Something I've been a bit confused about regarding counting the offbeat/backbeat in reels. In terms of 4/4 eight notes to a measure I seem to find conflicting ways of thinking about it .
For instance would you count the "off beat" as:
Example A
/ 1 *2* 3 *4* 1 *2* 3 *4* / in an 8- note measure? where 2 and 4 are counted as the backbeats in Irish music? that is:
-X-X -X-X
OR do you count it like:
Example B
/ 1 & *2* & 3 & *4* & / ...?
I always thought Example A was the way to think of it, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
I take it the idea is to come out of a slur on those "offbeats" ...[if possible with room for variations of course]?
Thanks to anyone for clarifying and if you'd like to suggest/explain how some possible slurring patterns might work with either of the above methods of counting I'd be grateful for the input.
So I understand your question, sing the first 8 notes of The Wise Maid and tell me how many backbeats you hear. I hear two. (but then I listen to kids playing saxophones and drums all day and I can't really hear much of anything!)
I agree with example A. To me it's like the snare drum in the straight ahead rock and roll beat.
But more importantly why are you asking? I've been thinking about this a lot. I am at as point in my fiddle bowing where I need to add decent rhythm. So I find myself listening to and dissecting good fiddlers rhythm patterns. And boy, every 3rd or fourth tune has an emphasis on the "backbeat". It's kinda nice in that you get that variety but not all the time. I find box players do this too. It also seems to end up being a down stroke on the bow too. It does get along with slurring across the beat, just more emphisis on those back beat slurs.
Good example is the reel "Tuttles".
Greg Well, ok it all "depends" -- I guess! lol. excluding the pick up notes I hear the accent really falling on 1 and 4 and "maybe" then the open D string...which would be beat "7"...but I guess it depends on how you reef on the bow....I'm terrible really with deconstructing music and music theory since I don't really "hear" it that way....I guess as a former drummer now also bodhran player I find the whole idea of any set beats kind of problemmatic since as a bodhran player I play around with those beats all the time [but I couldn't tell you how...I only know it works].
I find it's rather frustrating though to try and translate the interesting variations I can hear [and play] on bodhran into a fiddle context...esp when you add in slurring patterns. I saw that "drum' notation counted out the "back beat" in a 8 note phrase of 4/4 somewhat differently than I'd seen it expressed in various fiddle discussions both here and on IRTRAD-L...
truth be told I can't make head nor tail of it...I'm just looking for some sort of definitive answer...ie, "counit it 1&2& etc or one TWO three FOUR.....
I'm guessing the latter is the accepted norm for the off beat in itm?
hope that answers your enquiry too Salcast. that's why I'm asking, because I'm trying to reconcile where the off beat falls in terms of fiddle bowing to try and get MORE of that nyah in the tunes.....
Definitely example B. It's the offbeat, the opposite of the downbeat. So if you tap your foot on the downbeat, the offbeat is where you're lifting your foot up. You would never tap your foot four times in a measure, right?
My old teacher told me to emphasize the 2 & 4 beats in reels, that that's what makes them reels. He'd exaggerate them for me so I could hear them more easily, because I had trouble with that, and have me exaggerate them as well, just to get the hang of it, but eventually it was all supposed to just even out into a nice rhythm. Anytime my reels started sounding like hornpipes, that was the cure.
As for slurring, I think he said what you mentioned, but then he promptly did the exact opposite, because the tune sounded better that way. He wasn't a big fan of slurring patterns in general because he felt they encouraged too much repetition.
One of these days I will get the hang of all those things he tried to teach me...
That didn't work for me at first, Michael. All my reels sounded like hornpipes. I admit, I'm rhythmically challenged (no wisecracks about what I'm doing with a fiddle in my hands!), but just as an exercise, learning to exaggerate the rhythm one way or the other, or play it straight with no swing whatsoever---it really helped me get a better feel for getting into a groove. And for me, anyway, after I was able to do that, it was a lot easier to work with the melody (let it dictate, etc.).
michael is right. The melody gives you the rhythm & the phrasing & the accent. Any (so called) exaggeration is based on a preconception of how rhythm should be emphasized.
When I was playing rock & roll, a long, long time ago (early-mid 60’s), my friends and I referred to beats 1 and 3 as downbeats, 2 and 4 as upbeats. If there was a heavy accent on beat 3, we called that the backbeat. Just a few years ago, I noticed that people were referring to the upbeats as backbeats. What’s correct? Beats me. But if I change my upbeats to backbeats, what am I gonna call the heavy beat 3?
Example B is the right one as a rule of thumb, but this is not a rule of iron - as llig and Jeeves Jones aver in other words. How much you use backbeat depends a lot on the instrument you play, the nature and tradition of the tunes you are playing, and above all how you feel they should go and the mood you wish them to express.
I speak as a non-expert non-classically trained player
I understand that reels should properly be written down in cut common time i.e. 2|2
so there are 2 beats in the bar - therefore the first one must be stronger than the second
my reading of playing on the off beat means that in the 8 quarter notes of a bar of 2|2 reel music, the emphasis should be on the 3rd and 4th quarter notes
the 1st and 2nd notes are played almost as lead in notes and notes 5 to 8 are all played at a lower, flat level of attack
playing reels that way, with one strong beat, works for me and enables me to keep steady time at fairly high speeds
it reflects the way that some theorists seem to say that reels should be phrased
musical theory experts please forgive any transgressions on my part in this post
"the melody gives you the rhythm & the phrasing & the accent"
If that were true, then how would it be possible to play a reel as a hornpipe? Or vice versa? (I'm not advocating for those things, just saying that it's possible to do so)
I never said play a reel like a drum machine. It's just amazing how people will take something you say and twist it out of proportion. I was talking about basic reel rhythm. The stuff you start with and then build on it. There are lots of wrong ways to play a tune. Accenting the 1 & 3 beats in a reel (as a general approach, not every once in a while where it might suit a part of a tune) is one of those wrong ways to do it. Or so I've been told. By an traditional Irish fiddle player.
Michael/Jeeves
Yes, I've sensed that about reels....for instance, when you slow them down and listen for what the fiddler is doing the emphais/patters or whatever you might want to call it isn't straightjacketed....the slurring patterns DO seem to follow the melody dictates rather than vice versa.
I guess though what I'm thinking of here is a rule of thumb or thumbs...some 'general' patterns that would follow [roughly] the emphases in the reel rhythm....
Actually, Kennedy what confuses me is that: indeed I guess I *would* tap my foot 4 times in an eight note bar... that is on the TWO FOUR SiX and Eight notes in a bar...so that would not be 'correct' ?
If you use example B really the backbeat ISN'T beats two and four in a meaure it is beat 3 [the third 8th note in] ....so 1 & 2 ...
where "2" is actually the *third* 8th note...so you see my confusion? but if you count it straight ie, 1, 2, 3 4 and then again 1, 2 , 3 , 4 [or 5 6 7 8 depending on how you look at it] the so called backbeat is counted as one TWO three FOUR
I guess what I'm asking is, when you read suggestions about slurring around the "backbeats."...how does one determine what note that is, or do you just give it up and go to the melody as Michael suggests....and listen even more closely? [ i know he'd say trust your ears ]
as I see it there's confusion between what exactly the backbeat is...ie, falling on the 2nd and fourth 8th notes or actually falling on the 3rd and 7th eight notes...
Consider the phrasing of a conversation. Different phrasing is possible. Anything is possible. The emphasis (& all) is going to be influenced you what wish to say.
The 2 & 4 beats are (3AAA & F, e & d, (3AAA & F, e & (3BdB for each of the four measures, respectively. Notice that even the transcription puts the ornaments on the accent beats---it emphasizes where the accents belong. The tune wouldn’t sound right with triplets on the 1 & 3 beats---try it and see. Does that help clear things up?
Random.
nicely put and goes back to earlier notions of musical conversations in sessions brought up on other threads. Yeah, maybe trying to create "rules" around this vis a vis either what constitutes the 'real' backbeat in a reel or slurring patterns into or out of that specific beat isn't the way to go. Not sure. I was just trying to get a handle on how to think about it abstractly while gazing at some dots and marking up some tunes with "possible" bowing patterns to bring out the nyah.
I suppose I should give that up in favour of listening more closely.
I'm just trying to avoid the mistakes of emphasizing the 'wrong' beats...as I have in the past and so am reworking some tunes...reels in this case to get nyah in where nyah was formely not.
the funny thing is this...as soon as I think i've got a *formula* worked out on one tune [listening and marking up the dots to see how a player is doing it...in this case Sheila Garry] lo and behold in the next reel that pattern/ "rule" seems not to apply!!!
in other words, just as Llig says, the melody dictates a whole other pattern and, indeed, it seems backbeat note...depending on both tune and fiddler's interpretation of it...
end of the day it seems to be this scenario:
-no one right way or ways to emphasize beat in reels
-mixing the patterns up likely only solution [cf. drum machine metaphor]
--impossible/perhaps useless to work out patterns on paper re the dots because next tune will obviate former analysis!!! ;)
-trust your ears and put pencil away
"--impossible/perhaps useless to work out patterns on paper re the dots because next tune will obviate former analysis!!! ;)"
Certainly not impossible, and sometimes quite useful---as long as you're inclined to resort to sheet music as a way of working out a problem, which I am, sometimes. Not usually, but sometimes.
Boy, I'm not going to win any popularity contests around here today, that's for sure...
Thanks Kennedy; 1st comment on "Silver Spear"
# Posted on July 1st 2001 by Will CPT
" I learned this version directly from Kevin Burke years ago in Portland. When I quizzed him on the bowing, he played it once using an up-bow to slur three notes and then a down-bow on the accents. Then he changed where the accents fell but kept the three up, one down. Then he played each note in a separate bow stroke, and then slurred long phrases (whole bars) on one bow. He did all this with a casual efficiency while recovering on the sofa from a late gig the night before, and the tune sounded terrific--smooth but with that clear Burke danceable beat throughout--regardless of how he bowed it. The lesson was clear--don't rely on any one bowing pattern. Experiment. Do whatever you need to do to get the rhythm where you want it. And learn to do it with and without slurs. It helps to do this on a fairly simple, reptitive tune such as Silver Spear--I've probably played this reel more than any other in my repertoire, and I still enjoy it."
"The 2 & 4 beats are (3AAA & F, e & d, (3AAA & F, e & (3BdB for each of the four measures, respectively. Notice that even the transcription puts the ornaments on the accent beats---it emphasizes where the accents belong. The tune wouldn’t sound right with triplets on the 1 & 3 beats---try it and see. "
so, Kennedy, according to the above then really we're counting backbeats as falling on:
1 & 2 ....where two is the back beat BUT it is actually begins with the "third" 8th note
so that would go directly against the "backbeat" being counted as one TWO three FOUR
if you see what I mean.
so it seems EXample B is the way you should think of the "offbeat" or "backbeats" falling?
This thread is utterly nuts. Don't count or analyze the tunes like that, it's so unmusical and harmful to the feel of the tunes. No two tunes are the same so you shouldn't play them by formulas. Anyone who is unsure of the feel of tunes should play along with CD's or whatever until they feel the groove of the tunes. Forget about backbeats and all that nonsense.
mtodd, a reel is 4/4 time, right? 4/4 time is 4 quarter-notes to a measure (apologies to our European friends who call them demi-quavers or some such thing), so you have four notes, with the downbeat being 1 & 3, and the offbeat being 2 & 4:
1 2 3 4
If you have 8 notes in a measure, each quarter note is divided in two, which makes each note an eighth note:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
and the beat is distributed across them---the down beat is now 1 & 5, and the offbeat is 3 & 7. Make sense?
For some great visual help with this, try here, I love this site:
"and the beat is distributed across them---the down beat is now 1 & 5, and the offbeat is 3 & 7. Make sense?"
right. that's exactly what I thought you were saying.
and so, it seems to be that to say the offbeat is on 2 and 4, ie, where one LIFTS one's foot, isn't quite correct. [But i've heard it explained that way by some very knowledgeable fiddle teachers who said the offbeat is simply where you raise your foot rather than lower it, ie, on the "&" as in one AND two AND or one TWO three FOUR]
Bog
I undertand what you're saying but I was just trying to make sense of the "other" way of analyzing tunes. Point taken though. The thing is, this backbeat thing comes up time and again not only in fiddle books but in discussions in fiddle workshops.....by bona fide teachers who are using this very language...just trying to sort out what's what is all.
Och Kennedy, there's not that much I'm opposed to really but almost all of the posts above are pointless. Anyone who doesn't know how to play a tune should just play them like someone they know who can.
Mtodd, I was taught Highland Pipes with all these theories of beats and emphasis of the notes but now I just believe that method produces traditional robots.
I have to agree with bogman and Ilig - if you're analyzing it like a
computer program, you're using the wrong part of your brain. It's almost
as though you tried to measure the distances and angles while you try
to walk through a doorway --- you can't think that fast, you just feel
your way through the door by instinct.
What angles?
The threshold has to be level, jambs are plumb, the head jamb is level. What? Do you live in a hobbit hole . . . on a boat?
You must be confusing doors & turnstiles.
Oh, Jebus. First off, offbeat and backbeat are NOT the same thing. The offbeat does not get an accent. That is what makes it the offbeat. It does not land on the beat or the backbeat. Second, the downbeat always lands on 1 and 5. The backbeat always lands on 3 and 7. This occurs no matter which notes you accent.
The correct question should be,"where do I accent?" Every reel has the same beat and backbeat. The timing makes it so. The difference is in the phrasing, which notes get accented. This is not as complicated as y'all are making it out to be.
The only way to know this is by listening, and getting a feel for the music. Lots of listening. Others have said dancing helps too. (Sorry I can't confirm that, my bum knee won't allow me to dance.)
Thats a relief awildman. I had been getting puzzled by all that stuff. Assuming you are right . And I guess we will hear if the folks writing above think not.
This is what I understand by back beat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_beat and I think I got that explanation in an old discussion here. When someone was ranting on about rock drummers/strummers and trad.
So does it mean something different when fiddlers are talking about bowing patterns ?
awildman is of course technically correct, it's not rocket science. And as he says, the art is in the accent/phrasing. And there is no art in doggedly repeating the accent because you have learned a pattern. You will not learn to play reels by following patterns. How many times do we have to emphasise this?
I'm going against the crowd here; I don't care. There isn't an Irish fiddler out there who doesn't accent the offbeat in reels. They might not be consciously doing it, but it's there in their playing. and anyone who listens to them and tries to learn from their playing will be doing the same thing. Examples from the best:
Nope, sorry, there is something I am not following here. Apart from the guitar with Charlie Lennon. Must be too subtle for me. Or do you mean just *sometimes* accenting the offbeat.
