{"id":301,"date":"2013-11-07T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2013-11-07T09:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/?page_id=301"},"modified":"2015-03-06T10:38:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T10:38:59","slug":"dougie-lawrence","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.blogs.hss.ed.ac.uk\/revival-fiddle\/fiddlers\/fiddlers-n\/dougie-lawrence\/","title":{"rendered":"Dougie Lawrence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"14\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Biography<\/h3>
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Steve McGrail wrote in the Living Tradition<\/a>:<\/p>\n

LET EVERY NOTE MATTER!<\/p>\n

Talk to professional fiddlers, and you\u2019ll soon see the range of what they do. There\u2019ll be solo performing, of course, band work, tuition, recording, film and TV contracts, judging competitions, composing, researching, and maybe even instrument-repairing. A few fiddlers, though, will tell you how they also move into other genres, perhaps to back a rock or jazz singer. Some will have had (or still have) a career in classical music as well; Irish fiddler Mair\u00e9ad Nesbitt, formerly of the RT\u00c9 Concert Orchestra, comes to mind. One Scottish fiddler who fits exactly into this \u2018mixed genres\u2019 category is Douglas Lawrence. He\u2019s a man who\u2019s been a long-serving member of the Scottish National Orchestra, he\u2019s performed with Yehudi Menuhin, and he\u2019s accompanied David Essex and Belle and Sebastian. He\u2019s played with the Whistlebinkies and in traditional music festivals across Scotland he\u2019s won almost every fiddle competition he\u2019s entered: he was actually banned from one for winning it too often! He\u2019s been described as \u2018one of Scotland\u2019s living treasures\u2019 for the quality of his playing, yet isn\u2019t known very well even at home. This is because of his having been out of the scene for quite a while, following a serious illness. Thankfully, he\u2019s on the mend – and this is his story.<\/p>\n

He was born in Buckie, a small fishing town in between Inverness and Aberdeen; for a fiddler, that\u2019s a good part of Scotland to come from, arguably being the country\u2019s richest area for traditional music, not to mention for song. For instance, one of Scotland\u2019s eighteenth century fiddle giants, William Marshall, was born in Fochabers, barely a dozen miles from Buckie.<\/p>\n

Douglas\u2019 first musical influence was his grandfather. A forester, his greatest love was fiddles \u2013 playing, collecting and repairing them. \u201cIf a fiddle needed fixing, he was the one in the area to do it. I\u2019ve actually got one of his still. He gave me my first instrument. He was self-taught and always encouraged me, like my mother and father did, even though they weren\u2019t musical themselves\u201d. Actually, it was encouragement from his parents that set Douglas on the path he would eventually follow…<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a chance remark of dad\u2019s to the school music teacher, that I\u2019d be getting fiddle lessons locally. \u2018No, no, no!\u2019 said the teacher. \u2018If Douglas is going to learn the fiddle, it must be with Hector MacAndrew in Aberdeen. Don\u2019t you do anything, I\u2019ll arrange it\u2019. And he did. I was lucky he was so helpful, some teachers wouldn\u2019t have been when it came to \u2018mere\u2019 fiddle playing… I actually had a good grounding at that school. I\u2019m grateful, you need to reach a reasonable standard before you can even attempt to play fiddle. Fiddle tunes are so much more difficult than the normal school repertoire\u201d.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it was as well that the twelve year-old Douglas didn\u2019t initially know too much about Hector MacAndrew. If he had, he might have refused to meet him, for MacAndrew had a tough reputation: if he liked you, fine, but if he didn\u2019t, you\u2019d be shown the door very quickly. But he was, everybody acknowledged, a superb musician; Douglas\u2019 grandfather would describe him in later years as \u2018without doubt the only player of Scottish music\u2019. Probably, MacAndrew himself would have agreed with that. He was proud of being directly in line to Niel Gow himself: he had learned the fiddle from his grandfather, who in turn had learned from James Mackintosh, Gow\u2019s last pupil.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy teacher warned me what to expect. So I went along, very nervous, and there he was, not very tall, but with great presence. He told me to play. I did, then he said, \u2018Aye, that was fine, come back in a month\u2019. That was all! So, my father would take me to him every month, on Saturdays. We\u2019d all usually watch the football in the afternoon. One time, the crowd\u2019s language was pretty colourful and MacAndrew asked my father, \u2018Should Douglas be hearing words like that?\u2019 Perhaps that was him being a bit fatherly to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI studied with him for eleven years, the best experience of my musical life. After him, I did classical violin at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, then joined the Scottish National Orchestra. I\u2019ve no doubt that MacAndrew\u2019s teaching helped me work with conductors and accompanists later: fiddle and violin complement each other. I remember my last meeting with him, in 1979. I went to see him and he told me to get my fiddle out, I thought for a strathspey, but no, he wanted Bach. I played the unaccompanied B minor Sonata. \u2018Aye, that was fine\u2019, he muttered, just as ever! Then we played Scottish music. He died a year later\u201d.<\/p>\n

