Alburger, Mary Anne

Russell, Ian

English

Aberdeen University Research

Copyright © 2008 the Elphinstone Institute and the contributorsWhile copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in the Elphinstone Institute, copyright in individual contributions remains with the contributors. The moral rights of the contributors to be identiﬁed as the authors of their work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.ISBN 0-9545682-5-7First published in 2008 by The Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, MacRobert Building, King’s College, Aberdeen, AB24 5UADriving the BowFiddle and Dance Studies from around the North Atlantic 2Edited by Ian Russell and Mary Anne AlburgerAbout the authors:Connecting CulturesIan Russell and Mary Anne AlburgerMary Anne Alburger, Co-Convenor of NAFCo 2001 and 2006, is an Honorary Fellow of the Elphinstone Institute. A professional violinist, violist, and ceilidh band ﬁddler, she has written several books about the violin, including Scottish Fiddlers and Their Music (Edinburgh: Hardie Press, 1996, and Violin Making in Scotland 1750–1950 (Oxford: British Violin Making Assn, 2006), which she co-edited with David Rattray, Instrument Custodian of the Royal Academy of Music, London.Ian Russell is the Director of the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, which specialises in Folklore and Ethnology (see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/elphinstone). His current research is focused on the traditional culture of North-East Scotland, including sacred and secular singing, instrumental music, recitation, and cra  traditions. He has also conducted extensive ﬁeldwork into singing traditions in the English Pennines, especially Christmas carolling.Excerpted from:studying culture in context11Connecting culturesIAN RUSSELL and MARY ANNE ALBURGERThis volume represents what has become a fascinating journey, and one thatmay prove to have lasting qualities. In 2001 and 2006 the North Atlantic Fiddle Convention (NAFCo) was held in Aberdeen, Scotland. A third convention takes place this year in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with two further conventions planned for 2010 and 2012. The current volume, the second in the series, is the direct result of the 2006 convention, its theme being ‘Connecting Cultures’, the fundamental vision behind the conception of NAFCo. Of course, the cultures that were connected were not simply those of nationality, ethnicity, or community, but also those of academia and performance. How o�en at a scholarly gathering dedicated to folk, ethnic, or traditional music, have the participants burst out of their academic straitjackets, deserted their ivory towers, and shared with others, late into the night, the music that has encouraged them to pursue a lifetime of study? And how o�en at a folk or world music festival have participants debated into the small hours the merits and demerits of a particularly innovatory act in terms of authenticity and traditionality? This thinking helped to forge the idea behind NAFCo, thereby bringing together two sides of the same coin, those who practise ﬁddle music, and those who preach it. In every way this has proved to be a successful formula in terms of all aspects of cultural and intellectual exchange, not the least of which has been the emergence and recognition of the performer-scholars and the important contributions that they have made to our understanding of the subject’s complexities.The 2006 keynote speaker, Alan Jabbour, whose ﬁnely cra�ed lecture is presented here, exempliﬁes the stance of the performer-scholar He persuasively argues for a conception of North American ﬁddle music, using his case study of the Upper South, that places it in historical terms as ‘a cousin to’, rather than ‘a descendant of’, related ﬁddle traditions in the Old World. Exploring stylistic markers of form (tune contour) and style (syncopation), he discusses the cultural connections that he believes have been responsible. Cultural complexity is not an area that daunts our second performer-scholar, Gaila Kirdienė, whose thorough examination of two West Lithuanian traditions not only brings out stylistic connections with maritime traditions, including Scandinavian, but also shows the eastern European continental Driving the Bow: Fiddle and Dance Studies from around the North Atlantic 22inﬂuences that spread, for example, from Poland. Her study assesses the impact of ensembles and amateur groups, as well as more classical semi-professional string orchestras, in the development of the two traditions.From historical perspectives of ﬁddle cultures, our next three studies detail the contributions of three notable players, together with the social milieus of which they were a part. Katherine Campbell’s account of George Riddell (1853–1942), a shoemaker from a small North-East Sco�ish coastal town and a keen song and tune collector, shows how traditional music permeated formalised community groups (here Freemasonry), and moved between musical contexts, speciﬁcally the local ﬁfe band and its marching music. Undoubtedly less formal, but equally signiﬁcant in terms of fraternities, is the institution of morris dancing, in the context of the English South-West Midlands, where fruit grower Sam Benne� (1865–1951) played for the Ilmington Morris Men, as well as performing social dance music. Elaine Bradtke approaches her study through Benne�’s playing, with information given by folk music collectors (in notation and in ﬁeld recordings), and in comparison with two other contemporary morris dance