Kotsu Kotsu

Photo by Doug Heacock Learning to play the violin has been great for me, because it brings another perspective to things I experience in aikido (and vice versa). One of these is how you can use rhythm to move peoples' bodies. Using rhythm to create "lift"in music I play a lot of traditional music - Irish, American, Scottish, English, French Canadian, and more. Much of the traditional music repertoire is written for dancers. Of course, dancers need to know where the beat is. But musicians can also help make the dancing more fun by adding something called "lift." "Lift" makes the music feel lighter and more energetic. Some people do this unconsciously, but sometimes you have to focus on what you're doing or not doing to get it right. It might mean emphasizing the up-beat, or lightening up certain repeated notes, or even by creating spaces or rests. The most important point is that it's dance music and it should make you feel like dancing...

I recently attended a violin workshop with the renowned Irish fiddler, Kevin Burke  (who's actually English and lives in Oregon). He was talking about adding rhythm to the music with certain notes that are repeated on the beat. Below is a snippet from Walsh's Hornpipe . Even if you don't read music, you can see that the same note is repeated rhythmically. (I made those notes red.) When you listen Kevin play it, (it's very the first tune on this video ,) those notes really stand out. How to Make More with Less Kevin said that to give this tune more rhythm, you have to play these repeated notes more lightly. He said that most people make the mistake of playing them heavily, and then they sense the tune doesn't have enough of a rhythmic feel, so they play them even more heavily, and so on and so on. Man, does that sound like aikido.