Ok, so you think it's about time some different tunes were introduced at the session, or maybe you just play a tune solo on a few occasions for the enjoyment. Before you know it, one or two people have learned your tune, quickly followed by the majority. Great!
You then think it maybe appropriate to go back to an original source (or possibly even this site?) to check the "authenticity" of your version, by which time it is of course a little late to correct.
Now I realize that one solution to this problem is never to introduce or start any tune for which you can't provide "proof of provenance", but what is the scope of your responsibility in these cases?
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I do have one personal 'opinion'. I like certain players versions.
Liam O'Flynn, the piper. has a nice way with tunes. But try as I might to introduce his versions someone always finds a way to change the tunes I have introduced. Even when I play the original recording of Liam.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
This has been happening for Centuries, Someone hears a tune and kinda recollects enough to turn their recollection into a new tune, or version of the original. Examples are to many too mention.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I agree with Ion (I misunderstood earlier - thought you were saying they'd learned a different setting and were trying to impose it). As I understand it, if you introduce a tune you get to play it the way you like and that's the version everyone has to learn. Unless you really make a stew of it or choose to repattern its rhythm in some heretical fashion.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
"What were the tunes?" - you're not going to catch me out that easily, Random
I also love the playing of Liam O'Flynn (and other pipers); actually some of his ornamentation seems to translate quite well to the banjo! (note, no smiley).
airport: If true, I find that quite an amazing revelation!
Which brings me back to my original question of 'responsibility', or am I taking the whole thing a little too seriously?
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
You banjo players are a sharper lot than I gave credit. Now if I can just get everyone in my session to listen to some pipers. Then they will all say, 'Oh yeah, sounds good. Could you please pass me my banjo?'
It's always something, eh?
Our best banjo player has not shown up lately. Interesting though because over the weekend I have been playing some of his tunes. One of them is a polka. Does that loosen your lips at all?
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Random, You'll just have to trust me when I say that I really wasn't attempting to compare my banjo playing to the piping of Liam O'Flynn!; I only meant that you could do a lot worse than to use some of his feel & ornamentation for inspiration.
I believe our highest banjo count to have been (at least) 4, although thankfully not all playing at the same time.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I don't think you have to be absolutely note perfect, although I'm finding lately that I sometimes have a tendency to inflict predictable intervals where there was something interesting happening before, so I've actually gone back to ....(bodhran roll please)... listening!
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
This isn't an answer to your questions but might lend some perspective. I've been playing with a really good group of listeners lately and although we have some different versions of tunes we usually go with whoever started the set.
One example that comes to mind is Green Groves of Erin. I play it with C naturals and a few others play with C sharps. Whoever starts it gets to choose the version.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Hee hee. "Note perfect".
Uh-oh, which notes?
As it turns out, I learned the Humors of Newark from a Craggy O'Hupahan CD. I go and infect our session with it, and soon everyone's playing Craggy O'Hupahan's Humors of Newark.
Then, Craggy O'Hupahan Sr. comes in one day with his chromatic didgeridoo. We think we're being all slick, and we fire up Junior's version of the tune.
Well, Senior just about busted a gasket on us.
"WHAT IN THE HECK DIDJA DO TO THAT TUNE?!?" he screamed, wildly flailing about with his chromatic didgeridoo, laying out patrons, barmaids and sessionistas alike.
Long story short, turns out that Junior learned it from Senior, and according to Senior, he learned it all wrong, recorded it, and, well, you get the picture.
Sure enough, five minutes later Mrs. O'Hupahan wanders in with her lovely set of F# Brazilian Pipes, hears the hullabaloo, and Senior's version of The Humors of Newark. Her version was NEITHER of the two mentioned above.
Needless to say, the session was cut quite short due to the arrival of the local constabulary to break up the ruckus.
(Disclaimer for the humorously challenged: Please note, there is not a tune called The Humors of Newark, nor is there a O’Hupahan family to the best of my knowledge.)
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Look, tunes have a notation but over the centuries they obviously change/get changed. I knew a wondrous banjo player and I think he made half the tunes up.
Now allowing for common-sense, this "change" should not be too big a problem.
