It is true that the roots of Cape Breton music can be found in Scottish music. However, the Cape Breton fiddle tradition did not evolve into what it is today without help from other music traditions, most notably, the Irish.
While the dominant ethnic group in Cape Breton was Scottish, a significant amount of Irish immigrated from both Ireland and Newfoundland and settled on the Island. Of course, these immigrants included musicians and musical exchanges most certainly occurred. Among the their Scottish Collections of tunes, it was also common for fiddlers to own well known Irish collections such as the Ryan’s Mammoth and the Kerr’s. Because fiddlers need a large repertoire of jigs to play for dances, and the Scottish tradition offers few, a large part of the jig repertoire is Irish. Although the Cape Breton repertoire is made up of a significant amount of Irish tunes, Cape Breton fiddlers for the most part, have not adopted the Irish style of playing.
The ‘Northside’ area of Cape Breton, where I am from, is an exception to this. The Northside includes the communities of Sydney Mines, North Sydney, Bras d’Or, Point Aconi, Florence and Georges River. Because of the coal mines, the steel plant and ship yards, this area was ethnically diverse with a large number of the immigrants being the Newfoundland Irish. Fiddlers from this area were known to have adopted Irish style characteristics but yet still be fluent in the Cape Breton Scottish tradition. They played a rich repertoire of both Irish and Scottish tunes. One of the most well known fiddlers from the area was Johnny Wilmot. Johnny was influenced by both local irish players which included his grand uncle, Henry Fortune and Irish recordings by Michael Coleman and James Morrison.
The Northside Irish tradition continues today with musicians like Brenda Stubbert. Brenda’s father, Robert, was also a well known Irish style player who was influenced by Johnny Wilmot among other Irish style players from the area. While Brenda has a large Irish repertoire, she plays mainly in the Cape Breton style. Robert Stubbert’s influence is also seen in the music of the Barra MacNeils, a band from my home town of Sydney Mines. Robert made frequent visits to their home and their repertoire reflects that. The Barras also use Irish instrumentation in their band, such as the Irish flute, uillean pipes and the Bodhran, creating a unique sound within Cape Breton music.
The Northside is where you will find one of few ‘sessions’ on the Island. This is similar to what you would see at any Irish session, and is probably a legacy of the Irish influence in this area. Every Thursday evening, at Rollies Wharf in North Sydney musicians from all over the island gather to play tunes. The repertoire is a mix of Scottish and Irish and anything that anyone wants to share.
For more information on this topic, check out The Irish in Cape Breton by A.A. MacKenzie, Breton Books, 1999
Until I started to understand other styles of music like jazz and bluegrass, I had never thought about the concept of improvisation in Cape Breton music. The thought of varying a tune had never occurred to me.
It is not typical for Cape Breton fiddlers to melodically improvise on tune melodies, at least not to the degree of Irish music. Tunes are usually played through twice and then we move on to the next tune. Some micro variations to tunes exist- usually one or a few bars of a tune- but rarely do fiddlers make up variations on the spot. These variations are somewhat standardized and known ahead of time. Sometimes variations can be traced back to a certain player. A fiddler may choose to play these small variations spontaneously or he could have planned to play these variations ahead of time. Rhythmically, small variations in certain phrases may occur as well as small changes in the choice of grace notes. Speaking for myself, I may make spontaneous unconscious decisions like these in reaction to something the piano player does or to something that is happening on dance floor.
Cape Breton fiddlers are known to be concerned with playing tunes ‘correctly’ in terms of the melody. This is an interesting concept. The older generations of fiddlers did not like the idea of altering tunes too much. But having said that, a few different settings exist for some tunes. If you refer to Scottish Collections like the Athole or Skye for certain tunes, you may notice that the Cape Breton settings can be different, sometimes by a fair amount. This could be that the tune is very old and has altered in the oral tradition. But the other reason this occurs is because some fiddlers were known to have altered the tune from the written source to ‘improve’ it to their liking. Once these altered settings were recorded, they became standardized. So by playing the tune ‘correctly’, a fiddler is playing an accepted Cape Breton version of the tune and doesn’t stray too far from that.
But I wonder how this concept of correctness has evolved over time. Cape Breton pipers (now an extinct style of piping-more in a future post) rarely played a tune the same way twice. They were known to have made up variations on the spot, and sometimes improvised complete parts of tunes. The piping tradition in Cape Breton was closely linked to the fiddle. Many pipers were fiddlers themselves. So how it came to be that now tunes are rarely varied, I’m not exactly sure.
Improvisation is seen strongest in the piano accompaniment. The piano is the primary instrument of accompaniment in Cape Breton and it has evolved over time to become a uniquely robust and complex accompaniment style within the Celtic genre. Cape Breton pianists know the basic harmonic progression of a tune, and improvise using these chords as a foundation. There are a large number of ways to connect these chords with the bass hand (left hand). Cape Breton pianists also commonly use substitution chords, increasing the possibility for bass hand runs. The rhythms of the right hand are highly complex. The combination of the chords, bass runs and rhythms is all improvised. It is nearly impossible for a pianist to accompany a tune the same way twice.
It will be interesting to see how the concept of improvisation will continue to evolve in Cape Breton music.