Maybe this is a communication problem more than anything---it's so hard to describe this stuff in words over the internet. When I say accenting the offbeat, I don't mean playing an exaggerated note on every single offbeat. The tunes don't always have phrasing that allows that. It's more of a shift in emphasis, that the offbeat, when possible, is clear and accented. You can try this yourself---take a reel, any reel, and play it once, emphasizing the downbeat (1 & 3). It will sound wrong. Now take it again and emphasize the offbeat (2 &4)---don't change any phrasing you have for it, just exaggerate it where you can. It will sound cartoonish, but not intrinsically wrong.
Sorry I can't describe this better. I've had it demonstrated for me and it's clear as a bell. Now I tend to use it when I'm learning a new reel---I'll exaggerate it for a while just to get the pulse of it into my head, then really work on the phrasing.
Yeah, sorry kennedy, you're not really listening there. Sure the back beat gets an emphasis now and again on these three clips, but definitely not in any pattern. The emphasis is constantly shifting. It's very difficult to listen to Charlie Lennon with that truly dreadful guitar, but him too. I suspect what you are doing is imagining the back beet in the playing (hard not to on the Lennon clip) because you expect it to be there.
Kennedy - "They might not be consciously doing it, but it's there in their playing. and anyone who listens to them and tries to learn from their playing will be doing the same thing."
Spot on, couldn't agree more. But if they are not consciously playing by numbers or formulas then we shouldn't either.
I'm having to learn to *listen* by numbers to map out in my head what is going on with the accent in tunes. To work through breathing options on flute. So I can see how a fiddler thinking about bowing might talk about it that way.
"I suspect what you are doing is imagining the back beet in the playing (hard not to on the Lennon clip) because you expect it to be there."
That's actually what's happening. I supply it in my head for when it's not played, but it's there nevertheless. I go back to the foot-tapping thing. Ever been at a concert and everyone starts clapping to the music (always on the downbeat), and a few poor lost souls start clapping against the downbeat (on the offbeat), usually off-rhythm as well? I always wondered about that. Then my old teacher explained the 2 & 4 thing to me and I started going out and listening to players and tapping my fingers against the downbeat, against what I normally would do. And I started hearing the rhythm in a new way---I noticed that I heard some notes on my finger tap, but not always---but I could still keep the rhythm going that way.
So at the end of the day is this a fair summation?
"yes, there are bowing/slurring patterns, and perhaps, with caveats, it might be good to know that certain patterns re-occur across reels, but it would be a mistake to *impose* any one pattern(s) on a tune because the tune itself has its own organic structure that dictates a possibility of patterns that might suit...and the emphasis within those (patterns) too might ( and indeed should?) shift around etc"
in other words, we want to avoid bordeom and metronomic conformity, keep it interesting and alive, and embrace artistry through our choice on what to emphasize and where....
have I got that more or less "right"? if so, I see where you all are going with it.
what's interesting is: it flies direct in the face of a lot of Irish workshops and fiddle teaching and fiddle tutor books and etc, and throws us more or less back onto our own devices....that is, we the listeners/wanne be players. So, Llig, we've come full circle! Well I'll be damned. ;)
it throws you back to two of your own devices, your ears. It throws you back to having to listen for what is actually happening, not imposing preconceptions. If you think the best players phrase with a repetative back beat, listen again. If you think the best players use repetative bowing paterns they learn/teach at poxy workshops, listen again.
Llig
eggactly. in fact, i've been following some of your advice recently while reworking tunes....you know, really listening. woodshedding things like Bean Paudeen and The Wise Maid, Miss McCleods (tunes i know well) etc. And i've been letting the tunes dictate, but also thinking a 'little' bit too about why it does or doesn't sound swingy. trying different things, diff articulations/phrasing and really listening to what i try. ignoring the tape recorder. getting my two ears right down close to the fidde and trying not to "think" that what I'm hearing is what I'm hearing, but really hearing. it works. but it's hard to undo bad habits of not really listening to yourself or thinking you're better sounding than you are. etc.
This thread is an interesting illustration of the differing and sometimes contradictory ways that human brains can approach and master challenges. There are great players who are highly analytical and can perceive and articulate patterns, even if they aren't bound by them. Other great players rely on their unconscious intuition and see no benefit (or pleasure) in analysis and discussion. But that isn't to say that the analytic ones don't use their intuition (in fact, intuition may simply be unconscious analysis) or that the playing of intuitive ones can't be analyzed.
The thing that gets me is people disapproving of either analysis or intuition, as though enjoying and utilizing one rules out the other.
I don't disapprove of analysis (though the first four letters are no coincidence) it's just that if you have analysed good Irish diddley playing and come to the conclusion that there is a rigid emphasis on back beats, your analysis is wrong. You need to analyse with your ears more and less with your intuition and/or preconceptions
Ah, there's a great point. Many paths to the same destination, or many paths on the same road, no real destination, I suppose. If you feel you've reached one, I wager there's plenty of road to travel that you're not seeing yet.
For me, metacongating about something subconscious and intuitive hinders the process, instead of helping it. Your mileage will vary.
I guess I've had both. As a child with classical music, it was nothing but analysis. As an adult all that technical mumbo-jumbo is internalized and I can simply listen, process and play.
Kennedy, normally when you debate with these folks I am silently agreeing from the sidelines. But on this one I think I understand you and what you are suggesting make me cringe the way that guitar with Charlie Lennon does. But then it doesn't seem to bother Charlie Lennon...
I saw this: "I supply it in my head for when it's not played, but it's there nevertheless."
Which made me post what I did. It's not there in every tune, because each and every reel is different, and requires different things, but it's always in your head/foot, the boom chucka.
Or something else, but hopefully you can see where I got what I did.
Okay, SWFL, sorry. I'm getting kind of defensive. A couple of posters on this thread have been deliberately misreading what I've been trying to say and the frustration of that is getting the best of me.
This is not the kind of subject that if one person is right, the other has to be wrong. I have never said that anything in reels should be rigidly repetitive. That would be pretty ignorant of me, don't you think?
On the other hand, mention anything at all having to do with music theory on this website and you're tarred and feathered. Which is pretty ridiculous, given that this is a website for music.
I think it makes me cringe because *to me* that boom-ching boom-ching thing seems foreign to European traditional music. In this case foreign probably means north American. I was not brought up on rock and roll.
For me feet come up mainly so that they can go back down again. And, the more I listen, what is (or is not) happening when they come down becomes ever more mysterious.
So the not-quite-on-the-off-beat clappers probably bother me more than they do you.
Re: deliberately misreading - kennedy, earlier you implied that with my drum machine comment I was twisting what you said. In fact I wasn't even talking to you, but the original poster. He was the one who talked about drum notation...
Back to the subject at hand, most of us can't resist analysing things, that's what our schooling teaches us to do. The question is, in contexts like this, does it give results? Is there anybody who has turned into a decent fiddle player by looking at bars of music and deciding where the accent should go?
My maxim about this stuff has been, for decades now, if you can hear the effect you want to get into your playing, sooner or later your muscles will find a way to produce it. Trust them....
Well said kennedy, all paths should be discussed, you're spot on. Also, we all know Llig from here, and we know what his MO is. I for one appreciate it, he's like the cranky feller in the back of the pub who makes sure you're flying straight (‘listen!”) and all that jazz.
At the same time, I like when mtodd and Mr. Will CPT go off on massive technical discussions, because I marvel at how they can be so analytical and not lose the groove, the oomph. I'm jealous, I guess, because when I start thinking that deeply or analytically, my eyes glaze over and my fingers shut down.
"Is there anybody who has turned into a decent fiddle player by looking at bars of music and deciding where the accent should go?"
Not on its own, certainly, but I think that can be a step to undoing a rhythmic problem, if one exists. It can give a representation, through a different sense, of something that a person is having difficulty perceiving, just like watching a fiddler bow (in addition to listening) can help. I think that dancing or lilting can help musicians for similar reasons. It's like someone learning a language through immersion -- there's nothing wrong with looking at the conjugation of a verb as well.
Right. I was supplying the accent on the offbeat in my head when it wasn't actually played. There can still be an accent on an offbeat even if you don't hear an actual note, as long as all the other offbeats in the tune are accented. I suspect you might not agree with this. All I can suggest is to try it yourself---play a real and try over-exaggerating the downbeats, and then again, over-exaggerating the offbeats. Don't change your phrasing, just put some extra pressure on the bow wherever the notes occur. It feels awkward at first, but you'll get the hang of it, and you'll see that the reels have a very different feel to them depending on how you do it.
of course that exercise would give the same tune a different feel ... equally bad I'd think (though maybe the 1 & 4 version would be a little better, at least it wouldn't be that exagerated horid thing that people who've been to too many bloody workshops do, the 2 and 4)
but tell me, what do you gain from imagining something that is not there?
I don't know about the workshops, I just know what I was taught (by an Irish teacher), which was that reels have the accent on the 2 & 4. You only exaggerate it to understand how it works, because without it the rhythm can go very wrong (like for me, my reels turn into hornpipes if I'm not careful).
I suppose the answer to your question is that by imagining where the accent should be, you know not to put it where it shouldn't be. Like using the Silver Spear example from earlier, Will had the first triplet on the A (the 2 note), which sounds correct, and not the F (the 1 note), which would not sound right. It doesn't *always* work that way, of course. There are plenty of reels where you can put a triplet on a 1 or a 3. But the accent on the 2 and 4 needs to be there as well, or the rhythm gets out of whack. Does that help explain it better?
You can imagine that the accents fall anywhere you want. But on this sublime playing they actually fall more often on the 1 that anywhere else.
But I reiterate, stop imagining and start listening to what is actually happening. How smooth it is. How the accents divide the phrases, how they define the phrases. You can't say to accent certain beats in the bar without changing your phrasing. That doesn't make sense
I wonder if the confusion is over the word "accent". Have just listened to the Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh several times. I am not hearing what I would call accent in the way that would lead to a backbeat. But I am hearing offbeats, particularly the 4, giving sort of a of a strong lead in the to the next downbeat. A bit in the way that some tunes and phrases start with a pickup beat that has to be quite prominant (whearas in other tunes it is less so and I am more likely to be tempted use it for an emergency gulp of air). Does that make sense ?
“You can't say to accent certain beats in the bar without changing your phrasing. That doesn't make sense”
You can if you’re willing to actually get out your fiddle, slow everything down, and put extra pressure on the bow when the notes fall on the 2 & 4 beat. It’s not going to sound good, that’s not the point. The idea is to understand where the accents are, and then bring it back to normal with that understanding internalised. My old teacher described it as the “rubber band” theory, where you exaggerate something as an exercise to get in into your playing in the first place, and then later everything snaps back into shape properly.
I’m listening, Michael. I don’t dispute what you say. I just wish you wouldn’t insist that I’m trying to recommend learning how to play according to some formula, because that’s not what I’m saying, and I would never say that. There is no formula that could teach a music form with all the subtleties and idiosyncrasies that Irish music has. But there are exercises and ways of thinking about it that can help break it down a little and make it easier to understand and to learn, and this is one of them. I didn’t make this up in my head, you know---I’m passing on something that was taught to me by a good player who knew how to teach. It absolutely requires listening---very careful listening.
Have you ever had someone clap the offbeats as you were playing a reel? My old teacher used to do that to me and it confused the heck out of me---I'd usually lose the tune altogether! But it was instructive, because it helped me see where the accents needed to be. It's much easier if you tap while someone else is playing, but try it with a metronome sometime---it's not easy!
Oh, no, I'm recommending using a metronome. Now I'm really in for it. I'll get my coat...
Silver Spear is a good example of which beats can be emphasized in Irish reels. Short and simple: the heavy downbeat falls on 1 and 4, with somewhat less emphasis on 2 and 4. The result is usually a relatively smooth, flowing line with a strong pulse that you could tap your foot to either twice per bar or four times per bar (and either way would feel "right").
So the initial "F" gets some oomph. then the triplet on the A creates another bit of the pulse, but it's less than the oomph on the F. Some people new to this music think they should pounce on triplets and other twiddly bits to add oomph, but that's redundant. It also leads to "bounce" instead of pulse, and reels end up sounding like poorly played polkas.
I also play bluegrass and old timey muisc, and in contrast to those genres, I think Irish trad works better when you ditch the notion of down beats and back beats, and think instead of beats that are either strong or weak. Iin a reel, these would be the beats in CAPS in a string of eighth notes: ONE two THREE four FIVE six SEVEN eight. So there are four possible beats to each measure. Which ones you emphasize depends on (as Michael said way above) on the melody and your understanding of it. Some reels seem to want only the ONE and FIVE notes called out. Some beg for a little oomph on the THREE and SEVEN. Many reels sound best with just the ONE emphasized, creating a longer, sinuous sense of phrasing (e.g., the A part of the Scholar).
In any case, it's usually not about locking into just a downbeat pulse or a backbeat pulse the way bluegrass, old timey, or rock does. In Irish trad, it's about being free to emphasize any of those four beats, either strongly or weakly, to best serve the melody.
"It's much easier if you tap while someone else is playing". Thats just where I am coming from.
I am a year or two behind you (I hope no more) in actually playing this stuff on a melody instrument. But I have spent hundreds of hours at sessions tapping it whilst other people are playing. Following the fidders and watching their bows and the box players arms. If there was a pattern I think I would hear it. But I don't. I hear the downbeat (or its location in time) and the phrasing.
But with the reference to a drum I'll get my coat before Michael gets back.
I also play bluegrass and old timey muisc, and in contrast to those genres, I think Irish trad works better when you ditch the notion of down beats and back beats, and think instead of beats that are either strong or weak. Iin a reel, these would be the beats in CAPS in a string of eighth notes: ONE two THREE four FIVE six SEVEN eight. So there are four possible beats to each measure. Which ones you emphasize depends on (as Michael said way above) on the melody and your understanding of it. Some reels seem to want only the ONE and FIVE notes called out. Some beg for a little oomph on the THREE and SEVEN. Many reels sound best with just the ONE emphasized, creating a longer, sinuous sense of phrasing (e.g., the A part of the Scholar).
"Yes, but you can tap anywhere you want to someone else's playing. It doesn't necessarily represent where they are putting the emphasis."
