Last night a fiddler friend was over, she was just not used to the fidling I like, Id be listening to the Likes of Paddy Caney, Bobby Casey, Joe Ryan, John Kelly, John Doherty, John Vesey. She played some highly competent young fiddlers of today, who perhaps should remain nameless! It left me unmoved, she couldn't handle the rough edge to the fiddlers I listen to.
So this got me thinking, has virtuoso technique and polished tone actually superseded the old styles? Is trad lesser for it? Is it just personal taste, or do these old fiddlers have something more? I think so, she didn't I guess! what do you think?
It's sort of like ( and this will set the cat among the pigeons) the difference between Clapton and Hendrix. Both wonderful musicians, but one says to me " Listen to how great I am "and the other says " Listen to how great the music is" I'll let you work out which is which!
You're also having to battle against modern recording production values that appeal to younger sets of ears. It isn't just the classic fiddlers either. Compare the piping of Leo Rowsome to some of the young guns today. It sounds brilliant to me, but to others it sounds "rough around the edges" like your gal said. Maybe it's just generational.
I'm sure the kids who liked Eddie Van Halen didn't appreciate the ground broken by Jimi Hendrix either. So it goes.
And modern ears,trained by the media! A vicious circle perhaps? So where now do we aim as fiddlers ? If we want to carry the tradition on? If a lot of the modern Role models sound too clean, maybe absorbing inevitable influences from afar. Who to we model our playing on? Is this search for the 'perfect tone' actually a distraction? are we going the wrong way? Is the music becoming blander? more civilised? perhaps as we do as a culture ?
If so how do we compromise or find a sensible route through this minefield? To find the balance between being acceptable to a modern ear and yet true to our heritage?
I think there will always be a place for the early sound and the pioneers who recorded in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and so on. The folks who really want to become students of this form will continue to reach back and try and appreciate and capture that sound. There will always be just enough of people like you Ionannas, to off-set those who can only understand and appreciate the new sound. It's a wash. Visit this forum in another 30 years and I bet you'll see this same post with the same set of names you listed
Don't know why it is but it' true of most musical genres. Modern blues has little in common with Robert Johnson or Son House. Same goes for American Folk or even punk. It becomes a shadow of its former self. It becomes more 'civilised'. My fear is that older recordings and field recordings'll eventually be scrapped like old out dated history books and lost for ever....
I agree with Jusa, I think that the older players may have sounded cleaner than the production quality you hear on the recordings. This reminds me of the wooden racket vs modern over sized carbon fiber when it comes to Tennis. Sure the new young players with modern equipment serve 100 mph etc, but John McEnroe, could have easily spanked any of them, if equipped equally with an old wooden racket back in his era. Come to think of it, he'd probably bury most any of us every day hacks, with a wooden racket no matter how nice of a modern racket we brought, even at his age, today... why because he knows what he is doing. I respect and aspire to have a traditional sound, but I am grateful for inspired youth, and an alive tradition that enriches my life, young players, old players, new players, little ones playing the same old polkas! It's all good.
I don't think it's as big a problem as you make out. All the really really good younger players I know still admire and hark after the old guard, as they should. Yes, there is a fashion for them not to record like that. They get in the studio and the antiseptic atmosphere ruins it. But the best of them don't really play like that (some do, but nobody rates them).
As for younger people in general preferring the antiseptic sound? If they have any sense, they'll grow out of it. If not, who cares.
Part of the problem is that the majority of commercial recordings of diddley music over the last 20 years or so have been made by players who haven't matured. They launch themselves as "professional" musicians, make a CD, tour around doing a bunch of gigs and festivals, and scrape a meagre living of the proceeds. It's easy when you're young. Then, as they mature, and their playing matures, they realise what a mug's game it is and get a proper job.
it is evident in the music; there is a general progression towards technical perfection, depending on how you perceive said perfection.
I think the point made by llig is very valid; the majority of these 'younger' players are ridiculously young. There are some talents who warrant being recorded at a young age, but they are few and far between. There has been a shift in emphasis within recording, particularly in this genre. Very few of the players you listed paid for themselves to be recorded or lps to be produced. Nowadays, a budding young fiddler saves up a few grand, goes into a studio (usually the cheapest one they can find, with an engineer not familiar with the music, so the 'polished produced' sound sometimes results) gets a thousand copies made, posts a few around to reviewers and promoters and tries to make his/her money back and then some. Different from a seasoned musician with a wealth of experience behind them being asked to record a record for Topic, Gael Linn, Leader etc.
Another issue is the 'form' in which these people recorded; predominantly solo fiddle. The trend these days is to have backing on everything. This is all well and good, but kills a major aspect of the music of the likes of Casey and Canny; the use of intonation for musical expression. Those musicians, and others, used intonation to pull more out of the music; listen to how many times Casey will play an Fsharp in a D major tune slightly flat to bring more out of the tune. This doesn't work with accompaniment like piano and it's 12 TET; things like that just sound out of tune against the fixed tonality of a piano. So everthing is auto-tuned up to so called perfection.
