ITM this, ITM that. I've not quite bitten the bullet to use the term yet myself, but neither am I so vehemently against it these days.
Anyway. I've a mate from years back, now resident in Barcelona, who is a Blues-head. Plays blues guitar and sings, but told me recently he's not getting the gigs he used to. Why? All the Barcelona musos are into Celtic music these days. Down there, as well as Irish music, I take it that means Gallego music.
Some people I know from London have settled in Andalucia...to do what? Play Irish music.
Some other folks I know recently went out to Prague (BigDave, among them!) and were saying the Czechs are mad into rediscovering their Celtic roots - and The Music - apparently the ethnic stock is Celtic, but they were overrun by Slavs, hence they now speak a Slavic language. (incidentally, Czech traditional music is worth a listen to... I don't know of any bands, ie modern exponents of this form..you'd have to get a hold of real folkmusic collector type stuff... but it's a curious blend of slavic and oompah, and someting else... maybe that's the Celtic bit... but anyway, they have excellent bagpipe stuff.)
Back in the seventies & eighhties of the last century we used to have progressive music - ie non-pop, guitarry-keyboardy-rock-type music. Is that the category that Irish Music fits into these days? Let's not just stop at Irish: the traditional musics of the Bretons, Languedoc, Gallegos(Galicians) Scots, parts of Canada, Scandinavia and Italy, and English styles are all coming back into some kinda fashion, not restricted to those places either.
When I got into Irish music it was way back in the early days of Planxty, the Bothy Band, etc., and it was a one way ticket for me. No going back. That was nearly 30 years ago (I was very young then though, I hasten to add!)
Am I reading too much into personal observations, or is there a genuine revival of traditional musics?
This topic may have been done before but not by the current crop of sessioneers - so no apology to that effect this time!
Regressive... that's more like it. The ultimate in retro-fashion music. Although "regressive" does conjure up certain images of us all donning nappies and joining in on The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round...Retrogressive?
Hola,
Although I have only been playing and listening to traditional music for the past couple of years I have been hanging around Glasgow pubs for many years more than that. Maybe I just didnt notice but I'd bet that there is definitely more traditional (and acoustic) music being played in pubs now than over the last 20 or so years.
I've also visited Barcelona several times in the past 5 years and havent noticed any Irish traditional music. In fact there seems to be fewer Irish & Scottish 'theme' bars these days. Maybe it all happens in the suburbs.
Is traditional music allowed to progress? Is jamming in the middle of a set ok? Can I play my Bouzouli through my old BOSS pedals and still call it Trad.?
Hmmm, do you think with World Music (with its combining of cultures' musics) being kind of a big category for the past 10 years or so that maybe now people are delving more into the roots of one particular culture, be it Irish or Cuban or watever.
OK Craig, what's a Bouzouli? Sounds like a pasta dish with mushrooms, garlic, shallots, chilli and blue cheese, but I'm sure you're gonna prove me wrong...
N.E. way.
Regress, Progress, Digress, Mackaydress
These are all just labels, words, convenience terms plucked out of mid air to enable us to discuss our little niche in the musical ecosystem. But more likely made up by the advertising department of whatever Label or Rootsy Magazine is in your rack.
(I tried to contact that editor of thon Irish Music Magazine, Sean Laffey, or some such, about Some Thing I considered well worth the effort of getting in touch...No Reply -- do I care? - - not sour grapes, because I'd thought it was a crap magazine before that anyway...in fact abominably poor for what potential it could be....terrible really. There's much better info on this site.)
Droning on back to one of my old ones --- "The Music" is the term that suits me. Peter Woods used it, I've witnessed several of the ould boys use it -- in the same sense one would employ the term "The Drink" -- another loveable obsession and ingredient of The Craic, Capitalised to give it the respect of a Godsend, but with the demon potential it deserves.
The baby songs are great. In fact all that baby stuff is brill, now that I'm revisiting it after a fallow period. It allows one to make a total eejit of one's-self, with impunity and immunity. (There's a curious thing now - all you lads who are dads, if you're walking down the high road with wee fella in the sling .... I get all these gorgeous women smiling at me... for the first time in a decade ... no, I lie.... for the first time, ever... then I realise, it's nothing to DO with me but it's the Wee Man...do youse get/got the same?)
I don't know where this music is heading.... I get the feeling that, in the fickleness of the 21st century zeitgeist, which has yet to be laid out and hammered into proper shape, it will still have a place.
The way I see things polarising, The Music may either be forgotten, which I doubt, or, more probably, used, by the propaganda agents of the New World Order as a vehicle to remind all adherents of their ethnicity. Stick with the Christian West, and all its cute celtic and whatever subculture.
I see Tommy Sheridan's gone inside for 7 days. You Glasgow trad heads are no doubt organising some support gig. After all, it's only about the fact that there are still US nuclear bases 30 miles away from yer nearest session....
Aren't you out of touch , Danny? I thought the American military had vacated Holy Loch a few years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong. In any case, on this occasion, yer man Sheridan was lifted for protesting about Trident submarines and British-owned nuclear weapons.
Kenny - Oops, so right you are. Sorry. I wrote that last night after a couple of beers, so my grasp on reality was probably somewhat tenuous.
Thanks for sorting me out.
Some of these nursery tunes go back centuries, and were probably the pop tunes of their day. I think I'm right in saying you can find one or two in O'Neill.
Trevor
It seems to me the current trend is to be as old-styled as possible, especially when compared to recordings of ten years ago. Things like overproduction, using non trad instruments - will land you in "celtic music" category which is way out of fashion. Musicians are turning out albums that show just how incredibly talented they really are. I for one am glad the days of bad airs being played over Yanni synth tracks are gone.
Isn't Bazouli that foul smelling oil that hippy chicks smear on their baz... No, probably best not to go there...
But seriously(?), Myself and some friends played at a party in a pub the other day. We were the early evening entertainment, to be followed by a disco. The disco started while we were packing up and I thought it was remarkable for the fact that no complete records were played, just segued compilations of bits of records, with a common rhythm track. In some ways it reminded me of those marathon sets of reels we sometimes get involved in at large sessions. So maybe this is the future for the music, not prog rock, but disco. Cut each tune down to one time through, and nail vast rafts of them together. This should suit the new generation of channel-hopping, newsbite consuming, fast-food type people who have the attention span of a gnat.
(You can tell I'm not in love with the modern world, can't you)
You certainly like to think online, don't you ? As a young whippersnapper, I can say that for me, my interest in "traditional" music started with my first listen to U2. I realized the error of my ways, and quickly started stealing my dad's Clannad and Altan albums, picking up the tunes as I went. I also was fortunate enough to see Catriona MacDonald and Ian Lowthian that summer, and I was hooked.
My personal opinion is that people like to know where they come from. And the old tunes have such a haunting quality that can pull you back as you play to the mists on the water or the sun on the hills or Arthur and the knights...it can become a totally sensory experience. And in the fast paced, driven time we live in, people need that sense of roots and peace, even if they haven't got a drop of the Irish in them.
So, to sum up, yes it has progressed because more and more people are discovering it. But no, it hasn't changed a bit, because the tunes are still just as O'Carolan set them down all those years ago.
I had a thread going previously about how The Music takes us back to a Golden Age....which because of wars, famine, poverty and disease, etc, never really existed! But you're probably right, Lydia, people like to escape the rat race.
Also, I think people here aren't quite getting what I meant by "progressive" for which, sorry for my inarticulateness. I'll try and briefly explain again.
"Progressive" was a label given to late1960's-early1980's Thinking Person's Rock Music. Although many people here probably won't have heard of most of these, and this is my very subjective selection, let me mention a handfull of examples: Jethro Tull; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Pink Floyd; Yes (that's the name of the band); earlier Genesis;...and so on. I was merely musing that some of the people who would have liked that stuff then, would be the type of people who would be into what we now call Traditional Music, but what the record companies would try and label Celtic Music.
There's no Progressive Rock these days, haven't you heard, Danny? *grin* You and my husband Pete should have that discussion, you'd have a grand old time with it, I'm sure.
I'll have to think on that whole Thinking Person's traditional music thing. *grin* Lots of people liked Prog Rock who weren't thinkers, which is supposedly why the stuff died out, they like to think it turned into Alternative, but that's a whole nuther ball of wax. Trad is on the face of it very simple, but simplicity can be turned into an artform -- so you'll still have folks into this stuff who think about it, and also folks who don't, both in a Zen way and the easy way...
I don't think of Lunasa, Flook etc as being akin to progressive rock, because although they might play around with the music a lot, they are all terrifically 'tight', and if there's one thing Prog Rock was it wasn't tight (in that sense). Prog Rock would take a fairly slght theme (or no theme at all - listen to Pink Floyd's Ummagumma album), and stretch it out for many a long hour. The nearest thing to progressive trad music was what Fairport did to Matty Groves. I don't reckon that sort of thing is coming back. I think maybe record companies do have their sights on selling an 'ambient' sort of Irish/Celtic music, and they are certainly interested in stapling it to dance music, a la Celtic Sound System, who I must admit to quite liking at times...
I wouldn't get too anal about those comparisons, interesting reading though it is, lads. (Great song, Matty Groves, by a great singer. Christy Moore did a version, Little Musgrave, on a Planxty album, way back.)
I was merely musing on the niche that Traditional Music is filling, and I'm probably wrong anyway. But at least this thread has attracted the right crowd...