The artistry...the taste aspect if you like...of really good bodhran playing is that you in fact DO NOT tap along and become the sessions metronome...when you're playing with an amazing fiddle or piper the really wonderful moments happen when *they* are continually changing the emphasis phrase to phrase and you do the same...except it's contrpuntal...you're not a rhythm section guitarist strumming away...you're adding this underlying momentum...indeed you *can* in a sense even slur on a drum [a reverse tympani effect of a sort] . The trick is to stay 'out of time' but in time at the risk of seeming zen but also never wavering in accurate keeping of time...it's just that your 'beat' is complementing [not overriding and NOT competing] with the melody players. It's a subtle thing. But the point is...the point of focus for the melody playes beat [their emphais] is always shifting in a great player...that's what makes playing with them such fun. It's full of surprises.
Along with the shifting beat thing you might also try to emulate -- such as you can -- the melody shape of the tune....so to do that AND play in time, or rather out of time but in time, can be a challenge. But if done well and understatedly it's amazing!
Okay, I’ve had an insight. One thing we haven’t accounted for is individual abilities and weaknesses. I’ve said I’m rhythmically challenged---my problem has been that I don’t put *enough* emphasis into my reels, so for me it’s important to know where to put the accents. After that, the tunes seem to smooth out on their own.
But Will mentioned some people who add so much “oomph” that they sound bouncy and more like polkas than reels. For those people, it would be important to focus more on even phrasing, and the accenting-the-2-&-4 exercise would not be so helpful.
Kennedy, I went through a similar process of over-emphasizing the beats and then letting the tunes smooth out. Not a bad approach to feeling the rhythm.
Also, some people simply prefer a bouncier style. Nothing wrong with that if it's your cuppa tea. Of course, a well-rounded player can play bouncy or with smooth pulse and everything in between. Part of being a good session player is being able to match what other people are doing, and to vary things, too.
That said, too much back beat (2 & 4 emphasis) can make Irish reels sound more like old timey or bluegrass. I suspect the backbeat thing is a relatively recent phenomena in our music, an influence from other genres (most notably rock in bands like Lunasa).
Getting back to mtodd's original question. Only recently during hours of driving forcing myself to count 1&1&3&4& to reels, tapping my foot on the 1 and 3, have I begun to get to the stage where I start to automatically drop out the ones that are not there each measure. That Frankie Gavin clip is still to fast for me though. It gives a framework to start to recognize what things are happening and when. But its an analytical aid for listening. I think it helps me.
Even phrasing---I don’t know, I guess more even emphasis to notes within a phrase, more balance from phrase to phrase, that kind of thing. Sorry for the vague term.
Thanks, Will, for understanding some of what I was getting at. I’ve never tried to play old timey or bluegrass, but I can see that it would be easy to take the offbeat thing too far in the wrong direction if you were coming from that perspective.
Thanks Kennedy. It's all relative. Or as Carlos used to say
"Wherever you go . . . ¡ ¡ there you are ! ! "
No foul with anyone who wishes to learn a thing or two along the way. I keep a chair warm in the woodshed. I won't say I spend lots of time there. But after session, last night, I was shedding for hours. Trying to get the syncopation of a particular Shetland jig. Plus I decided an A whistle would be best for this tune. After always using a Low D.
Good comments Kennedy. Except when you threw the book at bogman. ;) Those pipers!
Thanks Will ~ we appreciate your input on this one.
How about those syncopations the Shetlanders' keep coming up with?
Well bugger me. I'm obviously on a different planet.
So ... the advice is to practice something that isn't/shouldn't be there. To practice something that is "not going to sound good". Sounding good is "not the point".
Well, Michael, we know you're from another planet, that's not news.
There's a practice method in the classical world called "rhythms", where you switch the emphasis in a phrase from beat to beat like so:
ONE two three four FIVE six seven eight
one TWO three four five SIX seven eight
one two THREE four five six SEVEN eight
one two three FOUR five six seven EIGHT
You can do it with scales, or with a few measures in a piece. It sounds pretty awful. But it helps fix something in the connection between the brain and the fingers to help the fingers play the notes more smoothly and gain control over timing. It's a very common exercise, and it works.
I've always said I'd stand on my head and practice play upside down if it helped me play better. Thankfully no one has proven that to be a helpful music method yet.
Years ago now, I was chatting with an African friend once about practising. I was trying to do this thing he had on his conga and I just couldn't get it. I could hear it, but I lacked the co-ordination. I think I said something like, you must have had to practice that for hours. I remember him laughing at me and saying that there was no such thing as practice. He explained it to me, in Gambia they have children's' drumming games, He played some with me, it was a hoot. I'm glad I'm on his planet.
If we're discussing beats and how to hear them I was thinking....perhaps teachers of itm don't do enough mouth music...that is getting people to mouth some nonsense vocables [the diddley dee diddley dum thing] ....Wouldn't that be a perfect way to get a handle on and play with the rhythm and get a feel for the tune as well as a great mnemonic device for learning the tune before ever putting fingers to chanter or bow to fiddle?
has anyone experience learning this way? i'm many of you out there do...esp. the old timers
In my decade of learning fiddle so far ONLY one or two people had us learn tunes that way and/or emphasized that 'singing' tunes was a great way to get the *shape* and lilt in your head before you added the mechanics of bows etc....
why don't we do that more?
I think as adults we are now really self conscious about "singing" and that kind of thing. I'll be children aren't though...
anyone who teaches out there use this technique consistently?
Huh, they went away. That was to kennedy. Someone once told me not to try accenting a pattern until I could hear the metronome (on its own, no music) doing it without me counting. The idea being internalise the pattern. Take away the notes and I find the tricky bit with that one above is keeping track of the 'one'. And if I just talk it through in my head I'm not sure that accenting the the words in capitals doesn't do something subtle to the timing. And I don't like the feeling of fighting a melody.
OK. I have read mtodd's post now (and ignored cosmic ray).
Yes, thats sort of what i was talking of. Certainly thinking patterns over the steady tick of the metronome using words rather than counting (for a straight beat maybe just tock tick tick tick tock etc) and then stopping the words and hearing the metronome do it.
Learning the bodhran that how I did it but as I said above, I recently taught myself to count whilst listening because I can't work it for irregular sequences of accents spread across two bars or more. I can mimic them but I don't know what I am doing.
And just in case llig is still around no I did not just beat out patterns on the drum. Practicing the patterns is to develop the skill of hand to miss or accent any or all of Will's 1 to 8 above. But I was not up to the level that mtodd was taking about earlier. More a case of hearing the banjo player do something that sounded good against the fiddlers and maybe doing something similar next time round or on another occassion.
"Someone once told me not to try accenting a pattern until I could hear the metronome (on its own, no music) doing it without me counting. The idea being internalise the pattern. Take away the notes and I find the tricky bit with that one above is keeping track of the 'one'."
You kind of lost me there. You mean just tapping out a rhythm with a metronome going?
At a basic level I mean setting it going at some speed and being able to hear the same thing as, say
TICK tick tick TICK tick tick TICK tick tick for a (very even) waltz
TICK tick Tick tick TICK tick Tick tick (maybe) for a reel
TICK Tick TICK tick TICK tick for a jig
Without having an electronic metronome that does that sort of thing for you. Somehow knowing when the 'one' comes round and which the other beats are without actually having to count or have them accented.
It was years ago after watching something folky on the TV, can't remember what . One of the band was singing and hitting a pair stones ( ? claves are they) with a pattern that I could not work out. A friend told me which (different ) beats it was over several bars. I was having trouble working out even where the 'bar lines' were. Decided there was something I needed to work on ! Still find it hard.
"I just don't see why this - such a fundamental component of this music - should actually merit discussion - other than by those who don't have it naturally."
Well there you go then. I had not read your post before responding to kennedy but the last bit could have been for you. Seems some of us don't have it naturally. But if your point is the one you made to mtodd (give up) then, well, I don't think it merits discussion.
Well, I have to say, even I wouldn't be willing to listen to a metronome. I'm not too fascinated by drumming, though.
Michael, are you missing the concept of something being an *exercise* that is very brief, that only serves the purpose of reinforcing a certain skill? I mean, you don't think any of this is meant to be done for hours at a time, do you?
And again, everyone is different---some people have a good sense of natural rhythm, some have to work harder at it. Some have great intonation, some don't. There are different solutions for every problem, and different personal preferences and tolerances. I would think that none of those things would matter as long as the outcome is the same---the ability to play the music well. Don't you at least agree with that?
I don't understand the problem. You play a tune and that's it. Seems like there's a lot of pretentious nonsense going on here. Or some thing that some fiddle players think they have. I think its the ones who weren't brought up with the music that are going on about this the most, making a big deal out of a natural thing. That is sad.
The point is that it is NOT A TUNE. It is a basic temporal framework that has elements shared by tunes of similar type. And it can go on in the head (sounds as if it does in Cosmic Ray's) without the machine. And if it is not reliant on doing anything with (tapping, bowing, tonguing or whatever) it can act as reference for what is going on when listening and get reset slightly by what one is hearing.
I don't like kennedy's suggestion of messing with the accent, even in scales, and certainly not in measures of a tune because the tune carries rhythm to be worked with, teased out, or whatever with not fought against.
Mick
"I think its the ones who weren't brought up with the music that are going on about this the most, making a big deal out of a natural thing. "
If so, you're lucky. But for others, especially people who came to this in middle age it's a learning curve....Blowing such a discussion off doesn't accomplish a thing. If a light goes off somewhere for someone thru discussions [remember, these are conversations...you can't have one if you don't respect the dialogue] what's not to like?
It might seem ludirous to you and others...even Llig...who had a different kind of environment [if youor he did] in which this music was respected, played and/or encouraged. But for many people that hasn't been the case.
so.....sometimes it's worth exploring....and people can make up their own minds. That's a good thing don't you think?
Whether I understand the concept of an exercise or not is besides the point. I'm simply pointing out that there cannot be any merit in trying to listen for something that isn't there. I keep harping on about how important it is to hear properly. To be able to distinguish between what you actually hear and what you might think you might be hearing. It's fundamental to the ability to play music.
And you lot are actually advocating exercises that encourage you to imagine you are hearing something that isn't there. I just can't believe it. Never in a million years can such an exercise help.
Llig...
I'm not debating your points with which I agree. I'm debating Mick's "born into the tradition thing"....that's all if that's what you are referring to....if not, my apologies for this x post.
I wonder if there are some real differences in what goes on in people heads. Although I can often mimic a rhythmic pattern without thinking about it or knowing what I am doing (I guess related to how we learn to speak) when it come to thinking about it so that I can talk about it then it becomes more of a time series graph. Listening very hard to that Frankie Gavin clip, and not being able to think of it in terms of bowing I end up with sort of a graph in my head with different sorts of squiggles before and/or during and/or after notional markers that are "the beat" or some division of it. And to lay down those markers I have had to do the sort of things we are talking about.
Well, then, fine, we can disagree. I do think there can be merit to methods if the end result is the ability to play well.
This is just another form of the controversies that go round and round on this board endlessly. Can scales help with intonation? Yes. Absolutely not. Are metronomes any good? Of course not. Sure they are. The whole sheet music morass. It's all a big field of landmines for discussion. I'm so tired of it.
No llig. kennedy was advocating imagining a back beat that I think we agree was not there. I am imagining a time slot where it would be if it was there. And where Charlie Lennon's gutarist put something. Not going back to check but I don't think it was exactly on one of my notional evenly spaced markers.
It started as dance music. The beat goes on. And I find it fascinating that it goes on even when none of the things that get written into "the dots" are actually happening when the beat seems to be happening.
At a basic level its what stops me standing on the toes of that nice girl in the barn dance or kicking the other morris dancer in the shins.
kennedy. But out of that [sometimes] comes something worthwhile. All you need is a nugget or two to either challenge one's assumptions or cause one to think differently about things....that's a good thing I feel and worth panning thru the slurry.
mtodd and david---I know what you mean, but I don't have patience for it anymore. It's like we're all supposed to pretend we're farmers out in Co. Sligo who only get to play music after we've spent a day tilling the fields, slopping the pigs, and digging peat. None of that high-falutin' music theory stuff for us, no sir! Here's a tune, use yer ears, and don't come back until you can play it just like I did. What's the matter with you, can't you see Aunt Maggie over there dancing with Uncle Martin? You must be feckin' deaf!
Yup, that's us, it's all gotta come naturally by the grace of the Almighty.
kennedy..also the ultimate dismissive weapon with which it's hard to argue...ie, "it's just natural" or "it's obvious"...but of course it isn't. If it was The Session.org wouldn't exist now would it?
What happened here while I was playing music last night?
I thought there was a bit more camaraderie. Michael you're not getting into your bag of tricks again ~ are you?
Kennedy, he's pulling the old shell game on you.
1st you show the mark how easy it is to pick the correct shell.
Then you try . . . no not that one . . . no not that one.
People get sucked into it all the time.
There's still some friendly people here though.
Geez ~ do you really have to characterize farmers as ignorant?
;)
Check out the 1st post.
You know how that might go nowadays.
Cheers!
Thanks david. & Ouch!
I was considering camaraderie "outside" the boxing ring.
A bit of the slagless tradition.
much to Michael's chagrin I will have to 'imagine' the bits I have not heard 1st hand.
Michael, I do have a question for you if you are interested.
I had to go back & read the post again. Did playing the drumming games help you get the bit your friend was teaching you?
maybe 2 questions - - any chance you can share with us what he was doing?
no, not really. Your man was a top professional player, I'm not even a drummer. And you had to have really hard calluses on your knuckles. My hands would have bled. He hit the drum really really hard in a particular place and it made this really hi pitched whining drone, an amazing sound. Must have been a really high resonant harmonic.
I remember one game, you start by going:
bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
then:
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
(It's a bit like the "I went to the market and bought an apple. I went to the market and bought a banana and an apple. I went to the market and bought a candle and a banana and an apple" etc)
then:
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... duh duh duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
It's great fun if you tap a one two with your left and right foot while doing it:
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... etc
L..........R............L............R............L...........R.............L
It looks horrid and dry writing it out like this, but it's fun, it's a kids game. What does it teach you? Who cares.
On the face of it, it looks a bit like Kennedy's:
ONE two three four FIVE six seven eight
one TWO three four five SIX seven eight. etc
But it's a hell of a lot more fun
Actually when I saw this;
ONE two three four FIVE six seven eight
one TWO three four five SIX seven eight
one two THREE four five six SEVEN eight
one two three FOUR five six seven EIGHT
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by kennedy
I recognized similar things which I do.
I just call these 'thingies' exercises. To me it's mostly playful. I try to do them in a way that sounds good to me. Something Jack Gilder said about loosening up your fingers with an exercise/game. Do it with rhythm.