Also the homogenisation of styles within the music. All the players you mentioned are strongly associated with an aspect of regional stylisation. It's difficult to hear that now in young players, due partly to the access we now have to recordings of ITM, so our bank of inspiration is much larger, and also CCE competitions focusing in on one overall style of playing, which does tend to lend itself towards technical perfection.
However, I'd have limited concern over the preservation of the old style. There are a number of gifted young fiddlers, and pretty much all other instruments within ITM as well, who have a very keen (in some cases almost obsessive) interest in the older style players. These players tend not to rush into recording and touring around promoting, as this element of the tradition is not as financially lucrative as the more commercial aspect of the music. But these people are out there, and many have recorded.
Out of curiosity, would you name the players you didn't like? I wouldn't feel it liable or nasty, all you said is that they are competent players who didn't appeal to you.Understand if you feel uncomfortable doing it, just I'd be interest.
For `sechan´: "Listen to how great I am" is in my opinion definitely Clapton - who managed to water down any of the old Delta blues he played, taking off all the rough edges. My own introduction to any form of traditional music happened through Appalachian old time music in the sixties - when the so-called folk revival dug out some of the old musicians. So when I was in my late teens I listened to the likes of Roscoe Holcomb, Clarence Ashley (do these names mean anything to anyone ?) - even Pete Seeger was much too polished for me...I was really into hard edged fiddling, rough clawhammer banjo and high lonesome sound singing - which put me into a lonely position musicwise among my peers at this age. My attitude to all this has changed over the years: insisting on lower production values just because they sound more `authentic´ doesn´t make any sense to me. And: the music has, of course, developed: lots of, e.g. modern bluegrass musicians like Alison Krauss, have put something new into the music at the same time being recognizably grounded in the old traditions - and that´s how it should be: take the old traditions and use them as a sort of launching pad for the music you make - nothing wrong in being technically `perfect´ (`modern´?) ! In the 70s, there was this wonderful Folkways anthology by Harry Smith of music from the late 20s, 30s and 40s of early American jug bands (Gus Cannon), blues singers and early country bands (Uncle Dave Macon et al). When I played in a blues band in the 90s, we took many of these old songs and made them into our own versions, definitely technically more proficient and `smoother´ in terms of sound - and this is how tradition should move on, I think: it doesn´t make any sense to try and reproduce the sometimes scratchy sounds and techniques of old times (as the New Lost City Ramblers, Mike Seeger et al) did because they seem to be closer to `tradition´- everything develops, the main point is never to forget from which roots you started, and to show this in your music.
I don't think the analogy with American music works very well. Blues and Blue Grass and Country, even Old Time, are very young traditions, and therefor easier to build on.
When we talk about building on and innovations in Traditional Irish dance music the one criteria which should remain a prerequisite is not merely a deep understanding and respect for the past. It is instead a requirement not to disregard it. In other words, any successful innovation must include the music of the past. The use of intonation to pull more out of the music is a good example of something which you almost never hear any more. Move on, by all means, but do not disregard.
"Part of the problem is that the majority of commercial recordings of diddley music over the last 20 years or so have been made by players who haven't matured. They launch themselves as "professional" musicians, make a CD, tour around doing a bunch of gigs and festivals, and scrape a meagre living of the proceeds. It's easy when you're young. Then, as they mature, and their playing matures, they realise what a mug's game it is and get a proper job."
Well, fair dues to you if it is - everyone should be self critical and have a laugh at themselves now & then!
I would feel uncomfortable naming name.. Very good points, especially Flying fist Your post was very insightful.
>>)it doesn´t make any sense to try and reproduce the sometimes scratchy sounds and techniques of old times because they seem to be closer to `tradition´- everything develops, the main point is never to forget from which roots you started, and to show this in your music.>>
But my point is that perhaps this 'rough edge' is actually an important part of the tradition. That by getting a 'modern tone' that is acceptable to the majority of casual listeners we in turn lose an aspect of the music that is more important than we think? Im not saying it is, just that its worth considering, especially for younger fiddlers who maybe dont have as much exposure to the older styles.
Yes, the rough edges are important. One of the things they help define is the players' decisions whether or not to slur. A lot of what is considered good bow technique these days makes the music way to smooth. In classical music you are taught how not to make a sound when you change direction. That technique ruins diddely music.
If you take away those rough edges you've taken away what's human in the music. I think the human element is important esp. in folk and trad. Otherwise you might as well just load samples into a computer complete with perfect ornaments and listen to that.
As human beings I think we're always interested at some deep level in "novelty"....I'm sure it's in the DNA or something....which has made us successful as a species....we're inventive, curious, and always on the lookout for the "new" that will replace the "old" ways of doing things....especially these days when it comes to technology etc etc etc.
