OK, this'll take a bit to explain. This isn't exactly scoffing at current-day, please bear with me.
Nowadays we all know of fiddlers like Kevin Burke, who are great fiddlers, and sound very good, and use lots of ornamentation. We know about flute players and fiddlers and concertinaists and such that use all this ornamentation.
Now, that hasn't really been my thing. While on the low-d whistle (which isn't exactly a traditional Irish instrument...) I certainly could play with lots of ornamentation and flair, I always thought that tunes sounded better with ornamentation and variation used sparingly - like a welcome surprise, instead of what seems sometimes to be the focus of the piece.
I had an interesting conversation with an amazing fifer and flautist who's name I can't remember, but we were talking about just this. He was talking about how he was originally trained - classically, in fact - as a percussionist. He was talking about how in percussion, its not the notes that matter - but the space between the notes.
And then it hit me, perhaps that's why I'm not a fan of ornamenting every other note. I think that maybe doing that takes OUT the space between the notes to an extent, and destroys a part of the melody. Don't get me wrong, I like listening to it and all, but its just not how I like to play (usually. There are exceptions!!!)
This is part A. What do others here think about this?
Additionally, the whole thing about mimicing people - about having a style like certain people. He's actually encountered people who do it like him, try to mimic him, and he's rather sad to see that, because he thinks its not really true to the music to try to play exactly like someone else. And the idea of contest fiddling and contest tinwhistling and standards on how it should be done - we both agreed that it just so went against how WE saw ITM: to sit around and have a good time palying lovely music with friends. That's sortof part B: do you think that contest fiddling/tinwhistling/etc. goes against the spirit of ITM?
Part C is here. I was reading the wonderful introduction to a good little Irish fiddle tune book, "Irish Traditional Fiddle Music volumes 1-3 with additional tunes fiddlecase edition", entitled 'Sounding the Heartstone' by Danny M. Hathaway. Anyways, in it he was talking about his travels through Ireland on foot, how he'd go to places and generally many old-time Irish farmer-types playing their cracked fiddles and frayed bows would play without much ornamentation. I actually stole his words earlier when I was talking about ornamentation being used sparingly and it being a welcome surprise. However, that was in the 70's or 80's. I wonder if anyone knows accurately historically how this music was played long, long ago? If you were more likely to find those who COULD play it like Kevin Burke (well, not as virtuosoistic, but you know, with lots of ornaments) and chose not to, or if people chose to, or if people simply couldn't play their instruments (technically) well?
I guess you can see that I don't have a very good understanding of the history of ITM. If you could actually point me to resources that'd answer part C it'd be nice as well.
As this has the 'whistle' in it, you'd also enjoy the recording "Darby's Farewell: Josie McDermott", a personal favourite.
Here's a tale though, without giving too much away. I had to adjudicate at this fleadh, in Eire, and I was pretty much being told by the powers that hired me and others 'who' should be winning. They were making good use of me, and I had some group of musicians in front of me for two days running.
Somewhere in this I had a group of young fiddlers. Now, I didn't know them from Adam or Eve, but there was this one influential family and I was told the 'lad' that was supposed to get top honours for fiddle. I listened to them all intently, and when his turn came he played masterfully, in the style of the 'big smoke', meaning certain ornament heavy players in Dublin and the big groups. He was a masterful technician, nice listening pieces, and he did get honours, but to the disappointment of the over-lords, only second place.
There was this one waif of a young girl in the group too, mousey hair, shy - but not with what she could pull out of her fiddle. She danced the bow across that instrument and instead of just listening intently my feet were moving and I wanted to dance. The ornamentation was sparce, most of her work in what she did with the bow. It was in keeping with the older traditions I'd become familiar with in the area, and at sessions in the evening. I much later found out that she came from a long line of dancers and musicians, both in the same body, and she also danced, and she sang songs that had been handed down to her by her parents.
The girl's family were what you would call 'salts of the earth', unpretentious, shy like their daughter, friendly, and like her fiddle. The lads folks were definitely upper middle class with little or no history of music or dance in their background, and 'influential', officialdom. His kit, fiddle, bow and case - were easily valued in the thousands. I could feel the knives at my back, though others were pleasantly shocked at my decision.
The rest of the lad's family took firsts, categories I didn't deal with, but he was in my group and he took second to a quiet but talented girl... I have to say, the lad himself was a nice kid, though a bit full of himself. We talked some. There was no doubting the 'roots' to both their music. I didn't know her history till after she'd played, and yet I knew, I could feel it. It got under my skin, and I wasn't the only one keeping time to her playing.
I've also noticed some musicians who play differently when they are on stage as to what they play when they are just kicking back and playing for a bunch of dancers or in a rural session. My sense, however crafted, favours the latter. I'd much rather the music made me want to dance than stilled my feet and called out something more analytical in me.
Or listen to The Branch Line by Jack And Charlie Coen , my particular favourite with the most "economical" ornamentation i've heard on the flute and a very beautiful and relaxed style of playing .
If you can get your hands on a copy of 'The Northern Fiddler' - Alan Feldman, inter-library loan or a friend - it's a good read, the interviews, a good grounding, highly recommended.
The idea of the "spaces between the notes" is a bit clichéd and zen-sounding, and when you think about it, it's daft in this context: unless you're playing a percussion instrument or a plucked string instrument in Irish dance music (or unless you're Micho Russell), there basically isn't any space between nearly all the notes.
However I do like to the idea of idea of feeling space _inside_ a tune, and this to me is a certain unhurried feeling that comes when the rhythm and lift is just right and every note is in the right place (not because it has space either side of it). Poorly executed ornamentation, or possibly excessive ornamentation, can ruin this feeling. But lots of players who do many more twiddly bits than your example of Kevin Burke still get this spacey feeling, just as lots of players who use no ornamentation at all don't produce it.
Executive summary: I think the right feeling in a tune is a much more complex business than you are suggesting.
To add to Martinfmailyband's comment, no matter how melodic it might sound, the ornamentation is primarily rhythmic. It's purpose is to add lift. If it's not doing that, it doesn't need to be there.