Kennedy ~ it stood out when you said the exercise sounds awful. I'm not picking on you. I sincerely think you can use whatever method is best for you & move toward it feeling & sounding good. Otherwise that little voice might keep saying, " OMG ~ that sounds terrible! "
This bit is not about reels. But it is about feeling the pulse (of a tune).
In our session a few players will have a go at 7/8 tunes. It seems to throw others. With just a little guidance it is possible to get the beat & then settle in & enjoy the groove.
Nell sets up the basic count for 7/8;
"Blakan irish tunes" http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/1967/comments#comment35040
" . . . If it's a consistent 7/8 then that's not too hard once you get it - it's usually either: 2/2/3, like this:
One-two, one-two, one-two-three/ One-two, one-two, one-two-three/. . . once you get it, stop counting as soon as possible and just feel the groove. While you still have to count it in your head, it won't be very easy to feel the groove or enjoy it much, for that matter, you'll be concentrating so hard on the counting... "
August 4th 2003 by Nell
It feels nice with an upbeat ~ One-two, One-two, One-two-Three/ One-two, One-two, One-two-Three/ One . . .
I was hoping this was a new discussion. Surely everyone has gone away by now.
What is your view on the "While you still have to count it in your head, it won't be very easy to feel the groove or enjoy it much, for that matter, you'll be concentrating so hard on the counting.."
I have never found counting whilst playing much use, would rather go "dada dada dadada" but not even with the words (if that makes sense, sort of clapping in my head). But to listen and think about what is happening I am now finding counting a huge help. And I know some skilled sight readers who say they do count through tricky bits when playing.
How many people count when playing ? Most advice to learners says to do it ?
I think a tune with an "unusual" timing illustrates Michael's regularly made "learn from the recording not the dots" well.
Interesting question david. My answer is this. In learning to play in 7/8 and other unusual rhythms I counted in groups of 2and 3 just as above. This lasted for a number of years. Now I have no need to count. I can comfortably play these rhythm and improvise over the top(as a percussionist) In teaching these to experienced drummers I do sometimes encounter an anti-intellectual mindcast and refusal to use numbers, so I simply substitute a verbal patter such as Ba da ba-Da ba -Da ba or diddly da ba da ba . this succesfully circumnavigates this bias. (as a 123 12 12 7/8 rhythm )
So numbers are not essential, what is important is where you stress the notes.
My advice to learners is simple. play by ear, dont use dots or count untill you can play the music. Mainly to avoid the split required to achieve 2 skills at once, reading and playing.
But with specific technical skills such as playing in 15/8 etc some such aid is needed, be it counting or a vocal pattern/ melody. I also found using a metronome handy though I gather its use is frowned upon on this board. For me the metronome cuts out the pattern which enables me to position notes slightly before or after the click without losing the beat, to swing the groove, elongate certain notes to create tension and release.
All the best tunes have phrases that cut accross the bar lines. Learning balkan tunes by repeating stuff like Ba da ba-Da ba -Da ba or diddly da ba da ba is the same as looking for backbeat patterns in reels. I learn tunes by phrases, so I have no problems with unusual timings.
And if you take a tune like Donal Lunny's lepadumdowledum, it sounds like it's a complicated timing structure because the phrases are so cleverly constructed, but it's really a simple, straightforward, slip jig. And if you play it stressing the three down beets in each bar of three triplets, ie, the standard slip jig pattern, you'll totally ruin it. Just like you ruin reels by looking for patterns of back beats
Its the only way to go imo.So simple and the time honoured way.If you learn this way it is so easy to swap tunes with other players.The more you do it the easier it gets.You can make it as hard or as easy as you want.So yeah pick it up by the phrase and avoid over complicating things me thinks.8).
regards Mac
I hear tunes in phrases always have done, as a kid, before anyone explained about the beat. The bar-length or longer vocal patterns are to help me honour the underlying dance rhythm when working through problems. Thats what I am likely to loose.
I like this music because it is dance music, with a pulse. I don't find the lepadumdowledum example convincing. Either its slip jig or it isn't. Plenty of other 9/8 tunes around that are not played with a standard slip jig pattern (esp. in Scotland).
Went to an Altan concert a year or so ago and realised that in one reel I was loosing the downbeat if I did not tap my foot. To my ear the phrasing was dominating over the dance rhythm. No reduction in enjoyment but it flagged up something I could usefully work on. So I embarked on the "learning to count program". Starting with those low price ceilidh band CDs complete with drummer. Irish reels and Shetland fiddlers as end of unit tests.
Point taken about the counting Ionannas. Just had a train ride and a 1/2 hour walk. Sitting on the train the Dada Dada Dadada 7/8 kept slipping into 3/4 but counting held it right. Once walking no problem either way.
And I'm going to stick with the metronome, for temporal target practice and as a reference for where the beat is - not so much to deliberatly position notes (yet) as a to flag up for further investigation when for some reason (good style, bad style, syncopated clockwork) I am doing something not quite on the tick.
I guess you'd like me to play these phrases in time. Have been a drummer in sessions. I know the world is not perfect. Dodgy timing from melody players is not unknown.
Sorry if that sounds as if I am asking for advice then rejecting some of it. I think its that some things are only bad if... and some ideas are especially useful when...
or " Re: still beating a dead horse" ;)
david_h ~ try everything. Drum games . . . counting . . . walking . . . dancing . . . just enjoy whichever one(s) you choose. Counting isn't necessarily a problem. It's more the extra effort of concentration that can trip you up. Allow the counting to settle into your subconscious. Then that helps you get a feeling for the phrases. * The rhythm, accent, & phrasing is all in the tune. You really only dissect it into the small bits, or chunks, or patterns for the sake of discussion. We do that here,eh?
Talk & talk & talk.
The playing is fun & you begin to let go of all the ' stuff '
* John Lennon could have sang, " Imagine there's no barlines. It's easy . . . "
By the way ~ why 7/8? Pure fun. Great rhythm. The barlines are there & they are not. Patterns are there & then they are not. Just surprised the Irish didn't come up with it. Great dance music.
Thanks random. As for dissection, the reason I am a bit fired up on this at the moment is that I have been trying out a suggestion ( from here or a similar place) to "find a place to breath in every bar". Not sure if that is shedding light or scattering confusion on the tunes but it is making me aware of things about both melody and rhythm that I had not noticed and is throwing up challenges that are worthwhile just to improve technique. I'm finding it a good game .
I can relate to that me and a button player i play with keep moving the start of the phrase on, as the tune goes round,absolutely pointless and musically shxte but it may help with the head space thing i suppose and you do get to know the tune pretty darn well.
I liked Random Notes take on it only difference i view it slightly differently, to me a phrase is the timing, rhythm, craic,and melody,but i do more or less what he says whether it be right or wrong.
taking a breath ~ you mean that literally (flute) but it is essential to every trad musician.
I love this. & even though I'm tossing out stuff about balkan rhythms there is great fun in reels & polkas.
Some players in Sliabh Luchra with the nuanced rhythms in their polkas! Too bad when sessions gloss over the polkas (slides & even slip jigs too). Listen to the players who are immersed in their melody/rhythm.
Cheers!
david, I think that advice to "find a place to breath in every bar" is misplaced. I don't think you should think in bars. Try, instead to find a place to breath in every phrase.
The Lepadumdowledum example is straight forward in this case. The tune is a slip jig, but, for example, the first two phrases of the first part are pared triplets, or two bars of 6/8. As I said, the best tunes cut across bar lines, they toy with bar lines, they disguise them.
Tommy Peoples is a master of phrasing and breathing. He divides tunes into the most remarkably obtuse chunks that make such perfect melodic sense, and defy bar lines in the most beautiful of ways.
some players seem to forget to phrase. It is as if they never take a breath. Perhaps the advice is intended to mean ~ 'be sure to play in phrases, take a breath.' In any case thanks for pointing it out Michael.
Now I will ask the novice question. Is every breath (on flute) a phrase? Seems to me one player can take a breath while all the others play right through. Make sense or no?
I think you're getting mixed up with the physical act of having to breath with the metaphorical space we can put into tunes that make them breath. Good flute players breath in the middle of phrases. Good pipers phrase without stopping at all.
Thanks Michael. I tried to phrase that to indicate that was not taking it too literally. I think the point of the original advice was partly technical - to force work on difficut breathing spots that would not get done if taking the easy options and partly to challenge assumptions about phrasing.
For example one commonly suggested option for breathing in jigs or slides is missing a middle note of a group of three. Trying that one by one throws up things that I may not have noticed. Amongst other things sometimes it is hard to do without accenting the note before too much, or sometimes it turns out that the middle note is important in the melody. Other times it turns out to be easy to slip a breath in without upsetting the phrase and allows more flexibility in what comes next.
Have only heard Lepadumdowledumm on the radio but can certainly think of times when that sort of things has confused me if I have thought about it but, as with the Lunasa reel, been part of the enjoyment if I haven't. If I get round to trying to learn it I will bear in mind your comments in the tunes section.
But can I echo random's question ? For some reason the versions of tunes that are almost in my head seem to come from pipers or fiddlers and I am drawn to the easy option of going for the bigger breaths between their phrases. The "game" above is helping break from that and sometimes break the phrases with something other than a breath. But do I copy Tommy Peoples "breathing". Or is that random's metaphorical breathing.
I have just been listening to some improvisational music.
When the lead melody (if the lead melody . . .) follows, more or less, predictable rhythmic patterns the tune begins to sound too stiff. However, a guitar backing (chords) follows a relatively patterned rhythm (beats). The chords don't necessarily cross barlines to the same degree as the melody.
Perhaps basic patterns are useful to backers.
Which might be why some players hear something that others do not. Or it could be hallucinations.
Of course this is my take on a different genre. So none of this applies to traditional reels.
Backbeats in reel patterns
Backbeats in reel patterns
Something I've been a bit confused about regarding counting the offbeat/backbeat in reels. In terms of 4/4 eight notes to a measure I seem to find conflicting ways of thinking about it .
For instance would you count the "off beat" as:
Example A
/ 1 *2* 3 *4* 1 *2* 3 *4* / in an 8- note measure? where 2 and 4 are counted as the backbeats in Irish music? that is:
-X-X -X-X
OR do you count it like:
Example B
/ 1 & *2* & 3 & *4* & / ...?
I always thought Example A was the way to think of it, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
I take it the idea is to come out of a slur on those "offbeats" ...[if possible with room for variations of course]?
Thanks to anyone for clarifying and if you'd like to suggest/explain how some possible slurring patterns might work with either of the above methods of counting I'd be grateful for the input.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Mtodd,
So I understand your question, sing the first 8 notes of The Wise Maid and tell me how many backbeats you hear. I hear two. (but then I listen to kids playing saxophones and drums all day and I can't really hear much of anything!)
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I agree with example A. To me it's like the snare drum in the straight ahead rock and roll beat.
But more importantly why are you asking? I've been thinking about this a lot. I am at as point in my fiddle bowing where I need to add decent rhythm. So I find myself listening to and dissecting good fiddlers rhythm patterns. And boy, every 3rd or fourth tune has an emphasis on the "backbeat". It's kinda nice in that you get that variety but not all the time. I find box players do this too. It also seems to end up being a down stroke on the bow too. It does get along with slurring across the beat, just more emphisis on those back beat slurs.
Good example is the reel "Tuttles".
Salt
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by saltcast
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Greg
Well, ok it all "depends" -- I guess! lol. excluding the pick up notes I hear the accent really falling on 1 and 4 and "maybe" then the open D string...which would be beat "7"...but I guess it depends on how you reef on the bow....I'm terrible really with deconstructing music and music theory since I don't really "hear" it that way....I guess as a former drummer now also bodhran player I find the whole idea of any set beats kind of problemmatic since as a bodhran player I play around with those beats all the time [but I couldn't tell you how...I only know it works].
I find it's rather frustrating though to try and translate the interesting variations I can hear [and play] on bodhran into a fiddle context...esp when you add in slurring patterns. I saw that "drum' notation counted out the "back beat" in a 8 note phrase of 4/4 somewhat differently than I'd seen it expressed in various fiddle discussions both here and on IRTRAD-L...
truth be told I can't make head nor tail of it...I'm just looking for some sort of definitive answer...ie, "counit it 1&2& etc or one TWO three FOUR.....
I'm guessing the latter is the accepted norm for the off beat in itm?
hope that answers your enquiry too Salcast. that's why I'm asking, because I'm trying to reconcile where the off beat falls in terms of fiddle bowing to try and get MORE of that nyah in the tunes.....
cheers,
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Definitely example B. It's the offbeat, the opposite of the downbeat. So if you tap your foot on the downbeat, the offbeat is where you're lifting your foot up. You would never tap your foot four times in a measure, right?
My old teacher told me to emphasize the 2 & 4 beats in reels, that that's what makes them reels. He'd exaggerate them for me so I could hear them more easily, because I had trouble with that, and have me exaggerate them as well, just to get the hang of it, but eventually it was all supposed to just even out into a nice rhythm. Anytime my reels started sounding like hornpipes, that was the cure.
As for slurring, I think he said what you mentioned, but then he promptly did the exact opposite, because the tune sounded better that way. He wasn't a big fan of slurring patterns in general because he felt they encouraged too much repetition.
One of these days I will get the hang of all those things he tried to teach me...
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Kennedy...thanks for that. I'll get back to you in a minute but must away ...you bring up a couple of points I wanted to touch on. cheers
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
don't follow rhythmic patterns. It's tedious. Let the melody dictate
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
That didn't work for me at first, Michael. All my reels sounded like hornpipes. I admit, I'm rhythmically challenged (no wisecracks about what I'm doing with a fiddle in my hands!), but just as an exercise, learning to exaggerate the rhythm one way or the other, or play it straight with no swing whatsoever---it really helped me get a better feel for getting into a groove. And for me, anyway, after I was able to do that, it was a lot easier to work with the melody (let it dictate, etc.).
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I would suggest that you learn to dance ,set dancing preferably. Its dance music after all
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by bazouki dave
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
oh, bazouki dave, you don't want to see me dance. Trust me.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I completely agree with Michael. You're playing tunes, not programming a drum machine!
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Jeeves Tones
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Boom-chucka boom-chucka boom-chucka. Barkeep, boom-chuckas for everyone!
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Actually, boom-chucka is also kennedy's foot tapping. Tap, boom, up, chucka.