I think our love affair with the new/novelty also extends quite obviously to the Arts....and no doubt to Irish music as well. We can't help it.
Luckily we're also blessed with a critical faculty and ear -- well some anyway.
So it seems to me the ongoing push/pull between the love of the new and (if we're smart) a reverence or belief in the good bits of the past (let's remember that lots of the BAD old fiddlers perhaps have been sifted out over time and/or lack of recording contracts inthe past), is and always will be part of the human condition.
It's not that the new is worse or the old better, it's that time, as I've said before, just hasn't had a chance to have a good go at the new....what's good will survive...what's dross won't.
Ionannas, you just have to sit tight for 30 or 40 yrs. No worries.
To Ionannas and llig leahcim:
since you quote me ("it doesn´t make any sense to try and reproduce the sometimes scratchy sounds..."):
I agree completely with your statements about the importance of the `rough edges´. When I go back today to the old, old timey sounds I mentioned, they grab me in a way the smoother sounds often don´t. But: I found my way to these sounds by listening to the smooth arrangements of Flatt & Scruggs I heard on American Forces Network, and I wanted to find out where these sounds and songs came from originally - and I was exceptionally lucky in being at a concert of the afore mentioned Roscoe Holcomb and the Stanley brothers and the New Lost City Ramblers in Munich around 1965. And this approach shouldn´t be underestimated, in any kind of trad music: as a younger listener you maybe hear a band/a musician who have sort of adapted the tradition, and it makes you curious to find out where this music comes from, and suddenly you are on your own path of discovery into the old forms with all the `rough edges´. This was what happened to me with ITM - so as not to always talk about my `Appalachian experiences´: I began with Tommy Makem & the Clancys - who were in the 60s and 70s basically an American nightclub act - and I found my way over many intermediate stages back to musicians like Bobby Casey, Paddy Keenan, and so forth. And then I discovered people like Kevin Burke, Sharon Shannon, Gerry O´Connor, younger ones like Patrick Mangan, and above all, Martin Hayes, and they all are for me a case in point: relatively smooth sounds, innovative playing (at least some of them), and deeply steeped in a clearly recognizable tradition, not many `rough edges´, if any....this is the way music should develop.
Good thread this.
I was spellbound by slick recordings for a good while before starting to appreciate the old masters. I am not enmeshed in the tradition from childhood, growing up in Oslo, so I have had to "work my way backwards" towards what made this music what it is today, in my ears. Sometimes it's hard, but practice helps ("old" intonation was rough on my ears for a while). I suppose it's one of the upsides to get involved in ITM as an outsider, to continuously discover new and exciting elements of the music I so much enjoy to play and listen to.
I like black coffee. I like whiskey on the rocks. I like raw, rough and growling with my fiddling. Slick virtuosity and smoothness gives me bad childhood classical music flashbacks.
also, is it really fair to compare? The list of fiddlers you chose contains some of the finest exponents of ITM ever - particularly the Clare boys. Is it really fair to expect the young modern players, who in someways are still learning, to line up against these heavy hitters?
A lot of the time these releases of young musicians do little more than 'wet the appetite', revealing more of their potential rather than a finished product. That's ok, but I feel they'll always come up short when compared to the finer elements of the back catalogue of the greats.
Regardless of how this thread turns out, "Flying Fists of Poo Poo" is my new favorite moniker from this forum. That name will keep me chuckling all day...
I agree its an unfair comparison, but my underlying point is that Its hard to find fiddlers, even the older ones around today that can even approach the ones I mention. Why is this?{ if there are could you suggest some recordings? }
What is it about their music that puts them, IMO, in a class above the rest? Is this rough edge more important stylistically, technically , than we might think?
If so, then can we attain a modern highly technical clean sound and then advance beyond that to attempt to attain some of the Draoicht present in these fiddlers recordings?
Danny Meehan, Brian Rooney, Peter O'Loughlin? Ok, it's opinion, and eveyone's differs, but IMHO these are three players who are def in the same league as any of the previous generation, particularly if you view them within the context of their regional style/locality (Donegal, North Connaught, Clare).
Ionannas
You might do well do drop Kenny a line. He seems to have an encyclopedic collection of the kinds of people I think you are looking for...the raw bar, I take it?
I'm surprised no one's mentioned people like Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh ?
His first cd [now unavailable] is simply amazing. As was Kitty Lie Over....and I have no problem with his later 'experimental' cd either...on which there are some lovely tracks both old and new.
The guy's only 28 or so.....there's none of that produced slickness or gimmickery associated with [some] other young players. Just amazing articulation and a pulse that never lets up but never bores.
If rough edges are wanted, go back to the wax cylinder recordings of hearing-challenged fiddler Quig Ní Ghrainaoire.