Each tune has it's own personality. I think you lose a lot if you try to impose some blanket rule of thumb for ornamentation versus simplicity over the music.
As for copying another player--I just posted this on another thread not three days ago: If you want to grow as a musician, don't play what the other musician plays, but strive to understand what s/he understands. Then make your own choices.
I did a workshop once where students wanted to learn about ornamentation. One student suggested that they throw out tune names and that I show them how to ornament it.
I wish I could remember the tune now, but I remember that I put little to no ornamentation into it. It just seems that some tunes do not need it, and are musical and rhythmic of their own accord. Other tunes seem more open to interpretation.
My opinions:
A. Ornaments are accent pieces and if you bunch them all together or put too many in, they will not be appreciated. As I say above, it also depends on the tune and the style that you wish to play in.
B. Mimic only what you like in someone's style and make it your own. Also, realize what that does to your style if you are seeking some sort of regional flavour.
C. Depends...
" It doesn't matter what you've got in your arsenal if you're not in the groove, if you ain't got the beat... " In other word's, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!" Right?
So, when there's a session in progress, and each of the players are adding ornaments sparingly and tastefully (according to their individual tastes) isn't it probable that the group effort will end up being over-ornamented?
Many of the discussions here conclude you should "ask not what your session can do for you, but what you can do for your session." In other words, don't play at all if it takes away from rather than enhances the music.
If you buy that, shouldn't you avoid adding ornaments if it's only gilding the ornamentation lily already created by the session leader or top player?
*clickity clackity clickity clackity* sounds a bit jiggy to me.
I like my hornpipes to be fairly *ooomphty booomphty ooomphty booomphty*
Anybody know any liitle men who go like that?
I think the enhancement or detraction from the session comes primarily in the form of rhythm, secondarily in the form of tunes (mostly on the enhancement side).
When a fellow fiddler does a roll and I do a triplet, I do not think of this as over-ornamenting a tune. It matters more that neither of us screw up the triplet/roll and throw the timing off.
I think they only time I may lay off an ornament is when I am trying to hear something cool that the other person is doing. Then I may throw something in during the next phrase.
I think people sitting up at the bar are absorbing the rhythm and overall sound of the session. They are not listening for the amount or quality of ornaments.
Still Grego, I will think about your point at the next session!
Actually, Jode, I think the people at the bar are wondering why we don't sing "The Fields of Athenry" or "The Wild Rover." :(
When I think about it more, I don't want the other people in the session to hold back on enhancing the tunes so long, as you say, it doesn't screw up the rythym. It makes the session fresh and interesting, even though we rehash a lot of the same tunes.
Greg, in smaller, intimate sessions, the core players tend to get in a common groove, and the ornamentation can gel surprisingly well, even if you're new to each other. Of course, it's easier when you've played together for years, but even with strangers, a little listening and anticipation goes a long way. With experience, you can often tell when someone is winding up to throw something in, and you also learn to recognize whether a player likes to add more layers each time through a tune or prefers to just heap it on right away and then simply changes things around. You also pick up on favored ornaments--this fiddler does a lot of bowed triplets, that one prefers rolls--etc.
In mass sessions, it doesn't much matter, eh?
Ultimately, the variations common in this music are not as wide ranging as in most other genres, and one of the constraints is that ornamentation and rhythmic and melodic variation should generally blend with what everyone else is doing. If it doesn't, you're likely playing bluegrass or Jean Luc Ponty.
I lean toward a less heavily ornamented style myself, some sort of blend of West Clare and East Galway, and when I've had the pleasure of playing with some fine exponents of more embellished styles (Sligo, for example), I find myself keeping to the basic melody (more than usual) while listening to all the rolls, triplets, triplet runs, doublestops, cuts on top of cuts, etc. Later I'll go over some of the tunes and experiment with what I heard, adding bits and pieces, but rarely adopting whole fistfuls of ornaments. But that's just my personal taste (I like the playing of Martin Rocheford and Mike Rafferty, among others, and though I thoroughly enjoy listening to the inventiveness of Bobby Casey, James Kelly, and Brian Conway, say, I prefer to play in a less busy style).
Which gives me pause--we often talk about the importance of listening on this site, but rarely does it come up in the context of listening *while* you're playing, except to stay on a common beat. In my experience, you can listen really closely to about 3 to 4 musicians in a session. When a session gets bigger than that, you have to choose which 1 to 4 players to focus on and hope the others are also listening to the same core. Msot times, that happens naturally, and so the music has a decent amount of cohesiveness. Sessions of just 2-4 players can acheive a remarkable unity, even when playing seat-of-the-pants. That's why some of us get upset about eager backers who don't know the tunes or noodlers ostensibly learning tunes on the fly.
As Will says, ornamentation is to do with adding lift, and as Ceolachan says articulation. I don't think it's there to make the music sound pretty, it's to push it along (or maybe sometimes to momentarily hold it back!). Too much has the opposite effect. It's very tempting to ornament any long note, but plain long notes on the flute can sound gorgous as they are - the more so because they are unexpected.
"...plain long notes on the flute can sound gorgous...."
Mark, are you saying that the Gorgan style of flute playing favors plain long notes? I suppose the Klingon approach is more forcefully ornamented?
For sparse ornamentation, listen to Aly Bain or Alasdai Fraser, any of their tunes. They both have a vast repertoire of Scots and Irish tunes, and I think it's just *so* refreshing to hear the Irish stuff played 'cleanly' and with more purity of tone than most of the other contemporary big boys.
Mark, fortunately I too know little (to nothing) about ATE or Star Trek. But that never stops me from free associating. Must be the little white pills in my oatmeal every morning....
Oooh this thread realy bugs me because of this whole misconception of ornamentation/decoration.
If you take those words at their face value then an Irish diddley tune is meerly the eight (reel) six (jig) notes that you see written down in the dots/ABC whatever.