Douglas would be twenty years with the SNO. Music of all sorts was his world. He met his future wife through it, a Russian pianist called Anna who was on an exchange to Glasgow from the St Petersburgh Conservatoire; the couple now have a son, who\u2019s eight. \u201cShe\u2019s performing and teaching in schools and universities, now, I do some teaching, too, and I look after the housework and Alexander. He\u2019ll be kicking a football somewhere or practising piano, which he\u2019s just started\u201d.<\/p>\n

Even when in the SNO, Douglas was playing traditional music. He\u2019d joined The Whistlebinkies and toured with them throughout Scotland, and in Ireland and Germany. He calls it \u2018a great experience\u2019, being with them. He was playing other sorts of music, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, yes, if you\u2019re a musician, you take what work\u2019s offered. So when a call came from David Essex – this was 1978 – that he needed accompaniment for a song, off the Binkies went. It wasn\u2019t a problem, I was used to accompanying, I did it for the Gaelic Department of the BBC… I like it, often I\u2019ll just sit at the piano and listen to harmonies, you\u2019ve got to understand harmony. If you play a fiddle you\u2019ll sometimes do double-stopping, but there\u2019s no point playing one chord if your accompanist is doing another… The song was Are You Still My Own True Love? and it\u2019s part of my only claim to fame: I think I\u2019m the only fiddler who\u2019s ever played on all four BBC radio channels on the same day. The song was on One, I was on Benny Green\u2019s show on Two, Three was an SNO performance and Radio Four, that was a programme about Niel Gow called The Odyssey\u201d.<\/p>\n

As well as being in the limelight, he was busy bringing on other fiddlers: for he didn\u2019t just compete at festivals, he judged their competitions as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompetitions are a very good way to learn, for anybody. I always tell my pupils, \u2018Compete if you want, or just watch, but always listen, to learn what\u2019s good and what\u2019s bad\u2019. When I was around sixteen, I loved to hear these guys competing, \u2018though they were old men to me. Their standard was good and certainly, they stuck with their music, unlike many young players now. I mean, I judged a young fiddler at Musselburgh Festival recently, I thought he had the best sound I\u2019d ever heard. But apparently he\u2019s not playing any more. Why??? Still, at least the youngsters have the chance nowadays. I remember Menuhin saying to me, \u2018Every child needs music, every one\u2019… That was the time when he\u2019d just played the Bach B minor Partita and turned to me and said, \u2018Douglas, this piece is Scottish fiddle music\u2019… Well, I myself think Bach is the foundation of all Western music. Menuhin agreed, so would Mendelssohn. MacAndrew always said, \u2018Play your Bach\u2019, so now I make sure my pupils can play the dance movements from the Partitas. It proves you shouldn\u2019t have rigid categories in music\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now that his main occupation is teaching, the values and techniques of teaching are often to the fore in his conversation. He has views, for example, about whether people should learn by ear or from music. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he favours the latter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Aly Bain and others don\u2019t like to read music, they never have. But I believe reading notes helps. I teach them first in case there\u2019s some bowing or rhythm instructions to go in later. By then, the notes should be firmly in the brain. You can teach by ear, but it\u2019s terribly slow, phrase by phrase. Worse, mistakes can creep in. Take playing pipe marches, their note patterns often look very similar: once a mistake has crept in, it\u2019ll be hard to remove it from your brain. I think my method works: put it this way, six pupils of mine have won the Glenfiddich Competition, like Paul Anderson, Rory Campbell, Ross Thompson and Maureen Turnbull\u201d.<\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t any favourite tunes for teaching purposes \u2013 \u2018or at least, I\u2019m not revealing them!\u2019 he says. He prefers using ten examples (each a couple of bars long) of the bowing likely to be needed for different tunes. \u201cYou\u2019ll find many bow movements in certain tunes like strathspeys. You could have four semi-quavers ya-da-da-dum. One person will do it all slurred, another like a Kalashnikof rifle, rat-ta-ta-tat. Or you could do it two parts slurred and two separated. It\u2019s all about which part of the bow you aim to use, whether one down and three up, or you can play a down bow at the point, like in Berlioz\u2019 Symphonie Fantastique. Perfectly possible. One thing is vital \u2013 make every note matter, make every one different. I had a pupil yesterday, I had him play five consecutive B flats. I said, \u2018Make them all different\u2019. It can be done, even with six. You must work things out beforehand. It\u2019s pointless starting a pipe march and ending up at the part of the bow you don\u2019t want to be at. You must know how to get out of things before they happen. \u2018Plan an escape route\u2019, I tell my pupils, \u2018like you would learn to control a skid in a car\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n