It is like songs. Take a well known song like "The Boxer". Someone will always say "Simon and Garfunkel do it this way". The answer to that is twofold. Either "go and play with Simon and Garfunkel" or "I sing it this way, and it is me singing". None of this should be insurmountable either.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
That's for sure Jusa Nutter. I was thinking of the grimiest place off the top of my head, and being originally from Philly, New Jersey jokes are usually at the top of the list.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I like to learn tunes (when taught to me by another person) the way that they are taught to me. It's nice to know if there is some discrepancy from some "widely accepted" setting of the tune, and in those cases, I tend to learn the other setting too. And then I'll dig through my recordings, and listen to all the differing versions of the tune I have learned, and I'll look around youtube, check the archives here, etc. Eventually, the tune will take on some of my own personal flavor, and when I teach it to someone else, it's not exactly the way it was taught to me...
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I have *irresponsibly* introduced my version of the Bluebell Polka into a couple of South London sessions. My version, perfect for DG melodeon, goes parts AABBCC. It's also the most logical in terms of session tunes. But it's wrong. Also guilty as charged. The *session* version of Caliope House is also different from the real version, but it's better for session playing that way. The only person I have ever heard playing it properly (in A, with the parts the correct way round) at a session was Cathal McConnell, who also first recorded it.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
airport - "if you introduce a tune you get to play it the way you like and that's the version everyone has to learn"
iampeterfonda - "although we have some different versions of tunes we usually go with whoever started the set"
Reverend = "I like to learn tunes (when taught to me by another person) the way that they are taught to me"
In the past, when I have seen and heard a room full of musicians all playing near identical versions/fingerings of a tune, I have always considered that they must have (somehow) all been playing the (or at least "a") "correct" version. At least having everyone play consistently is a good start; it has occasionally been known for people to play a completely different tune at our session...
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Personal experience: Rick knows what he's on about, and he plays a lovely bit of banjo down at our session. He's also very good at Scrabble (the bxxstard's beaten me three Sundays in a row, but I will have my revenge next weekend...)
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Now that you mention it Rick, I suppose everyone bends a bit for the sake of consistency. If I hear everyone else playing a different ending the first time through a tune I've started, I usually try to adapt. If they're all playing a different tune however, I soldier on just for spite
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
And then there is a flip side to the story...
When I was first being taught tunes, a talented flute player taught me Drag her 'round the road, Garret Barry's Jig, and Jennie's Chickens. Then I went (as Reverend also suggested above) and cross-reference the versions against other sessions and recordings only to discover the versions I had learned from my flute playing friend were, well - just kinda weird!
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I think the only responsibility here is the responsibility to listen to what's going on, and make the tune sound right when it's played. And by "right" I do not mean "correct", or "all the same", but "right", as in a bunch of people playing together, not a bunch of people playing the same tune in the same room, alone. And I think that might be what Michael means by "learning the tunes correctly" - am I right there? And I think Airport is on the same track in her second post (and by the way, "Airport", give my regards to Peter and Pat)
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Kiparsky! I'll say hello for you -stop making me sound all authentic with the whole "Peter and Pat" schtick! Hope Boston's treating you well! And say hello to Nadia!
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
As SWFL pointed out so humorously, perfection is beyond our reach. On the other hand, you want to do the best job you can with a tune before infecting others with it, and I would suggest that just relying on one version, especially a recorded version, to learn a tune does not do the tradition justice. As always with these discussions, a sensible middle ground, and a good sense of balance should prevail.
(By the way SFWL, are you rooting for the Rays now that they have knocked out the Sox, or are you staying true to Boston?)
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
SWFL and Jusa nutter eedjit have obviously visited the wrong parts of NJ! Try the Northwest regions sometime, incredible. Where I live, you'd think you were in a Currier & Ives Litho. Wide open space everywhere. Some of the most beautiful land in the USA.
At our session at IAANJ, we always have a different guest host, and encourage them to put a few of their most unusual tunes out there. We record the sessions, edit and break into tracks, the "best of" the evening, and people can either get those to learn from or practice to, or record it themselves all night and learn the new tunes if they like them. I especially love the tunes our local Killackey Brothers (Willie Kelly proteges!) bring in, hauntingly beautiful fiddle tunes.
Makes for a nice change to the usual session tunes....but those persists of course because they are oldies but goodies.