You can always rely on ottery for a well-constructed, well thought-out reply to a post. Good man yersell!
I understand the meaning of the word "progressive" to be something that moves forward with the times. For instance M McGoldricks "Fused" which gives a different (and modern) feel to the music.
I didn't really equate it with progressive rock but take your meaning.
Dunno...can you say that today's jam bands are the current answer to the Prog Rock bands? If so, then trad wouldn't work as Prog, because it's far too structured. How about, for a rather self-serving answer, Daniel, that this stuff is for the people who would normally be geeks but have too many social skills to really be dweebs?
Yeah, Danny trembled his lower lip at me and I'm a sucker for it. *grin* Won't b round 2 much tho, got 2 much 2 du. hehehe, sorry, just had to try it to annoy him.
Well this thread for me begs the question, do you have to be smart to appreciate the music? Or smart to play it? That is, if you're using the "Thinking Person" as your criteria for anything 'progressive.'
Hey I just got to say that Prog Rock is mosty certainly not dead. There are loads of new bands doing that 'old style' stuff. Spocks Beard, The flower kings, Transatlantic, Mostly Autumn,...I could go on. Also, a few of then are very folky so it is still happening.
I didn't want to contradict Zina when she said that as I have no evidence to bolster any contradiction, but was surprised when she said...actually she said there's no prog these days... I expect she means it's not as popular as it used to be... but I wouldn't even know if that were true or not!
How ye doin' Craig? Up for the Fleadh next year, then? Or maybe some winter festival.. Conan was telling me of a cracker in Ennis in November.......
Well, I guess it depends on how you define Prog Rock, really. For instance, you can't really call Prog Rock bands as doing "old style" stuff, or it wouldn't be Progressive, now would it? *grin* It's all completely subjective anyway; for instance, I've never heard anyone call CSN&Y Progressive before! But anyway, the "no progressive rock these days" thing was meant to be rather sarcastic, since a great many people in the industry these days say that "no one makes music like that anymore"...
Queens of the Stone Age - they do a kind of heavy rock, prog rock, punk mish-mash thing that I'd say is progressive and new but definately has old-style prog-rock overtones. And kicks ass (or should I say, arse), by the way. And is tight as hell. But it's not very apposite to the discussion - sorry, have waded in at the wrong end... must go home... brain tired... x H
I always thought that Moving Hearts were a "progressive" folk band.Where are their like nowadays?Don't get me wrong,I love ITM,but I'd very much like to hear a new young group who aren't Bothy Band clones.It seems to me that the Bothy Band were the template (and no-one did it better.)True, there were bands like Moving Hearts and Scullion.Scottish,Welsh and English groups experiment.Where are the Irish equivalents of The Oyster Band,The Cauld Blast Orchestra,Bob Delyn A'r Ebillion to name but a few?Perhaps I'm out of touch over here in Belgium. David Meredith
I think dafyd has hit the nail on the head there. We hear the likes of lunasa being heralded as taking the music forward, but there is not a single band out there now who have progressed futher than the bothy band. Even the likes of Ileen Ivers are really just fussion artists.
Zina says Prog wasn't sructured? Get out your old Yes albums and check out the structures in that. A heck of a lot more than the 4/8/16/32x3 that poor old diddly music is capable of.
I think prog has unfortunatly died. I've been waiting for years to something genuinly fresh. Occassionally someone might point me in the direction of the latest thing (Zoe Conway was a recent example) and I'm tired of the dissapointment.
I'm waiting for that breakthrough moment. Like bebob in jazz music, when people complained that you couldn't dance to it any more, but you could dance to it in your head. Or like Bach when he invented the rules of harmony.
It's just possible that some genius will come along and blow me away by doing something with diddly music that is truly progressive. I'm waiting in hope, but judging by what is concidered to be top notch now, I'm not confident.
Hmmmm, yes, adding a bass and leaving room for air in the tunes isn't likely as "progressive" as some people claim for Lunasa's approach. But then I don't listen to Lunasa for something new as much as I listen because I like their collective taste in tunes.
This thread does a good job of demonstrating the many connotations of the term "progressive," and now I'm sure only that I still don't know what it finally means.
Besides, trad music doesn't typically progress in leaps and bounds, prefering a slow crawl instead, so isn't the notion of "progressive traditional" an oxymoron, or at least a gentle parody of what is more widely touted as genuinely progressive (bebop, or classical tone poems, say)? A bit like putting a flush toilet in a sod hut with no indoor plumbing....
Anyway, what I heard in Danny's original post is the question: are some people painting themselves as progressive because they've learned to appreciate the subtle, modernistic finesse and sophistication of this "rustic" music?
My answer would be yes, but they're in the minority and it's easy enough to avoid those types. They're the ones who only recently realized that ren faires and creative anachronism are no longer avante garde, heh.
Didn't say Prog wasn't structured. Said that trad was more structured than Prog. In your never-ending and self-declared quest for challengement, Michael, I wish you'd finish with the confrontational, fer cat's sake. Anyway, Prog was pretty much largely in the ear of the, um, listener, since it was the category that what-all got lumped into when it didn't really fit any other description, largely. It's only afterwards (ie: now) that people try to cram a definition into the amorphic space left open by the label Progressive Rock.
"prog trad" is less subtle than an oxymoron, it's just a plain contradiction. Will is correct to prefer the slow crawl of this music's progress. And progress it undoubtably does, but by feeling it's way carefully and, most importantly, honouring its heritage. These are more than enough reasons to play and adore this stuff.
But by way of a comparrison:
Could trad diddly music be at the apex of its slow progression? Is it just possible that this is it? Could it be that the stagnation of the last 20 years is not just a helpful check on the over exuberance of the likes of the bothy band, but an indication that it just can't get any better? Could it be that Frankie Gavin is the grinning Satchmo at the end of the road. Donal Lunny, the Count Basie of orchestration?
I'm looking for an instrumentalist to compare to Charlie Parker, and an influence to compare to Miles Davis. Don't get me wrong, I don't want diddly music to go all jazzy on us, this is a comparrison. If knew what form this new music would take, I'd be doing it.
Yet again I find there is a confusion of terms and topics. ITM being popular in much of Europe just shows that - in some processed form - it is *mainstream* entertainment these days, enjoyed by teenagers as well as pensioners. Recent pop music is unsatisfactory to a lot of people so they use trad. music from a country that has a wealth of musical richness and a lot of myths to go with it. As Will points out tradition has its own workings.
Save me an essay on why trad. music has deteriorated over the last 200 years in other European countries so people find this space vacant.
What I find lamentable is that lots of groups think mixing styles and traditions from various counties is *in itself* progressive. Don't get me wrong, I think Moving Hearts f.e. played some wonderful music. But as I found in a concert lately - adding an egyptian percussionist improves The Music just as little as playing Spanish Lady on a saxophone.
There is no replacement for taste and skill no matter what the recent trends may be.
And: I don't think progressive rock is dead. We are just too old to keep up with it.
I like Michael's analogy to the jazz innovators, in part because even jazz has stood still since Parker and Davis. And the jazz world doesn't know what to do about it. The Marsalis lads have duked it out over whether it's bad form or an honorable homage to keep playing "standard" jazz, and I hope we don't see similar rivalry tear up Irish trad music. In the popular mind, of course, jazz has more at stake if it ceases to push the envelope. Irish trad on the other hand doesn't brag about its own progressiveness, so (Ashley MacIssac notwithstanding) I'm not sure we've *ever* had (or needed) a Charlie Parker or a Miles Davis, or even a Jimi Hendrix or Johnny Rotten. And if one does suddenly appear on the scene, will it still be Irish trad?
I'm not too worried about any of this. The tchunes will still be here, and me and my 4-string, unamplified fiddle will still be playing them, along with the rest of us here, eh? Whether we're at the music's apex, we're certainly enjoying one of the golden ages, different from previous golden ages (oh to have been a player when kitchen dances and the itinerant dancing masters and musicians were at their peak), but wonderful for access to the music, and a wealth of good players, and more of us with money and leisure time enough to own a fair instrument and play it. Globalization may have obliterated regional styles and diluted the music in some places (in orchesta halls and recording studios?), but it also allows us to almost routinely exchange tunes with people across oceans, and to "download" a deeply authentic, traditional sensibility for the music, no matter how far we are from the pubs of Doolin. Perhaps this is where the music has become truly progressive, in the ways in which it is spread and sussed out and swallowed whole by devotees on every continent.
"because even jazz has stood still since Parker and Davis. And the jazz world doesn't know what to do about it."
Aagghh!?!?!
(off the top of my head)
Charles Mingus
Thelonious Monk
Max Roach/Clifford Brown
Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker
Miles Davis
Ornette Coleman
Cecil Taylor
John Coltrane
Eric Dolphy
Carla Bley
Miles Davis again
Gil Evans
George Russell
Weather Report
Herbie Hancock/VSOP
Branford
Latin jazz of all shapes & sizes
That's about 60 seconds of pulling up names. There are hundreds more which contradict the above quote.
But Chris, I mention Miles Davis (it's that "Davis" part, right after Parker), paraphrasing Michael, so while I appreciate that Miles Davis reinvented jazz several times, you can't use him to contradict my statement. Er, can you?