I am always moved by the perplexed manner in which he would saw after those blurred notes with his trademark stag tail bow, sliding up and down his pounded tin fiddle's neck with the one finger that remained following the fire that swept through the sleeping Diddycoy encampment when Quig was ten. (Or nine—his team of Dublin publicists could never get Quig to say definitively. At Quig's 1926 wake, distraught agent Sol O Allumharagh wailed at the silenced genius—now half-stitched into his untanned leather planting pouch—"Ten was it? Nine, ye dodgy rogue? Nine and a half?")
Oh Pure Drop, I haven't thought of that old classic recording in a while. I only heard it once, in the archive - not the one in Dublin, but the other secret one in... er, well, if you know about it, then you know where it is. I wasn't allowed to bring ANYTHING into the listening room, but I managed to scrawl out one of the tunes onto my forearm with a chewed-off thumbnail. I tried for years to replicate Quig's style, but finally gave up. Iwill tell you this, though: the closest I ever got was by unscrewing the frog off my bow, threading the hairs UNDER the strings and then screwing it back on again. No kidding. If you try it yourself and then listen to Quig (if you can find a bootleg copy) you'd swear that he was doing the same. As for the one finger, I just couldn't get it.
The old (pre-electric) recordings possibly sounded a lot better on the playback equipment of the time than we might imagine today. The fiddles used would have been different in that gut (bare or core) would have been the norm, and this alone would have given a different tone colour.
In the absence of much playing with piano accompaniment the fiddlers would have a different, and more natural, perception of intonation (e.g. Paddy Canny's "flat" F#s). I think there's a good reason for those flat F#s - he could be naturally playing an F# that is in tune with a particular harmonic of the D string; this harmonic is distinctinctly flatter than the corresponding piano note and gives a better resonance. The same argument applies to a "flat" high B, which corresponds to a hqrmonic of the open G.
You can still hear this natural approach to intonation today. I have a recent recording of a violinist playing works for violin and piano by Dvorak. It is quite apparent on many occqsions that the violinist's intonation differs markedly from the piano - but I don't think you'd be aware of that violin being played "out of tune" if you heard it on its own. It would sound perfectly normal.
In all forms of art there are three distinct and recognizable stages; the primitive, the classical, and the baroque. Could it be that we are now entering/have entered the baroque stage of publicly available ITM ?
Isn't it possible that those scratchy and out of tune recordings from the 1920s are scratchy and out of tune because they were recorded in the 1920s. If John Vesey and all the rest had had the option of being recorded at CD quality, it is hard to believe that they wouldn't have taken it. It seams to me that if you play scratchy and out of tune to emulate those old recording, you are not really trying to copy the playing, you are trying to copy the equipment the playing was recorded on.
arlo
I for one am grateful that there are still intrepid people like you willing to overcome the daunting challenges facing those who would attempt to bring Quig Ní Ghrainaoire's unique music to the listening public. I refer to the public on both sides of the Great Sour Sea, not merely those clustered along the shores of the Bitterer Flank.
Quig's spirit will never really die. I mean that. I mean that literally. But his body died, man oh man did it ever.
Ok As far as I a concerned, the recording quality is irrelevant[ as long as we can hear the mucic] I am simply talking of the playing and instrument/strings, the actual fullness of sound is not possible in any recording anyhow.
No, I really mean the quality of playing and the lilt/nyah . There are these distinctive sound pallets these guys are using, a lot of variation in technique, approach, style but the same quality in a way... Priceless.
Like lazy said, strings would be a big part of the sound, also the quality of instrument also must play a part. but its
My feeling is that there is a common theme running through these players, and maybe part of it is the edge that is not present in many modern players, the tonal quality. Of course they are masters of the tunes and the playing of them . But so are the modern generations! there's no denying that!. So what is it?
The old and the New
The old and the New
Last night a fiddler friend was over, she was just not used to the fidling I like, Id be listening to the Likes of Paddy Caney, Bobby Casey, Joe Ryan, John Kelly, John Doherty, John Vesey. She played some highly competent young fiddlers of today, who perhaps should remain nameless! It left me unmoved, she couldn't handle the rough edge to the fiddlers I listen to.
So this got me thinking, has virtuoso technique and polished tone actually superseded the old styles? Is trad lesser for it? Is it just personal taste, or do these old fiddlers have something more? I think so, she didn't I guess! what do you think?
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: The old and the New
It's sort of like ( and this will set the cat among the pigeons) the difference between Clapton and Hendrix. Both wonderful musicians, but one says to me " Listen to how great I am "and the other says " Listen to how great the music is" I'll let you work out which is which!
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by sechan
Re: The old and the New
You're also having to battle against modern recording production values that appeal to younger sets of ears. It isn't just the classic fiddlers either. Compare the piping of Leo Rowsome to some of the young guns today. It sounds brilliant to me, but to others it sounds "rough around the edges" like your gal said. Maybe it's just generational.
