What? No Naturals?

[benwalker]

Listening to the Piping of Patsy Touhey and can't help but notice that he negates all C naturals where you would expect them such as in Scotch Mary
I was wondering if this was by choice or necessity? Any opinions?
It makes those G tunes all Lydian

[Mr.Gumby]

Not necessity, the Touhey chanter is perfectly capable of c naturals.

[dunnp]

I love the settings in the book and play them all the time on flute as well.

You'll notice the odd c natural in the book and in his playing, so as Gumby relates it was an aesthetic choice.

Great settings for one row melodeon players as well.

When playing for myself through these settings I then play a nice slidey c now and again.
Like a rose among the heather.

[tommykleen]

It seems not uncommon to hear C#s in the tunes of that era from contemporaneous musicians (especially pipers). As well, you hear more F#s in places where they are more commonly played natural today. Someone suggested to me the the flattening of the Fs was a fiddler gimmick that was easily popularized in the post wax-cylinder era.

I persist in playing F#s in tunes such as The Flogging Reel, as well as The Cuckoos Hornpipe. And even when I lead those tunes in sessions, and it's obvious that I'm playing sharps there, people cling to their naturals. Ouch.

Sisyphustically yours,

[Mr.Gumby]

I persist in playing F#s in tunes such as The Flogging Reel, as well as The Cuckoos Hornpipe.

I tend to think it's the fixed pitch instruments, accordions, concertinas and fretted instruments, that have brought this about. They are forced to make choices where older fiddlers, pipers or whistlers may have chosen the 'in between' notes, the 'neutrals'. I cringe hearing the Flogging reel with the f nats forced onto the third part. Yuk. The Ewe is another one that can, and will, swing both ways. There I prefer Ennis over Clancy's take.

[Cathy Wilde]

I've had a wonder about "naturalizing" from time to time. When I first started playing this music, those "wild" notes sounded so wrong to my ear; I think my classically-trained brain just refused to hear the other possibilities. Now I think "sunlight and shade" is just swell. The Broken Pledge is a fun one to compare with F sharps (and the occasional C sharp) vs. naturals.

We regularly tussle over the Ewe. I learned it from a concertina player who played it with the F sharps, and I love it that way, especially the B part. My session mates prefer the F naturals, and I can't argue with aural logic. Still, I think the F sharps make the tune so much more interesting. So it's F naturals with the gang, but F sharps at home.

Which leads me to ponder if some of those "naturalizations" are the results of knee-jerk responses from ears like mine used to be. Meanwhile, someone else who'd been playing it the other way said "Wow! That's so different! Rock and roll, dudes ... Let's flatten those notes!"

[tompipes]

I cringe hearing the Flogging reel with the f nats forced onto the third part. Yuk.

It might be how the tune was composed although it's hard to know.

I do believe that the F in the 2nd part of Chief O'Neills Hornpipe is a mistake. It's in the book as F# so who knows who started the F natural business. B McKenna?

[Hans-Joerg]

Play the Blues, brother!

[donpiper]

I like the tight AcA triplet then f# played with a quick lift of the chanter in the 3rd part of The Flogging.
Makes a kind of whack - yelp sound that fits with the name of the tune, if played right.
A similar thing can be done with the 3(Bcd gd in the preceding and following phrases.

That being said, by about the third time around I'm looking for something a bit different so maybe the odd fnat
might provide that. In a large session it might be a better option to change tune.

Chief O'Neill's Favourite I like with long Fnats in the second part at least to begin with,
then maybe a tight F#GA triplet or something else as a variation.

I think the C# - Cnat tension provides a lot of emotional pull in traditional tunes.
Same for the Fs.

Cheers