musicians. Eoghan Neﬀ is able to draw more extensively on ﬁeld recordings for his study of the remarkable ﬁddler, John Doherty (1895–1986), who was a (Gypsy) Traveller, and an itinerant whitesmith, from Donegal in the north of Ireland. Neﬀ’s analysis of Doherty’s stylistic creativity in crossing the boundaries of melodic structure causes him to question the rigidity of current Irish musicians’ interpretations of the received aesthetic conventions. The questioning of revivalist, post-revivalist, and re-constructionists’ representations of the musical traditions they endeavour to promote is a theme taken up by Karin Eriksson in a Swedish context. Her subject is the neglect shown to the dance/musical form known as engelska (‘English’), generally thought to relate to the English country dance of the seventeenth century, with eighteenth-century French inﬂuences, danced to music that connects to the Sco�ish and English reel. Mats Nilsson also takes up the theme of engelska in contemporary Swedish folk dance, which he situates alongside the whirling polska, and the nineteenth century couple dances, the polka and the waltz. His conclusions point towards the inappropriateness of national or political boundaries in categorising folk dance. Catherine A. Shoupe’s exploration of Sco�ish dance music examines in depth a concern voiced elsewhere in this volume, the dichotomy between dance music played for dancing and dance music played for listening, in terms of choreometrics, dynamics, and ﬁtness for the purpose, and considers how this divide is being bridged. Faced with a similar dilemma, performer-scholar Ma� Cranitch turns his a�ention to contemporary Irish folk music, where he detects a diminution of rhythmic distinctiveness, resulting from young ﬁddlers (and their teachers) never having had the experience of playing for dancing. In a detailed discussion he identiﬁes an insatiable appetite for new repertoire, and inadequate articulation with the bow, to be the root of the problem. Pat Ballantyne similarly reﬂects on a dichotomy, between old-style and new-style Cape Breton step dancing. She identiﬁes innovations in the dance in response to changing aesthetics, both in terms of ﬁddle RUSSELL and ALBURGER Connecting cultures 3playing and audience expectations, that exist alongside a fundamental respect for the more rooted ‘close to the ﬂoor’ style.The strong identiﬁcation with the ‘old’ and mixed feelings for the ‘new’ in ﬁddle traditions is a theme taken up by George Ruckert in his sensitive step into the world of the remarkable septuagenarian Cape Breton ﬁddler and tune writer John Campbell. The reader is given an insight into the profound changes that have taken place in Cape Breton ﬁddle music, particularly through the introduction of ampliﬁcation and the development of complex piano accompaniments.  Of one thing John is certain, however, that, when it comes to the dance, ‘You’ve got to drive ’er’, hence the title for this collection. This aﬀectionate portrait is followed by a younger man’s perspective on the thorny question of authenticity in Cape Breton ﬁddle style. Gregory J. Dorchak argues that a dynamic notion of authenticity that responds to the performer and audience community’s evolving aesthetics is preferable to one that restricts evolution through the imposition of rigid standards.It is appropriate that the volume concludes with two studies of contemporary ﬁddling from contrasting Canadian environments. The ﬁrst, by Sherry Johnson, explores the competitive scene in Ontario, both as an insider, as a former competitor, and judge, and as outsider researcher, assessing how creativity and individuality is manifested in tags, intros, ornamentation, bowing, and melodic variation. Elisa Sereno-Janz’s article, set in Calgary, portrays a constructed world of ﬁddle playing that is neither competitive nor judgemental, where players from diﬀerent backgrounds, of varying abilities, and across the generations, perform together, in an informal string orchestra, playing arrangements of folk music alongside baroque favourites by Bach, Corelli, and Telemann. Such experiments in ensemble playing are clearly designed to break down real and imagined musical and social barriers.All of our contributors demonstrate the great value of informed debate that connects performers and scholars across national, regional, and local cultures. Questions of cultural politics and authenticity have been discussed, alongside those of aesthetics in both ﬁddle music and dance. The individual performer’s creativity has been recognised and analysed, and the contesting forces of continuity and change debated in the arena of musical tradition. If rhythm is acknowledged as the deﬁning feature of diﬀerent ﬁddle styles around the North Atlantic, then it is appropriate that the signiﬁcance of the bow is brought into focus, for, as Ma� Cranitch observes, bowing is not merely about sounding the notes correctly, rather it articulates with sensitivity and power the essential function and meaning of the music.We would like to thank the authors for their contributions; participants in the 2006 North Atlantic Fiddle Convention for providing a forum for the ideas developed in the book; Thomas A. McKean for the  typese�ing and cover artwork; the peer reviewers for their thoughtful comments; Frances Wilkins for help with the bibliography; and the Elphinstone Institute and the University of Aberdeen for giving the volume an imprint.

Connecting Cultures

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Connecting Cultures

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