I'm sure the kids who liked Eddie Van Halen didn't appreciate the ground broken by Jimi Hendrix either. So it goes.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: The old and the New
And modern ears,trained by the media! A vicious circle perhaps? So where now do we aim as fiddlers ? If we want to carry the tradition on? If a lot of the modern Role models sound too clean, maybe absorbing inevitable influences from afar. Who to we model our playing on? Is this search for the 'perfect tone' actually a distraction? are we going the wrong way? Is the music becoming blander? more civilised? perhaps as we do as a culture ?
If so how do we compromise or find a sensible route through this minefield? To find the balance between being acceptable to a modern ear and yet true to our heritage?
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: The old and the New
I think there will always be a place for the early sound and the pioneers who recorded in the 20's, 30's, 40's, and so on. The folks who really want to become students of this form will continue to reach back and try and appreciate and capture that sound. There will always be just enough of people like you Ionannas, to off-set those who can only understand and appreciate the new sound. It's a wash. Visit this forum in another 30 years and I bet you'll see this same post with the same set of names you listed
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: The old and the New
Don't know why it is but it' true of most musical genres. Modern blues has little in common with Robert Johnson or Son House. Same goes for American Folk or even punk. It becomes a shadow of its former self. It becomes more 'civilised'. My fear is that older recordings and field recordings'll eventually be scrapped like old out dated history books and lost for ever....
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by shanty
Re: The old and the New
I agree with Jusa, I think that the older players may have sounded cleaner than the production quality you hear on the recordings. This reminds me of the wooden racket vs modern over sized carbon fiber when it comes to Tennis. Sure the new young players with modern equipment serve 100 mph etc, but John McEnroe, could have easily spanked any of them, if equipped equally with an old wooden racket back in his era. Come to think of it, he'd probably bury most any of us every day hacks, with a wooden racket no matter how nice of a modern racket we brought, even at his age, today... why because he knows what he is doing. I respect and aspire to have a traditional sound, but I am grateful for inspired youth, and an alive tradition that enriches my life, young players, old players, new players, little ones playing the same old polkas! It's all good.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by SandyBottoms
Re: The old and the New
I don't think it's as big a problem as you make out. All the really really good younger players I know still admire and hark after the old guard, as they should. Yes, there is a fashion for them not to record like that. They get in the studio and the antiseptic atmosphere ruins it. But the best of them don't really play like that (some do, but nobody rates them).
As for younger people in general preferring the antiseptic sound? If they have any sense, they'll grow out of it. If not, who cares.
Part of the problem is that the majority of commercial recordings of diddley music over the last 20 years or so have been made by players who haven't matured. They launch themselves as "professional" musicians, make a CD, tour around doing a bunch of gigs and festivals, and scrape a meagre living of the proceeds. It's easy when you're young. Then, as they mature, and their playing matures, they realise what a mug's game it is and get a proper job.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by ...
Re: The old and the New
it is evident in the music; there is a general progression towards technical perfection, depending on how you perceive said perfection.
I think the point made by llig is very valid; the majority of these 'younger' players are ridiculously young. There are some talents who warrant being recorded at a young age, but they are few and far between. There has been a shift in emphasis within recording, particularly in this genre. Very few of the players you listed paid for themselves to be recorded or lps to be produced. Nowadays, a budding young fiddler saves up a few grand, goes into a studio (usually the cheapest one they can find, with an engineer not familiar with the music, so the 'polished produced' sound sometimes results) gets a thousand copies made, posts a few around to reviewers and promoters and tries to make his/her money back and then some. Different from a seasoned musician with a wealth of experience behind them being asked to record a record for Topic, Gael Linn, Leader etc.
Another issue is the 'form' in which these people recorded; predominantly solo fiddle. The trend these days is to have backing on everything. This is all well and good, but kills a major aspect of the music of the likes of Casey and Canny; the use of intonation for musical expression. Those musicians, and others, used intonation to pull more out of the music; listen to how many times Casey will play an Fsharp in a D major tune slightly flat to bring more out of the tune. This doesn't work with accompaniment like piano and it's 12 TET; things like that just sound out of tune against the fixed tonality of a piano. So everthing is auto-tuned up to so called perfection.
Also the homogenisation of styles within the music. All the players you mentioned are strongly associated with an aspect of regional stylisation. It's difficult to hear that now in young players, due partly to the access we now have to recordings of ITM, so our bank of inspiration is much larger, and also CCE competitions focusing in on one overall style of playing, which does tend to lend itself towards technical perfection.
However, I'd have limited concern over the preservation of the old style. There are a number of gifted young fiddlers, and pretty much all other instruments within ITM as well, who have a very keen (in some cases almost obsessive) interest in the older style players. These players tend not to rush into recording and touring around promoting, as this element of the tradition is not as financially lucrative as the more commercial aspect of the music. But these people are out there, and many have recorded.
