The Session >> Discussions >> Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Comments
Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
I was just reflecting on how exposure to Traditional Music has altered my perspectives relative to playing tunes. Where I once would not have dared to approach a piece without "the dots" in front of me, I now routinely attempt to come up with versions of pieces with which I am familiar without "the dots". That arose largely from encountering so many inclined to regard sheet music as a distraction rather than a fundamental need based on their traditional training. Encountering the tin whistle, then the Irish flute, has also moved me away from halting efforts at the piano, to simple wind instruments that seem better suited to my capabilities. (I sometimes still feel like I'm playing six keys of a piano only higher in the air.) I doubt that I'll ever go back to the piano now, although I originally took up the whistle to try to improve sheet music reading skills with an instrument that seemed a little easier to play. Still working on that... At least now I understand why I liked Bluegrass so much as a child, when classical music was my other musical love. ITM offers an older tradition with the elements that made bluegrass so appealing. It's been very informative to have the privilege of encountering traditional musical perspectives here.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
It's made me think more about the interaction of rhythm and
melody. I'm learning how to manipulate the phrasing to bring
out the rhythm. When I go back in my mind to music I've
played in the past - like the Handel recorder sonatas - I hear
things in the melodic line I overlooked before. If I get back into
classical music again, I will be approaching it differently.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
It has made me see no need for bass, guitar, drum kit or vocalist. I used to play in punk bands. Pretty sure that punk was my generations 'folk' and I've fond memories but 'all that band stuff' is so unappealing to me now. I've friends who want to do the 'Celtic' rock thing and I've played some shows but it's really not interesting or satisfying the way playing a tune well, with or without, others is.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
my main instrument is the guitar, i just about manage to scrape a living from it, i dont play irish music on it at all.
about a year ago i started learning a few irish tunes on the whistle just for a bit of fun. im not great at it, i certainly wouldnt inflict it on a session, but ive seen a marked improvement in my guitar playing, particularly my phrasing of melodic passages and my use of ornamentation, and like hup said the interaction between rhythm and melody. Its also taught me the importance of leaving breathing space in melodic passages although that may be the benefit of a wind instrument rather than itm in particular.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
To Arthur Nordstrom:
when I was in my teens, I also discovered bluegrass and, for me in many ways more important, Appalachian old time music - and this in the times when my contemporaries where into The Stones and The Beatles. I was fascinated by the unfiltered and direct expression of feelings and their connection to real life situations (personal, historical, sociological). Any kind of traditional music offers this, as does, of course, ITM. Listening to old time mountain music, and travelling through Appalachia, also opened my ears and gave me a totally new appreciation for the `mountain music´ of my home region, the Bavarian Alps: even the harmonies in this music , and a sort of `high lonesome sound´ is not so different from many bluegrass tunes. So this is one aspect which, as a starting point, did not change my aspirations but my ways of appreciation of music. `Aspirations´ came later: I actually picked up the 5string banjo - and never played it in the Pete Seeger `world music´ way, which I always found to be watered down and ultimately boring - and got deeply immersed in different banjo tunings et al. and in all the aspects of `handmade music´ as a way of personal expression, also, but not necessarily, on stage. Later it was bluesharp playing, which offered me many similar approaches to music as old time music had done, this time for over a decade on stage.
And now it all seems to come around full circle: I´m back to old time, bought a new open back banjo and play mostly clawhammer style, but now with all these different musical influences and experiences as a background. And I found out something interesting: lots younger or middle aged 5string banjo players - mostly of course in the US - have also come around to clawhammer (the oldest style of banjo playing) and this style experiences a real renaissance (just type in `clawhammer´ on youtube or look at bands like MistyRiver from Oregon). So perhaps in times of globalisation and economic turmoil people tend more to go back to personalized forms of expression (??). But I´m rambling; to go back to your original question: my exposure not only to ITM, but to any form of traditional music has not only changed my aspirations but also my self-awareness and my approach to music in general. And, interestingly: my 18year-old daughter, who listens to all possible variations of pop and rock, sometimes feels the need - for example on long drives - to listen to bluegrass, old time et al, and she really digs it. I think this tells you a lot.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Alexweger,
I share your taste for "old time" Appalachian music and bluegrass (but can't stand modern country). I recently began to discover delta blues, which has its own charms. If you haven't caught the Martin Scorsese documentary film series "The Blues" on DVD yet, you might be interested in the first few segments. I got a real kick out of the Mississippi drum and fife man playing his flute in the old style, which he'd taught his grand-daughter. (I used to live in the deep south.)