When people learn by ear and memory it's easy to come up with "new settings" of tunes. Sometimes people like them better than the "right" way, but a tune can be remembered oh so wrongly too...!! I know from experience having done it myself! trying to read music now to get it at least mostly right!
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Whoops! I knew we'd offend a New Jerseyite somewhere! Mea culpa Iris!
Point well taken Al. I should not have relied solely on Craggy Junior's CD-version of the tune, yet that was all I had, and well, therein lies the danger, I suppose.
Now, the perfect learning experience came from meeting Craggy Senior and the missus, who promptly brought the affair to a screeching halt with their two different versions of the tune.
Perhaps we can create a fictional happy ending to the story, where us regular sessionistas came back the next week and happily cranked out a synthesis of all three versions of the tune. Yes, let's do that.
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
...and no Rays for me, thank you though Al. I was born in Philly. moved to New Hampshire as a teen. I have fond memories of those 1980 Phils when I was a lad, Steve Carlton, Tug McGraw, Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, even Pete Rose, "Charlie Hustle" himself was on that squad.
If my Sox can't be there, I'll have to root for the Phils. I'll take a cheese steak with peppers, onions and mushrooms. Mmm...
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Mr Llig I never said it all sounded the same. As for learning tunes correctly, Gerry (banjo) O'Connor doesn't play any tunes "correctly" yet is enjoyed and revered by many, although not me.
In short, a few notes here or there, at a session, or a bit of innovation, shouldn't be insurmountable.
Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Responsibility of introducing tunes.
Ok, so you think it's about time some different tunes were introduced at the session, or maybe you just play a tune solo on a few occasions for the enjoyment. Before you know it, one or two people have learned your tune, quickly followed by the majority. Great!
You then think it maybe appropriate to go back to an original source (or possibly even this site?) to check the "authenticity" of your version, by which time it is of course a little late to correct.
Now I realize that one solution to this problem is never to introduce or start any tune for which you can't provide "proof of provenance", but what is the scope of your responsibility in these cases?
[Guilty, as charged]
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
What were the tunes?
Or have you not played them at session yet?
BTW ~ I have not the slightest idea.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
provenance? sounds like you need to play louder!
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by airport
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I do have one personal 'opinion'. I like certain players versions.
Liam O'Flynn, the piper. has a nice way with tunes. But try as I might to introduce his versions someone always finds a way to change the tunes I have introduced. Even when I play the original recording of Liam.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
This has been happening for Centuries, Someone hears a tune and kinda recollects enough to turn their recollection into a new tune, or version of the original. Examples are to many too mention.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I agree with Ion (I misunderstood earlier - thought you were saying they'd learned a different setting and were trying to impose it). As I understand it, if you introduce a tune you get to play it the way you like and that's the version everyone has to learn. Unless you really make a stew of it or choose to repattern its rhythm in some heretical fashion.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by airport
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
"What were the tunes?" - you're not going to catch me out that easily, Random
I also love the playing of Liam O'Flynn (and other pipers); actually some of his ornamentation seems to translate quite well to the banjo! (note, no smiley).
airport: If true, I find that quite an amazing revelation!
Which brings me back to my original question of 'responsibility', or am I taking the whole thing a little too seriously?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
You banjo players are a sharper lot than I gave credit. Now if I can just get everyone in my session to listen to some pipers. Then they will all say, 'Oh yeah, sounds good. Could you please pass me my banjo?'
It's always something, eh?
Our best banjo player has not shown up lately. Interesting though because over the weekend I have been playing some of his tunes. One of them is a polka. Does that loosen your lips at all?
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Ben Steen
*
I should have said the banjo player. We have yet to have 2 banjos going at once.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Random, You'll just have to trust me when I say that I really wasn't attempting to compare my banjo playing to the piping of Liam O'Flynn!; I only meant that you could do a lot worse than to use some of his feel & ornamentation for inspiration.
I believe our highest banjo count to have been (at least) 4, although thankfully not all playing at the same time.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I don't think you have to be absolutely note perfect, although I'm finding lately that I sometimes have a tendency to inflict predictable intervals where there was something interesting happening before, so I've actually gone back to ....(bodhran roll please)... listening!
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by airport
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
This isn't an answer to your questions but might lend some perspective. I've been playing with a really good group of listeners lately and although we have some different versions of tunes we usually go with whoever started the set.