Incidentally, 'up' 'chucka' is what will happen if you keep mixing shots with your pints on an empty stomach.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
michael is right. The melody gives you the rhythm & the phrasing & the accent. Any (so called) exaggeration is based on a preconception of how rhythm should be emphasized.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
When I was playing rock & roll, a long, long time ago (early-mid 60’s), my friends and I referred to beats 1 and 3 as downbeats, 2 and 4 as upbeats. If there was a heavy accent on beat 3, we called that the backbeat. Just a few years ago, I noticed that people were referring to the upbeats as backbeats. What’s correct? Beats me. But if I change my upbeats to backbeats, what am I gonna call the heavy beat 3?
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Example B is the right one as a rule of thumb, but this is not a rule of iron - as llig and Jeeves Jones aver in other words. How much you use backbeat depends a lot on the instrument you play, the nature and tradition of the tunes you are playing, and above all how you feel they should go and the mood you wish them to express.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I speak as a non-expert non-classically trained player
I understand that reels should properly be written down in cut common time i.e. 2|2
so there are 2 beats in the bar - therefore the first one must be stronger than the second
my reading of playing on the off beat means that in the 8 quarter notes of a bar of 2|2 reel music, the emphasis should be on the 3rd and 4th quarter notes
the 1st and 2nd notes are played almost as lead in notes and notes 5 to 8 are all played at a lower, flat level of attack
playing reels that way, with one strong beat, works for me and enables me to keep steady time at fairly high speeds
it reflects the way that some theorists seem to say that reels should be phrased
musical theory experts please forgive any transgressions on my part in this post
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by millionyears_bc
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"the melody gives you the rhythm & the phrasing & the accent"
If that were true, then how would it be possible to play a reel as a hornpipe? Or vice versa? (I'm not advocating for those things, just saying that it's possible to do so)
I never said play a reel like a drum machine. It's just amazing how people will take something you say and twist it out of proportion. I was talking about basic reel rhythm. The stuff you start with and then build on it. There are lots of wrong ways to play a tune. Accenting the 1 & 3 beats in a reel (as a general approach, not every once in a while where it might suit a part of a tune) is one of those wrong ways to do it. Or so I've been told. By an traditional Irish fiddle player.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Michael/Jeeves
]
Yes, I've sensed that about reels....for instance, when you slow them down and listen for what the fiddler is doing the emphais/patters or whatever you might want to call it isn't straightjacketed....the slurring patterns DO seem to follow the melody dictates rather than vice versa.
I guess though what I'm thinking of here is a rule of thumb or thumbs...some 'general' patterns that would follow [roughly] the emphases in the reel rhythm....
Actually, Kennedy what confuses me is that: indeed I guess I *would* tap my foot 4 times in an eight note bar... that is on the TWO FOUR SiX and Eight notes in a bar...so that would not be 'correct' ?
If you use example B really the backbeat ISN'T beats two and four in a meaure it is beat 3 [the third 8th note in] ....so 1 & 2 ...
where "2" is actually the *third* 8th note...so you see my confusion? but if you count it straight ie, 1, 2, 3 4 and then again 1, 2 , 3 , 4 [or 5 6 7 8 depending on how you look at it] the so called backbeat is counted as one TWO three FOUR
I guess what I'm asking is, when you read suggestions about slurring around the "backbeats."...how does one determine what note that is, or do you just give it up and go to the melody as Michael suggests....and listen even more closely? [ i know he'd say trust your ears
as I see it there's confusion between what exactly the backbeat is...ie, falling on the 2nd and fourth 8th notes or actually falling on the 3rd and 7th eight notes...
! confused.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I have a thought....to go back to Greg the Piano's sugtgetion of how I/we hear the tune for example The Wise Maid....
posters above...where in the notes below then would you normally slur and/or place the emphasis?
here are abc's from The Session site itself: T
This way we can compare notes on a tune we all know and understand and see perhaps how people interpret the "back beat" differently.....thanks.
X: 1
T: Wise Maid, The
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
R: reel
K: Dmaj
|:DE|F2FG FEDE|FAAB AFED|d2eg fdec|dBAG BEED|
F2FG FEDE|FAAB AFED|d2eg fdec|dBAG FD:|
|:FA|d2AG FDFA|dfaf gfeg|fedf eAcA|dfed cA A2|
BAGB ADFD|dfaf gfed|Bdce dBAG|FGEF D2:|
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Consider the phrasing of a conversation. Different phrasing is possible. Anything is possible. The emphasis (& all) is going to be influenced you what wish to say.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Ben Steen
*
Cross post
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Mtodd, let’s use a real tune as an example. Here’s the first bit of Silver Spear (transcribed by Will CPT, who does a fine job of it):
|:FA (3AAA BAFA|dfed BddA|FA (3AAA BAFA|dfed (3BdB AG|
The 2 & 4 beats are (3AAA & F, e & d, (3AAA & F, e & (3BdB for each of the four measures, respectively. Notice that even the transcription puts the ornaments on the accent beats---it emphasizes where the accents belong. The tune wouldn’t sound right with triplets on the 1 & 3 beats---try it and see. Does that help clear things up?
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
cross-post, ha! We were thinking along the same lines, though.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Random.
nicely put and goes back to earlier notions of musical conversations in sessions brought up on other threads. Yeah, maybe trying to create "rules" around this vis a vis either what constitutes the 'real' backbeat in a reel or slurring patterns into or out of that specific beat isn't the way to go. Not sure. I was just trying to get a handle on how to think about it abstractly while gazing at some dots and marking up some tunes with "possible" bowing patterns to bring out the nyah.
I suppose I should give that up in favour of listening more closely.
I'm just trying to avoid the mistakes of emphasizing the 'wrong' beats...as I have in the past and so am reworking some tunes...reels in this case to get nyah in where nyah was formely not.
the funny thing is this...as soon as I think i've got a *formula* worked out on one tune [listening and marking up the dots to see how a player is doing it...in this case Sheila Garry] lo and behold in the next reel that pattern/ "rule" seems not to apply!!!
in other words, just as Llig says, the melody dictates a whole other pattern and, indeed, it seems backbeat note...depending on both tune and fiddler's interpretation of it...
end of the day it seems to be this scenario:
-no one right way or ways to emphasize beat in reels
-mixing the patterns up likely only solution [cf. drum machine metaphor]
--impossible/perhaps useless to work out patterns on paper re the dots because next tune will obviate former analysis!!! ;)
-trust your ears and put pencil away
Would that about cover it?
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
kennedy
that's a help. thanks. Will and I in fact discussed this very tune a while back. ok. i see where you're going with it. thanks.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"--impossible/perhaps useless to work out patterns on paper re the dots because next tune will obviate former analysis!!! ;)"
Certainly not impossible, and sometimes quite useful---as long as you're inclined to resort to sheet music as a way of working out a problem, which I am, sometimes. Not usually, but sometimes.
Boy, I'm not going to win any popularity contests around here today, that's for sure...
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Thanks Kennedy; 1st comment on "Silver Spear"
# Posted on July 1st 2001 by Will CPT
" I learned this version directly from Kevin Burke years ago in Portland. When I quizzed him on the bowing, he played it once using an up-bow to slur three notes and then a down-bow on the accents. Then he changed where the accents fell but kept the three up, one down. Then he played each note in a separate bow stroke, and then slurred long phrases (whole bars) on one bow. He did all this with a casual efficiency while recovering on the sofa from a late gig the night before, and the tune sounded terrific--smooth but with that clear Burke danceable beat throughout--regardless of how he bowed it. The lesson was clear--don't rely on any one bowing pattern. Experiment. Do whatever you need to do to get the rhythm where you want it. And learn to do it with and without slurs. It helps to do this on a fairly simple, reptitive tune such as Silver Spear--I've probably played this reel more than any other in my repertoire, and I still enjoy it."
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"The 2 & 4 beats are (3AAA & F, e & d, (3AAA & F, e & (3BdB for each of the four measures, respectively. Notice that even the transcription puts the ornaments on the accent beats---it emphasizes where the accents belong. The tune wouldn’t sound right with triplets on the 1 & 3 beats---try it and see. "
so, Kennedy, according to the above then really we're counting backbeats as falling on:
1 & 2 ....where two is the back beat BUT it is actually begins with the "third" 8th note
so that would go directly against the "backbeat" being counted as one TWO three FOUR
if you see what I mean.
so it seems EXample B is the way you should think of the "offbeat" or "backbeats" falling?
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Thoroughly! Well done too.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Cross post, that was in reference to: "Would that about cover it?"
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
This thread is utterly nuts. Don't count or analyze the tunes like that, it's so unmusical and harmful to the feel of the tunes. No two tunes are the same so you shouldn't play them by formulas. Anyone who is unsure of the feel of tunes should play along with CD's or whatever until they feel the groove of the tunes. Forget about backbeats and all that nonsense.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by bogman
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
mtodd, a reel is 4/4 time, right? 4/4 time is 4 quarter-notes to a measure (apologies to our European friends who call them demi-quavers or some such thing), so you have four notes, with the downbeat being 1 & 3, and the offbeat being 2 & 4:
1 2 3 4
If you have 8 notes in a measure, each quarter note is divided in two, which makes each note an eighth note:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
and the beat is distributed across them---the down beat is now 1 & 5, and the offbeat is 3 & 7. Make sense?
For some great visual help with this, try here, I love this site:
http://www.musictheory.net/index.html
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Sorry, that looks like a school lecture but they're just my thoughts.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by bogman
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Actually, bogman, you reminded me of some of those religious types who are opposed to studying the Bible as literature.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
kennedy
"and the beat is distributed across them---the down beat is now 1 & 5, and the offbeat is 3 & 7. Make sense?"
right. that's exactly what I thought you were saying.
and so, it seems to be that to say the offbeat is on 2 and 4, ie, where one LIFTS one's foot, isn't quite correct. [But i've heard it explained that way by some very knowledgeable fiddle teachers who said the offbeat is simply where you raise your foot rather than lower it, ie, on the "&" as in one AND two AND or one TWO three FOUR]
hence my confusion....
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Bog
I undertand what you're saying but I was just trying to make sense of the "other" way of analyzing tunes. Point taken though. The thing is, this backbeat thing comes up time and again not only in fiddle books but in discussions in fiddle workshops.....by bona fide teachers who are using this very language...just trying to sort out what's what is all.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Och Kennedy, there's not that much I'm opposed to really but almost all of the posts above are pointless. Anyone who doesn't know how to play a tune should just play them like someone they know who can.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by bogman
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Mtodd, I was taught Highland Pipes with all these theories of beats and emphasis of the notes but now I just believe that method produces traditional robots.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by bogman
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Bog....or itm drum machines! lol.
yeah, fair enough. Like Llig said, let the tune dictate.
# Posted on December 8th 2008 by skin&bow
You got your reel patterns &
Just for fun;
"Kevin Burke In Concert"
{Aidan Brennan & Martin Hayes}
Submitted on December 21st 2001 by Josh Kane.
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/60
"A Tribute To Michael Coleman"
Joe Burke, Andy McGann And Felix Dolan
Submitted on October 17th 2001 by glauber.
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/47
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I have to agree with bogman and Ilig - if you're analyzing it like a
computer program, you're using the wrong part of your brain. It's almost
as though you tried to measure the distances and angles while you try
to walk through a doorway --- you can't think that fast, you just feel
your way through the door by instinct.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Hup
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
What angles?
The threshold has to be level, jambs are plumb, the head jamb is level. What? Do you live in a hobbit hole . . . on a boat?
You must be confusing doors & turnstiles.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
LOL - no, I jump _over_ turnstiles ... a little trick I observed on the NY
subway system
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Hup
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Oh, Jebus. First off, offbeat and backbeat are NOT the same thing. The offbeat does not get an accent. That is what makes it the offbeat. It does not land on the beat or the backbeat. Second, the downbeat always lands on 1 and 5. The backbeat always lands on 3 and 7. This occurs no matter which notes you accent.
The correct question should be,"where do I accent?" Every reel has the same beat and backbeat. The timing makes it so. The difference is in the phrasing, which notes get accented. This is not as complicated as y'all are making it out to be.
The only way to know this is by listening, and getting a feel for the music. Lots of listening. Others have said dancing helps too. (Sorry I can't confirm that, my bum knee won't allow me to dance.)
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by awildman
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Thats a relief awildman. I had been getting puzzled by all that stuff. Assuming you are right . And I guess we will hear if the folks writing above think not.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
This is what I understand by back beat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_beat and I think I got that explanation in an old discussion here. When someone was ranting on about rock drummers/strummers and trad.
So does it mean something different when fiddlers are talking about bowing patterns ?
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
awildman is of course technically correct, it's not rocket science. And as he says, the art is in the accent/phrasing. And there is no art in doggedly repeating the accent because you have learned a pattern. You will not learn to play reels by following patterns. How many times do we have to emphasise this?
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
This is from Wikipedia (footnote), it is very similar to what Grey Larsen says about rhythm.
Lessons in Listening
By Steve Anisman
Originally published in Modern Drummer Magazine
December, 1997 and January, 1998
http://www.anisman.com/steve/samd02.htm
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Ben Steen
BTW
yeah, he's a drummer & it's not about Irish music.
Some of it is helpful all the same.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
All I know is, as an American, when I was learning this music, I had to cut down on the amount of emphasis I was putting on the backbeat......
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Of course, too much emphasis anywhere is wrong. That's why patterns are wrong. They are repetative emphasis. It ruins the music.
tee he ... how many tiimes do I have to emphasise this?
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I'm going against the crowd here; I don't care. There isn't an Irish fiddler out there who doesn't accent the offbeat in reels. They might not be consciously doing it, but it's there in their playing. and anyone who listens to them and tries to learn from their playing will be doing the same thing. Examples from the best:
Charlie Lennon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4wt2JQqpc8
Frankie Gavin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfbmeOmQ77I
Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4OAkUN-m3A&feature=related
Mick O'Brien & Caoimhin O Raghallaigh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tnWxsNshZQ
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Nope, sorry, there is something I am not following here. Apart from the guitar with Charlie Lennon. Must be too subtle for me. Or do you mean just *sometimes* accenting the offbeat.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Maybe this is a communication problem more than anything---it's so hard to describe this stuff in words over the internet. When I say accenting the offbeat, I don't mean playing an exaggerated note on every single offbeat. The tunes don't always have phrasing that allows that. It's more of a shift in emphasis, that the offbeat, when possible, is clear and accented. You can try this yourself---take a reel, any reel, and play it once, emphasizing the downbeat (1 & 3). It will sound wrong. Now take it again and emphasize the offbeat (2 &4)---don't change any phrasing you have for it, just exaggerate it where you can. It will sound cartoonish, but not intrinsically wrong.
