Burns' March and Gaelic harp 'ceòl mór'
One more thing needs to be said about the bass sonorities of the verse of Burns'
March. While it could be assumed, in conjunction with the stressed notes, that both
bass notes belong to E and D dyads respectively, this is not necessarily the correct
interpretation of the music.
The stressed melody note E of the verse may in fact form part of a tetrad. Tetrad is
my word for a chord with four notes comprising an overlapping combination of a
major triad and relative minor triad, like this:
D B G + B G E = E D B G or D B G E
Stressed tetradic notes may have come to be important in Gaelic music through
gapped scales. For example, in a 6D-F tune, only two notes, D & A, would be
available to harmonise with a D triad, whereas a tetrad of D F A C would permit three
consonant notes, D, F & C.
The tetrad may then have been a valuable feature in Gaelic harp 'ceòl mór', as two
triads can only cover a maximum of six notes of a heptatonic gamut. The tetradic
sound would, for example, perhaps have permitted an E to be stressed with a G triad
in a piece of ceòl mór which only used two major chords of G and F, neither of which
contain the note E.
Such a tetrad might explain the presence of what otherwise would have to be
described as an appoggiature E against a G triad in the second part of Táim i mo
Chodladh. In Burns' March, it is just as likely that the E is not to be understood as
appoggiatura but as forming a consonance within a theoretical G major chord; less
common than a third or a fifth but nevertheless a valid consonance.
There is potential evidence to support this harmonic interpretation as Patrick
MacDonald provides a D bass note for his keyboard arrangement of both verses.
This even oscillates at the interval of an octave in a manner reminiscent of the harp
arrangements. Daniel Dow also provides a pedal D bass note for one of his verses.
The significance of all this is that a bichordal, rather than trichordal, interpretation of
the harmony makes the 'very old' Burns' March even more of a possible example in
miniature of a lost genre of Gaelic harp ceòl mór characterised by measures of
binary harmony.
The stressed E in the second verse of the Pretty Peggy harp bass can be interpreted
as countering this idea. However, Quinn's second verse still need not contain the
most ancient harmony: it does break the regularity of chordal movement and
harmony found in the other verses of the harp arrangements.
Burns' March
Harp 'ceòl mór'