Did you happen to catch the link here to the video of Steve Martin playing his "The Crow" last year? He's quite a picker.
"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" is one of my favorite movies, in part due to the quantity of "old time" Appalachian style music. The Grand Ole' Opry ought to put together a traveling show featuring that kind of old time music in the context of a Broadway style musical, a kind of time machine linking performances by some of the more notable acts from the old days, perhaps from the perspective of a fictional agent who recalls his efforts on their behalf or attempts he made to become their agent as he weaves the narrative of the different performers who appear in the show together.
"The Old Plank Road" and "Further Down...." by The Chieftains tries to tie ITM into that vein. Some of what is on those albums works. I prefer to keep the two separate and pure.
Oddly enough its advice from James Galway in a YouTue video regarding tone that tends to haunt me most as I try to develop some capability on the flute. His stress on tone and Doug Tipple's recommendations regarding a focused stream to conserve air are constantly in my head when I take up the flute. Galway's collaboration with The Chieftains on "Over the Sea to Skye" is one of my favorites, even if I did originally get it to soothe my cairn terrier with some of his ancestral music when the infernal noise starts on the 4th of July. I'd never have given much thought to improving tone or conserving air (or a simple system flute) if I'd not run into some ITM sites that pointed me toward those two influences.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
After I was exposed to ITM when some local musicians started an Irish Session here (in the Shallow South as opposed to the Deep South), I began ignoring the current popular music and the current trends in popular music. I just simply stopped listening to popular music.
"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" is one of my favorite movies for the music the twists and turns in the plot.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
For me, it's a bit of a curse. I was all set to retire early and happily play in some old-guy bar band, but now I am too spoiled by good Irish session players to put up with loud, boring, badly played music. Even if it would be (marginally) more marketable, and I could use the money.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Exposure to ITM has affected my musical aspirations in the way of causing me to play ITM. Without this exposure, I probably wouldn't have started playing it....I think this is the basic answer for everyone for this question!
On a more personal level, before switching to the dark side I had dreams of playing oboe and silver flute in a large orchestra; the flame of that dream has been completely snuffed and replaced with the roaring bonfire of being completely immersed and obsessed with this awesome music.
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Ah, Tasia, if only I had the kind of talent required for the "roaring bonfire" approach to ITM!
O'Carolan has an attraction for me, in part due to the pace that I can justify with his works and my limited capabilities. I tried "Banks of the Allen" from this site's collection of tunes, and it proved to be a challenge for me given the long phrases in the second part and the need to keep the pace going during them.
I'm still experiencing a confidence gap in my ability to ascend and descend the scale from second to first register, partially due to lack of wind, partially embouchure. More than a year now at it, and I'm still working toward confident playing and a desirable tone. ITM makes it worth the effort!
ITM may have started me on the flute, and remains the anchor, but it is the approach and style of play that it has encouraged that has helped me to produce a "beginner's repertoire".
Sitting outdoors as I often must to avoid disturbing others, sheet music is hard to keep tacked to a tree when the wind blows! I started to adopt the approach of playing "without the dots".
I've got short versions of Star Wars Main Title Theme, Over the Rainbow, Linus and Lucy, and The Pink Panther worked out, all with the ITM style of ornamentation. I've recently begun to try to create a jazz version of "Summertime" by Gershwin, and hope to get the theme from "Live and Let Die" converted into a flute work soon, all in my head.
