My contribution to the symposium "Binary Harmony in Traditional Music and Beyond" takes place on Wed 26th of November at the Fanny Hensel Hall of MDW, Vienna.
Attendance to this and all other symposium lectures is free of charge.
https://www.mdw.ac.at/ive/symposium-binary-harmony-in-traditional-music-and-beyond/
The abstract:
"The repertoire for the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle boasts a remarkable variety of approximately 29 different fiddle tunings, each producing a unique sound world that is infused into the folk tunes played in that particular setting.
For instance, the trollstille (“fairy tuning”, a-e'-a'-c#'') owes its name to the recurring augmented fourth (d#), commonly associated with enchanted, dream-like atmospheres: a simple movement of the first finger on the upper strings easily produces an alternation of parallel major thirds (a'/c#''↔︎b'/d#''), implying the juxtaposition of two major chords (A Major↔︎B Major), therefore encouraging tritone-flavoured passages.
Melodies in this and similar tunings often oscillate between a primary modal root and its secondary counterpart, generally the second degree of the mode: the longer the phrase lingers on the latter before returning to the former, the more it creates a feeling of ambiguity, displacement and therefore tension, caused by the coexistence of two close but distinct modal roots (such as the above-mentioned A and B).
The proposed lecture analyses four examples of Norwegian folk tunes that display various degrees of modal fluctuation, with recorded audio examples and transcription excerpts. It also depicts their aesthetic value as perceived by Norwegian fiddlers, and ultimately offers a glimpse of the use of binary modal root oscillation in a contemporary composition by Krishna Nagaraja, namely the string quartet “Stringar” inspired by Norwegian folk music."
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