But of course this is not the case. These "extra" notes, as they are refered to are not extra to the tune at all, they are part and parcel. I like that phrase "part and parcel", they are not just a part of it, but the very escence of the whole parcel.ˇ
Sometimes people use language to split hairs, sometimes we use it to communicate.
I tend to think of those essential 'extra' notes as articulations rather than ornaments, because a cut or a roll or a triplet or a slide or smear or hammer-on, etc., is really just how you articulate the melody. And yes, I agree: those are essential to this music, not some extra adornment.
But I think that's what most people mean when they say "ornament." It's just shorthand, which happens to be widely accepted. It's also a convention, borrowed from classical music no doubt, much like the dots themselves. You have to know this music to understand what it really means.
Michael, they may - and indeed are - 'part and parcel'. But they are not 'The Tune'. They are the interchangable/movable part of the feast. They are the part of the feast that identifies it as being as feast from Clare, or from Sligo, or bastard spawn of some Godforsaken session in Oxford (or Edinburgh?). Some ornamentation, depending on the instrument you are abusing, may be necessary for the very articulation of the tune. Of course if you simply play the 'eight notes' that is not 'the tune' in any meaningful sense, but the other stuff is variable and really, for me, what makes the music fun to play. Dance music is by nature repetitive. Excessive melodic variation is dangerous in a genre where there are 'too many tunes' (similar tunes that is). Ornamentation and dynamics are where we can express ourselves...
The first tionol I ever went to, Brian McNamara taught. One of first things he taught us beginners was closure; control of the chanter so the notes stop. So you can do tight triplets...your rolls will be crisp. His phrase closure has stuck with me when trying to play.
and from that, I've REALLY enjoyed listening to Brian play his pipes. Listen to Gander in the pratie hole, he puts his triplets in where a silence would be ( its where my silence is, right now in my playing).n Can you tell what tune I'm trying to learn right now??
I'm not quite sure which tune that is I-Fel, too many rolls, cuts, crans, cripplets, glissandos, arpeggios and the like
For everyone, my $0.04 (Aus dollar)is that it isn't the tune until you have stripped it back to the bones and then fleshed it out with the meat (your own interpretation coupled with the version/dots it is learnt from.)
After this you still have a naked figure but it is at least true to form.
Then you can began to clothe it in fine embroidered materials with ornamentations as it fits the form.(Whether they be considered 'authentic' or not.)
But remember that the true tailors' art is not to hide the form, but to drape it's natural beauty (or hide any disfigurations)and present a facet which accentuates that which lies beneath.
Too much ornamentation on a tune fits like a cheap polyester suit bought off the rack, whilst not enough ornamentation can feel like you are at a wedding in your underwear.
Whilst the auld ITM has come from a rural subsistence history accompanying the economy/culture of the times, you can rest assured that as the centuries have turned and the peoples playing it are generally more adept at Microsoft than a slean it can be accepted that we are all playing a different version of the music than previous.
Such is the nature of progress, blah,blah, blazee.
No, not at all. It's that this music is a fluid thing that cannot be written down or even repeated. I know that the dots are usefull to people who already know this, but for those misguided people who think the dots are the tune, it's very dangerous.
There are two ways to "record" a tune and both are unsatisfactory:
One: write down the dots. (tadpoles or ABC).
Two: put a tape (minidisk, whatever) to it.
The first meerly gives you an idea of how it goes. (which I admit is fine for people who already know the music).
And all the second does is tell you (all be it very accuratly) how it went once.
And that's the whole point of diddley music. Every time you play a tune, you make it up as you go along
So what approach would you have when learning a new tune you liked ?
Learn the way you heard it the first time with the extra diddly bits, as you
would view these as all part and parcel - or strip it down and play it differently
with your own diddly bits ?
Now Greenwiggle, while I occassionally like 'dress-up', and have even been caught out in a kilt and at other times in opanke, don't tell anyone, I in the main just like well worn bluejean and an old T-shirt, but, whenever I get the chance or the spirit moves me - I love skinny dipping...
I've been blessed with having experienced and shared some time with a number of notables in the Irish Trad scene, past to present, some for whose music, when you analyze their playing to the bone, ends up on paper just being black dots and very little of what some call that 'extra', no flash brass buttons, no bright red sash, no snakeskin boots or silk underwear. But, that's not taking into account the other ways we speak the music and give it accent - with whatever tongue we're using - tongue, bow, plectrum, fingernail, tipper - the way we cut the consonants of our conversation, and also where we choose to put in those 'pauses', bits of tight sharp silence, or holding on a vowel, a note - as well whether we choose to play it clean and sweat or with a raw edge to it. (easily influenced by a number of variables...) If a bow, how and where we choose to saw or sing, the rough and the sweet of it. Frankly, too much of the latter can get under my skin as much as rolling a tune into mush, but I also don't like six teaspoons of sugar in my tea.
It's also about who we're dressin' to impress, who we're speaking to. If it's dancers, as opposed to an audience or a fellow sessioneer, then those 'Ps' and 'Qs'are also about telling them something clearly, dance instructions, helping so they can get into that 'swing'. And that works both ways. That 'understanding' Will so eloquently speaks of, it isn't just about the mechanics of the instrument we play, but the 'dance' in the music. The curious thing I've found is that you're more likely to gain that understanding with two left feet, if you gave dancing a try, than if you were a Michael Flatley or a Fred Astaire... Trial by fire -
If all the ornamentation is part and parcel of a tune then lots of people must be playing the tunes wrong. Was Sean Casey playing Lad O'Beirnes wrong the other night is everyone else? Or, as I prefer, was he adding his own ornamentation (wonderfully!) to the bare bones?
You see if you learn a tune the old way there is no "Would you learn it the way you heard it the first time?" because you can never remember where you first heard it. Your version becomes an amalgamation of all the times you heard it and your own self expression.
All my favourite tunes were learned this way, but life is not perfect of course. So yes, there are tunes I learned off recordings, both dots and tapes. And yes, usually when I learn a tune off a tape I learn it exactly the way it's played, then strip it down and start again. Or a better way is to find other people who know it and get to play it with them, multiple sources are always best.
