One of the great Christmas carols --- perhaps the most beloved of all --- is ‘Silent Night’, which was written by Franz Gruber in 1818 using a guitar when the church organ wasn’t working.
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Timothy's Blog
Timothy's blog on dulcimers, music, nature and life!
NOV
14
Sometimes, especially in folk music and pop music, arrangers use a simple formula (‘KISS: Keep it simple, stupid,’ as they say) to present a melody or a verse-chorus pattern, and they make sure that they don’t demand anything significant of the listener.
Well, as a lifelong aficionado of Classical music, which in its best form does demand that the melody and chord structure develop in a complex way over the course of the piece, I crave creativity and depth in arrangements. (May I say here that much folk and pop music does indeed involve creative arrangement, but some of their arrangements certainly don’t!)
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In 1996 I set about recording the classic folk tune ‘Shenandoah’ in a special, new, expressive way with something of a sense of the epic in its flow. So I chose to devise a pattern in which each verse would be in a different key and each new key would be either a major or minor third away from the previous one --- a somewhat startling and unconventional kind of key change!
On top of that, I wanted to jump to each new key immediately at the end of each verse without playing the verse’s last note --- at least till the very end of the whole piece.
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Some Appalachian folk hymns have a powerful, stark, droning nature; perhaps the most well-known and effective of these is ‘Wondrous Love’, and it’s included in many modern hymnals with hollow harmonies reminiscent of the old shape-note books.
How does one arrange for this strong Dorian-mode melody when playing it solo on the hammered dulcimer? I’ve always loved the shifting minor and major chords in some versions of it (see one possible set of modern chording in the lead sheet I’ve included here: Wondrous-Love-in-Edor-F.pdf), and it certainly is compelling when played as a melody only, solo a capella --- but I’ve opted to do only the stark, harmonized sound when I play it solo, and usually I play only one verse, letting the hymn be an introduction to another, contrasting, piece in a medley.
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Are you a musician who is tied to the page? Do you need to have notes printed in front of you in order to play? Or do you have to depend on a carefully rehearsed repertoire? Do you require a chord chart so you know the right harmonic structure? Or are distinct melodies your only option when you play?
Here's an example of how totally 'out of the blue' playing can be beneficial:
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