One example that comes to mind is Green Groves of Erin. I play it with C naturals and a few others play with C sharps. Whoever starts it gets to choose the version.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by iampeterfonda
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Hee hee. "Note perfect".
Uh-oh, which notes?
As it turns out, I learned the Humors of Newark from a Craggy O'Hupahan CD. I go and infect our session with it, and soon everyone's playing Craggy O'Hupahan's Humors of Newark.
Then, Craggy O'Hupahan Sr. comes in one day with his chromatic didgeridoo. We think we're being all slick, and we fire up Junior's version of the tune.
Well, Senior just about busted a gasket on us.
"WHAT IN THE HECK DIDJA DO TO THAT TUNE?!?" he screamed, wildly flailing about with his chromatic didgeridoo, laying out patrons, barmaids and sessionistas alike.
Long story short, turns out that Junior learned it from Senior, and according to Senior, he learned it all wrong, recorded it, and, well, you get the picture.
Sure enough, five minutes later Mrs. O'Hupahan wanders in with her lovely set of F# Brazilian Pipes, hears the hullabaloo, and Senior's version of The Humors of Newark. Her version was NEITHER of the two mentioned above.
Needless to say, the session was cut quite short due to the arrival of the local constabulary to break up the ruckus.
(Disclaimer for the humorously challenged: Please note, there is not a tune called The Humors of Newark, nor is there a O’Hupahan family to the best of my knowledge.)
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Love the story SWFL, and your point is well made. (Although, I have been to Newark, and there's nothing humorous about the place...)
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Look, tunes have a notation but over the centuries they obviously change/get changed. I knew a wondrous banjo player and I think he made half the tunes up.
Now allowing for common-sense, this "change" should not be too big a problem.
It is like songs. Take a well known song like "The Boxer". Someone will always say "Simon and Garfunkel do it this way". The answer to that is twofold. Either "go and play with Simon and Garfunkel" or "I sing it this way, and it is me singing". None of this should be insurmountable either.
To hell with a Utopian perfection.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
That's for sure Jusa Nutter. I was thinking of the grimiest place off the top of my head, and being originally from Philly, New Jersey jokes are usually at the top of the list.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I like to learn tunes (when taught to me by another person) the way that they are taught to me. It's nice to know if there is some discrepancy from some "widely accepted" setting of the tune, and in those cases, I tend to learn the other setting too. And then I'll dig through my recordings, and listen to all the differing versions of the tune I have learned, and I'll look around youtube, check the archives here, etc. Eventually, the tune will take on some of my own personal flavor, and when I teach it to someone else, it's not exactly the way it was taught to me...
And that's the beauty of this music.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Reverend
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I have *irresponsibly* introduced my version of the Bluebell Polka into a couple of South London sessions. My version, perfect for DG melodeon, goes parts AABBCC. It's also the most logical in terms of session tunes. But it's wrong. Also guilty as charged. The *session* version of Caliope House is also different from the real version, but it's better for session playing that way. The only person I have ever heard playing it properly (in A, with the parts the correct way round) at a session was Cathal McConnell, who also first recorded it.
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Rudall the time
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
airport - "if you introduce a tune you get to play it the way you like and that's the version everyone has to learn"
iampeterfonda - "although we have some different versions of tunes we usually go with whoever started the set"
Reverend = "I like to learn tunes (when taught to me by another person) the way that they are taught to me"
In the past, when I have seen and heard a room full of musicians all playing near identical versions/fingerings of a tune, I have always considered that they must have (somehow) all been playing the (or at least "a") "correct" version. At least having everyone play consistently is a good start; it has occasionally been known for people to play a completely different tune at our session...
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Personal experience: Rick knows what he's on about, and he plays a lovely bit of banjo down at our session. He's also very good at Scrabble (the bxxstard's beaten me three Sundays in a row, but I will have my revenge next weekend...)
# Posted on October 21st 2008 by McDermott
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Now that you mention it Rick, I suppose everyone bends a bit for the sake of consistency. If I hear everyone else playing a different ending the first time through a tune I've started, I usually try to adapt. If they're all playing a different tune however, I soldier on just for spite
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by airport
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
And then there is a flip side to the story...
