Liz Carroll - Blog

Transcript of Liz Carroll

Liz Carroll: Well, there’s a kind of music that’s called -- well, it’s Kerry music. It’s from County Kerry, and they play a lot of polkas there, and one move that they kind of do with their playing is this. Let’s say If I was going to play these four notes... Okay? So that’s a melody. If it was a polka, it might be going... , but they might put a little bit more of an emphasis into the second note by kind of dipping your bow onto the strings. In other words, you’re pressing harder, and you’re moving, so that you start to get a sound that goes like this. Does that make sense?

Jo Reed: Yes.

Liz Carroll: Because it’s Kerry music, funny enough these polkas, a lot of the bowing will go from the beat to the off-beat, like if you’re going to do two notes on a bow. And, funny enough, American music also kind of goes from the beat to the off-beat, so that you’re kind of going -- you’re tying these two notes together. but in regular reel playing, you wouldn’t really tie those first two and the third and fourth note together. Instead, you would’ve tied the second and the third note together, and then that sounds like this. So that’s a different animal, and funny enough, when I run into classical musicians, and lot of times if it’s like these things where an orchestra is going to back up an Irish player-- and this happens every once in a while, funnily enough, sometimes I’ll look back at the musicians, and I’ll say, “You know, there’s a little thing with the bowing.” And all the violinists will go, “Yeah! What’s -- wait a second. What’s going on?” And I’ll just tell them that, that it’s really going, “Dump-dah-DUMP-dah-DUMP-dah-DUMP-dah,” rather than, “Dah-DUMP-dah-DUMP-dah-DUMP-DAH-dum.” And once they switch that over, they go, “Whoa.” And if you switch that over, that’s really Irish music. So you don’t have to do those stresses, but I’ve really started really kind of pushing those stresses, so I think that’s part of my style, if you want to hear a little bit of that in a tune.

Jo Reed: And actually I would love to hear some of that in a tune right now.

Liz Carroll: Fantastic. Okay. Well, maybe I’ll play it a first part that I don’t do it, and then I’ll play a first part again, and then I will do it, and then you can see what you think of that.

Liz Carroll: And then, Jo, I can mix them up so then they can be, like, play off of each other. So would you like to hear the whole tune?

Jo Reed: Oh, yeah, please.

Liz Carroll: Okay.

Carroll plays violin>

Liz Carroll: It’s just a great old trad tune.