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Tradition continuity

 
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 04, 2008 3:08 pm    Post subject: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Before I start, I’ll preface this post by stating that I (still) haven’t bought a copy of Sackpipan i Nordan and I should have quite a while ago.

I’ve been wondering about the level of traditional continuity inherited by today’s Swedish pipers from the ‘old’ pipers. Or can that even expected? How much of the tradition is ‘traditional’?

Let’s take Per Gudmundson for instance, was there any influence on his playing style from the earlier recordings for the Swedish National Radio? Being primarily a fiddler, it is expected that his approach to the fiddle would have translated in some way to his manner of piping. But had he heard those old recordings before he started playing to ‘orient’ himself with the instrument? Did anyone even have access to those recordings?

Also, Leif Eriksson’s design, as Olle’s page tells us, was a compromise between several different historical examples. Was there anything known about their scale and intonation? Or was that decided upon entirely by establishing the most common key for the fiddle? A drone playing the bottom fourth rather than an octave below the tonic is not frequently encountered among other types of bagpipe. The closest thing that I can think of is the contra-chanter on Hungarian/Slovak pipes which sounds a low fourth when fingered.

Many piping traditions, especially in Eastern Europe, are very ‘dialectical’. Different villages are known to have very different and distinct playing styles.
Swedish fiddlers certainly have a similar tendency to show regional variation (compare the old Orsa fiddlers to Rättvik fiddlers, or either of these to other fiddlers outside of Dalarna, say Jämtland or Värmland)
Is that a facet of tradition that is completely lost to modern Swedish pipers?
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Olle
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 10:41 am    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Aaron K. Holt wrote:
Before I start, I’ll preface this post by stating that I (still) haven’t bought a copy of Sackpipan i Nordan and I should have quite a while ago.


That's "Norden".

Quote:
Let’s take Per Gudmundson for instance, was there any influence on his playing style from the earlier recordings for the Swedish National Radio?


I very much doubt it, for two reasons: 1. Thure Gudmundsson who plays the pipes on the only recording there was, was not a "traditional" piper but as much of a revivalist as Per was and isolated one, at that. 2. The self-constructed instrument Thure plays did not work well, so I don't think any "playing style" can be extracted from it. In fact, the tunes he plays are almost unrecognizable. Imagine being in Thures situation - trying to reconstruct the instrument (and its reeds) all by himself, and then make a recording for Swedish National Radio on your first prototype ...

Quote:
Being primarily a fiddler, it is expected that his approach to the fiddle would have translated in some way to his manner of piping. But had he heard those old recordings before he started playing to ‘orient’ himself with the instrument? Did anyone even have access to those recordings?


I think most of his style was inspired by experimentation with the instrument itself and its features. That and his fiddle experience, of course. But, also the old pipers were probably mainly inspired by fiddlers (who dominated the neighbourhood).

Quote:

Also, Leif Eriksson’s design, as Olle’s page tells us, was a compromise between several different historical examples. Was there anything known about their scale and intonation? Or was that decided upon entirely by establishing the most common key for the fiddle?


There were other things to deduct from as well. The length of the preserved drones and chanters, for example. As for the scale, it is reasonable to select one which makes typical tunes from the region playable.

By the way, when Thure Gudmundsson showed his reconstruction to Gudmunds Nils Larsson, he (Nils) commented that it seemd to be tuned to a very low key. Indeed, in the recording mentioned above, the chanter is tuned approximately in A/D - a fifth below the standard key of E/A today!

Quote:
A drone playing the bottom fourth rather than an octave below the tonic is not frequently encountered among other types of bagpipe.


I think this is misleading, since it is the typical choice of tonic which is peculiar here, not the choice of drone.

Tuning the drone to the 6-finger-note on the chanter, E on a Swedish E/A chanter, is the most common configuration also elsewhere. And most other bagpipe traditions do play many tunes in the 3-finger-key (A on the Swedish chanter) as well. Uilleann pipers often play tunes in G, for example (with drones in D). The only thing peculiar to the Swedish pipes is that that key - the 3-finger-key - is so common that we actually name the chanter after that, not after the six-finger note.

There are tunes in E, of course (säckpipslåt från Norra Råda, for example), but they usually have to be played in a Mixolydian or Dorian scale, since we have a flat 7th (D).

