This past weekend I had the opportunity to sit in on a new session. I came only to listen; not intending to play.
The fiddler invited me to play his instrument on a few tunes. I lead with a some of my favorite sets & everyone seemed to know them. The flute player commented that the tunes were fun & hoped they could work them back into the session. As the fiddler reached for his fiddle he replied, "They are easy if you are playing flute;"
& launched into a G minor tune with accidentals. With that the flute player went for her bodhran. I may be mistaken; & I do not want to make too much of this; but it seems I had just witnessed a bit of instrument rivalry. It is interesting since lately I have taken more & more to listening to our flute player.
Good natured rivalry, more like.
Fer instance, Mason's Apron works alot better in G than A if you're playing a D whistle. The kind and patient fiddlers in the group understand.
Or perhaps you ran into a snob that likes to show his superiority by playing things others can't. If this is an occasional thing, there is nothing wrong with it, but if he does things like this all night long, it can't be a fun session.
I like to take off on the Fox Hunter's reel in A just to give the flutes and whistles something to think about Then out of the goodness of my heart, I'll play it a time or two in G just to make them feel better about themselves .
I did that tune in our school orchestra- one boy saw the title and said FANNY Power? I had to tell him Fanny POWER.
But, to respond to the hijacked poster, I am surprised the fiddler would think anything is easier on the flute than on the fiddle, playing both as I do. when someone calls Cook In The Kitchen, I'll head to the gents to avoid that F natural on my flute.
I too was surprised by the remark. Particularly so because I have just recently been getting together with a flute player & working through some great stuff. I think it helps to hear how the fiddle & flute sound together. It is a bit of new thing for me. I have not been playing Irish for very long. Anyhow I did have fun playing with the session.
fiddle me this--that sort of meanness caught on in chicago to the point where people dont even know foxhunters is traditionally a G tune! everyone out here plays it in A. i actually cant play it in G anymore...
No NO NO NOOOO. Everybody knows that soon players are without doubt the most talented musicians in the world with the OBVIOUS exception of shakey egg players.
My mammy told me that some day I would be a great shakey egg player if I only practice really hard
Like with so many things in life, it's the man, not the machine.
A Ferrari in the hands of a learner driver will probably end up bent around a tree, whereas even the lowliest Toyota in the hands of a race car driver will perform well.
Now the race car driver driving the Ferrari is something special indeed...
So, always loosen the hair on your Toyota when you stop driving, and remember to keep the oil topped up in your fiddle.
But women are always far better than men too, so female fiddle players are the best of the best.
Session Savage - According to an earlier discussion you have to practice hard for ten years to be truly brilliant at anything. So, your ten years of eight hours a day shakey egg practice starts here...Enjoy!
i play flute and fiddle, and they are equally difficult, each in different ways. along with pipes, i consider them the best instruments for trad playing (love concertina too, though).
For example, some Swedish fiddle music can evoke thoughts of very large, hung over and terminally disconsolate mosquitoes. Doesn't mean it isn't good music, of course..
LOL Tradshark. saying that though, I honestly did see a guy in a cramped session bow himself in the nuts. I'll never forget that, I'm laughing now thinking about it.... seriously, how did he manage it!!!
Bowburner. Only 8 hours a day for ten years, wow I'm gonna go for it and in ten years you will all know my name as the most talented shakey egger in the WORLD... HA HA HA HAA
Don't worry, I'm going to take tradshark advice and keep my hair loose and my top up. That way I will always be the best female fiddler in the world and you will all bow down and worship (evil cackle!)
Make sure you don't play that shaky egg in your room by yourself. You will NEVER accomplish the insrument and the ten years will be a complete waste of time. Sessions are the place to learn the SE.
Just a quick review for the next time I go back to the session.
It always helps to make jokes about tune titles. Especially ones with fanny or power in the title.
If I get in a real bind, & have to play some music, go through as many different key signatures as possible & all in the one tune. Avoid D & G at all cost.
Anyone with a simple system flute is a hack. Music is chromatic.Get a life!
If for some reason, in a weak moment, I start to think that a fiddle & simple system flute sound good together then I am missing the point of music. It really is about which instrument is best. If you don't know. Get a life!
I believe I am finally catching on.
Very well written, Tonya. I once complained about the English public school humour on here, but who listens to me, apart from audiences.
There is so much snobby crap written on here it is unbelievable. Mr and Mrs Kennedy managed all right with a fiddle/flute combination. Of course I don't know what chromatic means, after 41 years playing harmonica's/blues harps. I suspect it has something to do with being able to change keys, I owned one once and thought the whammy bar on the end was for vamping,honestly.
And I do admire your honesty in dissecting the sorry plight that is this site, at times.
