Dog-slobber

[jere7my]

I am covered, not unpleasantly, in dog slobber. I cut through the park behind my building on the way to work, and a small white bulldog named Rae, compact and ovoid as all bulldogs are, tore across the winter grass to greet me. It seems I was the best thing to happen to Rae all afternoon, because she put her paws on my thighs, mock-bit at my fingers, drooled a lot, and basically quivered herself onto a higher plane of delight. It was difficult to focus on her, and harder still to pet her, she bounced around so quickly.

News for Scottish dancers: on last night's Home Movies, Coach McGuirk revealed himself to be a former Highland Dance star. They managed not to ridicule him too much, and by the end of the episode he demonstrated some creditable cartoon high cuts. The initial conversation went something like this:

Brendan: Oh, Scottish Highland--is that like step dancing?
Coach: No! Brendan. Nothing like that crap. It's not Irish, it's Scottish.
B: But aren't you Irish?
C: Yeah, but I'm not gay. It's different. All right? It's like a sport. People die.

Also, they poked fun at Amelie! Heh heh. Two presents for me.

I think, today, I finally got a handle on Proper Rhythm Guitar Method for Scottish Jigs. This is probably boring enough to go behind a cut. Jigs are in 6/8 time, and the basic rhythm instrument thing to do during a jig is "boom-CHUCK, boom-CHUCK", with the "boom" on 1 and 4 and the "CHUCK" on 3 and 6. (We do nothing on 2 and 5 because the melody instrument plays with the positioning of those notes, moving them forward or backward, but 1/3 and 4/6 are rhythmically solid.) For the guitar, this translates to bass-CHORD, bass-CHORD, usually with the bass notes alternating between the root of the chord and the fifth. Previously, I'd been doing both the boom and the chuck on successive downstrokes, and nothing on the upstrokes, which made for a powerful sound but meant I was moving my hand twice as quickly as I should and wasting half my motion.

Then Elke (Baker) and Liz (Donaldson) told me in February that Larry Unger, one of the few great Scottish Country Dancing guitarists (and a nice guy in general), plays the boom on the downstroke and the chuck on the upstroke. This was useful information, but difficult to incorporate; it meant I had to pluck a bass note with my pick and then get it out of the way for the rest of the downward motion, then strike the higher strings first for the chord as I came back up, which didn't give the bottom-heavy sound I'm used to. I think, today, I finally mastered the complicated pick motion that I have to make with my right hand, sort of an elongated figure-8 while I adjust the angle of attack forward and back, to make it sound like a jig. I was able to achieve that slight swing that tells my feet, "Hey, this is a dance," rather than a straight, heavy boom-CHUCK thudding.

Comments

Rhythm

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

nifty! that's basically how I play jigs on the bodhran, except I don't have to worry about where I'm hitting it so much. :-) but it's still down on 1 and 4, up on 3 and 6. I do occasionally stick in a beat on 2 and/or 5 (by doubling the downstroke, i.e. hitting it with the other end of the beater), either to accentuate or contrast with the melody, depending. that's probably harder or more complicated on a guitar, though.

Re: Rhythm

[jere7my.livejournal.com]

I do occasionally stick in a beat on 2 and/or 5 (by doubling the downstroke, i.e. hitting it with the other end of the beater), either to accentuate or contrast with the melody, depending. that's probably harder or more complicated on a guitar, though.

Not necessarily harder -- I can add a shink-a-shink into a measure with no problem -- but Elke tends to scold me when I do that. Since the melody player is moving that middle beat around, she tells me I should only do it when I've been playing with someone for a long time and really know how they handle that beat. I do it once in a while, but it's not a regular thing. I occasionally do a syncopated kinda thang on the closing bars, too.