Quote:
Many piping traditions, especially in Eastern Europe, are very ‘dialectical’. Different villages are known to have very different and distinct playing styles. Swedish fiddlers certainly have a similar tendency to show regional variation (compare the old Orsa fiddlers to Rättvik fiddlers, or either of these to other fiddlers outside of Dalarna, say Jämtland or Värmland) Is that a facet of tradition that is completely lost to modern Swedish pipers?


Yes and no. You could say that any regional differences were probably the same as among the fiddlers, so they carried these differences down to us. In that sense they were not lost. But the old pipers were very few in number, so any variation between them can just as well be considered individual as regional.
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 1:24 pm    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Olle Gällmo wrote:
That's "Norden".

Sorry about that, typo. My fingers were probably stuck on the -an from Säckpipan.

Thanks Olle, that answers a lot of questions. Would you hazard a guess at the number of pipers in the heyday of the 'first generation'?

Your point about regional styles is well taken. It makes a lot of sense that you would find regional playing methods that contain individual variation, and that the most prominent instrument (fiddle) would influence how other instruments were played.
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 4:42 pm    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Aaron K. Holt wrote:
Would you hazard a guess at the number of pipers in the heyday of the 'first generation'?


There is an excellent book called "Säckpipan i Norden", by Per-Ulf Allmo, which you really should buy! :-) Among many other things it contains a list of all known pipers.

I dare say that that list is still fairly complete in the sense that not many (if any) pipers have been "discovered" since the book was published in 1990. Of course, there were probably more pipers than the ones listed there, but if so they are probably lost to us - Per-Ulf is a *very* thorough archive sleuth.

There are less than 40 names on this list, even if you count the ones with very weak evidence. In other words, the "heyday" is now, not in the 19th century.
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:32 pm    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Quote:
Being primarily a fiddler, it is expected that his approach to the fiddle would have translated in some way to his manner of piping. But had he heard those old recordings before he started playing to ‘orient’ himself with the instrument? Did anyone even have access to those recordings?


Quote:
I think most of his style was inspired by experimentation with the instrument itself and its features. That and his fiddle experience, of course. But, also the old pipers were probably mainly inspired by fiddlers (who dominated the neighbourhood).


I'm not so sure about this. Just as a general observation it seems to me that its usually the other way around. Because of the continuity of drone instruments - bagpipes in particular...the players long ago came up with ways to break the notes apart - embellishments, which were then emulated by other instruments that could otherwise play staccato.
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Olle
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PostPosted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 2:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

JP, you are probably right. Many piping embellishments, in particular the functional ones that are necessities on the pipes but just embellishments on the fiddle, have probably travelled the other way. But, if so, that was a long time ago.

I don't think that pipers or fiddlers in general are aware of the history of their embellishments. We listen to others and are sometimes inspired to try something "new", unaware that we may be going full circle and bringing something back which once originated in our own tradition. Cultural exchange is bidirectional, and it repeats.
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noordung



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 3:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The topic of the evolution of the Säckpipa and it's history is of much interest to me (and Aaron started with some very essential questions above). After going for "Säckpipan i Norden" on Google I found it a bit expensive, with used items going much over £100. Not to mention the language barrier I would face (I don't have a clue about Swedish, nor Danish, nor any other Scandinavian language). So, are there any other books, publications or webpages where this topic is discussed?

The reason for my interest in this topic - besides my interest in Säckpipa itself - is in my own day-light dream to reconstruct and revive our own extinct type of bagpipes. And the Säckpipa experience could sure give me some inspiration I need. There is one example of the instrument preserved and kept in the museum. Some folklorist even went and measured the instrument and made some schetches, and also tried and somehow managed to measure the tones of the instrument kept in the museum. But not much has happened in the ressurection sense since then, since no record has been preserved about how the instrument was played and what tunes were played on it. The measured tones or the "scale" looks quite odd for our today's ears. It's bottom up: D-40c D+30c F-30c F# G+20c A-20c B+40c for the first and D-40c F-30c F# G+20c A-20c for the second chanter bore. The first listed tone is the tone of all the finger holes closed.