I'm not even interested in singling out jazz innovators. My point is that jazz isn't the progressive rocket it once was. The last 30 years have seen something of a lull compared to the heydays of the 1930s thru the 1960s.
I could almost give you latin and afro jazz, except that's fusion, isn't it?
Oh, and most of the rest of your list are contemporaries (and collaborators) of Mr. Davis, so I don't get how they moved jazz beyond the Davis era. In fact, your list kinda helps make my (and Michael's) point--after Davis, there are damn few genuine innovators of the same quantum-leap caliber whose names spring to mind.
But all of that was by way of analogy, and we're beating a horse that was never alive. I don't know that Irish music has ever had or needed a Miles Davis. Isn't it enough to have brilliant players and composers of the music, without requiring them to be substantive and hyperspace innovators?
'Frankie Gavin is the grinning Satchmo at the end of the road' - that is ****ing brilliant.
I agree with Will about the 'progression' of Jazz. Even Miles Davis painted himself into a corner. What was he doing at the end of his life? Adding his 'sound' to producer-led pop-projects like Tutu. All of the other musicians on the above list produce/d exciting music, but the truly innovative ones, like Ornette Coleman, really innovated themselves up blind alleys. I've never been so bored/disappointed as the one time I saw Ornette. I love Charles Mingus's music, but I can't see that it changed the world, and as for Latin Jazz, well I think it might be fun, but it's not a leap forward for Jazz, because it's not really Jazz.
But having said all that (he says hastily, recalling that Coyotebanjo is a music professor!), whereas jazz could be considered a music which is all about innovation and re-invention, I don't think Irish music is, because at it's best it doesn't take place within the commercial sphere. It shouldn't have to reinvent itself to find a new audience, or it loses the directness and simplicity which are it's most attractive attributes. The more complex it becomes, the weaker it becomes....
I'm sure someone will disagree!
OK, this is OT for this site. But no, not all of those people were collaborators with Miles. No, I I would argue that Miles didn't "paint himself into a corner" (though he was a painter near the end of this life). As for "Adding his 'sound' to producer-led pop-projects like Tutu", that's essentially what Miles did, brilliantly (and was castigated for as a "pop sellout"), in the 1949 Nonet "Birth of the Cool" sessions, again with "Sketches of Spain" and "Porgy and Bess" (Albeniz: "classical pop"; Gershwin "pop song"). So if he did it, he was doing it ever since 1949.
"My point is that jazz isn't the progressive rocket it once was. The last 30 years have seen something of a lull compared to the heydays of the 1930s thru the 1960s."
Agreed. But the original statement was "even jazz has stood still since Parker and Davis." That's a different statement, and in my opinion an erroneous one.
"latin and afro jazz, except that's fusion, isn't it"
So was ragtime (band marches and piano solos); so was New Orleans jazz (see Jelly Roll Morton on the essential "Latin tinge" he said all jazz should have); Louis Armstrong recorded pop songs from the beginning of his career; Duke Ellington covered (and composed) pop songs at the same time that he was borrowing from James P Johnson and Claude Debussy, and on and on. Jazz has *always* been a "fusion" music.
"jazz could be considered a music which is all about innovation and re-invention, I don't think Irish music is."
I'd agree with this; that is, jazz musicians are expected to create innovation and re-invention. However, to me the more interesting comparisons b/w jazz and Irish music are their (sometimes unremarked) similarities, more than their obvious differences (which I won't enumerate). Not trying to be overbearing here; rather, I'm just observing what I think are interesting shared characteristics which might help explain the fervent dedicatiion that devotees feel for these musics--and the impassioned nature of their debates about them.
For example:
* both began as dance musics;
* both were originally community musics and functioned as the "lingua franca"--the common tongue--of minority musical communities;
* both have been historically devalued because of political, social, or classist associations regardingtheir original community;
* both were abandoned by a segment of the emigrant community because of their rural/peasant associations;
* both depended upon and valued the musical cross-fertilization provided by itinerant musicians;
* both have undergone repeated cycles of growth, maturation, stagnation, renewal (usually accompanied by intense debate about "what is or isn't the *real thing*");
* both depended upon, nurtured, and valued seminal players who became benchmarks, inspirations, or influences upon later generations;
* both expect learning players to develop familiarity with a common vocabulary of tunes which can then be used as part of extemporaneous musical conversations;
* both value tradition;
* both expect learning players to develop familiarity and some conversance with music styles that have gone before them, assuming that a wide range of exposure and imitation can in fact lead to an original, personal style;
* both suffer when presented on the concert stage or formalized into a set curriculum;
* both have been co-opted at times, usually by the dominant culture which has formerly devalued them, for ulterior political motives;
* both have appeal far beyond the ethnicity, society, or economic class in which they originated;
* both have retained a remarkable degree of their core esthetics (not identical, but similarly deeply-held) in changing cultural contexts;
* both provide means by which learning players, including those from outside the original cultural context, can use learning the music as a way of learning how to function in the culture;
* both value the voice, and the personal expression of which the voice is capable, as a model for instrumental playing;
* both value melody and a player's personal stamp upon melody.
Again, I know it's OT--but I think the similarities are interesting, not coincidental, and bear consideration.
Chris, I knew I was in way over my head *before* you posted the list of jazz greats (But I never said they were *all* collaborators of Miles'). Not that treading water in whirlpool at the deep end ever stopped me before.....
Okay, so for the sake of brevity, I used shorthand when I said jazz has stood still since Miles Davis. Sure, that's a bit overstated. I was hoping the jazz analogy wouldn't hijack this thread. But I think it *is* telling that many of the players on your initial list were contemporaries of Davis. Gil Evans, Ornette Coleman (only 4 years younger than Miles), Monk, Coltrane, Mingus, Baker, Brown, and so on. All I'm saying is that since these innovators, no one new has come close to taking jazz in a new direction as dramatically as they did.
And that's a good example of when a music stops being progressive. (Not that it won't be again.) And I like Michael's notion that we haven't yet seen a Parker or a Davis in Irish trad. I'd wager that we're not likely to.
That's an insightful list of similarities between jazz and Irish trad. Sounds like a dissertation in progress....
Back to Trad Prog. 'Shooglenifty' anyone? Just got into them recently, they seem to be doing something a bit different with the tunes.
Danny, I missed your post above about the Fleadh. Me and my pals are planning to do the Cambridge Folk festival next year. Something I've always fancied.
Oh.. and check out Karnataka for some folky type Prog Rock
Chris, erudite as your list of similarities between the Irish tradition and jazz is, I can' help thinking that you could use many of those points to illustrate links between many forms of music. I think all this stuff about the progression or not of Jazz is a bit of a diversion (yes, I know I contributed to it!) from Michael's interesting original thought on the subject, which was, "I'm looking for an instrumentalist to compare to Charlie Parker, and an influence to compare to Miles Davis".
Personally I'm not sure that this would be a good thing at all. Why would we want Irish music to radically change in the way that bebop changed jazz? I think there is a bigger argument for the idea that Irish music is inherently a conservative form, and that is where it's strength is. More like blues than jazz, as players* and listeners become more immersed in the music, they tend to gravitate BACKWARDS towards more pure and simple 'source' music, rather than constantly trying to 'progress'. So the person who gets into blues because they hear and are interested by Captain Beefheart (sorry, showing my age here!), will probably end up listening to Son House and Robert Johnson. The person who gets into Irish music through Clannad or Moving Hearts ends up listening to Joe Cooley. I think that the urge for 'progression' in Irish music exists largely because of pressures within the commercial sector. A large proportion of people who like Irish music (and blues) go on to become players themselves. One of the great attractions of this music is it's accessibility as a form of social intercourse, as opposed to, say Jazz, where the experts play, and us mere mortals listen and discuss!
*I'm talking here about players who come from outside the tradition, which nowadays constitute the majority.
my comparrison equated trad jazz with trad irish. Not is style, but substance. Both can easily be mastered by amateures and this is why I'd wager, with Will and Ottery, that we're not likely to see a Parker or Davis equivalent in "trad" irish. And nor would I want to.
But just like jazz however, the supreme inovators (if/when they come) will not challenge or in any way demote the beauty and playability of trad irish. They will create a new music with its roots in trad irish. It just won't be trad anymore.
As for the likes of shooglenifty: Great players yes, but not really inovators. If you take away the electricity, they are not really doing anything different with the tunes. (To refer to an earlier posting, that's one reason why Mcleod left)
What we are looking for is a differnt way to approach the tunes from their very basics. Playing them on different instruments with added decibels is not enough.
"All I'm saying is that since these innovators, no one new has come close to taking jazz in a new direction as dramatically as they did."
I'd agree.
"Sounds like a dissertation in progress...."
Naw. I'm done.
"I can' help thinking that you could use many of those points to illustrate links between many forms of music."
I'd agree--more specifically, to "illustrate links between many forms of [indigenous/traditional/locally-originating] music. There was a time when jazz *was* a "traditional music"--and I'd agree with one point that's been made implicitly: that jazz has lost a crucial kind of vitality and relevance to people's lives as it has moved away from its traditional functions.
"Irish music is inherently a conservative form, and that is where it's strength is"
I'd agree.
"One of the great attractions of this music is it's accessibility as a form of social intercourse, as opposed to, say Jazz, where the experts play, and us mere mortals listen and discuss!"