I'd never have dared to try to play without sheet music had the trad musicians here not spoken so disparagingly of "the dots". These short pieces should provide amusing additions to my developing ITM and O'Carolan repertoire. Oddly enough, I feel more constrained to play the ITM literally, hence with sheet music, than I do the popular tunes that I know better!
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Tried the 3/4 time thing with "Star Wars" tonight. Seemed to work... At least I think it was 3/4 time. I was making it up as I went, so it might have sounded more like 3/4 time with a break for a little interpretive mime every now and then...
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Talking about trying to play well known non-trad tunes in a trad style..... at a session last weekend while talking about Michael Jackson we spontaneously started playing the "Beat It" riff. It ended up as some kind of weird hornpipe !
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
OK...so where do I begin?
I started playing the fiddle at age 42 (just a few years ago) and it was Irish Trad that made me do it. I guess we all undergo a certain mid-life identity crisis and like most Americans, mine revolved around ancestry, etc. I have been studying Irish on my own for the past decade (still can't manage more than the odd cúpla focail) and found that this endeavor drew me to Sean Nós singing. From there it was a short leap to Trad music and the rest is a rather cacophonous history of my journey back into music.
My initial foray into the musical world began when I approached my father (career military officer) about playing the flute at age 13. That went over like the proverbial fart in church as you can imagine. His compromise was to have my mother enroll me in piano lessons which I neither wanted nor enjoyed. However, we did already own a piano so I guess it was financially and logistically expedient albeit, futile. My sister, on the other hand, took to it like a fish to water. She now holds a Doctorate and teaches accompaniment (spelling?) in Chicago. Why is this part important? Well, hold on and I'll explain.
Leap forward to 2003. My sister sends me a CD of Joshua Bell, A Short Trip Home, while I am deployed with my Reserve unit. I fell in love with the sound of the violin and declared to her that I was going to learn to play. She politely informed me that I was a bit too old to learn such a difficult instrument and perhaps I would be happier, and more successful with the mandolin.
When I returned to the U.S. I took her advice and went to a local music store to buy a mandolin. However, as I was looking around and trying to decide what it was that I wanted, I got the whole "piano = flute" feeling all over again. I put my foot down and said "D@mn It!...I'm getting a fiddle." And the rest is, as previously stated, a cacophonous history.
I am convinced that I am still playing (and improving) today because I am playing the instrument I want to play and I am playing the music that interests me. I may not be all that good but I am having the time of my life and have learned more about music than I ever thought I would care to learn. To say that my musical horizons have been broadened would be an understatement of the grandest proportions.
I'll never be asked to accompany my sister at one of her performances (classical pianist that she is) and truth be told, I'm terrified of sitting in on a session. However, I am having a blast at d@mn near 50 years of age!!!
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Thank you for sharing your story with us, Ceolgaelach. Don't give up and Good Luck with your attempts to continue playing music and improving your fiddling.
Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
I was just reflecting on how exposure to Traditional Music has altered my perspectives relative to playing tunes. Where I once would not have dared to approach a piece without "the dots" in front of me, I now routinely attempt to come up with versions of pieces with which I am familiar without "the dots". That arose largely from encountering so many inclined to regard sheet music as a distraction rather than a fundamental need based on their traditional training. Encountering the tin whistle, then the Irish flute, has also moved me away from halting efforts at the piano, to simple wind instruments that seem better suited to my capabilities. (I sometimes still feel like I'm playing six keys of a piano only higher in the air.) I doubt that I'll ever go back to the piano now, although I originally took up the whistle to try to improve sheet music reading skills with an instrument that seemed a little easier to play. Still working on that... At least now I understand why I liked Bluegrass so much as a child, when classical music was my other musical love. ITM offers an older tradition with the elements that made bluegrass so appealing. It's been very informative to have the privilege of encountering traditional musical perspectives here.