Once you've developed your own accent on things, Will's 'understanding', then it doesn't matter where you get the seed for a tune from. It ceased to surprise me that the old sources weren't as 'illiterate' musically as some would have us believe. It may not have been the 'dots', but I never came across a musician who hadn't some kind of notation, from Solfeggio, often church learning, to tab to some variant of ABCs... And, while they might represent well an identified 'tradition', such as Donegal and the fiddle, they weren't averse to catching an air of the wireless or some passerby from Amerikay or Finland... The only completely 'illiterate' (I don't like the term but it will suffice) musicians I ever came across were 'young folk' who more often had 'superior' airs about it. Now by 'young', well, probably in their 40s, 50s and 60s by now.
There were a lot of copies of Francis Roche's "The Roche Collection Of Traditional Irish Music", 3 vols., (1912-1927), knocking about Northern Ireland....the black dots... The copies I saw were well used and valued and not as door props.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not dissing the dots, meerly pointing out that of course you can learn and pass on tunes with them, but you can't learn the music from them. And by that I meen the 'authentic Irish ornamentation' which IS the music (and the title of this thread)
Agreed Michael -
A bit more on the above, concerning those older musicians who couldn't read the 'dots', I never met one that didn't want to. However, the scary part of it is reflected in one such discussion - that assumption that "if it's written it must be right!" I'd ran across a few that were worried that they might not have 'it' right. For those who were of that mind it was better for them and the 'tradition' they represented that they didn't read the 'dots'.
As has been said elsewhere, about the meat of the music, though that reference was limited to the 'ornaments' - I'll fill that out a bit more as the muscle, tendons, veins, arteries, heart - blood flow and pulse, that life force, including the mind and spirit of it - you're right - 'dots' just don't do it. They are just the bones of it, with barely a ligament or tendon. They can't support themselves. Without the rest it's just a calcium deposit, rubble. That's where the 'flu' of tradition comes in, passing the bug about, from person to person, whether in the flesh or through a recording, getting that slightly intoxicated feeling a high temperature gives you, and then turning it around and finding yourself in it. Mind you, with each of us being unique, no matter how hard you might try to emulate another, like all those Michael Coleman wannabes, you'll always be something else, so why not yourself...
I think there's a place for emulation, just so long as you allow yourself choice, both in variety of sources and in being able to say no to something. The 'roll' isn't for everyone. Find what fits your temperament and the setting your find yourself in. There's the compromise, if you're a sessioner you also adapt yourself to that community, as that is part of your 'tradition' - and accent...
A bit like(excuse the mixed religious metaphors) tongues of fire descending on you after you've put in what the gods consider to be sufficient listening time.
And no-one can tell you where's a good place to stick your triplet, because any source other than the mystic traditional ether is invalid.
Does anyone have experiences with arrogant classical musicians that think they can learn Irish music in 5 minutes?
Statements like this always scare me: "And that's the whole point of diddley music. Every time you play a tune, you make it up as you go along."
Perhaps I've taken it out of context, but I always hate to give that kind of license to a person that wants to learn Irish music and is coming from another background. Especially when they already have musical experience.
I agree that it is grey. We could go down the path of debate around whether there is a right or wrong way to play a tune.
BUT...aren't we talking about "ornaments" here and not variations? I mean, whether I play a triplet or a roll, it is the same tune.
So what you make up as you go along is not the tune, but how you play it, what ornaments you throw in.
I once received a phone call from someone who described himself as a professional classical floutist. He told me that he was hired to play Irish music at a wedding, and he bought O'Neill's book. He wanted me to tell him what tunes were the best. I told him that he'd have to hear the music to properly be able to play the tunes. He told me that unlike Irish folk musicians -- he can sight-read and doesn't need to hear the music first. I wished him luck.
Jode, I'd say the same thing, only differently: What you make up as you go along is not the tune but how you articulate it.
That's where Michael's logic gets a bit fuzzy because it sounds like he's saying how you articulate it *is* the tune. To me, that's the intent or spirit of the tune. The bones of the tune are the basic melody notes. How you articulate those notes (with so-called 'ornaments' and other techniques) is what makes the tune come alive.
"I always hate to give that kind of license to a person..."
The person has that license anyway, whether you give it to them or not. There's no hard and fast line between "ornament" and "variation".
I think the point about "you make it up as you go along" is that each time you play the tune, you're speaking the melody, giving it whatever meaning and articulation you can bring to it. Similar to a storyteller, I guess - the root story might be the same, but it's enhanced by spur-of-the-moment variations and twists.
I like to think of playing this kind of music as trying to create a kind of complex frequency that resonates with whoever's listening or playing along. And just as a tuning fork can inspire a sympathetic motion in your A string, a tune played right, to an amenable ear, can inspire dancing, beautiful embellishment and joy, gradually building in depth, like a Tibetan singing bowl...
I say "complex" frequency, because this is the human brain we're talking about, not a simple fiddle string. And the human brain has evolved, by nature and by nurture, to resonate to the sounds and rhythms of human speech. The ornamentation, the imperceptible pauses, the feel of the notes themselves, all are subservient to this whole: the gathering and focusing of attention and understanding on the tune itself.
This is, I reckon, why session playing can be such an uplifting (and sometimes frustrating) experience. Resonance being a fundamentally two-way process, playing with or to folks that don't respond appopriately (noodlers, deaf drunks) is bound to be frustrating, as there's no way for the joy to start building. And perhaps this also helps to rationalise why there are some people who just "click" when playing together, even through great disparities of ability and even musical genre - they just have the same "frequency" of musical perception...
[sorry, with newlines where they should be, this time!]
"I always hate to give that kind of license to a person..."
The person has that license anyway, whether you give it to them or not. There's no hard and fast line between "ornament" and "variation".
I think the point about "you make it up as you go along" is that each time you play the tune, you're speaking the melody, giving it whatever meaning and articulation you can bring to it. Similar to a storyteller, I guess - the root story might be the same, but it's enhanced by spur-of-the-moment variations and twists.