I'd agree, but I'd argue for a modification of the above. Certainly I believe that one of trad music's great strengths is precisely its ability to function as "a form of social intercourse" (that's very well put). However, there was a time when jazz was similar: when the music was on jukeboxes in local bars, when people danced to it, when those youngsters or outsiders wanting to learn it had direct contact with master musicians via apprenticeship. Also, participation in the world of African-American music wasn't limited to who was on the bandstand versus who was not: just like a session or house ceili, people could participate in lots of ways: actively listening, dancing, singing along, and so forth.
I'd agree with ottery's implied statement that, as jazz became an art music, and a conservatory music, and a commercial/commodified music, it lost a great deal of its social vitality. That's why, after years of learning and playing bebop, I don't play it any more, and play trad-Irish music (and other traditional musics) instead.
Wow, is it getting deep I love it! Speaking as one of those players that is outside the tradition, as you mentioned (95% Italian, 5% English), the complex simplicity of the melodies is what drew me to trad.
The trap that we have to avoid, however, is turning traditional into classical. I mean, how many different ways have you heard people interpret Beethoven? One of the reasons I forsook him, even though he and Brahms have some lovely pieces, all the up bow here, down bow there, follow the conductor, no you interpreted that wrong....can anyone say frustration?!?
That isn't saying classical is bad. It has its place, but at times, it feels very out of touch with the way the world is moving.
The beauty of Irish traditional music is that no two players play the tunes exactly the same...I may roll here, you may slide there, and they are both right. Because it's a pleasurable experience to interpret and make it your own.
So, I think that it will always be progressive, because each new player adds their own twist to the mix, and it is constantly changing even though it is strongly rooted in tradition.
(didn't mean to offend all you Beethoven freaks, I love his stuff....just spare me the orchestrations and give me a Guiness and bread )
lovelylydia - do you not find complex simplicity in Beethoven? And "turning trad into classical" would seem to imply that classical musicians are not called upon to use their imaginations, but it's a poor sort of musician of whatever genre who fails to do so (of course, an orchestra is called upon to use the conductors' imagination). And there's very many interpretations of quite a few composers out there.
Classical music in particular has suffered from the assumption that there's one authentic way of performing any given piece, as originally intended by the composer. Why then did they so often insist on leaving no more than the dots? Andrew Manze (violinist of considerable imagination, baroque field) started out with contemporary music, certain he'd find the key to authentic performance within living composers. Imagine his surprise when so many of them turned out to have little of no idea how their own music should be performed; surely that was his job? So he holds that performance of dead composers' music is 70% imagination; overabsorption with instrumentation, text and techniques conceals the fact that the the most important ingredients in music making are the performers and listeners, and the communication between them. All those dead composers should consider themselves lucky to have people play their music at all now they're dead, and classical musicans should maybe take more liberties. Classical music sessions, anybody? That was a really good idea (not mine, I fear).
All kinds of music can suffer when treated as "product". Many of us will have listened to recorded music our entire lives; we forget that this has only recently been an option. People like me with more records than enough should get out and participate some way in live music; maybe even follow Danny's advice and pick up an instrument. As G.K.Chesterton (allegedly) said: "If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly"!
Sh!te, sorry Danny, probably way too anal .....
I lost track of the fate of the original question. I thought prog rock was so tied up with the recording studio, and so difficult to reproduce live, that it was the antithesis of trad as she is practiced nowadays. Fairport did have prog tendancies, but that was then. Trad becoming trendy? Everything/body suffers occasionally from being flavour of the month: this too shall pass. Maybe it's just recovering from recent undeserved neglect. Trad the new ambient? I'll be the first one out the door. I agree that Trad (like blues) is essentially conservative, and I'm one of those who eagerly hunts down earlier recordings, of whatever genre. Retrogressive? As long as it's not tied up with some tiresome hippy "back to nature" nonsense. Regressive? who told Danny about the nappy parties?
Nearly missed your interesting post, nastyweegirl.
It's OT... but then so is a lot of this interesting thread by now... Andrew Manze is a good example of what's been happening in some parts of the classical world for a while now. The answer to "why then did they so often insist on leaving no more than the dots?" IMHO is pretty much as you say.
Imagine you are writing out a trad tune to give to an experienced trad player. You don't *have* to tell your player what instruments to use, what ornaments to use and where to put them, whether to play legato or detached, how to phrase the piece, what sort of harmonisation is appropriate etc etc. They already know all that and the convention of the genre is that some of it is not your business to dictate anyway - the player is expected to put his/her own stamp on it. So of course you don't write all that stuff down.
JS Bach and Mozart and earlier composers and even many later composers were in the same boat - they knew what their players didn't have to be told, so they didn't waste time, quill tips and paper telling it to them. Then in our current age we get idiocies such a young and clout-less harpsichordist being forced by a clue-less conductor to play a Bach figured bass part as one note in the left hand - "if Bach had wanted more he'd have written it out". Such people probably produce performances like the ones lovelylydia describes. Well, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, "Bach didn't write great music for us to listen to, he wrote music for next Sunday" - to be performed by people who knew their onions. And the notion of a conductor controlling the group in the way that modern music functions would have been anathema. It doesn't make much sense to think there's one way of performing such music, it makes less sense to think that the dots communicate the whole of the composer's intentions. That would be like printing out your tune book from The Session and playing exactly what's written... and no one would ever do that! (Would they?)
For anyone who really does like classical music (or would like to like it) but is put off by rigidity of interpretation, perhaps a nose around some of the performances by Manze and his ilk might bring some pleasant surprises. It certainly did for me when I started listening to period instrument orchestras.
First of all, let me remove my proverbial foot from my mouth...I did not mean to imply any reverse racism--I was simply addressing the fact that in the eyes of most people, I would not be your "traditional" Irish fiddler. However, I do consider myself traditional in that I play the traditional music.
Second, I was not slamming classicophiles...I was merely voicing my personal frustration with the rigid conformity that is so prevalent in what can be a vibrant art form. I love to listen to Manze, Perlman, Sanders (great pianist !! ), and Ma. I think that to take a piece of music that has been set down and played for centuries with a new spin is a real challenge, and for a good many of the musicians that record today, regardless of genre, it is easier not to push the envelope and find that new spin. I don't think that people who enjoy playing classical lack imagination--that is not what I meant at all. I meant that the phillistine notion of only one way pidgeonholes natural creativity. Orchestras are beautiful...Matter of fact, I make it a point to go to the symphony a couple of times a year, when I can get a babysitter and all that. There is a wonderful camadrie among classicophiles, musicians and listeners. I don't knock that a bit. I just feel that, for me, Irish traditional fiddling offers a less regimental, uninhibited approach. Whew! Did I clarify at all, or further Muddy the Waters? (hehehe)
I knew what you meant re classical music, lovelylydia, and didn't think you were knocking classical music or its fans at all, just the attitude that you and I have obviously both encountered and each have little time for 8>)
This is a recent quote from James Fagan which I thought was interesting: "This is the thing about classical music, this is what really gets me, is that it's so ... that level of perfection ... which means that 90% of the time when you see it performed you're disappointed. I mean, what kind of entertainment is that? And 10% of the time you go 'WOW that's the most inhuman thing I've ever seen - how did they do that?!'. There's no middle ground, y'know?"
lovelylydia - I wouldn't dispute that the conformity you referred to exists, and I said myself how music can only suffer from the "one-way" approach. I don't think "classical" music is the only victim; folk's enjoyment of a lot of music (the lads mentioned jazz earlier) has suffered from the need to conform somehow or other, whether to suit the whims of the recording industry or the unimaginative conductor, or to avoid challenging the new orthodoxy that always springs up around a proclaimed maestro, or the entrenched listening habits of the (supposedly) unadventurous listener ...........
Dow - That quote, for me, is just another example of (his perception of) the same approach. But if you dump the idea of there being one right way to play something, then there's no "perfection" to be attained: problem solved! Humanity restored.
I'd say there IS no middle ground with any kind of music, but it's nothing to do with perfection; it's just that either you're touched by it, or you're not. Another quote: "Only connect" - E.M.Forster. It's all ours, and we can f@nny about with it all we like, it's indestructible ....
Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
ITM this, ITM that. I've not quite bitten the bullet to use the term yet myself, but neither am I so vehemently against it these days.
Anyway. I've a mate from years back, now resident in Barcelona, who is a Blues-head. Plays blues guitar and sings, but told me recently he's not getting the gigs he used to. Why? All the Barcelona musos are into Celtic music these days. Down there, as well as Irish music, I take it that means Gallego music.
Some people I know from London have settled in Andalucia...to do what? Play Irish music.
Some other folks I know recently went out to Prague (BigDave, among them!) and were saying the Czechs are mad into rediscovering their Celtic roots - and The Music - apparently the ethnic stock is Celtic, but they were overrun by Slavs, hence they now speak a Slavic language. (incidentally, Czech traditional music is worth a listen to... I don't know of any bands, ie modern exponents of this form..you'd have to get a hold of real folkmusic collector type stuff... but it's a curious blend of slavic and oompah, and someting else... maybe that's the Celtic bit... but anyway, they have excellent bagpipe stuff.)
Back in the seventies & eighhties of the last century we used to have progressive music - ie non-pop, guitarry-keyboardy-rock-type music. Is that the category that Irish Music fits into these days? Let's not just stop at Irish: the traditional musics of the Bretons, Languedoc, Gallegos(Galicians) Scots, parts of Canada, Scandinavia and Italy, and English styles are all coming back into some kinda fashion, not restricted to those places either.