# Posted on June 28th 2009 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
It's made me think more about the interaction of rhythm and
melody. I'm learning how to manipulate the phrasing to bring
out the rhythm. When I go back in my mind to music I've
played in the past - like the Handel recorder sonatas - I hear
things in the melodic line I overlooked before. If I get back into
classical music again, I will be approaching it differently.
# Posted on June 28th 2009 by Hup
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
It has made me see no need for bass, guitar, drum kit or vocalist. I used to play in punk bands. Pretty sure that punk was my generations 'folk' and I've fond memories but 'all that band stuff' is so unappealing to me now. I've friends who want to do the 'Celtic' rock thing and I've played some shows but it's really not interesting or satisfying the way playing a tune well, with or without, others is.
# Posted on June 28th 2009 by shanty
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
my main instrument is the guitar, i just about manage to scrape a living from it, i dont play irish music on it at all.
about a year ago i started learning a few irish tunes on the whistle just for a bit of fun. im not great at it, i certainly wouldnt inflict it on a session, but ive seen a marked improvement in my guitar playing, particularly my phrasing of melodic passages and my use of ornamentation, and like hup said the interaction between rhythm and melody. Its also taught me the importance of leaving breathing space in melodic passages although that may be the benefit of a wind instrument rather than itm in particular.
# Posted on June 28th 2009 by Murad Reis
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
To Arthur Nordstrom:
when I was in my teens, I also discovered bluegrass and, for me in many ways more important, Appalachian old time music - and this in the times when my contemporaries where into The Stones and The Beatles. I was fascinated by the unfiltered and direct expression of feelings and their connection to real life situations (personal, historical, sociological). Any kind of traditional music offers this, as does, of course, ITM. Listening to old time mountain music, and travelling through Appalachia, also opened my ears and gave me a totally new appreciation for the `mountain music´ of my home region, the Bavarian Alps: even the harmonies in this music , and a sort of `high lonesome sound´ is not so different from many bluegrass tunes. So this is one aspect which, as a starting point, did not change my aspirations but my ways of appreciation of music. `Aspirations´ came later: I actually picked up the 5string banjo - and never played it in the Pete Seeger `world music´ way, which I always found to be watered down and ultimately boring - and got deeply immersed in different banjo tunings et al. and in all the aspects of `handmade music´ as a way of personal expression, also, but not necessarily, on stage. Later it was bluesharp playing, which offered me many similar approaches to music as old time music had done, this time for over a decade on stage.
And now it all seems to come around full circle: I´m back to old time, bought a new open back banjo and play mostly clawhammer style, but now with all these different musical influences and experiences as a background. And I found out something interesting: lots younger or middle aged 5string banjo players - mostly of course in the US - have also come around to clawhammer (the oldest style of banjo playing) and this style experiences a real renaissance (just type in `clawhammer´ on youtube or look at bands like MistyRiver from Oregon). So perhaps in times of globalisation and economic turmoil people tend more to go back to personalized forms of expression (??). But I´m rambling; to go back to your original question: my exposure not only to ITM, but to any form of traditional music has not only changed my aspirations but also my self-awareness and my approach to music in general. And, interestingly: my 18year-old daughter, who listens to all possible variations of pop and rock, sometimes feels the need - for example on long drives - to listen to bluegrass, old time et al, and she really digs it. I think this tells you a lot.
# Posted on June 28th 2009 by alexweger
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Alexweger,
I share your taste for "old time" Appalachian music and bluegrass (but can't stand modern country). I recently began to discover delta blues, which has its own charms. If you haven't caught the Martin Scorsese documentary film series "The Blues" on DVD yet, you might be interested in the first few segments. I got a real kick out of the Mississippi drum and fife man playing his flute in the old style, which he'd taught his grand-daughter. (I used to live in the deep south.)
Did you happen to catch the link here to the video of Steve Martin playing his "The Crow" last year? He's quite a picker.