I like to think of playing this kind of music as trying to create a kind of complex frequency that resonates with whoever's listening or playing along. And just as a tuning fork can inspire a sympathetic motion in your A string, a tune played right, to an amenable ear, can inspire dancing, beautiful embellishment and joy, gradually building in depth, like a Tibetan singing bowl...
I say "complex" frequency, because this is the human brain we're talking about, not a simple fiddle string. And the human brain has evolved, by nature and by nurture, to resonate to the sounds and rhythms of human speech. The ornamentation, the imperceptible pauses, the feel of the notes themselves, all are subservient to this whole: the gathering and focusing of attention and understanding on the tune itself.
This is, I reckon, why session playing can be such an uplifting (and sometimes frustrating) experience. Resonance being a fundamentally two-way process, playing with or to folks that don't respond appopriately (noodlers, deaf drunks) is bound to be frustrating, as there's no way for the joy to start building. And perhaps this also helps to rationalise why there are some people who just "click" when playing together, even through great disparities of ability and even musical genre - they just have the same "frequency" of musical perception...
Ah ha ... you have it. How you articulate it *is* the tune. Without the articulation it's just dots/bones, whatever. With the articulation it "is" the music
I've been out on the bike in the pissin' rain and flashes of inspiration came on me as I lilted with burbles.
I know there will be contention on this one, but here's a test as to whether or not you've got that 'understanding' that Will and others of us have been talking about.
Take a tune, any tune, and wipe it clean of all the twiddly bits, the 'extras', hey, that's what they are, extras, a bit of extra joy to work into the weave of a melody you're fond of, a kind of caressing. Anyway, cut all that, and then cut your tempo, let's be drastic and say half speed, yeah, 50% of what you usually play it at. No, I don't want a bunch of Martin Hayes pixies out there, just give this a try.
Now, and here's me makin' dogma, always not to be trusted - if you can't pull it off with lift and interest, you need to check out that understanding, re-evaluate, something we all should do every once in awhile, eh? I think I've missed mine this month. Anyway, as the 'ornaments' are 'extras', a bit of spark you can add here and there, and give a bit more jump to what should already be lively, well, you should then be able to pull of that 'swing' even without those twiddly bits, and at half speed.
So, why am I saying this? Well, a lot of us have been guilty at one time or t'other of covering up our weaknesses with speed and twiddly bits, like rolling over the music with a Churchill tank... I've also noticed a few 'stars' who when lost in a session in the countryside somewhere, and not necessarily out front, enjoy the relaxation of taking the music easy and what some might mistakenly call simple, let's say 'naturally', not having to meet the technical expectations of an audience or a studio.
Yeah, I disagree with Michael. It is entirely possible and even desirable at times to play the bones but give them lift and life with the barest of articulation--on fiddle, leaning into the bow at the right places can do this, without any cuts, triplets, rolls, etc.
Of course the articulations make it more musical, danceable, etc., but the tune itself exists separate from that. If you don't believe me, just listen to some poor beginning plonker wading into Wind that Shakes the Barley. The tune is recognizable, but there's little or no music in it. These are different things.
I'm guessing that Michael means this, but we're coming at it with a different semantic emphasis. Which only goes to show that just cuz you can play this stuff doesn't mean you can talk clealy about it, and vice versa. And some of us have way too much time on our hands.
I like the comment about playing it with rhythm and style even without ornaments or articulation. That is the tune itself. That is how I would initially teach a tune to a beginning fiddler. Yet, I would also demonstrate it with subtle articulation.
I do disagree with Rog on a couple of points. People are free to play what they like, but they also are free to call it something other than ITM. Call it giving license or giving bad advice...
And, regional and personal variations are very different from the ornamentation/articulation that we are discussing here.
If you take out the articulation and your phrases are different from mine, we have different variations of the same tune. If it is just a matter of a note here or there, then maybe not.
Jode, Good Point for beginner's. My first lesson, I was given the old Faba Polka. I was taught the notes along with the rhythm. Obviously little time was spent on this tune. But I still learn tunes this way, slowly with bare bones and rhythm. I am just now learning the ornaments. I'm rather comfortable with this approach. Once I have the bare bones down, the dots/abc's etc are no longer needed and I concentrate on the "articulation".
Big difference between learning Irish tunes & learning to play Irish music.
My own view is that only an arrogant jack a*s would consider himself "playing" Irish music having never listened to the music to begin with (re: Jack's classical musician).
a little thing about dots. i am in an irish vacuum. i live in a place where its an hour to chicago, 2 to milwaukee, whicm means there are a lot of great players nearby. but i dont drive yet, so i cant get to them. and i'm going to be starting irish flute lessons sometime next year (teacher's wife just had a baby). if it werent for the dots, i would be nowhere.
my uncle is an irish flutist (brian mccoy). so, i have him. i can call him any time, and ask him about ornamentation, about nyah, anything. but its not the same. he cant teach me a song over the phone. the dots teach me my tunes.
but when i see him, or i see other players (which really only has happened so far at milwaukee fest, which i went to for the first time this year) i learn the 'music' as some people have called it. i know the tunes, and will learn more, and i learn from all the great musicians how to play it. i know that i play jig of slurs (which i learned yesterday and today) without enough of a swing to it, i know that i play too fast, i know that i try to do things i cant do, and this is all cuz i teach myself. but let me tell you something, without those dots, i would have nothing. i wouldnt play amazingly, i wouldnt play well with a lot of bad habits. i just wouldnt play. i'm learning to play by ear, and can pick up a tune if someone teaches it to me by ear (fiddle, whatever, i can learn it from). i picked up how to do that in a week. but i have no one to learn from. yeah, there's cd's, but i havent played with anyone enough to be able to pick up tunes that fast. and maybe i dont try hard enough, i'm sure if i spent like 2 hours on a tune i would get it. but still, without the "dots" i would be nowhere.