When I got into Irish music it was way back in the early days of Planxty, the Bothy Band, etc., and it was a one way ticket for me. No going back. That was nearly 30 years ago (I was very young then though, I hasten to add!)
Am I reading too much into personal observations, or is there a genuine revival of traditional musics?
This topic may have been done before but not by the current crop of sessioneers - so no apology to that effect this time!
Danny.
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
More like regressive as in "going back to my roots" (though not quite in the same genre as Odissey).
If you think of ITM as an acronym for "It's The Music" then it doesn't seem too bad...
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Concertina Player
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Do you mean like Bluegrass got progressive..
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by sorefingers
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Regressive... that's more like it. The ultimate in retro-fashion music. Although "regressive" does conjure up certain images of us all donning nappies and joining in on The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round...Retrogressive?
DM.
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Hola,
Although I have only been playing and listening to traditional music for the past couple of years I have been hanging around Glasgow pubs for many years more than that. Maybe I just didnt notice but I'd bet that there is definitely more traditional (and acoustic) music being played in pubs now than over the last 20 or so years.
I've also visited Barcelona several times in the past 5 years and havent noticed any Irish traditional music. In fact there seems to be fewer Irish & Scottish 'theme' bars these days. Maybe it all happens in the suburbs.
Craig.
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by bouzyboy
Is traditional music allowed to progress? Is jamming in the middle of a set ok? Can I play my Bouzouli through my old BOSS pedals and still call it Trad.?
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by bouzyboy
what's a bouzouli I hear you ask?
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by bouzyboy
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Hmmm, do you think with World Music (with its combining of cultures' musics) being kind of a big category for the past 10 years or so that maybe now people are delving more into the roots of one particular culture, be it Irish or Cuban or watever.
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Andee
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
No
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by baorbrat
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
OK Craig, what's a Bouzouli? Sounds like a pasta dish with mushrooms, garlic, shallots, chilli and blue cheese, but I'm sure you're gonna prove me wrong...
N.E. way.
Regress, Progress, Digress, Mackaydress
These are all just labels, words, convenience terms plucked out of mid air to enable us to discuss our little niche in the musical ecosystem. But more likely made up by the advertising department of whatever Label or Rootsy Magazine is in your rack.
(I tried to contact that editor of thon Irish Music Magazine, Sean Laffey, or some such, about Some Thing I considered well worth the effort of getting in touch...No Reply -- do I care? - - not sour grapes, because I'd thought it was a crap magazine before that anyway...in fact abominably poor for what potential it could be....terrible really. There's much better info on this site.)
Droning on back to one of my old ones --- "The Music" is the term that suits me. Peter Woods used it, I've witnessed several of the ould boys use it -- in the same sense one would employ the term "The Drink" -- another loveable obsession and ingredient of The Craic, Capitalised to give it the respect of a Godsend, but with the demon potential it deserves.
The baby songs are great. In fact all that baby stuff is brill, now that I'm revisiting it after a fallow period. It allows one to make a total eejit of one's-self, with impunity and immunity. (There's a curious thing now - all you lads who are dads, if you're walking down the high road with wee fella in the sling .... I get all these gorgeous women smiling at me... for the first time in a decade ... no, I lie.... for the first time, ever... then I realise, it's nothing to DO with me but it's the Wee Man...do youse get/got the same?)
I don't know where this music is heading.... I get the feeling that, in the fickleness of the 21st century zeitgeist, which has yet to be laid out and hammered into proper shape, it will still have a place.
The way I see things polarising, The Music may either be forgotten, which I doubt, or, more probably, used, by the propaganda agents of the New World Order as a vehicle to remind all adherents of their ethnicity. Stick with the Christian West, and all its cute celtic and whatever subculture.
I see Tommy Sheridan's gone inside for 7 days. You Glasgow trad heads are no doubt organising some support gig. After all, it's only about the fact that there are still US nuclear bases 30 miles away from yer nearest session....
Danny.
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Aren't you out of touch , Danny? I thought the American military had vacated Holy Loch a few years ago. Correct me if I'm wrong. In any case, on this occasion, yer man Sheridan was lifted for protesting about Trident submarines and British-owned nuclear weapons.
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Kenny
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Kenny - Oops, so right you are. Sorry. I wrote that last night after a couple of beers, so my grasp on reality was probably somewhat tenuous.
Thanks for sorting me out.
Danny.
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Some of these nursery tunes go back centuries, and were probably the pop tunes of their day. I think I'm right in saying you can find one or two in O'Neill.
Trevor
# Posted on August 25th 2003 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
It seems to me the current trend is to be as old-styled as possible, especially when compared to recordings of ten years ago. Things like overproduction, using non trad instruments - will land you in "celtic music" category which is way out of fashion. Musicians are turning out albums that show just how incredibly talented they really are. I for one am glad the days of bad airs being played over Yanni synth tracks are gone.
So "Regressive" would be the word
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by B Rad
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Isn't Bazouli that foul smelling oil that hippy chicks smear on their baz... No, probably best not to go there...
But seriously(?), Myself and some friends played at a party in a pub the other day. We were the early evening entertainment, to be followed by a disco. The disco started while we were packing up and I thought it was remarkable for the fact that no complete records were played, just segued compilations of bits of records, with a common rhythm track. In some ways it reminded me of those marathon sets of reels we sometimes get involved in at large sessions. So maybe this is the future for the music, not prog rock, but disco. Cut each tune down to one time through, and nail vast rafts of them together. This should suit the new generation of channel-hopping, newsbite consuming, fast-food type people who have the attention span of a gnat.
(You can tell I'm not in love with the modern world, can't you)
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Ottery
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
You certainly like to think online, don't you ? As a young whippersnapper, I can say that for me, my interest in "traditional" music started with my first listen to U2. I realized the error of my ways, and quickly started stealing my dad's Clannad and Altan albums, picking up the tunes as I went. I also was fortunate enough to see Catriona MacDonald and Ian Lowthian that summer, and I was hooked.
My personal opinion is that people like to know where they come from. And the old tunes have such a haunting quality that can pull you back as you play to the mists on the water or the sun on the hills or Arthur and the knights...it can become a totally sensory experience. And in the fast paced, driven time we live in, people need that sense of roots and peace, even if they haven't got a drop of the Irish in them.
So, to sum up, yes it has progressed because more and more people are discovering it. But no, it hasn't changed a bit, because the tunes are still just as O'Carolan set them down all those years ago.
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by lovelylydia
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I had a thread going previously about how The Music takes us back to a Golden Age....which because of wars, famine, poverty and disease, etc, never really existed! But you're probably right, Lydia, people like to escape the rat race.
Also, I think people here aren't quite getting what I meant by "progressive" for which, sorry for my inarticulateness. I'll try and briefly explain again.
"Progressive" was a label given to late1960's-early1980's Thinking Person's Rock Music. Although many people here probably won't have heard of most of these, and this is my very subjective selection, let me mention a handfull of examples: Jethro Tull; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; Pink Floyd; Yes (that's the name of the band); earlier Genesis;...and so on. I was merely musing that some of the people who would have liked that stuff then, would be the type of people who would be into what we now call Traditional Music, but what the record companies would try and label Celtic Music.
Danny.
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
There's no Progressive Rock these days, haven't you heard, Danny? *grin* You and my husband Pete should have that discussion, you'd have a grand old time with it, I'm sure.
I'll have to think on that whole Thinking Person's traditional music thing. *grin* Lots of people liked Prog Rock who weren't thinkers, which is supposedly why the stuff died out, they like to think it turned into Alternative, but that's a whole nuther ball of wax. Trad is on the face of it very simple, but simplicity can be turned into an artform -- so you'll still have folks into this stuff who think about it, and also folks who don't, both in a Zen way and the easy way...
Zina
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I wonder why nobody's mentioned Mike McGoldrick, Flook, Lunasa etc. That to me is progessive... or is it too obvious to mention?
Dave.
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Twiz
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I don't think of Lunasa, Flook etc as being akin to progressive rock, because although they might play around with the music a lot, they are all terrifically 'tight', and if there's one thing Prog Rock was it wasn't tight (in that sense). Prog Rock would take a fairly slght theme (or no theme at all - listen to Pink Floyd's Ummagumma album), and stretch it out for many a long hour. The nearest thing to progressive trad music was what Fairport did to Matty Groves. I don't reckon that sort of thing is coming back. I think maybe record companies do have their sights on selling an 'ambient' sort of Irish/Celtic music, and they are certainly interested in stapling it to dance music, a la Celtic Sound System, who I must admit to quite liking at times...
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Ottery
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I wouldn't get too anal about those comparisons, interesting reading though it is, lads. (Great song, Matty Groves, by a great singer. Christy Moore did a version, Little Musgrave, on a Planxty album, way back.)
I was merely musing on the niche that Traditional Music is filling, and I'm probably wrong anyway. But at least this thread has attracted the right crowd...
You can always rely on ottery for a well-constructed, well thought-out reply to a post. Good man yersell!
Danny.
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I understand the meaning of the word "progressive" to be something that moves forward with the times. For instance M McGoldricks "Fused" which gives a different (and modern) feel to the music.
I didn't really equate it with progressive rock but take your meaning.
Dave.
