[Dixielandjazz] Lots of Flats and Sharps

[Don Ingle]

Ken Mathieson wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Interesting observations from the brass-playing fraternity. At least somebody had the good sense to invent an A-clarinet to make life easier for clarinettists in the sharp keys. I had a good pal (sadly long gone now) who was a fine clarinettist playing on the Glasgow jazz scene. At one stage he played in a trad band whose leader was renowned as a champion gig-hustler, but was a bit challenged in the musical department. If a particular tune went well, he'd call something similar, often with the same sequence or in the same key (or both), so my pal used to take his A-clarinet to gigs and use it to stave of boredom (and retain his sanity). As a result he became a dab hand in sharp keys. However he took his hat off to a trumpet player who played in Bobby Crowe's Olympians Scottish Country Damce Band.
>
> For those of you unfamiliar with Scottish Country Dance Bands, the usual instrumentation is fiddle, 2 accordeons, piano, bass and drums, with the lead shared by fiddle and accordeon. The repertoire is jigs, reels, marches, strathspeys etc and predominantly derived from traditional fiddle tunes. As a result, pretty well everything is pitched in sharp keys and, being fiddle tunes, there's no need for breathing spaces. This trumpeter used to play the lead part lead chorus about with the fiddle/accordeon, which meant he'd play 16 bars without a breath at fast tempos in keys like D, E and A, with amost everything written in eighth-notes. It just shows what a bit of practice can do!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Ken Mathieson
> www.classicjazzorchestra.org.uk
> _______________________________________________
> To unsubscribe or change your e-mail preferences for the Dixieland Jazz Mailing list, or to find the online archives, please visit:
>
> http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/dixielandjazz
>
>
>
> Dixielandjazz mailing list
> Dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com
>
>
>   
Could have been worse -- giging with a bagpipe band.  The uiltimate 
would be a  mouth music set, Hebrides style. A little usque baugh and 
who gives a damn!
As my father said, "Theonly way to get two bagpipers to get in tune is 
to sho one of them."(He said it also applied to some alto sax players 
he'd known.)
I don't lnow what he was thinking,though. He brought me a set of 
Sinclair pipes back from his tour of Britain in the 50's. He did not 
like the guy next door and said it was his way of being "subtle" about 
it. By the way, I still have them and have been thinking of taking them 
up again. In my growingly curmudgeon age, I can think of many people to 
pratice close to.
Slainte,
Don
PS - The CD's have been a joy. Thanks again. Your Mr. Hunter is one fine 
player.