Whatever a fiddler does with music, he says, he or she should make it interesting. There are numerous ways to do this, he explains, and it\u2019s even more important for what he considers basically uninteresting music. Number One in this category, for him, is the Cape Breton variety.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like the style. I don\u2019t believe the people who play it when they say that it\u2019s special because it came over with Scots two hundred years ago. I don\u2019t believe they can claim God-given rights to all our traditions. I don\u2019t believe our ancestors would have been playing that sort music then. Alright, Cape Breton has a place, but there\u2019s no depth to any of it that I\u2019ve ever heard. Besides, it\u2019s normally played too fast. It reminds me of the story of Robert Reid, a great old piper from way back. He had a pupil who played too fast. \u2018That\u2019s-right-laddie\u2019, he said, \u2018just-play-as-fast-as-you-can-and-hide-all-your-mistakes!\u2019 Too many fiddlers play too fast nowadays. From school onwards, I was always taught to play within my ability. I teach my pupils that now. When I\u2019m judging, I want people playing to their strengths. Don\u2019t try and be Paganini, you\u2019ll fail. I can play twelve notes a second in his Moto Perpetuo, that\u2019s pretty fast but it\u2019s meant to be there and it\u2019s under control. You could do sixteen a second, but you wouldn\u2019t deserve any prizes for it. If somebody plays fast but un-rhythmically, believe me it won\u2019t sound as fast as music played slower but more rhythmically. Remember Clint Eastwood: \u2018A-man\u2019s-gotta-know-his-limitations\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n

If he knows that he doesn\u2019t like Cape Breton music, he certainly knows what he likes of his own country\u2019s. It\u2019s no accident that a large portrait of Niel Gow presides over his living room. \u201cNiel was in that Golden Age, and Nathaniel Gow, William Marshall (MacAndrew\u2019s favourite), Robert Mackintosh, all these boys were first class… Music that\u2019s stood the test of time… And I like Simon Fraser\u2019s tunes, and his collecting increased the repertoire fantastically. They\u2019re sometimes difficult, like The Scolding Wives Of Abertarff because of its bowing. Not many tunes worry me now, but some of Scott Skinner\u2019s can be a bit nasty. Actually, I think they\u2019re sometimes rather un-violinistic, too many pyrotechnics\u201d.<\/p>\n

Asked about contemporary fiddlers that he admires, he says, \u201cAly Bain, I particularly like the way he thinks tunes out. Then for Ireland, there\u2019s the late Se\u00e1n Maguire, wonderful. I like Jay Unger as a musician. Other people? Well, if Barbara Dickson and Steve Harley were fiddlers, they\u2019d be bloody good ones. I suppose I really like best the musicians who take trouble with every single note. Is that enough names?\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got plans for the future, he says, like doing more teaching. \u201cThese workshops can be very worthwhile, especially for kids. There are people doing great work, like James Alexander (\u2018though he\u2019s too modest about his contribution) who takes the Fochabers\u2019 Fiddlers. We had the same music teacher at school. I did some fiddle school teaching in the Borders, Newtown St Boswell\u2019s, James helped. It\u2019s amazing what the kids achieve in a week. It was for the Scottish Amateur Music Association. I\u2019ve also taught the practical side of a Distance Learning project in St Andrews whilst Jim Hunter did the theory side of Scottish music \u2013 that was good\u201d.<\/p>\n

Recording is currently in his sights. He\u2019s made only one CD to date but says he has material for many more. \u201cMy first one was done in about three hours, mostly just one take. I\u2019m actually not keen on studio recording, though, some stuffy little room… No, I believe a recording should be made as a performance happens. A while ago, Sony had a really good way of recording the SNO. They\u2019d record all our concerts in their entirety, in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, wherever, then they\u2019d choose the best one to release. It was a real breakthrough. I\u2019d want something similar: just me on a stage, being recorded, before an invited (and preferably paying!) audience, playing for fifty minutes, a bit of talk about the tunes. Then later, people buying the CD could say, \u2018That\u2019s how it was, I was there, I even remember the night, what was on the news\u2019. That recording would really matter to them. I think that\u2019s how music should be. I\u2019ll be doing something a bit like that in May, I\u2019ll be playing up at Fyvie Castle (where MacAndrew worked) for the Robbie Shepherd programme. Dennis Morrison will be my accompanist. Alright, these legs and joints of mine are still sore, but they\u2019re getting better. And my hands are nearly back to normal \u2013 so I think it\u2019s time for another concentrated assault on the nation\u2019s ears\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Photographs<\/h3>
photos<\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

Discography<\/h3>
Commercial recordings<\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

Archival Recordings<\/h3>
Archival recordings<\/div><\/div><\/p>\n

Other media<\/h3>
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