I believe the sackpipa was traditionally made with the "usual" six finger holes, without the thumb holes and other extensions, which were added gradually. It was most probably also an untempered instrument, as most folk instruments were. So, how was the modern temperation or the modern exact "pitch" defined sounds like a terribly interesting story to me. And all the rest of the "ressurection" story, as well.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 7:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

[quote="noordung"]After going for "Säckpipan i Norden" on Google I found it a bit expensive, with used items going much over £100. Not to mention the language barrier I would face (I don't have a clue about Swedish, nor Danish, nor any other Scandinavian language). So, are there any other books, publications or webpages where this topic is discussed?

[quote]

It must be out of print. Try and get a copy of Susan Palmers Hurdy Gurdy book for less than $100, its almost impossible. I too would have a hard time reading it too. Im working on a small booklet to give to my customers in the U.S. Most of my customers are from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico as well. I do send pipes across the pond, but that only makes up about 20% of my business. I've been asked numerous times if the pipes came with an instructional manual, and they don't. Thank the Lord I can send them to Olle's website for his treasure-trove of information. Without Olle's website it would probably be hard for new players to find music, and even learn to get started on the pipes. The only publication that I have to source, that I can read, is Olle's website and some of the posts on the forums as well as the Wiki stuff that is the same as the stuff on Olle's site. I'm sure I will be asking a lot of questions too. Also, if anybody wants to help me with adding a preface, history, drawings, additional info to the booklet, I will add your name as a co-author- illistrator, to the booklet which will go to all new customers who order a bagpipe as a free instructional manual. Hopefully it will help spread knowlege to newbies that only know English as I. Seth
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Olle
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The book "Säckpipan i Norden" is not out of print as far as I know and should not cost that much. Just write directly to the publisher, tonganginfo@tongang.se.

Noordung, the old instruments had six finger holes and one thumb hole (for the upper hand). The pitch of each note must have been very flexible (using bees-wax) since the finger holes are extremely large. Today's tuning is an educated guess, deduced from the length of the chanter and from the commons keys and scales played on the fiddle in the same are.
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noordung



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PostPosted: Sun Dec 18, 2011 7:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tanks, Olle! I hope I'll find more of that kind of information in that book. But, oddly, I've written to the publisher the same day as you told me, but no response, yet.
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 2:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, I must have gotten my copy just in time! I ordered one around the same time that Olle's album came out.

I work as a graphic designer, so whenever I see any printed material of any kind I immediately think of the production cost. Säckpipan i Norden is a very nice book that was almost certainly expensive to produce. It's too bad though, because it is an amazing source of information (even for someone whose Swedish needs a LOT of work, like me).

Is it possible, if published in a less expensive format, that a reprint could be made? Or even an epub, that's the most cost-effective method of publication imaginable these days.
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Anders Jackson
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 14, 2012 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You have to ask the publisher...
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 17, 2012 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reprinting Säckpipa i Norden Reply with quote

I have a bit of experience in the cost of printing books.

So, assuming the text was completely laid out in Adobe InDesign or some other standard format (pdf) and was print-ready, I have queried a local printer (Wisconsin, USA).

Estimated cost in 500 quantity would be under US$ 7.00, given soft (coated) cover and no color. Dropping down to quantity 250 cost would be around US$ 8.00.

E-books still remain very unprofitable for the author's, yielding much less than US$ 1.00 to them, given a retail cost over US$ 10.00s to the customer.

But...who knows what the publisher is willing to do?
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noordung



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PostPosted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:16 am    Post subject: Re: Reprinting Säckpipa i Norden Reply with quote

I have been trying to contact the publisher regarding the book order in the past months several times, but got no reply whatsoever. I have to assume it is indeed out of print and unavailable. So, in case you guys manage to get it reprinted, I'll be surely interested to get a copy.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 3:26 pm    Post subject: Publisher contact Reply with quote

This is an area where Olle might be able to help. Aaron was recently able to purchase a copy. Remember, it is written only in the Swedish language, but the photos are worth a thousand words.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:47 pm    Post subject: Re: Publisher contact Reply with quote

jerry revelle wrote:
This is an area where Olle might be able to help. Aaron was recently able to purchase a copy. Remember, it is written only in the Swedish language, but the photos are worth a thousand words.