and i agree, too much ornamentation is unnecessary. my uncle has always said to me it doesnt matter, its not the music, the rest of it is the music. and i'm finally starting to get it. because i can finally at cuts and taps pretty well to a lot of tunes, but i only add them when i can fit them in and it doesnt interfere with the rhythm, which isnt terribly much, but when i do put them in they sound like they belong. but now i'm seeing how much is too much, and a spot where i cut every double f in lark in the morning last week and had so much fun doing so sounds cheap to me now.
i think there are people, however, who can ornament like crazy and get away with it sounding really good, and these are the people who understand its not the point. that its just a little fun thing they do in it. whether it drives, makes more exciting, shows off, whatever. some people can pull it off, some people cant. the people who can pull it off know when to not do it.
i saw some people at irish fest who couldnt not cut a double note, and couldnt tongue on the flute, they'd forgotten how even though they were classically trained. sure, i had to relearn how to tongue when getting back into classical, but not tongueing double notes, tongueing every note.
i think you lose something when you lose the ability to play a tune without ornamentation. i have seen many people like this, and it is sad. i have seen of course some people who have trouble with it, but usually within a run through they can get all the ornamentation out. because, if you cant play without it, how do you know when to put them in? whether or not you want know how to put them in sparingly, or know how to put them in crazily, you just cant do it well if you have no control over it.
even though it does become instinctual, it should not be come habitual.
Debwah you can say what you like, I'm on Atkins and my cellulite's disappearing already. In a few months' time, you'll be wishing you had an ass like mine.
I'm really interested in what Will and Michael have been saying on this thread. They seem to have 2 very different ways of viewing tunes.
Will says that "the tune" exists separately from the articulation, and that the articulation represents the "intent or spirit" of "the tune". Therefore tunes exist as a pool of static musical ideas that you can draw from and play with according to your own individual interpretation. So according to Will, to become good at trad music, you'd learn how to interpret tunes through articulation etc, and then you can go on to draw as many static ideas from the pool as you want and "bring them alive" with your skill on whatever musical instrument you're playing.
Michael views "the tune" as being a much more fluid thing in a way. To Michael, the musical "pool of ideas" and the tunes themselves exist as a much more abstract idea than the static "bare bones" that Will describes. For Michael, the only important thing is the tune as a whole, with rhythmic detail and articulation. This is what is given to you, by ear, from another musician.
It's like a singer giving a song to you. Singers ornament their songs just like we ornament tunes, but the human voice is so versatile that the ornamentation is even more complex. It's pointless to even try and write it down or even try and copy the ornamentation. The song is just given to you as this whole, abstract thing. If you can't then recreate that abstract thing in your own way and make it sound good, then you don't know the song or can't sing.
This is what Michael's talking about when he mentions his favourite tunes. They're abstract entities that have been given to him by other musicians. Now that he "has" the tune, he can produce the tune himself on his instrument, without needing to check the dots or get ideas for ornamentation. Every time he decides to produce the tune it's going to be different. But whether he articulates it or plays it "bare", *both* ways of playing the tune are exactly the same thing - just this abstract musical idea being produced in its different forms, i.e. "the tune".
MArk, I wouldn't say that some static tune exists--even the bare bones change from one playing to the next, and there is no "correct" version. All I'm suggesting is that at some point, an assemblage of notes forms a recognizable tune, a piece of music that can be distinguished from similar but different pieces of music. So your average Irish trad player has no trouble telling Wind that Shakes the Barley apart from Rolling in the Ryegrass (and your experienced Irish trad player may take liberties with both and wind them together like braids of a rope .
As a music teacher, I've found it helps many students to strip out most of the articulations and give them the barest melody, and a consistent melody at that. But I didn't learn this way myself. I learned by listening to whole tunes, and grasping at the notes and articulations flying past, and gradually getting hold of some tunes *and* a sense of how to articulate them all at once.
But only a fraction of students seem able to learn that way. Most get frustrated and overwhelmed, until the bones are laid bare for them.
So it wouldn't surprise me if Michael and I have a lot in common about how we personally engage this music. But as a teacher, I've had to find ways to make it more accessible to a wide range of people and abilities. All with the aim of helping them understand the whole tune as well, which they do, eventually.
There's no doubt that both you and Michael are talking in terms of tunes as being separate, like "Wind That Shakes The Barley" and "Rolling In The Ryegrass", but that doesn't seem to be where you differ. The difference is that you see "the barest melody" and "the whole tune with articulation" as being 2 different things. Michael sees no sense in seeing it that way. To him they're one and the same thing - just "the tune" as an abstract concept that's given to you. It's probably not a case of there being a right or wrong way of looking at this, it's just that your view of the music is actually very different to Michael's I think, regardless of how you taught yourself to play.
I'd be interested to hear how Michael would go about teaching a beginner. I have a feeling that he probably wouldn't go about it the same way - i.e. stripping the tune down *for* the student. I bet the student would have to listen to Michael's playing and acquire the tune through repeated hearing while M produces the tunes as he would normally - a different way each time. I'm sure that, although it might be daunting at first, a student would learn the actual skills required for playing tunes, i.e. honing listening skills, knowing your instrument so you can express on it what you hear in your head, ornamentation/articulation (whatever you want to call it), a sense of rhythm, variations etc. All so that it makes it easier for the student to pick up more tunes, that is, tunes as abstract entities rather than a bunch of difficult notes strung together...
Um, that said, I *do* still have a sense of the articulations being somehow part of the tune rather than the tune itself. I say this because as I'm learning flute, I naturally, instinctively put cuts and taps in, *but they go places they wouldn't on fiddle.* Same tune, different articutlations, and it has to do with how you respond to the tune on different instruments.
Mark, I appreciate you trying to suss out what we're all after here--your insights are good ones and you're helping me clarify my own thinking. But in the end we're trying to make words stick on the ineffable. This is music. If we could wholly explain it by talking or writing about it, it wouldn't be music.
Funny, one of the hardest things to do when teaching someone a tune is to play it the same way twice. No matter how you concentrate, nuances (or wholesale transmorgrifications slip in. Observant students will say, "Wait, you changed it. Which way does it really go? Play it again." But the students who don't really need a teacher will say, "Wait, you changed it. Cool. Play it some more."