Out of curiosity, would you name the players you didn't like? I wouldn't feel it liable or nasty, all you said is that they are competent players who didn't appeal to you.Understand if you feel uncomfortable doing it, just I'd be interest.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by flying fists of poo poo
Re: The old and the New
For `sechan´: "Listen to how great I am" is in my opinion definitely Clapton - who managed to water down any of the old Delta blues he played, taking off all the rough edges. My own introduction to any form of traditional music happened through Appalachian old time music in the sixties - when the so-called folk revival dug out some of the old musicians. So when I was in my late teens I listened to the likes of Roscoe Holcomb, Clarence Ashley (do these names mean anything to anyone ?) - even Pete Seeger was much too polished for me...I was really into hard edged fiddling, rough clawhammer banjo and high lonesome sound singing - which put me into a lonely position musicwise among my peers at this age. My attitude to all this has changed over the years: insisting on lower production values just because they sound more `authentic´ doesn´t make any sense to me. And: the music has, of course, developed: lots of, e.g. modern bluegrass musicians like Alison Krauss, have put something new into the music at the same time being recognizably grounded in the old traditions - and that´s how it should be: take the old traditions and use them as a sort of launching pad for the music you make - nothing wrong in being technically `perfect´ (`modern´?) ! In the 70s, there was this wonderful Folkways anthology by Harry Smith of music from the late 20s, 30s and 40s of early American jug bands (Gus Cannon), blues singers and early country bands (Uncle Dave Macon et al). When I played in a blues band in the 90s, we took many of these old songs and made them into our own versions, definitely technically more proficient and `smoother´ in terms of sound - and this is how tradition should move on, I think: it doesn´t make any sense to try and reproduce the sometimes scratchy sounds and techniques of old times (as the New Lost City Ramblers, Mike Seeger et al) did because they seem to be closer to `tradition´- everything develops, the main point is never to forget from which roots you started, and to show this in your music.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by alexweger
Re: The old and the New
I don't think the analogy with American music works very well. Blues and Blue Grass and Country, even Old Time, are very young traditions, and therefor easier to build on.
When we talk about building on and innovations in Traditional Irish dance music the one criteria which should remain a prerequisite is not merely a deep understanding and respect for the past. It is instead a requirement not to disregard it. In other words, any successful innovation must include the music of the past. The use of intonation to pull more out of the music is a good example of something which you almost never hear any more. Move on, by all means, but do not disregard.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by ...
Re: The old and the New
This autobiographical, Michael??!!
"Part of the problem is that the majority of commercial recordings of diddley music over the last 20 years or so have been made by players who haven't matured. They launch themselves as "professional" musicians, make a CD, tour around doing a bunch of gigs and festivals, and scrape a meagre living of the proceeds. It's easy when you're young. Then, as they mature, and their playing matures, they realise what a mug's game it is and get a proper job."
Well, fair dues to you if it is - everyone should be self critical and have a laugh at themselves now & then!
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by the wounded hussar
Re: The old and the New
Partly
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by ...
Re: The old and the New
I would feel uncomfortable naming name.. Very good points, especially Flying fist Your post was very insightful.
>>)it doesn´t make any sense to try and reproduce the sometimes scratchy sounds and techniques of old times because they seem to be closer to `tradition´- everything develops, the main point is never to forget from which roots you started, and to show this in your music.>>
But my point is that perhaps this 'rough edge' is actually an important part of the tradition. That by getting a 'modern tone' that is acceptable to the majority of casual listeners we in turn lose an aspect of the music that is more important than we think? Im not saying it is, just that its worth considering, especially for younger fiddlers who maybe dont have as much exposure to the older styles.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: The old and the New
Yes, the rough edges are important. One of the things they help define is the players' decisions whether or not to slur. A lot of what is considered good bow technique these days makes the music way to smooth. In classical music you are taught how not to make a sound when you change direction. That technique ruins diddely music.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by ...
Re: The old and the New
If you take away those rough edges you've taken away what's human in the music. I think the human element is important esp. in folk and trad. Otherwise you might as well just load samples into a computer complete with perfect ornaments and listen to that.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by shanty
Re: The old and the New
As human beings I think we're always interested at some deep level in "novelty"....I'm sure it's in the DNA or something....which has made us successful as a species....we're inventive, curious, and always on the lookout for the "new" that will replace the "old" ways of doing things....especially these days when it comes to technology etc etc etc.
I think our love affair with the new/novelty also extends quite obviously to the Arts....and no doubt to Irish music as well. We can't help it.
Luckily we're also blessed with a critical faculty and ear -- well some anyway.
So it seems to me the ongoing push/pull between the love of the new and (if we're smart) a reverence or belief in the good bits of the past (let's remember that lots of the BAD old fiddlers perhaps have been sifted out over time and/or lack of recording contracts inthe past), is and always will be part of the human condition.