Hi Jan Winter here, co-owner of Tongång records and co-editor of the book.
Thanks all for your friendly interest.
I don't know where you've got your information from but let me state this:
-The book is NOT out of print
-It has indeed a short summary in English.
-We are for the moment NOT thinking of making an e-book edition. Any such copies on the net will be seen as bootleg and treated as such.
-I have tested our company mail address tonganginfo@tongang.se (which is the one to use) from several addresses outside our domain without a problem. So please try again (Let me know if not, use jw@liraman.se, but not for orders)

Fancy some other exotic Swedish stuff?
Have a look at our website that now sports a totally new catalogue index. Actually you won't find the word catalogue but try menu utems "CD:s" or "Books":
www.tongang.se

Take care
/Liraman
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jerry revelle
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 3:30 pm    Post subject: Get your copy now... Reply with quote

Thanks, Jan. Now we all know where and how to obtain a copy.
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Black Rose



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PostPosted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

noordung wrote:
It was most probably also an untempered instrument, as most folk instruments were. So, how was the modern temperation or the modern exact "pitch" defined sounds like a terribly interesting story to me. And all the rest of the "ressurection" story, as well.


It was probably an entirely out-of-tune instrument and dependent entirely upon the guy who whittled it out of a birch log for whatever tuning it had. Given a certain musical ear and playing talent, it would have almost certainly been tempered to whatever the player/maker personally though sounded good, since they were almost certainly one and the same. Given the drone, this leads almost invariably to just temperment with what the uilleann pipers call "Paddy temperment," meaning certain notes like 7ths in particular, are colored by individual ear.

Each instrument would have been playable in its own personal pitch reality and entirely independent of either modern or ancient pitch or temperment "standards."

Personally, the chanter itself seems to have originated from a pentatonic scale, like many very ancient pipes--the upperhand notes from A to E in the modern instrument for example. Octaves may have only been an abstract concept originally, and by the time a more modern octave scale was invented and standardized, most of the tunes being played were already based upon the pentatonic upperhand, apparently a minor one at that. So the sackpipa added the octave underneath this, rather than on top for whatever musical reasons. There are a great many Highland tunes based upon the same layout, with the exception of the pentatonic third on the left, or upperhand, being major rather than minor.

Basically, the science behind making a parallel-bored chanter driven by a single-tongue cane reed involves splitting a reed till it quacks, shoving it in the tube, laying your hands on the chanter, marking some holes, drilling them out, and making them bigger until it tunes. If you guess wrong you file upwards to sharpen or fill and move downwards to flatten. Or fill and redrill upwards if you're just too flat to make filing, even ovalling out the holes work. If it's 1324BCE and you're working with a piece of cane or hollowed willow tube or something, it's not a very time consuming process to try and try again. Eventually you get a finger spacing and tuning scheme worked out that tunes with itself. Then you try again again, and decide if the base pitch is where you want it, moving the whole works up or down to try to match your preconceived target pitch.

The first time I tried this I was fifteen or sixteen, used shortened Highland tenor drone reeds and copper toilet-supply tubes that had a little flare in one end that fit the reeds nicely. I just layed out my fingers and guessed, and by filing bigger till the holes tuned I hit the key of C and managed perfect tuning. It was 1974 or so, and all I had to go on was a picture of some reeds and pipe fragments from the Lady Maket pipes, the Silver Pipes of Ur in a book. No scale, no measurements.

Once you have a chanter, your first drone is just a chanter with no holes in it, and a reed as identical to the chanter reed as possible. You tune with bridle and reed length adjustments until it tunes with the chanter, then shove it in a stock. Or just stick both of them in your mouth, or bind them together and fashion a wax mouth piece you can seal them off with. Try not to gag on the reed tips down your epiglottis. Use your cheeks like a bag and circular breathe. There, you have almost bagpipes.

The sackpipa original design apparently has one or two holes before the bell you can either wax or wrap waxed thread over to sharpen of flatten the drone and fine tune it once the reed setup is close enough. You still have tuning control without removing it from the stock or messing with the reed. You don't really need to have a tuning slide, it's easier, but not necessary. Eventually you discover that if you make the drone about twice the length of the chanter, you have a bass drone. That discovery did not seem to be until very recently, or at least very commonly, in the case of sackpipa.