There's a world of difference between "play it again" and "play it some more."
Cross posting, but thinking along similar lines. Who says 12,000 miles is far apart?
I tend to think of tunes as chord progressions rather than strings of notes. I played guitar and 5 string banjo long before I took up fiddle or any other single-line melody instrument, and I still hear tunes more harmonically than just linear notes. But even that may not be as holistically as you suspect Michael hears tunes--I don't know.
As for teaching "a beginner" - teaching one student is easy. But teaching a parade of diffferent students demands a pallette of different approaches, helping people with different strengths and weaknesses. In short, teaching music adds a whole 'nother skill set on top of those needed to play the music in the first place. If anything, I'm probably a better teacher than I am a player--I've certainly had students surpass me in musicality (my own son included--he's a much better guitarist than I ever was or will be).
Will, by "static musical idea" I didn't mean to suggest that you must think that there is only one valid version of a tune open to interpretation. You think that there are an infinite number of "versions" of a tune right? However, at some point, whichever "version" of a tune you choose, the more articulation you put in, it stops being the "bare bones" and becomes "the whole tune with all its detail and articulation", right? Michael doesn't see it that way.
Dow wrote: "...you see 'the barest melody' and 'the whole tune with articulation' as being 2 different things."
No, not two different things. Both are the 'whole tune.' What differs is *how you play* it. Mind you, not just how you articulate the notes (or not), but your experience of the tune as it unfolds. Playing a tune isn't just a matter of re-creating it, but of re-enlivening it.
And that's probably where you differ. Michael sees no sense in talking about "re-enlivening", because for him the tune is there and already living. I think that when he talks about "making it up as you go along", what he's trying to say is that he's taking the abstract idea of the living tune and "recreating" it each time, i.e. producing it creatively... making the "living thing" pop out of him, kinda like giving birth.
You know you're right Will, I'm getting a bit ridiculous. All my critics will be sniping I'm sure, saying that I'm going all analytical again. Bully for them
Still at it. I've gotta hit the sheets--due to be up in 5 hours and driving 120 miles to a meeting. Ugh.
No, I don't think there are infinite versions of a tune. More that each tune is infinite in its variety. Certainly, some "versions" do exist--it's sad, but some people insist on playing the Tarbolton set, say, exactly as Coleman did once on a recording, and repeating that week after week, like some sort of fossilzed sysiphean rite. Shudder.
Maybe this will help: articulation isn't something you add to a tune. You play a tune by articulating the notes. How you articulate them is what makes it music.
Nonetheless, you can sort of artificially strip out the "articulations" if need be to help someone else understand the intervals between pitches that comprise the tune. As a player and a teacher, it's good to be able to hold two or more contradictory ideas in your head at the same time and still retain a sense of humor. I have my understanding of music, and I have to communicate with someone who has a different understanding. You can beat them over the head for years with "the tune isn't what you play, but how you play it" (and a lucky few will eventually grasp that), or you can meet them halfway and leave some doors open for them.
Giving birth. Yes, that's what I meant. Re-creating to me means reinventing the wheel, or simply regurgitating. By re-enlivening, I meant letting the living tune loose. As Kevin Burke says, they're all there, in the air around you. All you have to do is invite them to come out and play. Or as Cait Reed says, it's not that the tunes exist for us to play, but that we exist so the tunes have someone to play them.
G'night.
(Gilder will have us both involuntarily committed after this....
Good morning Masters Dow and Harmon - Are we ready for your psych counsel?! - - -
One patient to another -
Daiv first (pre the Will/Dow dialogues) - as it's flute you're on about, like the oxygen of life, it's in the breath and on the tip of your tongue, and the tips of your fingers - how you drop, lift and slide. That's the oxygen to give the music life too. That includes those 'extra bits', the 'ornaments' you might choose to place here and there to add to the definition of punctuation and articulation hopefully already breathed into it. Your uncle sounds a wise man. I hope you've had him record some things for you, and I don't just mean the music, but his ideas on it all, the humour of the man. If you find yourself trapped, meaning that you 'always' do a twiddly bit in a given place, not uncommon with beginners, or anyone else for that matter, then there's likely something wrong there. However, that's also one of those steps in learning, one of those 'plateaus' on the road to 'understanding' or 'enlightenment'. As you put it yourself - "it's just a little fun thing". It shouldn't be in control, you and the tune have that honour, and 'tradition', whether obvious as with the Sligo-American accent, or your local session's way with things, how they speak it. However, if you are dependant on 'ornamentation', like sheet music, it can cripple you, blind you to those other elements that lift the music and set the blood of it flowing, that give it pulse, that give a strong base for those 'extras'. Those twiddly bits are just that, extras, lovely stuff, but not the heart of what makes it rock, though they definitely can be great seasoning. They aren't the steak, or if you're vegetarian, they aren't the mango or the peanut butter... (? - sad!) In your loose conclusion - that one's lost without ornamentation, well, you've passed judgement on a lot of fine musicians who either don't use the twiddly bits, or use them very sparingly. Some have already been listed earlier. I like Bloody Marys, but I also like a shot of Moskovskaya vodka neat, and that is mostly how I have it, at room temperature too. I like your summation: "~ it should not become habitual." Sadly though, I'm not about to give up straight shots of Moskovskaya...I just won't over indulge that fancy.
Check this bit of kit out - it will help you with the CDs and you can more easily learn from those whose playing you're drawn to: 'Tascam CD-GT-1'. It's portable and it allows you to turn your CDs into 'lessons from the masters'. Another bit of kit others use is 'Amazing Slow Downer', one of a number of software packages that offer similar options but through a computer. If you do a search in 'discussions' here on site you'll find out more.
Now gently, I hope, into the world of Dow and Will - with respect, I hope:
I have that same problem as Will in teaching, it never coming out 'exactly' the same way each time, which as Will says, works for some students and not for others. Out of respect for those differences, some are not blessed with music throughout their life, I do make an effort to give them something consistant they can hold on to. But with time I work them away from this, and when they make a nice 'mistake' (wrong word in my teaching vocabulary, but it makes the point), I let them know I like it, so they can start to make things their own.
