The glasses clink and the talk and laughter grow louder. In the corner of the pub, musicians sit and play traditional dance tunes that make your feet want to stomp and slide. Join fiddler Meg Wobus Beller as she brings you along into the world of fiddling and traditional music, from bow-grips and double stops to Old-Time tunes and Irish jigs.
Trying a Tune in Different Keys (Maid of Mt. Kisco)
•Meg Wobus Beller•Season 1•Episode 88
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00:00 | 11:49
We talk about the personalities of the different major and minor keys. What makes C sound so different from A on the fiddle? Why do players try out a tune in different keys, and how do the keys lay out on the instrument?
Our tune is the Irish E minor reel Maid of Mt. Kisco. Love this one!
Welcome to the Fiddle Studio Podcast featuring tunes and stories from the world of traditional music and fiddling. I'm Meg Wobus Beller and today I'll be bringing you a setting of the tune Maid Mount Kisco from a session at the Art House Bar in Baltimore, Maryland. Hello everyone, I hope you are well. I'm happy to be back here with you for May podcasts. May is kind of a busy month when you have a family, we have some May birthdays, we have some May events, including an intersection of those two things. On May 30th in Baltimore, which is a Thursday night, Charley I are going to be celebrating our album, which is called Broke the Floor, and Charlie's Charley's he's turning 40. I wonder if I'm supposed to say that on the podcast and we'll be having a contra dance here in Baltimore. So yeah, look for that on Facebook our album release party on May 30th. If you happen to have connections in the world of Suzuki, I will be down in July teaching fiddle and improv at the Greater Washington Suzuki Institute. So yeah, if your kids play Suzuki violin, sign them up. Be sure to register for the fiddle elective. My other announcement's a little more personal. We are getting a dog coming tomorrow, so I'm recording today and I'll find out how my work schedule is going to interact with having a young dog, a dog who needs a lot of help and supervision. Very exciting, supervision, very exciting. I'm not really sure how the dog's going to react to all the fiddling around here. I'll let you know. I heard that some dogs howl when they hear you practice.
Speaker 2:
Today we're going to be talking about playing in different keys. Last week Rachel mentioned this, that they'll play a tune for a long time and then try it in some different keys. That they'll play a tune for a long time and then try it in some different keys. I've talked about playing tunes in different keys as a method of developing your left hand, sort of as a teaching tool. I do it a lot in a class with a bunch of fiddlers, whether they're adults or kids. If everyone knows a really easy tune, we'll pick some different keys and play it in those keys, see how we like it. But I don't think Rachel was talking about doing it as an exercise. I think Rachel was actually honestly interested to hear how a tune sounds in a different key on the fiddle.
Speaker 2:
Now, on the piano, all of the notes have the same sound or you have control over it. How hard you press on the key is what's affecting the sound. But on the fiddle, open notes and then whatever finger you're playing kind of how short the string is does have an effect on the sound. The same note played in 10th position on the D string or in 5th position on the D string or in fifth position on the A string or in first position on the E string, it's going to have a really different sound, almost like it's being played on a different instrument. So that's a dramatic example. But when you play fiddle tunes in different keys you get to hear a different combination of open strings and notes that are fingered. That can really have an effect on the personality of the tune. Different keys have different personalities.
Speaker 2:
Now people will talk about this for all instruments there's a key that's the saddest of all keys, right? Maybe that's from a movie, maybe it's E minor, maybe it's D minor, maybe it's not the saddest if we're not sure which one it is. But on the violin the keys definitely have personalities. A is a bright key because three of the open strings are in the key of A, the D, the A and the E, and it's even brighter if you cross-tune. So if you're talking about an old-time tune and you've tuned your G up to an A. Now it's very, very bright, kind of shiny sounding. I like to often end a set with a tune in the key of A and, I would say, similar to A. The key of D also has a pretty bright sound. You know, going up onto the E string you've got the third note of the scale, the F sharp or the A. If it sits up there it's going to be very bright. But even if the tune sits a lot on the A string, there's a lot of drones available. There's going to be a lot of open E string as you go up, you know the scale.
Speaker 2:
The key of G has a different personality. It's not that kind of bright outgoing sound. If you're playing in the key of G on the fiddle, the main G in the middle of the fiddle is not an open string. So even though the D and the A and the E are all open strings and are notes in the key of G, it's going to be centered around a note that's not as bright. The three on the D string and I would say that C is pretty similar to that, centered around the three on G. So again, not an open string, or even if it's going to be up higher. You've got your low twos, a and E, playing around there in the key of C. If you get into some really funky keys like B flat or E flat, then you're going to have very few open strings and the whole sound is going to be very smooth. There won't be as many notes that stick out, because that's kind of what the open strings do they're very bright and they stick out. So moving around the key can bring you higher, can bring the whole tune higher in the register or lower in the register. It can also make it easier to play with others.
Speaker 2:
You know there's tunes that maybe are commonly played in an unusual key, but then they'll play it in D. You know I learned what was it? Fisher's Hornpipe In New England. They play it in F, but everyone else plays it in D because it's so much easier in D. It's got a great sound in F though, so you can play around with keys. It's very good for your brain, I mean. That's why I suggested it as a teaching tool, but you may find that you like a tune better in a different key. That'll come up in both genres of music that I study here mostly on the podcast.
Speaker 2:
I'll be in an Irish jam and someone will play a tune in a different key and say, oh yeah, everyone will look a little confused for a minute and then at the end they'll say well, I usually play that in G and they'll say, well, I like it better in D. That happens at our session and even at the old time jam. You know, there's so many different versions of tunes so it's like well, we're going to play the fly around in D. Okay, now we're going to play the fly around in G, probably one in C too, and you can just make your own if you like it there Playing tunes in different keys. Our tune for today is the Maid of Mount Kisco.
Speaker 2:
It is attributed to Paddy Killoran, who was an Irish fiddle player born in 1903, played in a South Sligo style and made a lot of recordings in the 1920s and 30s. His father, patrick, was a flute player, his mother played the concertina, my husband plays the flute and I play the concertina, and I guess he emigrated to New York City in 1925, played a lot in New York at the Pride of Erin and the Sligo Ballroom. Those were like big dance halls that had Kaylee's Irish dancing, his group that he put together to play for dances. He usually called it the Pride of Erin Orchestra and he played through. He kept playing through even after the 30s, you know, through the war in the 1950s, and he did not stop playing there until 1962.
Speaker 2:
And at that point turned over the band to Joe Madden, the accordion player, the box player, Joe Madden, who's the father of Joannie Madden, amazing flute player, who was just here in Baltimore for our Tradfest. Mount Kisco is a town in Southern New York, so there's a little bit of a discussion on the session about whether Paddy Killoran wrote this tune or just knew it from Ireland and played it. There was maybe a rumor this might have been from Billy McComesky that he was just playing in Mount Kisco and, you know, somebody was flirting with someone and said, oh well, this, this tune this tune is called the Maid of Mount Kisco.
Speaker 1:
I don't know. Maybe that was James Morrison and his wife, but most people attribute it to Patty. We're going to play it for you now. Here we go. Thank you ¶¶.