In short, ancient pipes can be made to tune very precisely through some very primitive but effective methods--but this is utterly contingent upon the person doing the manufacture and adjustment having a musical ear. (As opposed to an electronic bagpipe tuner.)

Don't over-think or over-engineer the problem It's not as hard as it looks. Little shepherd boys with no particular training in musical acoustics, scrubbing for forage out in the desert have been doing it in their spare time for thousands of years. The physics, the mechanics are the easy part. Deciding what was played or how it was played is another matter entirely. For that, you'll have to reinvent based upon regional musical idioms, and what the chanter "wants" to do. You have to assume that the original makers and players would have as easily discovered the same characteristics and adapted regional melodies to the instrument based upon what it adds to the melodic and rhythmic qualities of the tunes.
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Baglady



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PostPosted: Thu Feb 02, 2012 5:44 pm    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Aaron K. Holt wrote:

Many piping traditions, especially in Eastern Europe, are very ‘dialectical’. Different villages are known to have very different and distinct playing styles.
Swedish fiddlers certainly have a similar tendency to show regional variation (compare the old Orsa fiddlers to Rättvik fiddlers, or either of these to other fiddlers outside of Dalarna, say Jämtland or Värmland)
Is that a facet of tradition that is completely lost to modern Swedish pipers?


As I studied the 'Celtic' music traditions I came to realize that regional styles were often driven by an individual or a family. When an individual would develop a certain style the upper classes liked, they would go to them to learn that style for example the MacCrimmons of Scotland. In the rural areas usually a family would hand down a musical tradition by teaching their children and neighbors like the Keenans of Ireland. In Brittany, France they tried to preserve these regional styles by not allowing the regions to intermingle but the lines are breaking down now and falling to popular tastes. And I guess I'm saying that I see the same forces working on Sackpipa. Individuals have developed styles and others go to them to learn those styles and I know our family is developing our own style informed by North Sea traditions and our interest in playing with our daughter's Hardingfele and music from the region the family came from. So depending on how you want to see it you could say this tradition is developing in the same traditional way it may have originally developed and in the way other traditions developed.

So, maybe tradition is as tradition does.
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 05, 2012 6:46 pm    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Baglady wrote:
Aaron K. Holt wrote:

Many piping traditions, especially in Eastern Europe, are very ‘dialectical’. Different villages are known to have very different and distinct playing styles.
Swedish fiddlers certainly have a similar tendency to show regional variation (compare the old Orsa fiddlers to Rättvik fiddlers, or either of these to other fiddlers outside of Dalarna, say Jämtland or Värmland)
Is that a facet of tradition that is completely lost to modern Swedish pipers?


As I studied the 'Celtic' music traditions I came to realize that regional styles were often driven by an individual or a family. When an individual would develop a certain style the upper classes liked, they would go to them to learn that style for example the MacCrimmons of Scotland. In the rural areas usually a family would hand down a musical tradition by teaching their children and neighbors like the Keenans of Ireland. In Brittany, France they tried to preserve these regional styles by not allowing the regions to intermingle but the lines are breaking down now and falling to popular tastes. And I guess I'm saying that I see the same forces working on Sackpipa. Individuals have developed styles and others go to them to learn those styles and I know our family is developing our own style informed by North Sea traditions and our interest in playing with our daughter's Hardingfele and music from the region the family came from. So depending on how you want to see it you could say this tradition is developing in the same traditional way it may have originally developed and in the way other traditions developed.

So, maybe tradition is as tradition does.


Very well written, Baglady. Tradition develop as languages does. If you "cut" a region of from its "roots", it usually stop develop (or at least not as fast). Here Icelandig is very old compared to swedish which has developed a lot. Or compare British english with American english (older).

Now, in regions the language develops into dialects, and there are no reason to think that music are any different to human languages.

Tradition is something that two or more people develop when they continue do it in the same way. And as humans do, they incorperate new things and forget about others in their traditions.

So basicly most nationalist are wrong and right at same time. They look at their national speciallities as something unique, which it is. But they tend to want to stop time and not accepting new things into "their" traditions, which they of course can't stop. No one can, unless they forces other to not accept new things.