It's not that the new is worse or the old better, it's that time, as I've said before, just hasn't had a chance to have a good go at the new....what's good will survive...what's dross won't.
Ionannas, you just have to sit tight for 30 or 40 yrs. No worries.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: The old and the New
To Ionannas and llig leahcim:
since you quote me ("it doesn´t make any sense to try and reproduce the sometimes scratchy sounds..."):
I agree completely with your statements about the importance of the `rough edges´. When I go back today to the old, old timey sounds I mentioned, they grab me in a way the smoother sounds often don´t. But: I found my way to these sounds by listening to the smooth arrangements of Flatt & Scruggs I heard on American Forces Network, and I wanted to find out where these sounds and songs came from originally - and I was exceptionally lucky in being at a concert of the afore mentioned Roscoe Holcomb and the Stanley brothers and the New Lost City Ramblers in Munich around 1965. And this approach shouldn´t be underestimated, in any kind of trad music: as a younger listener you maybe hear a band/a musician who have sort of adapted the tradition, and it makes you curious to find out where this music comes from, and suddenly you are on your own path of discovery into the old forms with all the `rough edges´. This was what happened to me with ITM - so as not to always talk about my `Appalachian experiences´: I began with Tommy Makem & the Clancys - who were in the 60s and 70s basically an American nightclub act - and I found my way over many intermediate stages back to musicians like Bobby Casey, Paddy Keenan, and so forth. And then I discovered people like Kevin Burke, Sharon Shannon, Gerry O´Connor, younger ones like Patrick Mangan, and above all, Martin Hayes, and they all are for me a case in point: relatively smooth sounds, innovative playing (at least some of them), and deeply steeped in a clearly recognizable tradition, not many `rough edges´, if any....this is the way music should develop.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by alexweger
Re: The old and the New
Good thread this.
I was spellbound by slick recordings for a good while before starting to appreciate the old masters. I am not enmeshed in the tradition from childhood, growing up in Oslo, so I have had to "work my way backwards" towards what made this music what it is today, in my ears. Sometimes it's hard, but practice helps ("old" intonation was rough on my ears for a while). I suppose it's one of the upsides to get involved in ITM as an outsider, to continuously discover new and exciting elements of the music I so much enjoy to play and listen to.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by snorre
Re: The old and the New
I like black coffee. I like whiskey on the rocks. I like raw, rough and growling with my fiddling. Slick virtuosity and smoothness gives me bad childhood classical music flashbacks.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: The old and the New
also, is it really fair to compare? The list of fiddlers you chose contains some of the finest exponents of ITM ever - particularly the Clare boys. Is it really fair to expect the young modern players, who in someways are still learning, to line up against these heavy hitters?
A lot of the time these releases of young musicians do little more than 'wet the appetite', revealing more of their potential rather than a finished product. That's ok, but I feel they'll always come up short when compared to the finer elements of the back catalogue of the greats.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by flying fists of poo poo
Re: The old and the New
Regardless of how this thread turns out, "Flying Fists of Poo Poo" is my new favorite moniker from this forum. That name will keep me chuckling all day...
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: The old and the New
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by flying fists of poo poo
Re: The old and the New
Once again FFOPP, you make an excellent point.
I agree its an unfair comparison, but my underlying point is that Its hard to find fiddlers, even the older ones around today that can even approach the ones I mention. Why is this?{ if there are could you suggest some recordings? }
What is it about their music that puts them, IMO, in a class above the rest? Is this rough edge more important stylistically, technically , than we might think?
If so, then can we attain a modern highly technical clean sound and then advance beyond that to attempt to attain some of the Draoicht present in these fiddlers recordings?
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: The old and the New
Ionannas, just to play Devil's advocate:
Danny Meehan, Brian Rooney, Peter O'Loughlin? Ok, it's opinion, and eveyone's differs, but IMHO these are three players who are def in the same league as any of the previous generation, particularly if you view them within the context of their regional style/locality (Donegal, North Connaught, Clare).
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by flying fists of poo poo
Re: The old and the New
Thanks FF, I am relistening with more attention to the recordings I have, and hunting down recordings I dont have.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: The old and the New
Brian Rooney:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WW1WXaann0o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeptXwr4_eo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aTnQJBq5K0
Danny Meehan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGyhboYFfOE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZc0HpRJ6PA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dwgAVMyfLM&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGF9phDxHU0
Peadar O'Loughlin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF0b35jn-Ts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze86SgDES8Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5eG8ozCmyg
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by flying fists of poo poo
Re: The old and the New
Ionannas
You might do well do drop Kenny a line. He seems to have an encyclopedic collection of the kinds of people I think you are looking for...the raw bar, I take it?
I'm surprised no one's mentioned people like Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh ?