I was right. It is for different keys/notes, whatever. Just looked it up on google. When I think of my efforts to play it, vamping away like mad and getting strange sounds, no bending of notes or owt like that.
You learn something everyday.
Sonny Boy Bliss is off to play the chromatic harmonica.
Chromatic just means plated in shiny metal, like silver flutes and harmonicas. Diatonic just means a laxative with stimulant properties. Guinness is a good example. The school in Glasgow I went to was very public...just that nobody wanted to go there.
KML,
You correct people on insect taxonomy on one thread, and then spread misinformation on this thread? How inconsistent can you be?
Everyone knows that chromatic means no pitch in particular. That is why they left the frets off of fiddles, to allow them to chromatically chose any note they please (and many of them do just that).
If we're talking about the taxonomy of invertebrates and other such science then we really ought to recall for the purposes of this thread something we learned at school called "chromatic aberration." Something to do with the button on the end of the slide being bent or missing I presume. And, Mr Bliss, how can you have been playing a chromatic harp for 41 yeras? I've always put you at approximately 37. Were you playing for years in utero, and, if so, are you sure you were pushing the right button?
Thanks for that advise feardearg, I shall go now to seek out new sessions ans strange new venues where I can practice my shakey egging. I will boldly go where no shakey egger has gone before and sooon I will be the greatest.
Watch out.... I could be coming, with my shakey egg to a session near YOUUUU.............
Hutcheson's? You must be joking. Naw, the local Comp. I fear you took me too literally there.
Chromatic aberration is where you get light split into its spectral components, ie like rainbow colours, but you're right, it tends to occur at the edges of lower quality lenses which are uncorrected or not stopped down at the edges. It's due to the different wavelengths of the components of white light which will refract at slightly different angles in the lens. It's not wanted in microscope lenses either light or electron (yes, you *do* get the electron equivalent of chromatic aberration in EM's), but some arty photographers make use of this effect.
....won the bloody World Cup and I was watching on a big black-and-white telly that the shop manager at Victor Value (pink stamps, none of yer Green Shield rubbish) had generously hired for us Saturday lads to see the game (wages 14s7d). I don't remember if I played the mouth organ that day but I do remember Nobby Stiles jumping around all over the place at the end.
I just ran into the fiddler from that session.
He wanted to be sure I knew his credentials.
Apparently the wind section is secondary to strings.
Especially when you cannot manage all the flats & sharps.
All instruments equal?
All instruments equal?
This past weekend I had the opportunity to sit in on a new session. I came only to listen; not intending to play.
The fiddler invited me to play his instrument on a few tunes. I lead with a some of my favorite sets & everyone seemed to know them. The flute player commented that the tunes were fun & hoped they could work them back into the session. As the fiddler reached for his fiddle he replied, "They are easy if you are playing flute;"
& launched into a G minor tune with accidentals. With that the flute player went for her bodhran. I may be mistaken; & I do not want to make too much of this; but it seems I had just witnessed a bit of instrument rivalry. It is interesting since lately I have taken more & more to listening to our flute player.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by Tonya
Re: All instruments equal?
Perhaps it was just good natured banter.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by showaddydadito
Re: All instruments equal?
Good natured rivalry, more like.
Fer instance, Mason's Apron works alot better in G than A if you're playing a D whistle. The kind and patient fiddlers in the group understand.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by morning star
Re: All instruments equal?
Or perhaps you ran into a snob that likes to show his superiority by playing things others can't. If this is an occasional thing, there is nothing wrong with it, but if he does things like this all night long, it can't be a fun session.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: All instruments equal?
I knew a chap with a r*c*rd*r who used to play Planxty Fanny Power in G, then do a truck driver's gear-change into A.
Great women's lib anthem BTW...
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: All instruments equal?
There's a Paddy Power ( bookies ) next to the venue for the local folk club - I used to think it was a symbol of Celtic revolution.....
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by Guernsey Pete
Re: All instruments equal?
I like to take off on the Fox Hunter's reel in A just to give the flutes and whistles something to think about
Then out of the goodness of my heart, I'll play it a time or two in G just to make them feel better about themselves 
.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by RogueFiddler
Re: All instruments equal?
Fanny Power? I always thought it was a great fart joke.
Especially when we play it in a set with South Wind. PU.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: All instruments equal?
Erm..... Ian, I think you should know that "fanny" in American english and English english mean two different parts of the human anatomy.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by murfbox
Re: All instruments equal?
I hear that Merkins call bumbags fanny-packs. Just proves they don't know their arses from their elbows.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: All instruments equal?
I did that tune in our school orchestra- one boy saw the title and said FANNY Power? I had to tell him Fanny POWER.