When I was first being taught tunes, a talented flute player taught me Drag her 'round the road, Garret Barry's Jig, and Jennie's Chickens. Then I went (as Reverend also suggested above) and cross-reference the versions against other sessions and recordings only to discover the versions I had learned from my flute playing friend were, well - just kinda weird!
I felt compelled to go and re-learn the tunes.
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Yeah ...
To hell with a Utopian perfection. It al sounds the same.
Or is it; To hell with the individual, we need common ground?
Either way, it all sounds the same.
If people learned tunes correctly, it wouldn't all sound the same
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by ...
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
I think the only responsibility here is the responsibility to listen to what's going on, and make the tune sound right when it's played. And by "right" I do not mean "correct", or "all the same", but "right", as in a bunch of people playing together, not a bunch of people playing the same tune in the same room, alone. And I think that might be what Michael means by "learning the tunes correctly" - am I right there? And I think Airport is on the same track in her second post (and by the way, "Airport", give my regards to Peter and Pat)
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Kiparsky! I'll say hello for you -stop making me sound all authentic with the whole "Peter and Pat" schtick! Hope Boston's treating you well! And say hello to Nadia!
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by airport
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
As SWFL pointed out so humorously, perfection is beyond our reach. On the other hand, you want to do the best job you can with a tune before infecting others with it, and I would suggest that just relying on one version, especially a recorded version, to learn a tune does not do the tradition justice. As always with these discussions, a sensible middle ground, and a good sense of balance should prevail.
(By the way SFWL, are you rooting for the Rays now that they have knocked out the Sox, or are you staying true to Boston?)
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
KML, round these parts we have the "right" version of Calliope House. What key do you all play it in?
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by reenactor
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
SWFL and Jusa nutter eedjit have obviously visited the wrong parts of NJ! Try the Northwest regions sometime, incredible. Where I live, you'd think you were in a Currier & Ives Litho. Wide open space everywhere. Some of the most beautiful land in the USA.
At our session at IAANJ, we always have a different guest host, and encourage them to put a few of their most unusual tunes out there. We record the sessions, edit and break into tracks, the "best of" the evening, and people can either get those to learn from or practice to, or record it themselves all night and learn the new tunes if they like them. I especially love the tunes our local Killackey Brothers (Willie Kelly proteges!) bring in, hauntingly beautiful fiddle tunes.
Makes for a nice change to the usual session tunes....but those persists of course because they are oldies but goodies.
When people learn by ear and memory it's easy to come up with "new settings" of tunes. Sometimes people like them better than the "right" way, but a tune can be remembered oh so wrongly too...!! I know from experience having done it myself! trying to read music now to get it at least mostly right!
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by irisnevins
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Whoops! I knew we'd offend a New Jerseyite somewhere! Mea culpa Iris!
Point well taken Al. I should not have relied solely on Craggy Junior's CD-version of the tune, yet that was all I had, and well, therein lies the danger, I suppose.
Now, the perfect learning experience came from meeting Craggy Senior and the missus, who promptly brought the affair to a screeching halt with their two different versions of the tune.
Perhaps we can create a fictional happy ending to the story, where us regular sessionistas came back the next week and happily cranked out a synthesis of all three versions of the tune. Yes, let's do that.
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
...and no Rays for me, thank you though Al. I was born in Philly. moved to New Hampshire as a teen. I have fond memories of those 1980 Phils when I was a lad, Steve Carlton, Tug McGraw, Mike Schmidt, Larry Bowa, even Pete Rose, "Charlie Hustle" himself was on that squad.
If my Sox can't be there, I'll have to root for the Phils. I'll take a cheese steak with peppers, onions and mushrooms. Mmm...
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Mr Llig I never said it all sounded the same. As for learning tunes correctly, Gerry (banjo) O'Connor doesn't play any tunes "correctly" yet is enjoyed and revered by many, although not me.
In short, a few notes here or there, at a session, or a bit of innovation, shouldn't be insurmountable.
# Posted on October 22nd 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Responsibility of introducing tunes to a session.
Many thanks for everyone's replies; this was definitely not the response I had been expecting (really quite reassuring).
My favourite thread quote (from llig): "If people learned tunes correctly, it wouldn't all sound the same" - Brilliant, I love it!
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Rick Payman