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Twiz
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Dunno...can you say that today's jam bands are the current answer to the Prog Rock bands? If so, then trad wouldn't work as Prog, because it's far too structured. How about, for a rather self-serving answer, Daniel, that this stuff is for the people who would normally be geeks but have too many social skills to really be dweebs?
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Yay! Zina's back!
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Andee
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Yeah, Danny trembled his lower lip at me and I'm a sucker for it. *grin* Won't b round 2 much tho, got 2 much 2 du. hehehe, sorry, just had to try it to annoy him.
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Heh!
Well this thread for me begs the question, do you have to be smart to appreciate the music? Or smart to play it? That is, if you're using the "Thinking Person" as your criteria for anything 'progressive.'
Yay Danny for successful 'lip trembling!' Bravo!
# Posted on August 26th 2003 by emily_bmore
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Hey I just got to say that Prog Rock is mosty certainly not dead. There are loads of new bands doing that 'old style' stuff. Spocks Beard, The flower kings, Transatlantic, Mostly Autumn,...I could go on. Also, a few of then are very folky so it is still happening.
Craig.
# Posted on August 27th 2003 by bouzyboy
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I didn't want to contradict Zina when she said that as I have no evidence to bolster any contradiction, but was surprised when she said...actually she said there's no prog these days... I expect she means it's not as popular as it used to be... but I wouldn't even know if that were true or not!
How ye doin' Craig? Up for the Fleadh next year, then? Or maybe some winter festival.. Conan was telling me of a cracker in Ennis in November.......
Danny.
# Posted on August 27th 2003 by Rudall the time
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Well, I guess it depends on how you define Prog Rock, really. For instance, you can't really call Prog Rock bands as doing "old style" stuff, or it wouldn't be Progressive, now would it? *grin* It's all completely subjective anyway; for instance, I've never heard anyone call CSN&Y Progressive before! But anyway, the "no progressive rock these days" thing was meant to be rather sarcastic, since a great many people in the industry these days say that "no one makes music like that anymore"...
# Posted on August 27th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Queens of the Stone Age - they do a kind of heavy rock, prog rock, punk mish-mash thing that I'd say is progressive and new but definately has old-style prog-rock overtones. And kicks ass (or should I say, arse), by the way. And is tight as hell. But it's not very apposite to the discussion - sorry, have waded in at the wrong end... must go home... brain tired... x H
# Posted on August 27th 2003 by Nell
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I always thought that Moving Hearts were a "progressive" folk band.Where are their like nowadays?Don't get me wrong,I love ITM,but I'd very much like to hear a new young group who aren't Bothy Band clones.It seems to me that the Bothy Band were the template (and no-one did it better.)True, there were bands like Moving Hearts and Scullion.Scottish,Welsh and English groups experiment.Where are the Irish equivalents of The Oyster Band,The Cauld Blast Orchestra,Bob Delyn A'r Ebillion to name but a few?Perhaps I'm out of touch over here in Belgium. David Meredith
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by dafydd
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I think dafyd has hit the nail on the head there. We hear the likes of lunasa being heralded as taking the music forward, but there is not a single band out there now who have progressed futher than the bothy band. Even the likes of Ileen Ivers are really just fussion artists.
Zina says Prog wasn't sructured? Get out your old Yes albums and check out the structures in that. A heck of a lot more than the 4/8/16/32x3 that poor old diddly music is capable of.
I think prog has unfortunatly died. I've been waiting for years to something genuinly fresh. Occassionally someone might point me in the direction of the latest thing (Zoe Conway was a recent example) and I'm tired of the dissapointment.
I'm waiting for that breakthrough moment. Like bebob in jazz music, when people complained that you couldn't dance to it any more, but you could dance to it in your head. Or like Bach when he invented the rules of harmony.
It's just possible that some genius will come along and blow me away by doing something with diddly music that is truly progressive. I'm waiting in hope, but judging by what is concidered to be top notch now, I'm not confident.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by ...
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Hmmmm, yes, adding a bass and leaving room for air in the tunes isn't likely as "progressive" as some people claim for Lunasa's approach. But then I don't listen to Lunasa for something new as much as I listen because I like their collective taste in tunes.
This thread does a good job of demonstrating the many connotations of the term "progressive," and now I'm sure only that I still don't know what it finally means.
Besides, trad music doesn't typically progress in leaps and bounds, prefering a slow crawl instead, so isn't the notion of "progressive traditional" an oxymoron, or at least a gentle parody of what is more widely touted as genuinely progressive (bebop, or classical tone poems, say)? A bit like putting a flush toilet in a sod hut with no indoor plumbing....
Anyway, what I heard in Danny's original post is the question: are some people painting themselves as progressive because they've learned to appreciate the subtle, modernistic finesse and sophistication of this "rustic" music?
My answer would be yes, but they're in the minority and it's easy enough to avoid those types. They're the ones who only recently realized that ren faires and creative anachronism are no longer avante garde, heh.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Didn't say Prog wasn't structured. Said that trad was more structured than Prog. In your never-ending and self-declared quest for challengement, Michael, I wish you'd finish with the confrontational, fer cat's sake. Anyway, Prog was pretty much largely in the ear of the, um, listener, since it was the category that what-all got lumped into when it didn't really fit any other description, largely. It's only afterwards (ie: now) that people try to cram a definition into the amorphic space left open by the label Progressive Rock.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
"prog trad" is less subtle than an oxymoron, it's just a plain contradiction. Will is correct to prefer the slow crawl of this music's progress. And progress it undoubtably does, but by feeling it's way carefully and, most importantly, honouring its heritage. These are more than enough reasons to play and adore this stuff.
But by way of a comparrison:
Could trad diddly music be at the apex of its slow progression? Is it just possible that this is it? Could it be that the stagnation of the last 20 years is not just a helpful check on the over exuberance of the likes of the bothy band, but an indication that it just can't get any better? Could it be that Frankie Gavin is the grinning Satchmo at the end of the road. Donal Lunny, the Count Basie of orchestration?
I'm looking for an instrumentalist to compare to Charlie Parker, and an influence to compare to Miles Davis. Don't get me wrong, I don't want diddly music to go all jazzy on us, this is a comparrison. If knew what form this new music would take, I'd be doing it.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by ...
sorry zina, point taken
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by ...
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Yet again I find there is a confusion of terms and topics. ITM being popular in much of Europe just shows that - in some processed form - it is *mainstream* entertainment these days, enjoyed by teenagers as well as pensioners. Recent pop music is unsatisfactory to a lot of people so they use trad. music from a country that has a wealth of musical richness and a lot of myths to go with it. As Will points out tradition has its own workings.
Save me an essay on why trad. music has deteriorated over the last 200 years in other European countries so people find this space vacant.
What I find lamentable is that lots of groups think mixing styles and traditions from various counties is *in itself* progressive. Don't get me wrong, I think Moving Hearts f.e. played some wonderful music. But as I found in a concert lately - adding an egyptian percussionist improves The Music just as little as playing Spanish Lady on a saxophone.
There is no replacement for taste and skill no matter what the recent trends may be.
And: I don't think progressive rock is dead. We are just too old to keep up with it.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by kuec
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I like Michael's analogy to the jazz innovators, in part because even jazz has stood still since Parker and Davis. And the jazz world doesn't know what to do about it. The Marsalis lads have duked it out over whether it's bad form or an honorable homage to keep playing "standard" jazz, and I hope we don't see similar rivalry tear up Irish trad music. In the popular mind, of course, jazz has more at stake if it ceases to push the envelope. Irish trad on the other hand doesn't brag about its own progressiveness, so (Ashley MacIssac notwithstanding) I'm not sure we've *ever* had (or needed) a Charlie Parker or a Miles Davis, or even a Jimi Hendrix or Johnny Rotten. And if one does suddenly appear on the scene, will it still be Irish trad?
I'm not too worried about any of this. The tchunes will still be here, and me and my 4-string, unamplified fiddle will still be playing them, along with the rest of us here, eh? Whether we're at the music's apex, we're certainly enjoying one of the golden ages, different from previous golden ages (oh to have been a player when kitchen dances and the itinerant dancing masters and musicians were at their peak), but wonderful for access to the music, and a wealth of good players, and more of us with money and leisure time enough to own a fair instrument and play it. Globalization may have obliterated regional styles and diluted the music in some places (in orchesta halls and recording studios?), but it also allows us to almost routinely exchange tunes with people across oceans, and to "download" a deeply authentic, traditional sensibility for the music, no matter how far we are from the pubs of Doolin. Perhaps this is where the music has become truly progressive, in the ways in which it is spread and sussed out and swallowed whole by devotees on every continent.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
"because even jazz has stood still since Parker and Davis. And the jazz world doesn't know what to do about it."
Aagghh!?!?!
(off the top of my head)
Charles Mingus
Thelonious Monk
Max Roach/Clifford Brown
Gerry Mulligan/Chet Baker
Miles Davis
Ornette Coleman
Cecil Taylor
John Coltrane
Eric Dolphy
Carla Bley
Miles Davis again
Gil Evans
George Russell
Weather Report
Herbie Hancock/VSOP
Branford
Latin jazz of all shapes & sizes
That's about 60 seconds of pulling up names. There are hundreds more which contradict the above quote.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
But Chris, I mention Miles Davis (it's that "Davis" part, right after Parker), paraphrasing Michael, so while I appreciate that Miles Davis reinvented jazz several times, you can't use him to contradict my statement. Er, can you?
