"In a decision aimed at reducing chaos and promoting the competent execution of old-time music during jam sessions, the industry’s National Council of Elders has unanimously voted to end the long-problematic practice of using words to name old-time fiddle tunes.
From this point forward, musicians will identify fiddle tunes by briefly playing the first four bars, or, in the absence of an instrument, singing some facsimile of that same passage."
'Old-Time Music Permanently Revokes All Song Titles':
For example, just picture competitors at the Fleadh announcing that they're about to play:
the Reel: .. "Rattan fattle deedle batton"
followed by the Slide: .. Skiddly Eyedilly Deedle Bum.
The Hornpipe: Rummpy Pappy Doodle Snappy
& the Air: Ricky Doo Dum ,,,,,,,, Doodle Dum .. Dee .... Beedle Bum.
Just think, if we adopt this system over here, Jeremy could do away with the Comments section attached to each tune ......... er but of course, we couldn't have a Tune Section any more, cause there'd be No Names!
Ahhhhhhhhh ....... Don't you just love Committees!
By the way, don't forget to read the Comments below the article!
I loved these:
"Bluegrass Intelligencer?? Now that’s an oxymoron!!"
"Wow .. I thought this was real til I got to the part where they identified a banjo player as being a musicologist!"
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Also it says: "several of the greatest old-time fiddlers ever to live were legally deaf, which often hindered their ability to faithfully reproduce a melody and added to the rapid creation of musical variation." So that's how all those tunes came about!
(the report was dated April 7th, so was it released on the first of the month!?)
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Good grief........."Everybody says they know it, so you count it off, and each of the nine people in the jam starts playing something completely different,” said musicologist B. Krakauer, a banjo player.
“Train wrecks like those are fatal to group music making, and they certainly aren’t helping our genre’s reputation,”
Sounds like they are making a complete laughing stock of the genre themselves. Names to tunes are really just reference tags usually superseded with terms such as "G major", "A minor" etc during a session, assuming the players have even a basic musical intelligence.
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Well sort of David_h, you're probably referring to Canntaireachd, which is a sung way of teaching Pìobaireachd. It isn't for the lack of tune names though, it's because Pìobaireachd has no steady meter and has to be taught at least partly by ear.
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Thanks Bogman. I pretty sure I did recently hear something from the Campbell Canntaireachd played on the radio and identified only by the first few 'words'.
But I may well have got the wrong end of the stick on that. At the time it reminded me that the few irish tunes I am sure I learnt entirely by ear are the ones that I can never start, hence onwards to something like Ptarmigan's "Rattan fattle deedle batton" above being an option.
(surely RichardB has it with the April 1st suggestion)
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
In the 'comments' I particularly liked :
"This is a decent idea, but completely irrelevant to me…as no matter what the fiddle players are playing, I always play “Boil Them Cabbage Down” on my banjo"
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
It's those damned conservative Bush appointees who got thrown out in January, needed a job and have nothing better to do with their time. Either that or they missed April 1st.
'Intelligenter'. I am with Ptmargen on this one. Contradiction in terms, or bad white lightning
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Huh. In the old timey jams around these here parts, we just use numbers. Goes like this:
Bubba: "1372."
(Silence)
Ed: "Yeehaw, that was a good 'un!"
Billy Bob: "42."
Bubba: "Nope, we did 42 earlier. How's about 619?"
(silence)
Ed: "Nice variation there on the second half, Bubba."
Billy Bob: "2881."
(silence)
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Enjoyed that. Thanks.
On the original topic I now remember listening at a session and another guy, who must have had O'Neills at home, also listening, asking what number a tune was. I was near enough to feel the withering looks.
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
A banshee? Isn't that one of those large, carnivorous, blind, flightless birds which lives above the snow line in the mountains on the planet Darkover?
Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Have you seen this?
"In a decision aimed at reducing chaos and promoting the competent execution of old-time music during jam sessions, the industry’s National Council of Elders has unanimously voted to end the long-problematic practice of using words to name old-time fiddle tunes.
From this point forward, musicians will identify fiddle tunes by briefly playing the first four bars, or, in the absence of an instrument, singing some facsimile of that same passage."
'Old-Time Music Permanently Revokes All Song Titles':
http://bluegrassintelligencer.com/?p=1055
Who let these guys out?
Can you just imagine this taking off, over here?
For example, just picture competitors at the Fleadh announcing that they're about to play:
the Reel: .. "Rattan fattle deedle batton"
followed by the Slide: .. Skiddly Eyedilly Deedle Bum.
The Hornpipe: Rummpy Pappy Doodle Snappy
& the Air: Ricky Doo Dum ,,,,,,,, Doodle Dum .. Dee .... Beedle Bum.
Just think, if we adopt this system over here, Jeremy could do away with the Comments section attached to each tune ......... er but of course, we couldn't have a Tune Section any more, cause there'd be No Names!
