HARMONY
In MS12 f33r, the chorus and third version of Hampsey's set, along with Mailí Bhán
and the Féileacán, appear notated on the stave in the key of G major. This would
require the harp tuning 'leithghléas', elsewhere described by Bunting as 'Sharp key or
the natural key' and as 'forming the proper key of the harp, being G natural, one
sharp'.
The only chords struck simultaneously between the bass and treble in the notation of
this piece occur in the chorus in the form of rhythmic repetitions of the tonic triad.
This of course underpins the horizontal harmony of the chorus melody.
The bass line of the verse displays an interesting feature in relation to the horizontal
harmony of the verse melody. The stressed notes of the Dow and MacDonald
versions of the tune, if transposed from the key of D to the key of G, would directly
suggest a horizontal harmony of an E triad cadencing to a D dyad in the key of G.
One would expect the harp bass of the verse to reflect this with appropriate bass
notes in the key of G.
They do but E is, for the most part, not the most preferred bass note for the harp
arrangements here. In fact E appears only at the very beginning of Quinn's second
verse (as an F# in the key of A). Speaking in the key of G, the harp settings opt for
the fifth above, B and then an A following. In this they differ from the equivalent two
bar section in Port Priest which does magadise the stress notes of the melody. A
bass harmony of a fourth with the treble is not an unusual feature in basses of Gaelic
harp tunes and has already been noted in these articles as appearing in the basses
of Fairy Queen, Port Priest and Scott's Lamentation.
The appearance of the fourth in this way is related to the role taken by the right hand
in taking part of the actual melody line. This effect is also noticable in the
arrangement structure of an Fhéileacán (the Butterfly), the tune which Bunting tells us
introduced the use of the right hand to the learners. In the first half of the Féileacán,
we find the repetition of chords in the bass, and so here in the chorus of Burns'
March, but in the second half of the Féileacán, bass chords are removed and the
right hand plays pure melody, an fuller example of a feature found in other Gaelic
harp arrangements, the occasional swapping of melody notes between bass and
treble.
Burns' March takes things a little further in its own 'second half', the verse. Here the
right hand takes the stressed melody note of the second and fourth beats of each
bar. But the right hand also displaces the stressed treble notes of the first and third
beats of the bar, singing the bass pitches of the second and fourth beats of the bar
down an octave on the first and third beats. Thus the right hand plays melody but
also strikes accented harmonic intervals. The bass part in Quinn's second verse is
exceptional by altering rhythm and beginning with the notes of the tonic and third of
the triad.
In these two learner's pieces the interplay of some basic Gaelic harp arrangement
techniques can be observed in the bass: repeated chords, rising octave leaps, the
playing of melody notes in the bass to vary the melody and, importantly, even provide
the harmonic focus of the bass part. For evidence of the use of melodic treble notes
simultaneously in the bass to provide a harmonic focus, one only needs to examine
Bunting's original notations of Cumha Bharúin Loch Mór.
Burns' March
Harmony