I'm not even interested in singling out jazz innovators. My point is that jazz isn't the progressive rocket it once was. The last 30 years have seen something of a lull compared to the heydays of the 1930s thru the 1960s.
I could almost give you latin and afro jazz, except that's fusion, isn't it?
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Oh, and most of the rest of your list are contemporaries (and collaborators) of Mr. Davis, so I don't get how they moved jazz beyond the Davis era. In fact, your list kinda helps make my (and Michael's) point--after Davis, there are damn few genuine innovators of the same quantum-leap caliber whose names spring to mind.
But all of that was by way of analogy, and we're beating a horse that was never alive. I don't know that Irish music has ever had or needed a Miles Davis. Isn't it enough to have brilliant players and composers of the music, without requiring them to be substantive and hyperspace innovators?
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
'Frankie Gavin is the grinning Satchmo at the end of the road' - that is ****ing brilliant.
I agree with Will about the 'progression' of Jazz. Even Miles Davis painted himself into a corner. What was he doing at the end of his life? Adding his 'sound' to producer-led pop-projects like Tutu. All of the other musicians on the above list produce/d exciting music, but the truly innovative ones, like Ornette Coleman, really innovated themselves up blind alleys. I've never been so bored/disappointed as the one time I saw Ornette. I love Charles Mingus's music, but I can't see that it changed the world, and as for Latin Jazz, well I think it might be fun, but it's not a leap forward for Jazz, because it's not really Jazz.
But having said all that (he says hastily, recalling that Coyotebanjo is a music professor!), whereas jazz could be considered a music which is all about innovation and re-invention, I don't think Irish music is, because at it's best it doesn't take place within the commercial sphere. It shouldn't have to reinvent itself to find a new audience, or it loses the directness and simplicity which are it's most attractive attributes. The more complex it becomes, the weaker it becomes....
I'm sure someone will disagree!
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Ottery
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Not me, Ottery. You said it well.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
OK, this is OT for this site. But no, not all of those people were collaborators with Miles. No, I I would argue that Miles didn't "paint himself into a corner" (though he was a painter near the end of this life). As for "Adding his 'sound' to producer-led pop-projects like Tutu", that's essentially what Miles did, brilliantly (and was castigated for as a "pop sellout"), in the 1949 Nonet "Birth of the Cool" sessions, again with "Sketches of Spain" and "Porgy and Bess" (Albeniz: "classical pop"; Gershwin "pop song"). So if he did it, he was doing it ever since 1949.
"My point is that jazz isn't the progressive rocket it once was. The last 30 years have seen something of a lull compared to the heydays of the 1930s thru the 1960s."
Agreed. But the original statement was "even jazz has stood still since Parker and Davis." That's a different statement, and in my opinion an erroneous one.
"latin and afro jazz, except that's fusion, isn't it"
So was ragtime (band marches and piano solos); so was New Orleans jazz (see Jelly Roll Morton on the essential "Latin tinge" he said all jazz should have); Louis Armstrong recorded pop songs from the beginning of his career; Duke Ellington covered (and composed) pop songs at the same time that he was borrowing from James P Johnson and Claude Debussy, and on and on. Jazz has *always* been a "fusion" music.
"jazz could be considered a music which is all about innovation and re-invention, I don't think Irish music is."
I'd agree with this; that is, jazz musicians are expected to create innovation and re-invention. However, to me the more interesting comparisons b/w jazz and Irish music are their (sometimes unremarked) similarities, more than their obvious differences (which I won't enumerate). Not trying to be overbearing here; rather, I'm just observing what I think are interesting shared characteristics which might help explain the fervent dedicatiion that devotees feel for these musics--and the impassioned nature of their debates about them.
For example:
* both began as dance musics;
* both were originally community musics and functioned as the "lingua franca"--the common tongue--of minority musical communities;
* both have been historically devalued because of political, social, or classist associations regardingtheir original community;
* both were abandoned by a segment of the emigrant community because of their rural/peasant associations;
* both depended upon and valued the musical cross-fertilization provided by itinerant musicians;
* both have undergone repeated cycles of growth, maturation, stagnation, renewal (usually accompanied by intense debate about "what is or isn't the *real thing*");
* both depended upon, nurtured, and valued seminal players who became benchmarks, inspirations, or influences upon later generations;
* both expect learning players to develop familiarity with a common vocabulary of tunes which can then be used as part of extemporaneous musical conversations;
* both value tradition;
* both expect learning players to develop familiarity and some conversance with music styles that have gone before them, assuming that a wide range of exposure and imitation can in fact lead to an original, personal style;
* both suffer when presented on the concert stage or formalized into a set curriculum;
* both have been co-opted at times, usually by the dominant culture which has formerly devalued them, for ulterior political motives;
* both have appeal far beyond the ethnicity, society, or economic class in which they originated;
* both have retained a remarkable degree of their core esthetics (not identical, but similarly deeply-held) in changing cultural contexts;
* both provide means by which learning players, including those from outside the original cultural context, can use learning the music as a way of learning how to function in the culture;
* both value the voice, and the personal expression of which the voice is capable, as a model for instrumental playing;
* both value melody and a player's personal stamp upon melody.
Again, I know it's OT--but I think the similarities are interesting, not coincidental, and bear consideration.
chris smith
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Chris, I knew I was in way over my head *before* you posted the list of jazz greats
(But I never said they were *all* collaborators of Miles'). Not that treading water in whirlpool at the deep end ever stopped me before.....
Okay, so for the sake of brevity, I used shorthand when I said jazz has stood still since Miles Davis. Sure, that's a bit overstated. I was hoping the jazz analogy wouldn't hijack this thread. But I think it *is* telling that many of the players on your initial list were contemporaries of Davis. Gil Evans, Ornette Coleman (only 4 years younger than Miles), Monk, Coltrane, Mingus, Baker, Brown, and so on. All I'm saying is that since these innovators, no one new has come close to taking jazz in a new direction as dramatically as they did.
And that's a good example of when a music stops being progressive. (Not that it won't be again.) And I like Michael's notion that we haven't yet seen a Parker or a Davis in Irish trad. I'd wager that we're not likely to.
That's an insightful list of similarities between jazz and Irish trad. Sounds like a dissertation in progress....
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Will Harmon
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Back to Trad Prog. 'Shooglenifty' anyone? Just got into them recently, they seem to be doing something a bit different with the tunes.
Danny, I missed your post above about the Fleadh. Me and my pals are planning to do the Cambridge Folk festival next year. Something I've always fancied.
Oh.. and check out Karnataka for some folky type Prog Rock
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by bouzyboy
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Chris, erudite as your list of similarities between the Irish tradition and jazz is, I can' help thinking that you could use many of those points to illustrate links between many forms of music. I think all this stuff about the progression or not of Jazz is a bit of a diversion (yes, I know I contributed to it!) from Michael's interesting original thought on the subject, which was, "I'm looking for an instrumentalist to compare to Charlie Parker, and an influence to compare to Miles Davis".
Personally I'm not sure that this would be a good thing at all. Why would we want Irish music to radically change in the way that bebop changed jazz? I think there is a bigger argument for the idea that Irish music is inherently a conservative form, and that is where it's strength is. More like blues than jazz, as players* and listeners become more immersed in the music, they tend to gravitate BACKWARDS towards more pure and simple 'source' music, rather than constantly trying to 'progress'. So the person who gets into blues because they hear and are interested by Captain Beefheart (sorry, showing my age here!), will probably end up listening to Son House and Robert Johnson. The person who gets into Irish music through Clannad or Moving Hearts ends up listening to Joe Cooley. I think that the urge for 'progression' in Irish music exists largely because of pressures within the commercial sector. A large proportion of people who like Irish music (and blues) go on to become players themselves. One of the great attractions of this music is it's accessibility as a form of social intercourse, as opposed to, say Jazz, where the experts play, and us mere mortals listen and discuss!
*I'm talking here about players who come from outside the tradition, which nowadays constitute the majority.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by Ottery
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
my comparrison equated trad jazz with trad irish. Not is style, but substance. Both can easily be mastered by amateures and this is why I'd wager, with Will and Ottery, that we're not likely to see a Parker or Davis equivalent in "trad" irish. And nor would I want to.
But just like jazz however, the supreme inovators (if/when they come) will not challenge or in any way demote the beauty and playability of trad irish. They will create a new music with its roots in trad irish. It just won't be trad anymore.
As for the likes of shooglenifty: Great players yes, but not really inovators. If you take away the electricity, they are not really doing anything different with the tunes. (To refer to an earlier posting, that's one reason why Mcleod left)
What we are looking for is a differnt way to approach the tunes from their very basics. Playing them on different instruments with added decibels is not enough.
# Posted on August 29th 2003 by ...
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
"All I'm saying is that since these innovators, no one new has come close to taking jazz in a new direction as dramatically as they did."
I'd agree.
"Sounds like a dissertation in progress...."
Naw. I'm done.
"I can' help thinking that you could use many of those points to illustrate links between many forms of music."
I'd agree--more specifically, to "illustrate links between many forms of [indigenous/traditional/locally-originating] music. There was a time when jazz *was* a "traditional music"--and I'd agree with one point that's been made implicitly: that jazz has lost a crucial kind of vitality and relevance to people's lives as it has moved away from its traditional functions.