"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" is one of my favorite movies, in part due to the quantity of "old time" Appalachian style music. The Grand Ole' Opry ought to put together a traveling show featuring that kind of old time music in the context of a Broadway style musical, a kind of time machine linking performances by some of the more notable acts from the old days, perhaps from the perspective of a fictional agent who recalls his efforts on their behalf or attempts he made to become their agent as he weaves the narrative of the different performers who appear in the show together.
"The Old Plank Road" and "Further Down...." by The Chieftains tries to tie ITM into that vein. Some of what is on those albums works. I prefer to keep the two separate and pure.
Oddly enough its advice from James Galway in a YouTue video regarding tone that tends to haunt me most as I try to develop some capability on the flute. His stress on tone and Doug Tipple's recommendations regarding a focused stream to conserve air are constantly in my head when I take up the flute. Galway's collaboration with The Chieftains on "Over the Sea to Skye" is one of my favorites, even if I did originally get it to soothe my cairn terrier with some of his ancestral music when the infernal noise starts on the 4th of July. I'd never have given much thought to improving tone or conserving air (or a simple system flute) if I'd not run into some ITM sites that pointed me toward those two influences.
# Posted on June 28th 2009 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
After I was exposed to ITM when some local musicians started an Irish Session here (in the Shallow South as opposed to the Deep South), I began ignoring the current popular music and the current trends in popular music. I just simply stopped listening to popular music.
"Oh Brother, Where Art Thou" is one of my favorite movies for the music the twists and turns in the plot.
# Posted on June 29th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
For me, it's a bit of a curse. I was all set to retire early and happily play in some old-guy bar band, but now I am too spoiled by good Irish session players to put up with loud, boring, badly played music. Even if it would be (marginally) more marketable, and I could use the money.
Curse you, ITM! You stole my blissful ignorance.
# Posted on June 29th 2009 by John Galt
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Exposure to ITM has affected my musical aspirations in the way of causing me to play ITM. Without this exposure, I probably wouldn't have started playing it....I think this is the basic answer for everyone for this question!
On a more personal level, before switching to the dark side I had dreams of playing oboe and silver flute in a large orchestra; the flame of that dream has been completely snuffed and replaced with the roaring bonfire of being completely immersed and obsessed with this awesome music.
# Posted on June 29th 2009 by Glass of Beer
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
I know more about ITM since participating at this web site. Thanks.
# Posted on June 29th 2009 by Leendah
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Ah, Tasia, if only I had the kind of talent required for the "roaring bonfire" approach to ITM!
O'Carolan has an attraction for me, in part due to the pace that I can justify with his works and my limited capabilities. I tried "Banks of the Allen" from this site's collection of tunes, and it proved to be a challenge for me given the long phrases in the second part and the need to keep the pace going during them.
I'm still experiencing a confidence gap in my ability to ascend and descend the scale from second to first register, partially due to lack of wind, partially embouchure. More than a year now at it, and I'm still working toward confident playing and a desirable tone. ITM makes it worth the effort!
ITM may have started me on the flute, and remains the anchor, but it is the approach and style of play that it has encouraged that has helped me to produce a "beginner's repertoire".
Sitting outdoors as I often must to avoid disturbing others, sheet music is hard to keep tacked to a tree when the wind blows! I started to adopt the approach of playing "without the dots".
I've got short versions of Star Wars Main Title Theme, Over the Rainbow, Linus and Lucy, and The Pink Panther worked out, all with the ITM style of ornamentation. I've recently begun to try to create a jazz version of "Summertime" by Gershwin, and hope to get the theme from "Live and Let Die" converted into a flute work soon, all in my head.
I'd never have dared to try to play without sheet music had the trad musicians here not spoken so disparagingly of "the dots". These short pieces should provide amusing additions to my developing ITM and O'Carolan repertoire. Oddly enough, I feel more constrained to play the ITM literally, hence with sheet music, than I do the popular tunes that I know better!
# Posted on June 29th 2009 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Arthur Nordstorm, may I suggest playing the Star Wars Main Title Theme in 3/4 like a waltz for some amusing variety?