Sorry I can't describe this better. I've had it demonstrated for me and it's clear as a bell. Now I tend to use it when I'm learning a new reel---I'll exaggerate it for a while just to get the pulse of it into my head, then really work on the phrasing.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Yeah, sorry kennedy, you're not really listening there. Sure the back beat gets an emphasis now and again on these three clips, but definitely not in any pattern. The emphasis is constantly shifting. It's very difficult to listen to Charlie Lennon with that truly dreadful guitar, but him too. I suspect what you are doing is imagining the back beet in the playing (hard not to on the Lennon clip) because you expect it to be there.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Kennedy - "They might not be consciously doing it, but it's there in their playing. and anyone who listens to them and tries to learn from their playing will be doing the same thing."
Spot on, couldn't agree more. But if they are not consciously playing by numbers or formulas then we shouldn't either.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by bogman
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
sorry, cross-post there
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by bogman
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Forgot to say - interesting article that random_notes. "Genre translation" not too difficult.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I'm having to learn to *listen* by numbers to map out in my head what is going on with the accent in tunes. To work through breathing options on flute. So I can see how a fiddler thinking about bowing might talk about it that way.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"I suspect what you are doing is imagining the back beet in the playing (hard not to on the Lennon clip) because you expect it to be there."
That's actually what's happening. I supply it in my head for when it's not played, but it's there nevertheless. I go back to the foot-tapping thing. Ever been at a concert and everyone starts clapping to the music (always on the downbeat), and a few poor lost souls start clapping against the downbeat (on the offbeat), usually off-rhythm as well? I always wondered about that. Then my old teacher explained the 2 & 4 thing to me and I started going out and listening to players and tapping my fingers against the downbeat, against what I normally would do. And I started hearing the rhythm in a new way---I noticed that I heard some notes on my finger tap, but not always---but I could still keep the rhythm going that way.
sorry I can't explain this better.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
So at the end of the day is this a fair summation?
"yes, there are bowing/slurring patterns, and perhaps, with caveats, it might be good to know that certain patterns re-occur across reels, but it would be a mistake to *impose* any one pattern(s) on a tune because the tune itself has its own organic structure that dictates a possibility of patterns that might suit...and the emphasis within those (patterns) too might ( and indeed should?) shift around etc"
in other words, we want to avoid bordeom and metronomic conformity, keep it interesting and alive, and embrace artistry through our choice on what to emphasize and where....
have I got that more or less "right"? if so, I see where you all are going with it.
what's interesting is: it flies direct in the face of a lot of Irish workshops and fiddle teaching and fiddle tutor books and etc, and throws us more or less back onto our own devices....that is, we the listeners/wanne be players. So, Llig, we've come full circle! Well I'll be damned. ;)
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
it throws you back to two of your own devices, your ears. It throws you back to having to listen for what is actually happening, not imposing preconceptions. If you think the best players phrase with a repetative back beat, listen again. If you think the best players use repetative bowing paterns they learn/teach at poxy workshops, listen again.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Llig
eggactly. in fact, i've been following some of your advice recently while reworking tunes....you know, really listening. woodshedding things like Bean Paudeen and The Wise Maid, Miss McCleods (tunes i know well) etc. And i've been letting the tunes dictate, but also thinking a 'little' bit too about why it does or doesn't sound swingy. trying different things, diff articulations/phrasing and really listening to what i try. ignoring the tape recorder. getting my two ears right down close to the fidde and trying not to "think" that what I'm hearing is what I'm hearing, but really hearing. it works. but it's hard to undo bad habits of not really listening to yourself or thinking you're better sounding than you are. etc.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Llig:
"how many tiimes do I have to emphasise this?!"
Twice in each bar, on the off-beat.
Well you wanted someone to say it & I'm such a sheep - Chris
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by ramblingpitchfork
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
... or, sparodically in the bar I play in. I can't speak for other bars, though is that twice a night? I'd maybe do it slightly more often than that.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Or as my mate Rory Motion has it:
Carnival
Ladbroke Grove is funkier than York
In York you see policemen walking
On the beat
But in Ladbroke Grove
You see them walking
On the off-beat
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
This thread is an interesting illustration of the differing and sometimes contradictory ways that human brains can approach and master challenges. There are great players who are highly analytical and can perceive and articulate patterns, even if they aren't bound by them. Other great players rely on their unconscious intuition and see no benefit (or pleasure) in analysis and discussion. But that isn't to say that the analytic ones don't use their intuition (in fact, intuition may simply be unconscious analysis) or that the playing of intuitive ones can't be analyzed.
The thing that gets me is people disapproving of either analysis or intuition, as though enjoying and utilizing one rules out the other.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by 54321
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I don't disapprove of analysis (though the first four letters are no coincidence) it's just that if you have analysed good Irish diddley playing and come to the conclusion that there is a rigid emphasis on back beats, your analysis is wrong. You need to analyse with your ears more and less with your intuition and/or preconceptions
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Ah, there's a great point. Many paths to the same destination, or many paths on the same road, no real destination, I suppose. If you feel you've reached one, I wager there's plenty of road to travel that you're not seeing yet.
For me, metacongating about something subconscious and intuitive hinders the process, instead of helping it. Your mileage will vary.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Michael, you have not understood a single thing I've said.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Cross post, that was re: ANALysis vs.intuition.
I guess I've had both. As a child with classical music, it was nothing but analysis. As an adult all that technical mumbo-jumbo is internalized and I can simply listen, process and play.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I think I got you kennedy. You never tap your foot differently when you play a reel. It's tap, lift, tap, lift, etc. Boom chucka.
But each and every reel is played differently, or bowed differently, according to the tune itself.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Well, I guess I've been misunderstood by more people than just Michael. That wasn't what I was saying, either, SWFL.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Kennedy, normally when you debate with these folks I am silently agreeing from the sidelines. But on this one I think I understand you and what you are suggesting make me cringe the way that guitar with Charlie Lennon does. But then it doesn't seem to bother Charlie Lennon...
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"But on this one I think I understand you and what you are suggesting make me cringe..."
Why?
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Well, don't leave me hanging!
I saw this: "I supply it in my head for when it's not played, but it's there nevertheless."
Which made me post what I did. It's not there in every tune, because each and every reel is different, and requires different things, but it's always in your head/foot, the boom chucka.
Or something else, but hopefully you can see where I got what I did.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Okay, SWFL, sorry. I'm getting kind of defensive. A couple of posters on this thread have been deliberately misreading what I've been trying to say and the frustration of that is getting the best of me.
This is not the kind of subject that if one person is right, the other has to be wrong. I have never said that anything in reels should be rigidly repetitive. That would be pretty ignorant of me, don't you think?
On the other hand, mention anything at all having to do with music theory on this website and you're tarred and feathered. Which is pretty ridiculous, given that this is a website for music.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I think it makes me cringe because *to me* that boom-ching boom-ching thing seems foreign to European traditional music. In this case foreign probably means north American. I was not brought up on rock and roll.
For me feet come up mainly so that they can go back down again. And, the more I listen, what is (or is not) happening when they come down becomes ever more mysterious.
So the not-quite-on-the-off-beat clappers probably bother me more than they do you.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Re: deliberately misreading - kennedy, earlier you implied that with my drum machine comment I was twisting what you said. In fact I wasn't even talking to you, but the original poster. He was the one who talked about drum notation...
Back to the subject at hand, most of us can't resist analysing things, that's what our schooling teaches us to do. The question is, in contexts like this, does it give results? Is there anybody who has turned into a decent fiddle player by looking at bars of music and deciding where the accent should go?
My maxim about this stuff has been, for decades now, if you can hear the effect you want to get into your playing, sooner or later your muscles will find a way to produce it. Trust them....
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by Jeeves Tones
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Well said kennedy, all paths should be discussed, you're spot on. Also, we all know Llig from here, and we know what his MO is. I for one appreciate it, he's like the cranky feller in the back of the pub who makes sure you're flying straight (‘listen!”) and all that jazz.
At the same time, I like when mtodd and Mr. Will CPT go off on massive technical discussions, because I marvel at how they can be so analytical and not lose the groove, the oomph. I'm jealous, I guess, because when I start thinking that deeply or analytically, my eyes glaze over and my fingers shut down.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
'off the beat clappers'
[bites tongue to prevent bad joke slipping out]
[fails miserably]
Buddy of mine picked up an off the beat clap during shore leave once when he was in Navy.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
SWFL....careful, I feel a Koan could happen at any moment! ;)
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Koan away! Cohan away? Eh, either way.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"Is there anybody who has turned into a decent fiddle player by looking at bars of music and deciding where the accent should go?"
Not on its own, certainly, but I think that can be a step to undoing a rhythmic problem, if one exists. It can give a representation, through a different sense, of something that a person is having difficulty perceiving, just like watching a fiddler bow (in addition to listening) can help. I think that dancing or lilting can help musicians for similar reasons. It's like someone learning a language through immersion -- there's nothing wrong with looking at the conjugation of a verb as well.
I say try it all, whatever helps.
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by 54321
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
aaaaaaaargh! Is it just too late in the evening, or has Frankie Gavin's bridge got a real lean to it (in the YouTube clip posted above)
# Posted on December 9th 2008 by domnull
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Sorry kennedy, typo, just noticed, should have read "... and what you are suggesting makes me cringe..." Only cringing at the suggestion.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Kennedy, I'm confused.
I suggested that, "I suspect what you are doing is imagining the back beet in the playing because you expect it to be there."
And you replied, "That's actually what's happening."
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Right. I was supplying the accent on the offbeat in my head when it wasn't actually played. There can still be an accent on an offbeat even if you don't hear an actual note, as long as all the other offbeats in the tune are accented. I suspect you might not agree with this. All I can suggest is to try it yourself---play a real and try over-exaggerating the downbeats, and then again, over-exaggerating the offbeats. Don't change your phrasing, just put some extra pressure on the bow wherever the notes occur. It feels awkward at first, but you'll get the hang of it, and you'll see that the reels have a very different feel to them depending on how you do it.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
of course that exercise would give the same tune a different feel ... equally bad I'd think (though maybe the 1 & 4 version would be a little better, at least it wouldn't be that exagerated horid thing that people who've been to too many bloody workshops do, the 2 and 4)
but tell me, what do you gain from imagining something that is not there?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I don't know about the workshops, I just know what I was taught (by an Irish teacher), which was that reels have the accent on the 2 & 4. You only exaggerate it to understand how it works, because without it the rhythm can go very wrong (like for me, my reels turn into hornpipes if I'm not careful).
I suppose the answer to your question is that by imagining where the accent should be, you know not to put it where it shouldn't be. Like using the Silver Spear example from earlier, Will had the first triplet on the A (the 2 note), which sounds correct, and not the F (the 1 note), which would not sound right. It doesn't *always* work that way, of course. There are plenty of reels where you can put a triplet on a 1 or a 3. But the accent on the 2 and 4 needs to be there as well, or the rhythm gets out of whack. Does that help explain it better?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Zb1K5BCtLY8
You can imagine that the accents fall anywhere you want. But on this sublime playing they actually fall more often on the 1 that anywhere else.
But I reiterate, stop imagining and start listening to what is actually happening. How smooth it is. How the accents divide the phrases, how they define the phrases. You can't say to accent certain beats in the bar without changing your phrasing. That doesn't make sense
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I wonder if the confusion is over the word "accent". Have just listened to the Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh several times. I am not hearing what I would call accent in the way that would lead to a backbeat. But I am hearing offbeats, particularly the 4, giving sort of a of a strong lead in the to the next downbeat. A bit in the way that some tunes and phrases start with a pickup beat that has to be quite prominant (whearas in other tunes it is less so and I am more likely to be tempted use it for an emergency gulp of air). Does that make sense ?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Ha ha I really did cross with Michael - including the last sentence ! Must be the way you express yourself kennedy !
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
“You can't say to accent certain beats in the bar without changing your phrasing. That doesn't make sense”
You can if you’re willing to actually get out your fiddle, slow everything down, and put extra pressure on the bow when the notes fall on the 2 & 4 beat. It’s not going to sound good, that’s not the point. The idea is to understand where the accents are, and then bring it back to normal with that understanding internalised. My old teacher described it as the “rubber band” theory, where you exaggerate something as an exercise to get in into your playing in the first place, and then later everything snaps back into shape properly.
I’m listening, Michael. I don’t dispute what you say. I just wish you wouldn’t insist that I’m trying to recommend learning how to play according to some formula, because that’s not what I’m saying, and I would never say that. There is no formula that could teach a music form with all the subtleties and idiosyncrasies that Irish music has. But there are exercises and ways of thinking about it that can help break it down a little and make it easier to understand and to learn, and this is one of them. I didn’t make this up in my head, you know---I’m passing on something that was taught to me by a good player who knew how to teach. It absolutely requires listening---very careful listening.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I'm sorry, david, I'm trying!
Have you ever had someone clap the offbeats as you were playing a reel? My old teacher used to do that to me and it confused the heck out of me---I'd usually lose the tune altogether! But it was instructive, because it helped me see where the accents needed to be. It's much easier if you tap while someone else is playing, but try it with a metronome sometime---it's not easy!
Oh, no, I'm recommending using a metronome. Now I'm really in for it. I'll get my coat...
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Silver Spear is a good example of which beats can be emphasized in Irish reels. Short and simple: the heavy downbeat falls on 1 and 4, with somewhat less emphasis on 2 and 4. The result is usually a relatively smooth, flowing line with a strong pulse that you could tap your foot to either twice per bar or four times per bar (and either way would feel "right").
So the initial "F" gets some oomph. then the triplet on the A creates another bit of the pulse, but it's less than the oomph on the F. Some people new to this music think they should pounce on triplets and other twiddly bits to add oomph, but that's redundant. It also leads to "bounce" instead of pulse, and reels end up sounding like poorly played polkas.
I also play bluegrass and old timey muisc, and in contrast to those genres, I think Irish trad works better when you ditch the notion of down beats and back beats, and think instead of beats that are either strong or weak. Iin a reel, these would be the beats in CAPS in a string of eighth notes: ONE two THREE four FIVE six SEVEN eight. So there are four possible beats to each measure. Which ones you emphasize depends on (as Michael said way above) on the melody and your understanding of it. Some reels seem to want only the ONE and FIVE notes called out. Some beg for a little oomph on the THREE and SEVEN. Many reels sound best with just the ONE emphasized, creating a longer, sinuous sense of phrasing (e.g., the A part of the Scholar).