"Irish music is inherently a conservative form, and that is where it's strength is"
I'd agree.
"One of the great attractions of this music is it's accessibility as a form of social intercourse, as opposed to, say Jazz, where the experts play, and us mere mortals listen and discuss!"
I'd agree, but I'd argue for a modification of the above. Certainly I believe that one of trad music's great strengths is precisely its ability to function as "a form of social intercourse" (that's very well put). However, there was a time when jazz was similar: when the music was on jukeboxes in local bars, when people danced to it, when those youngsters or outsiders wanting to learn it had direct contact with master musicians via apprenticeship. Also, participation in the world of African-American music wasn't limited to who was on the bandstand versus who was not: just like a session or house ceili, people could participate in lots of ways: actively listening, dancing, singing along, and so forth.
I'd agree with ottery's implied statement that, as jazz became an art music, and a conservatory music, and a commercial/commodified music, it lost a great deal of its social vitality. That's why, after years of learning and playing bebop, I don't play it any more, and play trad-Irish music (and other traditional musics) instead.
Thanks for the conversation.
# Posted on August 30th 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Wow, is it getting deep
I love it! Speaking as one of those players that is outside the tradition, as you mentioned (95% Italian, 5% English), the complex simplicity of the melodies is what drew me to trad.
)
The trap that we have to avoid, however, is turning traditional into classical. I mean, how many different ways have you heard people interpret Beethoven? One of the reasons I forsook him, even though he and Brahms have some lovely pieces, all the up bow here, down bow there, follow the conductor, no you interpreted that wrong....can anyone say frustration?!?
That isn't saying classical is bad. It has its place, but at times, it feels very out of touch with the way the world is moving.
The beauty of Irish traditional music is that no two players play the tunes exactly the same...I may roll here, you may slide there, and they are both right. Because it's a pleasurable experience to interpret and make it your own.
So, I think that it will always be progressive, because each new player adds their own twist to the mix, and it is constantly changing even though it is strongly rooted in tradition.
(didn't mean to offend all you Beethoven freaks, I love his stuff....just spare me the orchestrations and give me a Guiness and bread
# Posted on August 30th 2003 by lovelylydia
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
you have to watch that beating yourself up about the "being out of the tradition" thing. Reverse rascism?
# Posted on August 30th 2003 by ...
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
lovelylydia - do you not find complex simplicity in Beethoven? And "turning trad into classical" would seem to imply that classical musicians are not called upon to use their imaginations, but it's a poor sort of musician of whatever genre who fails to do so (of course, an orchestra is called upon to use the conductors' imagination). And there's very many interpretations of quite a few composers out there.
Classical music in particular has suffered from the assumption that there's one authentic way of performing any given piece, as originally intended by the composer. Why then did they so often insist on leaving no more than the dots? Andrew Manze (violinist of considerable imagination, baroque field) started out with contemporary music, certain he'd find the key to authentic performance within living composers. Imagine his surprise when so many of them turned out to have little of no idea how their own music should be performed; surely that was his job? So he holds that performance of dead composers' music is 70% imagination; overabsorption with instrumentation, text and techniques conceals the fact that the the most important ingredients in music making are the performers and listeners, and the communication between them. All those dead composers should consider themselves lucky to have people play their music at all now they're dead, and classical musicans should maybe take more liberties. Classical music sessions, anybody? That was a really good idea (not mine, I fear).
All kinds of music can suffer when treated as "product". Many of us will have listened to recorded music our entire lives; we forget that this has only recently been an option. People like me with more records than enough should get out and participate some way in live music; maybe even follow Danny's advice and pick up an instrument. As G.K.Chesterton (allegedly) said: "If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly"!
Sh!te, sorry Danny, probably way too anal .....
I lost track of the fate of the original question. I thought prog rock was so tied up with the recording studio, and so difficult to reproduce live, that it was the antithesis of trad as she is practiced nowadays. Fairport did have prog tendancies, but that was then. Trad becoming trendy? Everything/body suffers occasionally from being flavour of the month: this too shall pass. Maybe it's just recovering from recent undeserved neglect. Trad the new ambient? I'll be the first one out the door. I agree that Trad (like blues) is essentially conservative, and I'm one of those who eagerly hunts down earlier recordings, of whatever genre. Retrogressive? As long as it's not tied up with some tiresome hippy "back to nature" nonsense. Regressive? who told Danny about the nappy parties?
# Posted on September 2nd 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Nearly missed your interesting post, nastyweegirl.
It's OT... but then so is a lot of this interesting thread by now... Andrew Manze is a good example of what's been happening in some parts of the classical world for a while now. The answer to "why then did they so often insist on leaving no more than the dots?" IMHO is pretty much as you say.
Imagine you are writing out a trad tune to give to an experienced trad player. You don't *have* to tell your player what instruments to use, what ornaments to use and where to put them, whether to play legato or detached, how to phrase the piece, what sort of harmonisation is appropriate etc etc. They already know all that and the convention of the genre is that some of it is not your business to dictate anyway - the player is expected to put his/her own stamp on it. So of course you don't write all that stuff down.
JS Bach and Mozart and earlier composers and even many later composers were in the same boat - they knew what their players didn't have to be told, so they didn't waste time, quill tips and paper telling it to them. Then in our current age we get idiocies such a young and clout-less harpsichordist being forced by a clue-less conductor to play a Bach figured bass part as one note in the left hand - "if Bach had wanted more he'd have written it out". Such people probably produce performances like the ones lovelylydia describes. Well, as a friend of mine is fond of saying, "Bach didn't write great music for us to listen to, he wrote music for next Sunday" - to be performed by people who knew their onions. And the notion of a conductor controlling the group in the way that modern music functions would have been anathema. It doesn't make much sense to think there's one way of performing such music, it makes less sense to think that the dots communicate the whole of the composer's intentions. That would be like printing out your tune book from The Session and playing exactly what's written... and no one would ever do that! (Would they?)
For anyone who really does like classical music (or would like to like it) but is put off by rigidity of interpretation, perhaps a nose around some of the performances by Manze and his ilk might bring some pleasant surprises. It certainly did for me when I started listening to period instrument orchestras.
I'll get off me soapbox now and get back to work!
# Posted on September 3rd 2003 by Tish
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
Is Baroque Music Becoming Traditional?
I'll have some of that!
# Posted on September 3rd 2003 by nastyweegirl
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
First of all, let me remove my proverbial foot from my mouth...I did not mean to imply any reverse racism--I was simply addressing the fact that in the eyes of most people, I would not be your "traditional" Irish fiddler. However, I do consider myself traditional in that I play the traditional music.
Second, I was not slamming classicophiles...I was merely voicing my personal frustration with the rigid conformity that is so prevalent in what can be a vibrant art form. I love to listen to Manze, Perlman, Sanders (great pianist !! ), and Ma. I think that to take a piece of music that has been set down and played for centuries with a new spin is a real challenge, and for a good many of the musicians that record today, regardless of genre, it is easier not to push the envelope and find that new spin. I don't think that people who enjoy playing classical lack imagination--that is not what I meant at all. I meant that the phillistine notion of only one way pidgeonholes natural creativity. Orchestras are beautiful...Matter of fact, I make it a point to go to the symphony a couple of times a year, when I can get a babysitter and all that. There is a wonderful camadrie among classicophiles, musicians and listeners. I don't knock that a bit. I just feel that, for me, Irish traditional fiddling offers a less regimental, uninhibited approach. Whew! Did I clarify at all, or further Muddy the Waters? (hehehe)
# Posted on September 5th 2003 by lovelylydia
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
I knew what you meant re classical music, lovelylydia, and didn't think you were knocking classical music or its fans at all, just the attitude that you and I have obviously both encountered and each have little time for 8>)
# Posted on September 5th 2003 by Tish
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
This is a recent quote from James Fagan which I thought was interesting: "This is the thing about classical music, this is what really gets me, is that it's so ... that level of perfection ... which means that 90% of the time when you see it performed you're disappointed. I mean, what kind of entertainment is that? And 10% of the time you go 'WOW that's the most inhuman thing I've ever seen - how did they do that?!'. There's no middle ground, y'know?"
# Posted on September 5th 2003 by Dr. Dow
Re: Is Traditional Music becoming Progressive?
lovelylydia - I wouldn't dispute that the conformity you referred to exists, and I said myself how music can only suffer from the "one-way" approach. I don't think "classical" music is the only victim; folk's enjoyment of a lot of music (the lads mentioned jazz earlier) has suffered from the need to conform somehow or other, whether to suit the whims of the recording industry or the unimaginative conductor, or to avoid challenging the new orthodoxy that always springs up around a proclaimed maestro, or the entrenched listening habits of the (supposedly) unadventurous listener ...........
Dow - That quote, for me, is just another example of (his perception of) the same approach. But if you dump the idea of there being one right way to play something, then there's no "perfection" to be attained: problem solved! Humanity restored.
I'd say there IS no middle ground with any kind of music, but it's nothing to do with perfection; it's just that either you're touched by it, or you're not. Another quote: "Only connect" - E.M.Forster. It's all ours, and we can f@nny about with it all we like, it's indestructible ....
... I think.
# Posted on September 8th 2003 by nastyweegirl
"folk's enjoyment" ..... that's people's enjoyment, not a reference to folk music!
# Posted on September 8th 2003 by nastyweegirl