The Triple Fiddle
An e-mail sent September 14, 2009
Katherine-
I just got done watching the season finale to True Blood, and the theme music struck me. It consists of a violin playing a slow, lingering sequence, evoking the sad beauty of the countryside the series takes place in. Its a great theme, but what really struck me is that I've heard this kind of fiddle playing elsewhere recently. There's a computer game I've been playing called Braid, about a boy navigating a fantasy world of his own making, looking for a princess he had lost. The music in the game has the same country fiddle quality, giving the same peaceful feel to this boy's journeys. In Braid, the boy moves backwards and forwards in time, and sometimes in slow motion, and in turn the music moves backwards and forwards, and also slowly, turning the high notes of the violin into the lowest of bass notes. The music and the world the boy moves in are tied together in the time-bending experience.
I've also heard this music at the contra dances I've been attending these past few months. The dances take place in old community centers in rooms like barnhouses, with old people dressed in clothes you'd find in a country church on Sunday. The music is always live, with different assortments of instruments, including pianos and drums and guitars. The most common instrument, however, is the fiddle, playing the melody and setting the tone. The songs that are played at these dances last twice as long as the songs you hear on the radio nowadays, consisting of music that repeats itself over and over again, braiding with the dance moves that repeat themselves, over and over again. The dancers move along a line throughout the song, from the front to the back and to the front again, with their partner and with everyone else, dancing and smiling and laughing in cyclical patterns and figure eights. The music repeats with the dancing as it moves, just like the music repeats with the main characters in the tv series as they live their lives, just like the music repeats with the boy in the game as he goes forward and backward in time trying to reach the next level.
This triple confluence converges on me, the nerdy gamer, the HBO series viewer, the country dancer.
-Carrot
Katherine-
I just got done watching the season finale to True Blood, and the theme music struck me. It consists of a violin playing a slow, lingering sequence, evoking the sad beauty of the countryside the series takes place in. Its a great theme, but what really struck me is that I've heard this kind of fiddle playing elsewhere recently. There's a computer game I've been playing called Braid, about a boy navigating a fantasy world of his own making, looking for a princess he had lost. The music in the game has the same country fiddle quality, giving the same peaceful feel to this boy's journeys. In Braid, the boy moves backwards and forwards in time, and sometimes in slow motion, and in turn the music moves backwards and forwards, and also slowly, turning the high notes of the violin into the lowest of bass notes. The music and the world the boy moves in are tied together in the time-bending experience.
I've also heard this music at the contra dances I've been attending these past few months. The dances take place in old community centers in rooms like barnhouses, with old people dressed in clothes you'd find in a country church on Sunday. The music is always live, with different assortments of instruments, including pianos and drums and guitars. The most common instrument, however, is the fiddle, playing the melody and setting the tone. The songs that are played at these dances last twice as long as the songs you hear on the radio nowadays, consisting of music that repeats itself over and over again, braiding with the dance moves that repeat themselves, over and over again. The dancers move along a line throughout the song, from the front to the back and to the front again, with their partner and with everyone else, dancing and smiling and laughing in cyclical patterns and figure eights. The music repeats with the dancing as it moves, just like the music repeats with the main characters in the tv series as they live their lives, just like the music repeats with the boy in the game as he goes forward and backward in time trying to reach the next level.
This triple confluence converges on me, the nerdy gamer, the HBO series viewer, the country dancer.
-Carrot