This is complicated... Smile
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noordung



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PostPosted: Tue Feb 07, 2012 11:06 am    Post subject: Re: Get your copy now... Reply with quote

jerry revelle wrote:
Thanks, Jan. Now we all know where and how to obtain a copy.


I've just received the book! Nice book! There's a lot of pictures in it and an English summary at the end. The pictures are nice, but... well... now I guess I'll learn Swedish sooner or later...
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 4:30 pm    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

Anders Jackson wrote:
Very well written, Baglady. Tradition develop as languages does. If you "cut" a region of from its "roots", it usually stop develop (or at least not as fast). Here Icelandig is very old compared to swedish which has developed a lot. Or compare British english with American english (older).

Now, in regions the language develops into dialects, and there are no reason to think that music are any different to human languages.


This is a very good comparison Anders! In linguistic circles, this tendency towards conservatism among removed groups is called "the conservatism of the fringe". It is also most notable among emigrant groups, which is why Icelandic and American English are technically older variants (accounting for a small amount of independent development after the separation) of the Continental Scandinavian languages and English, respectively.

Music and language are much more similar than most people realize, both in the way they work and how they evolve over time. Even if outside influence is kept to an extreme minimum, as is the case with Icelandic (though, in truth, external influence on Icelandic has been kept to an "artificial" minimum, but that's another conversation, and off-topic) change will still occur - A Viking would be very confused by an Icelander's pronunciation of æ, au, á, ú, but the underlying phonological system would still be mostly recognizable, so after listening to a modern Icelander for a little while, the viking would realize that the similarities outweigh the differences, and with only a small amount of difficulty, be able to understand an Icelander. It's the same with music - once your ear finds the melody through the ornamentation, you realize it's the same tune that you are used to, only played a little differently.

Like Olle has frequently pointed out, Swedish piping is a revived tradition, which to me, is one of its biggest strengths. Traditions tend to grow more...esoteric over time as the reasons for their idiosyncrasies become obscured - and language is again a good example to look to in this instance: Anders, how do you like English spelling? Makes no sense at all right? That's because we never bothered to update our spelling to match our pronunciation. Most languages in Europe have done this several times during the modern era. Imagine if people started speaking English again after a lapse of a century - no grammar books, and no living speakers to listen to, they would naturally start pronouncing words the way they're spelled, without worrying about silent e's, five ways to pronounce the letter a, etc., and I think Swedish piping benefits from this in a similar way. You loose a little, but you gain a little too. Learning to play the Säckpipa is much simpler in many ways than learning the Highland pipes because the focus is on playing first and foremost, not on playing "correctly".
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Baglady



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PostPosted: Fri Feb 17, 2012 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That reminds me of a story told in my husband's family of a trip a group of young North Dakota Norwegian Americans were going to take back to the 'homeland'. They went to their grandparents to learn Norwegian so they could communicate when they arrived. When they got there they could communicate their wants and needs quite well but they were asked"Why do you talk like old women?" It seems a couple of generations had passed since their grandparents had emigrated and the language had evolved a bit.
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Aaron K. Holt
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 1:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It doesn't take very long for that kind of thing to happen either. Think about how people talked when you were a kid compared to now, or watch a movie from the 30s and compare their vernacular to your own.

I wonder if the rate of change is similar with music. It would be hilarious to hear someone ask "why do you play the bagpipe like an old woman?"
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Anders Jackson
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:17 pm    Post subject: Re: Tradition continuity Reply with quote

[quote="Aaron K. Holt"]
Anders Jackson wrote:
Anders, how do you like English spelling? Makes no sense at all right?

I guess my signature gives me away on this, doesn't it? Smile Smile Smile
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 24, 2012 12:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe the only thing that keeps anything the same is not using it.

Reviving a tradition is a tricky thing. A lot of it is intuition in my opinion. You build upon what you know from other traditions and your own experiences to a degree but you have to be careful not be too much of a revisionist or impose too much from the other traditions. In the case of instruments you have to let them tell you what they want to do along with listening a lot to related traditions. Listening a lot...and then some more.

Also you need to remember that this instrument in particular came from your average kind of guy, shepherds mostly, and they just wanted to have fun. I find that charming.
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