Harmonies and rhythms

This week we learnt a harmony to Jock Broon’s 70th. (The written music for it is on the music page). We spent some time working on getting the rhythm to the A part harmony swinging along. We were emphasising the first 2  and the 4th semiquavers, in each group of 4, and making the third semiquaver so light that it became almost inaudible. It’s helpful to still play the 3rd semiquaver, though. That way if you want to change the emphasis to change the rhythm at any point, you don’t need to alter the bowing pattern.

We also looked at a way of varying the rhythm in the A part of the tune (moving away from pushing the rhythm into 3s). And we played around a bit with the C part harmony, leaving a spaces in the tune. When played alongside the tune, some of the tune pushes fall in the spaces in the harmony, which creates an interesting effect.

We had a go at playing the tune and harmony together. After this we played through Huntingtone Castle a few times. Once we’d played through it once, we tried playing standing up, while not looking at our hands, and focusing on hearing the tune for ourselves. The difference in the quality of the sound we made was huge – it sounded much more confident, and we made a lovely big sound together! Then we did the same thing again, but this time also imagined someone was waltzing around the room, and we were playing for them. This had another big impact on the sound.

We’re aiming to keep the Tuesday session at the Diggers going over the summer. i’ll be updating the session page soon!