In any case, it's usually not about locking into just a downbeat pulse or a backbeat pulse the way bluegrass, old timey, or rock does. In Irish trad, it's about being free to emphasize any of those four beats, either strongly or weakly, to best serve the melody.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"It's much easier if you tap while someone else is playing". Thats just where I am coming from.
I am a year or two behind you (I hope no more) in actually playing this stuff on a melody instrument. But I have spent hundreds of hours at sessions tapping it whilst other people are playing. Following the fidders and watching their bows and the box players arms. If there was a pattern I think I would hear it. But I don't. I hear the downbeat (or its location in time) and the phrasing.
But with the reference to a drum I'll get my coat before Michael gets back.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"It's much easier if you tap while someone else is playing."
Yes, but you can tap anywhere you want to someone else's playing. It doesn't necessarily represent where they are putting the emphasis.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"Yes, but you can tap anywhere you want to someone else's playing. It doesn't necessarily represent where they are putting the emphasis."
Maybe not in any one particular phrase, no. But overall, for the whole tune, I think it does, to a degree, even if it's very smoothed out.
We're getting a lot of life out of this subject, aren't we?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Will, brill:
I also play bluegrass and old timey muisc, and in contrast to those genres, I think Irish trad works better when you ditch the notion of down beats and back beats, and think instead of beats that are either strong or weak. Iin a reel, these would be the beats in CAPS in a string of eighth notes: ONE two THREE four FIVE six SEVEN eight. So there are four possible beats to each measure. Which ones you emphasize depends on (as Michael said way above) on the melody and your understanding of it. Some reels seem to want only the ONE and FIVE notes called out. Some beg for a little oomph on the THREE and SEVEN. Many reels sound best with just the ONE emphasized, creating a longer, sinuous sense of phrasing (e.g., the A part of the Scholar).
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"Yes, but you can tap anywhere you want to someone else's playing. It doesn't necessarily represent where they are putting the emphasis."
The artistry...the taste aspect if you like...of really good bodhran playing is that you in fact DO NOT tap along and become the sessions metronome...when you're playing with an amazing fiddle or piper the really wonderful moments happen when *they* are continually changing the emphasis phrase to phrase and you do the same...except it's contrpuntal...you're not a rhythm section guitarist strumming away...you're adding this underlying momentum...indeed you *can* in a sense even slur on a drum [a reverse tympani effect of a sort] . The trick is to stay 'out of time' but in time at the risk of seeming zen but also never wavering in accurate keeping of time...it's just that your 'beat' is complementing [not overriding and NOT competing] with the melody players. It's a subtle thing. But the point is...the point of focus for the melody playes beat [their emphais] is always shifting in a great player...that's what makes playing with them such fun. It's full of surprises.
Along with the shifting beat thing you might also try to emulate -- such as you can -- the melody shape of the tune....so to do that AND play in time, or rather out of time but in time, can be a challenge. But if done well and understatedly it's amazing!
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
sorry about the typos.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Okay, I’ve had an insight. One thing we haven’t accounted for is individual abilities and weaknesses. I’ve said I’m rhythmically challenged---my problem has been that I don’t put *enough* emphasis into my reels, so for me it’s important to know where to put the accents. After that, the tunes seem to smooth out on their own.
But Will mentioned some people who add so much “oomph” that they sound bouncy and more like polkas than reels. For those people, it would be important to focus more on even phrasing, and the accenting-the-2-&-4 exercise would not be so helpful.
Thoughts?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
What is even phrasing?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Kennedy, I went through a similar process of over-emphasizing the beats and then letting the tunes smooth out. Not a bad approach to feeling the rhythm.
Also, some people simply prefer a bouncier style. Nothing wrong with that if it's your cuppa tea. Of course, a well-rounded player can play bouncy or with smooth pulse and everything in between. Part of being a good session player is being able to match what other people are doing, and to vary things, too.
That said, too much back beat (2 & 4 emphasis) can make Irish reels sound more like old timey or bluegrass. I suspect the backbeat thing is a relatively recent phenomena in our music, an influence from other genres (most notably rock in bands like Lunasa).
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by Will Harmon
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Getting back to mtodd's original question. Only recently during hours of driving forcing myself to count 1&1&3&4& to reels, tapping my foot on the 1 and 3, have I begun to get to the stage where I start to automatically drop out the ones that are not there each measure. That Frankie Gavin clip is still to fast for me though. It gives a framework to start to recognize what things are happening and when. But its an analytical aid for listening. I think it helps me.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Even phrasing---I don’t know, I guess more even emphasis to notes within a phrase, more balance from phrase to phrase, that kind of thing. Sorry for the vague term.
Thanks, Will, for understanding some of what I was getting at. I’ve never tried to play old timey or bluegrass, but I can see that it would be easy to take the offbeat thing too far in the wrong direction if you were coming from that perspective.
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Thanks Kennedy. It's all relative. Or as Carlos used to say
"Wherever you go . . . ¡ ¡ there you are ! ! "
No foul with anyone who wishes to learn a thing or two along the way. I keep a chair warm in the woodshed. I won't say I spend lots of time there. But after session, last night, I was shedding for hours. Trying to get the syncopation of a particular Shetland jig. Plus I decided an A whistle would be best for this tune. After always using a Low D.
Good comments Kennedy. Except when you threw the book at bogman. ;) Those pipers!
Thanks Will ~ we appreciate your input on this one.
How about those syncopations the Shetlanders' keep coming up with?
# Posted on December 10th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Well bugger me. I'm obviously on a different planet.
So ... the advice is to practice something that isn't/shouldn't be there. To practice something that is "not going to sound good". Sounding good is "not the point".
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"Well bugger me".
Don't speak too soon is my advice llig, someone might get the wrong idea.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Depends what beat you put on which word, llig. Be careful.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Well, Michael, we know you're from another planet, that's not news.
There's a practice method in the classical world called "rhythms", where you switch the emphasis in a phrase from beat to beat like so:
ONE two three four FIVE six seven eight
one TWO three four five SIX seven eight
one two THREE four five six SEVEN eight
one two three FOUR five six seven EIGHT
You can do it with scales, or with a few measures in a piece. It sounds pretty awful. But it helps fix something in the connection between the brain and the fingers to help the fingers play the notes more smoothly and gain control over timing. It's a very common exercise, and it works.
I've always said I'd stand on my head and practice play upside down if it helped me play better. Thankfully no one has proven that to be a helpful music method yet.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Years ago now, I was chatting with an African friend once about practising. I was trying to do this thing he had on his conga and I just couldn't get it. I could hear it, but I lacked the co-ordination. I think I said something like, you must have had to practice that for hours. I remember him laughing at me and saying that there was no such thing as practice. He explained it to me, in Gambia they have children's' drumming games, He played some with me, it was a hoot. I'm glad I'm on his planet.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Can you hear your metronome doing it ?
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
If we're discussing beats and how to hear them I was thinking....perhaps teachers of itm don't do enough mouth music...that is getting people to mouth some nonsense vocables [the diddley dee diddley dum thing] ....Wouldn't that be a perfect way to get a handle on and play with the rhythm and get a feel for the tune as well as a great mnemonic device for learning the tune before ever putting fingers to chanter or bow to fiddle?
has anyone experience learning this way? i'm many of you out there do...esp. the old timers
In my decade of learning fiddle so far ONLY one or two people had us learn tunes that way and/or emphasized that 'singing' tunes was a great way to get the *shape* and lilt in your head before you added the mechanics of bows etc....
why don't we do that more?
I think as adults we are now really self conscious about "singing" and that kind of thing. I'll be children aren't though...
anyone who teaches out there use this technique consistently?
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
and one of those was Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh....is it any wonder i wonder that his music has such a great pulse and life to it?
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Huh, they went away. That was to kennedy. Someone once told me not to try accenting a pattern until I could hear the metronome (on its own, no music) doing it without me counting. The idea being internalise the pattern. Take away the notes and I find the tricky bit with that one above is keeping track of the 'one'. And if I just talk it through in my head I'm not sure that accenting the the words in capitals doesn't do something subtle to the timing. And I don't like the feeling of fighting a melody.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Rats. Crossed . I go away for an hour and the moment I start typing someone comes back (or is it my browser).
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
OK. I have read mtodd's post now (and ignored cosmic ray).
Yes, thats sort of what i was talking of. Certainly thinking patterns over the steady tick of the metronome using words rather than counting (for a straight beat maybe just tock tick tick tick tock etc) and then stopping the words and hearing the metronome do it.
Learning the bodhran that how I did it but as I said above, I recently taught myself to count whilst listening because I can't work it for irregular sequences of accents spread across two bars or more. I can mimic them but I don't know what I am doing.
And just in case llig is still around no I did not just beat out patterns on the drum. Practicing the patterns is to develop the skill of hand to miss or accent any or all of Will's 1 to 8 above. But I was not up to the level that mtodd was taking about earlier. More a case of hearing the banjo player do something that sounded good against the fiddlers and maybe doing something similar next time round or on another occassion.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"Someone once told me not to try accenting a pattern until I could hear the metronome (on its own, no music) doing it without me counting. The idea being internalise the pattern. Take away the notes and I find the tricky bit with that one above is keeping track of the 'one'."
You kind of lost me there. You mean just tapping out a rhythm with a metronome going?
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
No.
At a basic level I mean setting it going at some speed and being able to hear the same thing as, say
TICK tick tick TICK tick tick TICK tick tick for a (very even) waltz
TICK tick Tick tick TICK tick Tick tick (maybe) for a reel
TICK Tick TICK tick TICK tick for a jig
Without having an electronic metronome that does that sort of thing for you. Somehow knowing when the 'one' comes round and which the other beats are without actually having to count or have them accented.
It was years ago after watching something folky on the TV, can't remember what . One of the band was singing and hitting a pair stones ( ? claves are they) with a pattern that I could not work out. A friend told me which (different ) beats it was over several bars. I was having trouble working out even where the 'bar lines' were. Decided there was something I needed to work on ! Still find it hard.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
It gets worse, I'm in a different solar system all together ...
So ... the advice is to listen for something that isn't there. Listen to a machine and imagine it's playing a tune.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
"I just don't see why this - such a fundamental component of this music - should actually merit discussion - other than by those who don't have it naturally."
Well there you go then. I had not read your post before responding to kennedy but the last bit could have been for you. Seems some of us don't have it naturally. But if your point is the one you made to mtodd (give up) then, well, I don't think it merits discussion.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Well, I have to say, even I wouldn't be willing to listen to a metronome. I'm not too fascinated by drumming, though.
Michael, are you missing the concept of something being an *exercise* that is very brief, that only serves the purpose of reinforcing a certain skill? I mean, you don't think any of this is meant to be done for hours at a time, do you?
And again, everyone is different---some people have a good sense of natural rhythm, some have to work harder at it. Some have great intonation, some don't. There are different solutions for every problem, and different personal preferences and tolerances. I would think that none of those things would matter as long as the outcome is the same---the ability to play the music well. Don't you at least agree with that?
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I don't understand the problem. You play a tune and that's it. Seems like there's a lot of pretentious nonsense going on here. Or some thing that some fiddle players think they have. I think its the ones who weren't brought up with the music that are going on about this the most, making a big deal out of a natural thing. That is sad.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by BigMick
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
The point is that it is NOT A TUNE. It is a basic temporal framework that has elements shared by tunes of similar type. And it can go on in the head (sounds as if it does in Cosmic Ray's) without the machine. And if it is not reliant on doing anything with (tapping, bowing, tonguing or whatever) it can act as reference for what is going on when listening and get reset slightly by what one is hearing.
I don't like kennedy's suggestion of messing with the accent, even in scales, and certainly not in measures of a tune because the tune carries rhythm to be worked with, teased out, or whatever with not fought against.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Mick
"I think its the ones who weren't brought up with the music that are going on about this the most, making a big deal out of a natural thing. "
If so, you're lucky. But for others, especially people who came to this in middle age it's a learning curve....Blowing such a discussion off doesn't accomplish a thing. If a light goes off somewhere for someone thru discussions [remember, these are conversations...you can't have one if you don't respect the dialogue] what's not to like?
It might seem ludirous to you and others...even Llig...who had a different kind of environment [if youor he did] in which this music was respected, played and/or encouraged. But for many people that hasn't been the case.
so.....sometimes it's worth exploring....and people can make up their own minds. That's a good thing don't you think?
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Whether I understand the concept of an exercise or not is besides the point. I'm simply pointing out that there cannot be any merit in trying to listen for something that isn't there. I keep harping on about how important it is to hear properly. To be able to distinguish between what you actually hear and what you might think you might be hearing. It's fundamental to the ability to play music.
And you lot are actually advocating exercises that encourage you to imagine you are hearing something that isn't there. I just can't believe it. Never in a million years can such an exercise help.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Llig...
I'm not debating your points with which I agree. I'm debating Mick's "born into the tradition thing"....that's all if that's what you are referring to....if not, my apologies for this x post.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Oops. Sorry, I see you were referring to Kennedy above.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I wonder if there are some real differences in what goes on in people heads. Although I can often mimic a rhythmic pattern without thinking about it or knowing what I am doing (I guess related to how we learn to speak) when it come to thinking about it so that I can talk about it then it becomes more of a time series graph. Listening very hard to that Frankie Gavin clip, and not being able to think of it in terms of bowing I end up with sort of a graph in my head with different sorts of squiggles before and/or during and/or after notional markers that are "the beat" or some division of it. And to lay down those markers I have had to do the sort of things we are talking about.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Well, then, fine, we can disagree. I do think there can be merit to methods if the end result is the ability to play well.
This is just another form of the controversies that go round and round on this board endlessly. Can scales help with intonation? Yes. Absolutely not. Are metronomes any good? Of course not. Sure they are. The whole sheet music morass. It's all a big field of landmines for discussion. I'm so tired of it.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
No llig. kennedy was advocating imagining a back beat that I think we agree was not there. I am imagining a time slot where it would be if it was there. And where Charlie Lennon's gutarist put something. Not going back to check but I don't think it was exactly on one of my notional evenly spaced markers.
It started as dance music. The beat goes on. And I find it fascinating that it goes on even when none of the things that get written into "the dots" are actually happening when the beat seems to be happening.
