the limits of my technique, am looking forward to an enormous broadening of scope, not least the ability to play C major tunes over G drones and to be able to play Border tunes (such as those in the Bewick collection) that require F naturals for their full flavour.
Why not play them in D major (A Myxolydian) over A drones. (Wild Hills of Wannie)
Despite all I have said, it would seem from ongoing research (not mine) that the Clough family were very attached to f nats. So try it!

Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1998
From: Julia Say <Julia.Say@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
RTE395@aol.com writes
>There is an awful lot of music out there that really OUGHT to be played on something OTHER than the smallpipes. Going too far afield of the traditional Northumbrian pipe music is a little like playing the William Tell Overture on a musical saw--a great stunt, but….
Hear, hear, hear....and there's more than a lifetime's worth of practice just to play the good stuff.
As Pauline Cato once remarked after playing 'Flowers of Edinburgh' - 'thats enough world music - now lets play some Northumbrian tunes'

From: RTE395@aol.com
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998
People seem to be doing (or trying to do) just about everything with the smallpipes, and they seem to be having a lot of fun, so it is OK. But, when you come down to it, the pipes are a SOLO instrument--that is why they have drones. And they sound best, to me, in the old pitch. For ensemble work, why not just have a bag, bellows, and 17-key chanter in concert pitch? Bob Graham

Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998
From: rjs@MBR.centra.ca (Richard Shuttleworth)
William Marshall said:
> By contrast an F-natural key, which would occupy roughly the same area of the chanter, would be tremendously useful. Why has it not replaced the d-sharp as part of the standard seven-key set-up?
Now, what I want to know is, why does it have to be "either or"- have a chanter with both Eb and F natural for goodness sake :-)