Klarinet Archive - Posting 000341.txt from 2005/07

From: ormo2ndtoby@-----.net (Ormondtoby Montoya)
Subj: Re: [kl] Re: New to the list...question on duet literature
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2005 16:05:59 -0400

When I wrote:

> [There are] no reed instruments [in traditional
> Irish music] =A0 Reed instruments weren't
> unknown --- witness bagpipes [...]

I should have typed "no _single_ reeds". Of course pipes (double reed)
are an important part of the traditional instrumentation.

After more thought, I wonder if one reason why single reeds didn't
become part of the traditional instrumentation is because the attack of
a single reed attack is not sufficiently 'percussive' (compared to what
whistle and flute attack can be) to be a lead instrument that fits with
step dancing? Pipes often stay more in the background. That is, a
single reed must accelerate from motionless before it achieves steady
state after the tongue is released.

I've heard that step dancing as seen today isn't how earlier eras
danced; but even without dancing, jigs and reels and so forth do tend to
a 'harder' and more percussive rhythms.

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