# Posted on June 29th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
In the past, I had no patience for noisy rock and the lunacy of rap/hip-hop/ghetto/Marley music. I played rock and 'folk' back in the day.....
moving to ITM, I don't even acknowledge their existence.
I have learned to appreciate the simplicity of line and rhythm.
# Posted on June 29th 2009 by zippydw
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Tried the 3/4 time thing with "Star Wars" tonight. Seemed to work... At least I think it was 3/4 time. I was making it up as I went, so it might have sounded more like 3/4 time with a break for a little interpretive mime every now and then...
# Posted on June 30th 2009 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
A pianist from Thailand showed me how to play the Star Wars Main Title Theme in 3/4 time as a waltz in 1979.
# Posted on June 30th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Still waiting for an approach to occur that is worth repeating...
# Posted on July 1st 2009 by Arthur Nordstrom
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Talking about trying to play well known non-trad tunes in a trad style..... at a session last weekend while talking about Michael Jackson we spontaneously started playing the "Beat It" riff. It ended up as some kind of weird hornpipe !
# Posted on July 1st 2009 by SteelPlayer
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
What were you and the other musicians at this session drinking Steelplayer?
# Posted on July 1st 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Perhaps the question should be "Musical Expirations" instead?
# Posted on July 1st 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
or . . . 'explorations'
exposure from an early age had it formulating mine
# Posted on July 4th 2009 by lisaniska
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Yes, Musical Explorations might have been a better choice. Unfortunately, in my case, I didn't discover Irish music until I was in my twenties.
# Posted on July 4th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
OK...so where do I begin?
I started playing the fiddle at age 42 (just a few years ago) and it was Irish Trad that made me do it. I guess we all undergo a certain mid-life identity crisis and like most Americans, mine revolved around ancestry, etc. I have been studying Irish on my own for the past decade (still can't manage more than the odd cúpla focail) and found that this endeavor drew me to Sean Nós singing. From there it was a short leap to Trad music and the rest is a rather cacophonous history of my journey back into music.
My initial foray into the musical world began when I approached my father (career military officer) about playing the flute at age 13. That went over like the proverbial fart in church as you can imagine. His compromise was to have my mother enroll me in piano lessons which I neither wanted nor enjoyed. However, we did already own a piano so I guess it was financially and logistically expedient albeit, futile. My sister, on the other hand, took to it like a fish to water. She now holds a Doctorate and teaches accompaniment (spelling?) in Chicago. Why is this part important? Well, hold on and I'll explain.
Leap forward to 2003. My sister sends me a CD of Joshua Bell, A Short Trip Home, while I am deployed with my Reserve unit. I fell in love with the sound of the violin and declared to her that I was going to learn to play. She politely informed me that I was a bit too old to learn such a difficult instrument and perhaps I would be happier, and more successful with the mandolin.
When I returned to the U.S. I took her advice and went to a local music store to buy a mandolin. However, as I was looking around and trying to decide what it was that I wanted, I got the whole "piano = flute" feeling all over again. I put my foot down and said "D@mn It!...I'm getting a fiddle." And the rest is, as previously stated, a cacophonous history.
I am convinced that I am still playing (and improving) today because I am playing the instrument I want to play and I am playing the music that interests me. I may not be all that good but I am having the time of my life and have learned more about music than I ever thought I would care to learn. To say that my musical horizons have been broadened would be an understatement of the grandest proportions.
I'll never be asked to accompany my sister at one of her performances (classical pianist that she is) and truth be told, I'm terrified of sitting in on a session. However, I am having a blast at d@mn near 50 years of age!!!
# Posted on July 8th 2009 by ceolgaelach
Re: Has Exposure to ITM and its Culture Affected Your Musical Aspirations?
Thank you for sharing your story with us, Ceolgaelach. Don't give up and Good Luck with your attempts to continue playing music and improving your fiddling.
# Posted on July 8th 2009 by fauxcelt