Ahhhhhhhhh ....... Don't you just love Committees!
By the way, don't forget to read the Comments below the article!
I loved these:
"Bluegrass Intelligencer?? Now that’s an oxymoron!!"
"Wow .. I thought this was real til I got to the part where they identified a banjo player as being a musicologist!"
Sorry Mick!
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Also it says: "several of the greatest old-time fiddlers ever to live were legally deaf, which often hindered their ability to faithfully reproduce a melody and added to the rapid creation of musical variation." So that's how all those tunes came about!
(the report was dated April 7th, so was it released on the first of the month!?)
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by RichardB
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Good grief........."Everybody says they know it, so you count it off, and each of the nine people in the jam starts playing something completely different,” said musicologist B. Krakauer, a banjo player.
“Train wrecks like those are fatal to group music making, and they certainly aren’t helping our genre’s reputation,”
Sounds like they are making a complete laughing stock of the genre themselves. Names to tunes are really just reference tags usually superseded with terms such as "G major", "A minor" etc during a session, assuming the players have even a basic musical intelligence.
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by bogman
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Aye, it just makes you wonder how we've all managed so well over here, for so many years now!
{RichardB ........ Shhhhhhhh!}
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
But Bogman, don't you pipers refer to tunes in some old manuscripts like that ? Might sort out all the Gan Ainm tunes in the tunes section here.
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by David50
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Just think for a moment about what we would lose!
As for those poor Old Time guys, they would lose such gems as:
"Shove that Pigs Foot a little Closer to the Fire"
&
"Nail that Catfish to the Tree"
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
I think the punch brothers have the best idea.
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by greg sheils
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Well sort of David_h, you're probably referring to Canntaireachd, which is a sung way of teaching Pìobaireachd. It isn't for the lack of tune names though, it's because Pìobaireachd has no steady meter and has to be taught at least partly by ear.
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by bogman
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Are you as sincere as bluegrassintelligencer here Ptarmigan?
(But in any case, thank goodness this would make no difference in the "real world.")
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by TomB-R
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
" The Bluegrass Intelligencer" is the bluegrass musicians' version of "The Onion"---America's Finest News Source.
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by ʎɹoʇısuɐɹʇ
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Thanks Bogman. I pretty sure I did recently hear something from the Campbell Canntaireachd played on the radio and identified only by the first few 'words'.
But I may well have got the wrong end of the stick on that. At the time it reminded me that the few irish tunes I am sure I learnt entirely by ear are the ones that I can never start, hence onwards to something like Ptarmigan's "Rattan fattle deedle batton" above being an option.
(surely RichardB has it with the April 1st suggestion)
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by David50
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
{Schhhhh David, .... not just yet, too early!
}
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
In the 'comments' I particularly liked :
"This is a decent idea, but completely irrelevant to me…as no matter what the fiddle players are playing, I always play “Boil Them Cabbage Down” on my banjo"
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by Col Arco
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Basic Musical What, Bogman?
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
It's those damned conservative Bush appointees who got thrown out in January, needed a job and have nothing better to do with their time. Either that or they missed April 1st.
'Intelligenter'. I am with Ptmargen on this one. Contradiction in terms, or bad white lightning
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by zippydw
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
I think one or two of you are taking this a little more seriously than was intended.
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by DaveL35
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Most Old Time sounds like a chainsaw doing a caesarian on a banshee whatever the hell name it goes by.
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
If accused of taking anything seriously, I will most vehemently deny it!
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by zippydw
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Huh. In the old timey jams around these here parts, we just use numbers. Goes like this:
Bubba: "1372."
(Silence)
Ed: "Yeehaw, that was a good 'un!"
Billy Bob: "42."
Bubba: "Nope, we did 42 earlier. How's about 619?"
(silence)
Ed: "Nice variation there on the second half, Bubba."
Billy Bob: "2881."
(silence)
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by Will Harmon
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
That could lead to all sorts of confusion Will, if your having your session in a .... Chinese Restaurant!
# Posted on July 6th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
For David & Bogman!
The Highland Sessions: canntaireachd:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctaMm37-Ud4&feature=related
# Posted on July 7th 2009 by Ptarmigan
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
Enjoyed that. Thanks.
On the original topic I now remember listening at a session and another guy, who must have had O'Neills at home, also listening, asking what number a tune was. I was near enough to feel the withering looks.
# Posted on July 7th 2009 by David50
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
"...like a chainsaw doing a caesarian on a banshee..."
Sheer poetry!
# Posted on July 7th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Don't tell Comhaltas about this .............!
A banshee? Isn't that one of those large, carnivorous, blind, flightless birds which lives above the snow line in the mountains on the planet Darkover?
# Posted on July 8th 2009 by fauxcelt