At a basic level its what stops me standing on the toes of that nice girl in the barn dance or kicking the other morris dancer in the shins.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
kennedy. But out of that [sometimes] comes something worthwhile. All you need is a nugget or two to either challenge one's assumptions or cause one to think differently about things....that's a good thing I feel and worth panning thru the slurry.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
As I said above kennedy. One of the reasons I am "arguing" with you now is that I normally silently agree so it has got me thinking.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
mtodd and david---I know what you mean, but I don't have patience for it anymore. It's like we're all supposed to pretend we're farmers out in Co. Sligo who only get to play music after we've spent a day tilling the fields, slopping the pigs, and digging peat. None of that high-falutin' music theory stuff for us, no sir! Here's a tune, use yer ears, and don't come back until you can play it just like I did. What's the matter with you, can't you see Aunt Maggie over there dancing with Uncle Martin? You must be feckin' deaf!
Yup, that's us, it's all gotta come naturally by the grace of the Almighty.
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by kennedy
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
kennedy..also the ultimate dismissive weapon with which it's hard to argue...ie, "it's just natural" or "it's obvious"...but of course it isn't. If it was The Session.org wouldn't exist now would it?
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
What happened here while I was playing music last night?
I thought there was a bit more camaraderie. Michael you're not getting into your bag of tricks again ~ are you?
Kennedy, he's pulling the old shell game on you.
1st you show the mark how easy it is to pick the correct shell.
Then you try . . . no not that one . . . no not that one.
People get sucked into it all the time.
There's still some friendly people here though.
Geez ~ do you really have to characterize farmers as ignorant?
;)
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
No. The main offending posts have been disappeared by our guardian of civility.
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Here is one seminal discussion about reeling, shedding, Silver Spear, a - n - d . . .
" As always, the best thing is to listen to many many players -- "
July 1st 2001 by Zina Lee
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/17/comments#comment300
Check out the 1st post.
You know how that might go nowadays.
Cheers!
Thanks david. & Ouch!
I was considering camaraderie "outside" the boxing ring.
A bit of the slagless tradition.
much to Michael's chagrin I will have to 'imagine' the bits I have not heard 1st hand.
Michael, I do have a question for you if you are interested.
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
fire away
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I had to go back & read the post again. Did playing the drumming games help you get the bit your friend was teaching you?
maybe 2 questions - - any chance you can share with us what he was doing?
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
no, not really. Your man was a top professional player, I'm not even a drummer. And you had to have really hard calluses on your knuckles. My hands would have bled. He hit the drum really really hard in a particular place and it made this really hi pitched whining drone, an amazing sound. Must have been a really high resonant harmonic.
I remember one game, you start by going:
bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
then:
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
(It's a bit like the "I went to the market and bought an apple. I went to the market and bought a banana and an apple. I went to the market and bought a candle and a banana and an apple" etc)
then:
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... duh duh duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh bak .... bak ....
etc.
Keep going and see how far you get
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
It's great fun if you tap a one two with your left and right foot while doing it:
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... etc
L..........R............L............R............L...........R.............L
It looks horrid and dry writing it out like this, but it's fun, it's a kids game. What does it teach you? Who cares.
On the face of it, it looks a bit like Kennedy's:
ONE two three four FIVE six seven eight
one TWO three four five SIX seven eight. etc
But it's a hell of a lot more fun
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
hmm, that came out wrong, I'll try again
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... etc
L.........R...........L...........R...........L..........R............L
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
still wrong
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... etc
L.........R..........L..........R..........L.........R...........L
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
bak .... duh bak .... duh duh bak .... duh duh duh bak .... etc
L..........R.........L...........R.........L...........R...........L
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
that'll do
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Thanks Michael
Cheers!
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Actually when I saw this;
ONE two three four FIVE six seven eight
one TWO three four five SIX seven eight
one two THREE four five six SEVEN eight
one two three FOUR five six seven EIGHT
# Posted on December 11th 2008 by kennedy
I recognized similar things which I do.
I just call these 'thingies' exercises. To me it's mostly playful. I try to do them in a way that sounds good to me. Something Jack Gilder said about loosening up your fingers with an exercise/game. Do it with rhythm.
Kennedy ~ it stood out when you said the exercise sounds awful. I'm not picking on you. I sincerely think you can use whatever method is best for you & move toward it feeling & sounding good. Otherwise that little voice might keep saying, " OMG ~ that sounds terrible! "
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by Ben Steen
*
in other words I am listening to what you are saying.
& learning
you too Michael
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Cleverly done random. Thanks both.
# Posted on December 12th 2008 by David50
Feeling the pulse with different rhythms
This bit is not about reels. But it is about feeling the pulse (of a tune).
In our session a few players will have a go at 7/8 tunes. It seems to throw others. With just a little guidance it is possible to get the beat & then settle in & enjoy the groove.
Nell sets up the basic count for 7/8;
"Blakan irish tunes"
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/1967/comments#comment35040
" . . . If it's a consistent 7/8 then that's not too hard once you get it - it's usually either: 2/2/3, like this:
One-two, one-two, one-two-three/ One-two, one-two, one-two-three/. . . once you get it, stop counting as soon as possible and just feel the groove. While you still have to count it in your head, it won't be very easy to feel the groove or enjoy it much, for that matter, you'll be concentrating so hard on the counting... "
August 4th 2003 by Nell
It feels nice with an upbeat ~ One-two, One-two, One-two-Three/ One-two, One-two, One-two-Three/ One . . .
I like this simple description;
" Learn how to play Rock Drums in 7/8 Time Signature "
http://www.rockdrummingsystem.com/underground/drum-beats/drumming-in-odd-time.php
& as Nell says, " If you know someone who can dance Balkan dances, even better . . . "
This tune has a few comments about the dance steps;
" Smeceno Horo "
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/1984
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I was hoping this was a new discussion. Surely everyone has gone away by now.
What is your view on the "While you still have to count it in your head, it won't be very easy to feel the groove or enjoy it much, for that matter, you'll be concentrating so hard on the counting.."
I have never found counting whilst playing much use, would rather go "dada dada dadada" but not even with the words (if that makes sense, sort of clapping in my head). But to listen and think about what is happening I am now finding counting a huge help. And I know some skilled sight readers who say they do count through tricky bits when playing.
How many people count when playing ? Most advice to learners says to do it ?
I think a tune with an "unusual" timing illustrates Michael's regularly made "learn from the recording not the dots" well.
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Interesting question david. My answer is this. In learning to play in 7/8 and other unusual rhythms I counted in groups of 2and 3 just as above. This lasted for a number of years. Now I have no need to count. I can comfortably play these rhythm and improvise over the top(as a percussionist) In teaching these to experienced drummers I do sometimes encounter an anti-intellectual mindcast and refusal to use numbers, so I simply substitute a verbal patter such as Ba da ba-Da ba -Da ba or diddly da ba da ba . this succesfully circumnavigates this bias. (as a 123 12 12 7/8 rhythm )
So numbers are not essential, what is important is where you stress the notes.
My advice to learners is simple. play by ear, dont use dots or count untill you can play the music. Mainly to avoid the split required to achieve 2 skills at once, reading and playing.
But with specific technical skills such as playing in 15/8 etc some such aid is needed, be it counting or a vocal pattern/ melody. I also found using a metronome handy though I gather its use is frowned upon on this board. For me the metronome cuts out the pattern which enables me to position notes slightly before or after the click without losing the beat, to swing the groove, elongate certain notes to create tension and release.
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
All the best tunes have phrases that cut accross the bar lines. Learning balkan tunes by repeating stuff like Ba da ba-Da ba -Da ba or diddly da ba da ba is the same as looking for backbeat patterns in reels. I learn tunes by phrases, so I have no problems with unusual timings.
And if you take a tune like Donal Lunny's lepadumdowledum, it sounds like it's a complicated timing structure because the phrases are so cleverly constructed, but it's really a simple, straightforward, slip jig. And if you play it stressing the three down beets in each bar of three triplets, ie, the standard slip jig pattern, you'll totally ruin it. Just like you ruin reels by looking for patterns of back beats
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
" "I learn tunes by phrases " "
Its the only way to go imo.So simple and the time honoured way.If you learn this way it is so easy to swap tunes with other players.The more you do it the easier it gets.You can make it as hard or as easy as you want.So yeah pick it up by the phrase and avoid over complicating things me thinks.8).
regards Mac
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by J.D.Mc
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I hear tunes in phrases always have done, as a kid, before anyone explained about the beat. The bar-length or longer vocal patterns are to help me honour the underlying dance rhythm when working through problems. Thats what I am likely to loose.
I like this music because it is dance music, with a pulse. I don't find the lepadumdowledum example convincing. Either its slip jig or it isn't. Plenty of other 9/8 tunes around that are not played with a standard slip jig pattern (esp. in Scotland).
Went to an Altan concert a year or so ago and realised that in one reel I was loosing the downbeat if I did not tap my foot. To my ear the phrasing was dominating over the dance rhythm. No reduction in enjoyment but it flagged up something I could usefully work on. So I embarked on the "learning to count program". Starting with those low price ceilidh band CDs complete with drummer. Irish reels and Shetland fiddlers as end of unit tests.
Point taken about the counting Ionannas. Just had a train ride and a 1/2 hour walk. Sitting on the train the Dada Dada Dadada 7/8 kept slipping into 3/4 but counting held it right. Once walking no problem either way.
And I'm going to stick with the metronome, for temporal target practice and as a reference for where the beat is - not so much to deliberatly position notes (yet) as a to flag up for further investigation when for some reason (good style, bad style, syncopated clockwork) I am doing something not quite on the tick.
I guess you'd like me to play these phrases in time. Have been a drummer in sessions. I know the world is not perfect. Dodgy timing from melody players is not unknown.
Sorry if that sounds as if I am asking for advice then rejecting some of it. I think its that some things are only bad if... and some ideas are especially useful when...
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by David50
Re: beating back at reel patterns
or " Re: still beating a dead horse" ;)
david_h ~ try everything. Drum games . . . counting . . . walking . . . dancing . . . just enjoy whichever one(s) you choose. Counting isn't necessarily a problem. It's more the extra effort of concentration that can trip you up. Allow the counting to settle into your subconscious. Then that helps you get a feeling for the phrases. * The rhythm, accent, & phrasing is all in the tune. You really only dissect it into the small bits, or chunks, or patterns for the sake of discussion. We do that here,eh?
Talk & talk & talk.
The playing is fun & you begin to let go of all the ' stuff '
* John Lennon could have sang, " Imagine there's no barlines. It's easy . . . "
By the way ~ why 7/8? Pure fun. Great rhythm. The barlines are there & they are not. Patterns are there & then they are not. Just surprised the Irish didn't come up with it. Great dance music.
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns. Not
Thanks random. As for dissection, the reason I am a bit fired up on this at the moment is that I have been trying out a suggestion ( from here or a similar place) to "find a place to breath in every bar". Not sure if that is shedding light or scattering confusion on the tunes but it is making me aware of things about both melody and rhythm that I had not noticed and is throwing up challenges that are worthwhile just to improve technique. I'm finding it a good game .
# Posted on December 13th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
" I'm finding it a good game " "
I can relate to that me and a button player i play with keep moving the start of the phrase on, as the tune goes round,absolutely pointless and musically shxte but it may help with the head space thing i suppose and you do get to know the tune pretty darn well.
I liked Random Notes take on it only difference i view it slightly differently, to me a phrase is the timing, rhythm, craic,and melody,but i do more or less what he says whether it be right or wrong.
Mac
# Posted on December 14th 2008 by J.D.Mc
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
taking a breath ~ you mean that literally (flute) but it is essential to every trad musician.
I love this. & even though I'm tossing out stuff about balkan rhythms there is great fun in reels & polkas.
Some players in Sliabh Luchra with the nuanced rhythms in their polkas! Too bad when sessions gloss over the polkas (slides & even slip jigs too). Listen to the players who are immersed in their melody/rhythm.
Cheers!
# Posted on December 14th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
david, I think that advice to "find a place to breath in every bar" is misplaced. I don't think you should think in bars. Try, instead to find a place to breath in every phrase.
The Lepadumdowledum example is straight forward in this case. The tune is a slip jig, but, for example, the first two phrases of the first part are pared triplets, or two bars of 6/8. As I said, the best tunes cut across bar lines, they toy with bar lines, they disguise them.
Tommy Peoples is a master of phrasing and breathing. He divides tunes into the most remarkably obtuse chunks that make such perfect melodic sense, and defy bar lines in the most beautiful of ways.
# Posted on December 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
some players seem to forget to phrase. It is as if they never take a breath. Perhaps the advice is intended to mean ~ 'be sure to play in phrases, take a breath.' In any case thanks for pointing it out Michael.
Now I will ask the novice question. Is every breath (on flute) a phrase? Seems to me one player can take a breath while all the others play right through. Make sense or no?
# Posted on December 15th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I think you're getting mixed up with the physical act of having to breath with the metaphorical space we can put into tunes that make them breath. Good flute players breath in the middle of phrases. Good pipers phrase without stopping at all.
# Posted on December 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
Thanks Michael. I tried to phrase that to indicate that was not taking it too literally. I think the point of the original advice was partly technical - to force work on difficut breathing spots that would not get done if taking the easy options and partly to challenge assumptions about phrasing.
For example one commonly suggested option for breathing in jigs or slides is missing a middle note of a group of three. Trying that one by one throws up things that I may not have noticed. Amongst other things sometimes it is hard to do without accenting the note before too much, or sometimes it turns out that the middle note is important in the melody. Other times it turns out to be easy to slip a breath in without upsetting the phrase and allows more flexibility in what comes next.
Have only heard Lepadumdowledumm on the radio but can certainly think of times when that sort of things has confused me if I have thought about it but, as with the Lunasa reel, been part of the enjoyment if I haven't. If I get round to trying to learn it I will bear in mind your comments in the tunes section.
But can I echo random's question ? For some reason the versions of tunes that are almost in my head seem to come from pipers or fiddlers and I am drawn to the easy option of going for the bigger breaths between their phrases. The "game" above is helping break from that and sometimes break the phrases with something other than a breath. But do I copy Tommy Peoples "breathing". Or is that random's metaphorical breathing.
# Posted on December 15th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
OK, you have answered it. I shouldn't have spent so long reading the comments on Lepadumdowledum
# Posted on December 15th 2008 by David50
Re: Backbeats in reel patterns
I have just been listening to some improvisational music.
When the lead melody (if the lead melody . . .) follows, more or less, predictable rhythmic patterns the tune begins to sound too stiff. However, a guitar backing (chords) follows a relatively patterned rhythm (beats). The chords don't necessarily cross barlines to the same degree as the melody.
Perhaps basic patterns are useful to backers.
Which might be why some players hear something that others do not. Or it could be hallucinations.
Of course this is my take on a different genre. So none of this applies to traditional reels.
# Posted on December 16th 2008 by Ben Steen