CITATION — REFERENCE ENTRY
Ornamentation in Irish Fiddling: Eileen Ivers as a Case Study — Journal of the Society for American Music
- Key
- slottow2007-ivers-ornamentation
- Authors
- Slottow, Stephen P.
- Issued
- 2007
- Type
- article-journal
- Container
- Journal of the Society for American Music
- Volume
- 1
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 485-510
Raw CSL JSON
{
"DOI": "10.1017/S1752196307070435",
"URL": "https://doi.org/10.1017/S1752196307070435",
"page": "485-510",
"type": "article-journal",
"issue": "4",
"title": "Ornamentation in Irish Fiddling: Eileen Ivers as a Case Study",
"author": [
{
"given": "Stephen P.",
"family": "Slottow"
}
],
"issued": {
"date-parts": [
[
2007
]
]
},
"volume": "1",
"container-title": "Journal of the Society for American Music"
}
Claims
-
Eileen Ivers described traditional variation in Irish fiddling as altering the notes of a bar or two, staying around the chord of the tune, and contrasted it with freer modern approaches.
"But traditionally, again, it’s just taking a little bar or two and just altering the notes a little, but again around, I think, the chord of the tune makes the best variations."
-
In Irish fiddling, ornamentation refers to stereotyped, named figures (such as rolls, cuts, crans and bow trills) that embellish or connect notes, while variation refers to freer melodic and rhythmic changes to the tune; Slottow treats ornamentation as a type of variation, notes that a tune is never played 'straight' except to beginners, and that most North American fiddling styles emphasize variation without a repertoire of named ornaments.
"Most North American fiddling styles emphasize variation to a greater or lesser degree, but many do not include a repertoire of named embellishment formulae."
-
As summarized by Slottow, Micháel Ó Súilleabháin proposed that Irish players improvise against a 'partially inaudible structural model' of a tune, while James Cowdery described a 'tune model' as a generating pattern in the mind of the individual and group.
"Micheal O’Suilleabhain postulates a “partially inaudible structural model” characterized by formal structure, phrase pattern, rhythm, contour, and “set accented” pitches “against which the player improvises.”"
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