minstrel: Re: minstrel-digest V1 #544

[Corrie Bergeron]

>> prefer the sweeter tones of harps, dulcimers, psaltery etc.  They, however,
>> are much harder to wander around with than a lute, which is at least
>> designed to be a travelling instrument.

Lutes are totable, but I don't know if they could be considered a travelling
instrument.  Lots of bits of wood held together with hide glue, strung and
freted with with gut - moving from campfire to campfire on a cool damp
night, the humidity and temperature changes will trash the tuning if not the
instrument.  One lutenist I met NEVER took his instrument to outdoor events
for that reason - didn't want to damage it.   My travelling instrument is an
Ovation guitar.  Composite back, steel strings - hardly affected by the
weather at all.

>Another advantage of drums is that I don't think you can play out of
>"tune" with singers on a drum.  This is only a problem for folks like me
>who don't generally accompany singing, but... there's nothing like two of
>you knowing the same tune in different keys, and shifting to a mutually
>acceptable key is a learned skill.  I think.  (Mainly because I never
>learned it!).

Here's the secret: I call it "three chords and a cloud of dust."  Most folk
songs are built around two or three chords.  The tonic or I chord is the key
the song is in.  It identifies the scale from which most of the melody notes
are taken.  The other chord (in a two-chord song) is the dominant, or V
chord.  Count up the scale five letters from the tonic, so A b c d E,  B c d
e F,  C d e f G,  D e f g A,  E f g a B, etc.  The V chord is usually played
with a flatted seventh (V7).  So the chord pairs are A - E7,  C - G7,  E -
B7, etc.

A three chord song adds the IV chord:  A - D - E7,  C - F - G7,  E - A - B7,
and so on.  

If the song modulates to a minor chord, it's almost always the III chord
(the relative minor):  A - Cm - D - E7,  C - Em - F - G7,  E - Gm - A - B7,
etc.    The relative minor is the minor scale with the same key signature
(same notes sharped and flatted) as a given major scale.  So the key of C
major (no sharps or flats) has A minor as its relative minor.  A major has E
minor as its relative.  F-sharp diminished seventh has... let's not go there.

Note that this system does not work for modal melodies, only those in major
or minor keys.  For much of period, the third and seventh intervals were
considered dissonant.  So major and minor triads are not appropriate for
early-music accompaniment.  Up until the development of polyphony beyond
organum, the only harmonious intervals were unison, fourths, fifths, and
octaves.  They sound strange to modern ears, but that's what gives early
music its haunting, other-worldy character.  

Brendan O Corraidhe
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Corrie Bergeron			 	corrie at tro.com				
Senior PLATO Courseware Designer, TRO Learning	www.tro.com 
President, Intra-Active Designs			www.itasca.net/~corrie/iad.htm
All-around neat guy		corrie at itasca.net	www.itasca.net/~corrie 

"Short term memory don't mean a thing when you've lost your mind" - Ellis
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