But, to respond to the hijacked poster, I am surprised the fiddler would think anything is easier on the flute than on the fiddle, playing both as I do. when someone calls Cook In The Kitchen, I'll head to the gents to avoid that F natural on my flute.
# Posted on June 19th 2007 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: All instruments equal?
I too was surprised by the remark. Particularly so because I have just recently been getting together with a flute player & working through some great stuff. I think it helps to hear how the fiddle & flute sound together. It is a bit of new thing for me. I have not been playing Irish for very long. Anyhow I did have fun playing with the session.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Tonya
Re: All instruments equal?
I heard that the old pronunciation was Fanny "Poo'er".
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by MR.
Re: All instruments equal?
Poo-er is even worse, when combined with Fanny!
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: All instruments equal?
fiddle me this--that sort of meanness caught on in chicago to the point where people dont even know foxhunters is traditionally a G tune! everyone out here plays it in A. i actually cant play it in G anymore...
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by daiv
Re: All instruments equal?
fiddle me this-- what a dick head
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Gromit
Re: All instruments equal?
No instrument will ever be equal to a fiddle
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by bowburner
Re: All instruments equal?
Bollox. Not only that, many fiddle players who turn up at sessions can't play them properly.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: All instruments equal?
We're still better!
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by bowburner
Re: All instruments equal?
No NO NO NOOOO. Everybody knows that soon players are without doubt the most talented musicians in the world with the OBVIOUS exception of shakey egg players.
My mammy told me that some day I would be a great shakey egg player if I only practice really hard
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by session savage
Re: All instruments equal?
aww crap thats meant to be SPOON players. I should practice typing.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by session savage
Re: All instruments equal?
Apologists for the fiddle point out its matchless approximation, in the hands of maestros, to the manifold expressiveness of the human voice.
Detractors say that the fiddle's ability to mimic the rest of the animal and bird kingdom is just as formidable and far more often heard.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by nicholas
Re: All instruments equal?
Like with so many things in life, it's the man, not the machine.
A Ferrari in the hands of a learner driver will probably end up bent around a tree, whereas even the lowliest Toyota in the hands of a race car driver will perform well.
Now the race car driver driving the Ferrari is something special indeed...
So, always loosen the hair on your Toyota when you stop driving, and remember to keep the oil topped up in your fiddle.
Or something...
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by tradshark
Re: All instruments equal?
But women are always far better than men too, so female fiddle players are the best of the best.
Session Savage - According to an earlier discussion you have to practice hard for ten years to be truly brilliant at anything. So, your ten years of eight hours a day shakey egg practice starts here...Enjoy!
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by bowburner
Re: All instruments equal?
I forgot the insect kingdom.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by nicholas
Re: All instruments equal?
Insecta is not a Kingdom, but a class of the Phylum Arthropoda.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: All instruments equal?
Women can't be better fiddlers than men cos their boobies get in the way. I saw a boobie once - trust me, those things look awkward.
Anyway girlies should stick to girly instruments like flutes, so their boobies can be better viewed by their admiring public
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by tradshark
Re: All instruments equal?
Hey. Watch it. My Sula neboxii can beat up your Selachimorpha any ol' day.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Michele Sims
Re: All instruments equal?
Erm....maybe we ought to keep talking about insects and stuff.....
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: All instruments equal?
i play flute and fiddle, and they are equally difficult, each in different ways. along with pipes, i consider them the best instruments for trad playing (love concertina too, though).
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Mariajef
Re: All instruments equal?
For example, some Swedish fiddle music can evoke thoughts of very large, hung over and terminally disconsolate mosquitoes. Doesn't mean it isn't good music, of course..
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by nicholas
Re: All instruments equal?
LOL Tradshark. saying that though, I honestly did see a guy in a cramped session bow himself in the nuts. I'll never forget that, I'm laughing now thinking about it.... seriously, how did he manage it!!!
Bowburner. Only 8 hours a day for ten years, wow I'm gonna go for it and in ten years you will all know my name as the most talented shakey egger in the WORLD... HA HA HA HAA
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by session savage
Re: All instruments equal?
Don't worry, I'm going to take tradshark advice and keep my hair loose and my top up. That way I will always be the best female fiddler in the world and you will all bow down and worship (evil cackle!)
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by bowburner
Re: All instruments equal?
Make sure you don't play that shaky egg in your room by yourself. You will NEVER accomplish the insrument and the ten years will be a complete waste of time. Sessions are the place to learn the SE.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by feardearg
Re: All instruments equal?
I have been typing alone for ten years and, see, I can't spell 'instrument'. Case in point.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by feardearg
Re: All instruments equal?
Why moan about people who play tunes in A or Gm?