His first cd [now unavailable] is simply amazing. As was Kitty Lie Over....and I have no problem with his later 'experimental' cd either...on which there are some lovely tracks both old and new.
The guy's only 28 or so.....there's none of that produced slickness or gimmickery associated with [some] other young players. Just amazing articulation and a pulse that never lets up but never bores.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: The old and the New
If rough edges are wanted, go back to the wax cylinder recordings of hearing-challenged fiddler Quig Ní Ghrainaoire.
I am always moved by the perplexed manner in which he would saw after those blurred notes with his trademark stag tail bow, sliding up and down his pounded tin fiddle's neck with the one finger that remained following the fire that swept through the sleeping Diddycoy encampment when Quig was ten. (Or nine—his team of Dublin publicists could never get Quig to say definitively. At Quig's 1926 wake, distraught agent Sol O Allumharagh wailed at the silenced genius—now half-stitched into his untanned leather planting pouch—"Ten was it? Nine, ye dodgy rogue? Nine and a half?")
But some new artists are fine by me, too.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: The old and the New
Oh Pure Drop, I haven't thought of that old classic recording in a while. I only heard it once, in the archive - not the one in Dublin, but the other secret one in... er, well, if you know about it, then you know where it is. I wasn't allowed to bring ANYTHING into the listening room, but I managed to scrawl out one of the tunes onto my forearm with a chewed-off thumbnail. I tried for years to replicate Quig's style, but finally gave up. Iwill tell you this, though: the closest I ever got was by unscrewing the frog off my bow, threading the hairs UNDER the strings and then screwing it back on again. No kidding. If you try it yourself and then listen to Quig (if you can find a bootleg copy) you'd swear that he was doing the same. As for the one finger, I just couldn't get it.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Chrishty
Re: The old and the New
BTW -
Thank god for ABC notation. Without it I seriously might have bled to death before I made it out of the archive.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Chrishty
Re: The old and the New
The old (pre-electric) recordings possibly sounded a lot better on the playback equipment of the time than we might imagine today. The fiddles used would have been different in that gut (bare or core) would have been the norm, and this alone would have given a different tone colour.
In the absence of much playing with piano accompaniment the fiddlers would have a different, and more natural, perception of intonation (e.g. Paddy Canny's "flat" F#s). I think there's a good reason for those flat F#s - he could be naturally playing an F# that is in tune with a particular harmonic of the D string; this harmonic is distinctinctly flatter than the corresponding piano note and gives a better resonance. The same argument applies to a "flat" high B, which corresponds to a hqrmonic of the open G.
You can still hear this natural approach to intonation today. I have a recent recording of a violinist playing works for violin and piano by Dvorak. It is quite apparent on many occqsions that the violinist's intonation differs markedly from the piano - but I don't think you'd be aware of that violin being played "out of tune" if you heard it on its own. It would sound perfectly normal.
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Trevor Jennings
Re: The old and the New
In all forms of art there are three distinct and recognizable stages; the primitive, the classical, and the baroque. Could it be that we are now entering/have entered the baroque stage of publicly available ITM ?
# Posted on February 25th 2009 by Guernsey Pete
Re: The old and the New
Isn't it possible that those scratchy and out of tune recordings from the 1920s are scratchy and out of tune because they were recorded in the 1920s. If John Vesey and all the rest had had the option of being recorded at CD quality, it is hard to believe that they wouldn't have taken it. It seams to me that if you play scratchy and out of tune to emulate those old recording, you are not really trying to copy the playing, you are trying to copy the equipment the playing was recorded on.
arlo
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by Nopstavon
Re: The old and the New
Chrishty--
I for one am grateful that there are still intrepid people like you willing to overcome the daunting challenges facing those who would attempt to bring Quig Ní Ghrainaoire's unique music to the listening public. I refer to the public on both sides of the Great Sour Sea, not merely those clustered along the shores of the Bitterer Flank.
Quig's spirit will never really die. I mean that. I mean that literally. But his body died, man oh man did it ever.
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: The old and the New
Ok As far as I a concerned, the recording quality is irrelevant[ as long as we can hear the mucic] I am simply talking of the playing and instrument/strings, the actual fullness of sound is not possible in any recording anyhow.
No, I really mean the quality of playing and the lilt/nyah . There are these distinctive sound pallets these guys are using, a lot of variation in technique, approach, style but the same quality in a way... Priceless.
Like lazy said, strings would be a big part of the sound, also the quality of instrument also must play a part. but its
My feeling is that there is a common theme running through these players, and maybe part of it is the edge that is not present in many modern players, the tonal quality. Of course they are masters of the tunes and the playing of them . But so are the modern generations! there's no denying that!. So what is it?
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: The old and the New
as long as we can hear the music!...
... but its in mainly the playing I feel.....
jeez, shoot the proof reader!
# Posted on February 26th 2009 by piobagusfidil