Get a life - do some practise and learn to do it yourself, then you won't feel left out.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by geoffwright
Re: All instruments equal?
And if they really irritate me, then I haul out the Boehm Flute and play in B-Major...
not a hope in hell of me doing that on my simple system flute though...
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Crackpot
Re: All instruments equal?
Easy. Just pick up a B harmonica.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: All instruments equal?
Just a quick review for the next time I go back to the session.
It always helps to make jokes about tune titles. Especially ones with fanny or power in the title.
If I get in a real bind, & have to play some music, go through as many different key signatures as possible & all in the one tune. Avoid D & G at all cost.
Anyone with a simple system flute is a hack. Music is chromatic.Get a life!
If for some reason, in a weak moment, I start to think that a fiddle & simple system flute sound good together then I am missing the point of music. It really is about which instrument is best. If you don't know. Get a life!
I believe I am finally catching on.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Tonya
Re: All instruments equal?
Very well written, Tonya. I once complained about the English public school humour on here, but who listens to me, apart from audiences.
There is so much snobby crap written on here it is unbelievable. Mr and Mrs Kennedy managed all right with a fiddle/flute combination. Of course I don't know what chromatic means, after 41 years playing harmonica's/blues harps. I suspect it has something to do with being able to change keys, I owned one once and thought the whammy bar on the end was for vamping,honestly.
And I do admire your honesty in dissecting the sorry plight that is this site, at times.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: All instruments equal?
I was right. It is for different keys/notes, whatever. Just looked it up on google. When I think of my efforts to play it, vamping away like mad and getting strange sounds, no bending of notes or owt like that.
You learn something everyday.
Sonny Boy Bliss is off to play the chromatic harmonica.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: All instruments equal?
Chromatic just means plated in shiny metal, like silver flutes and harmonicas. Diatonic just means a laxative with stimulant properties. Guinness is a good example. The school in Glasgow I went to was very public...just that nobody wanted to go there.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: All instruments equal?
KML,
You correct people on insect taxonomy on one thread, and then spread misinformation on this thread? How inconsistent can you be?
Everyone knows that chromatic means no pitch in particular. That is why they left the frets off of fiddles, to allow them to chromatically chose any note they please (and many of them do just that).
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: All instruments equal?
And to think I was going to add "with the exception of KML.........", then you come back with a schoolboy snipe.
# Posted on June 20th 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: All instruments equal?
If we're talking about the taxonomy of invertebrates and other such science then we really ought to recall for the purposes of this thread something we learned at school called "chromatic aberration." Something to do with the button on the end of the slide being bent or missing I presume. And, Mr Bliss, how can you have been playing a chromatic harp for 41 yeras? I've always put you at approximately 37. Were you playing for years in utero, and, if so, are you sure you were pushing the right button?
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: All instruments equal?
41 yeras is not some form of primitive Moroccan currency that Bliss might have been busking for in his youth. It is years.
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: All instruments equal?
KML, you didn't happen to go to Hutcheson's did you? I did. Probably where I got some of my English schoolboy so-called humour from.
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by Linsey Doyle
Re: All instruments equal?
Thanks for that advise feardearg, I shall go now to seek out new sessions ans strange new venues where I can practice my shakey egging. I will boldly go where no shakey egger has gone before and sooon I will be the greatest.
Watch out.... I could be coming, with my shakey egg to a session near YOUUUU.............
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by session savage
Re: All instruments equal?
Hutcheson's? You must be joking. Naw, the local Comp. I fear you took me too literally there.
Chromatic aberration is where you get light split into its spectral components, ie like rainbow colours, but you're right, it tends to occur at the edges of lower quality lenses which are uncorrected or not stopped down at the edges. It's due to the different wavelengths of the components of white light which will refract at slightly different angles in the lens. It's not wanted in microscope lenses either light or electron (yes, you *do* get the electron equivalent of chromatic aberration in EM's), but some arty photographers make use of this effect.
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: All instruments equal?
I remember an Irish music website.
Anyone know if it is still around?
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by Tonya
Re: All instruments equal?
Playing the mouth organ and then blues harp since July 1966, when England .............
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: All instruments equal?
....won the bloody World Cup and I was watching on a big black-and-white telly that the shop manager at Victor Value (pink stamps, none of yer Green Shield rubbish) had generously hired for us Saturday lads to see the game (wages 14s7d). I don't remember if I played the mouth organ that day but I do remember Nobby Stiles jumping around all over the place at the end.
# Posted on June 21st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: All instruments equal?
I just ran into the fiddler from that session.
He wanted to be sure I knew his credentials.
Apparently the wind section is secondary to strings.
Especially when you cannot manage all the flats & sharps.
# Posted on July 4th 2007 by Tonya