Now back to the discussion about the heart of a tune, dem 'bones', this thing about the whole or the sum of its parts... I get a kick out of catching dancers leaving the floor humming or lilting the melody of the tune or tunes they've just been dancing to - always recognizable, though often one dancer recreates his experience slightly different from another, such as between humming and lilting and their individual voice, and with lilting their choice of consonants and vowels and how they order them and what accent they give it. But it's always a recognizable tune, the same between them all - and I could learn that tune from at least some of those with the obviously stronger memory. That 'bare bones' just speaks to you if you let it in, you become the vessel of its transmission. We're talking about some dancers carrying it off who aren't in the slightest 'musicians' as some would judge it. The easiest student to teach, for me, is like these dancers, they just give up themselves up to it without question or thought, to the thing being taught, it's like play to a child, instead of fighting to take control of it. The fighters are a pain, but also have my respect and understanding, but the worst to teach are those that already know. Preconceptions, especially of the cast iron variety, are shight. But back to the dancers - despite musicians or a musician playing it with variations...the dancesr are able to get ahold of the gist of it, and, in a few rare cases, are even better able to give dance the melody to life than the original source (- sometimes that being yours truly!).
Yes Will - 'enliven it!' - give it life. I would never mistake anything said previously by Will as suggestive of embalment (-to preserve a corpse with spices; preserve from oblivion; make fragrant.) Evolution and adaption are proof of life, those lovely little fluctuations that can seem completely out of your control, they just happen, as if on their own (and sometimes they're cack!). That's part of reaching an understanding, getting comfortable enough with the music and tune that you learn from it, instead of being completely a control freak and having to impose yourself on the thing by whatever means on hand. Having read a lot of Will's musings, I've only seen that the music is very much 'alive' for him, and that 'to enliven' is just being used as and active verb, not a negation in any sense, but that when you 'give it schtick' there's the answer of that spark of life, that first breath. Mind you, the level of life present can be variable, but just by being recognizable, being able to name it, there's something trying to wiggle free from the mud and dance. That gasp for air, that first consonant of articulation... And, let's not forget the other necessary element in all this - 'humour', the 'play' as Will quotes from Mr. Burke, a damn site more important than the twiddly bits, to me anyway. I have to say, that's what drew me in, the 'play' in it, the dancing sprite of it, the 'humours' of it, happy and sad... It gets under your skin, and while I may never do it full justice, and too often I neglect it, it forgives me and keeps calling me out to play.
Dow, you’re on. Years end, we’ll compare notes. You said “The song is just given to you as this whole, abstract thing. If you can't then recreate that abstract thing in your own way and make it sound good, then you don't know the song or can't sing.” I agree. I don’t consider that I know a tune until I am happy with it and enjoy playing it. I think whether you start learning with only the bare bones or learn it with all the ornaments, articulation, etc. The learning process involves fleshing out and then filling in. As for beginners, I think we tend to "regurgitate" our tutor's version(person, books, CD's etc). It isn't until we make it our own that the music starts breathing.
Please, no regurgitating, there's enough whistle spit and drool flyin' around without everyone getting into the act. It's not a requirement or a right of passage. That first sentence regarding Dow of Oz sounds a bit like an episode of early Star Trek, this amorphous glowing gaseous cloud floating around that would possess people, or did it zap the hell out of them, some such thing... I like the bit about getting comfortable with music, when in a sense you've made up for all the fighting and can settle down to being friends and having a good romp together...
Can we separate ornamentation/articulation from version here? Some of what people are saying seems to be about versions rather than ornaments.
Rolls, cuts, triplets, taps and such are ornaments, devices. They can (or should) be interspersed throughout a tune.
Let's say that we are playing a tune together, and you play a roll and I play a bowed triplet, and they are both based off the same note. We are playing the same version of the tune, just using different ornaments.
If we are playing a tune together, and our B parts don't match, or you have a C part, then we are not playing the same version of the tune.
Dow has much to say for Michael. Is he saying that Michael would prefer to teach a tune by ear by playing it over and over to the student and not restricting his use of ornaments? So this would teach the student the flexible nature of the music, and the artistic way of putting in different ornaments?
The thing that confuses me about this conversation is this: if you learn a tune from someone, does it matter what notes you learn?
I have been learning a bunch of tunes recently, and some are complex and difficult to play. At various points I think that I have them. I can, in fact, play them with other people and not have notes akimbo, stickin
"...something trying to wriggle free from the mud...."
Och, I'm tearing up over that, the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my playing.
:oD :oD :oD
Jode, I'm not sure, but it seems like musical phrases within tunes are like words:
As lnog as the frsit and lsat ltrtes are in the rgiht pcales, no metatr how sambercld the oehtr lrttes are, you wlil be albe to raed it.
In other words, musical phrases have strong notes and beats (like the first and last letters of words), and as long as you learn those (or even some harmonically blending equivalent), you'll get the tune.
Sorry, my second posting got mangled. The point I was going to drive at was that I am learning these complicated tunes. I get to a point where I can play them with people. I think I know them. But then I go back to the source and find that I am missing some choice bits.
Now these bits are notes, not ornaments.
So when you have picked up the strong notes and beats, is that enough? Shouldn't we be trying to learn the whole tune?
And then, once you have learned the tune, you can play with it and create your own version if inspired to do so. But shouldn't you be able to go back to your source and play that tune with him/her, note for note?
Depends. Does your source always play exactly the same notes? Some trad players do, but some (maybe most) really change things around a lot. As I said above, one of the hardest things for me to do when teaching is replay the tune--same notes as the last time. Seems I'm always wandering around, picking up other notes, sometimes even changing those "strong" notes for something that opens a room in the tune I haven't visited before. But it's till "the same" tune.
"The same tune is never the same tune twice." - Ciaran Carson (thanks Aimee).
I think this notion of getting "all the notes right" - meaning getting the same notes in the same sequence as your source before you start tinkering and making it your own - probably comes from learning off of recordings, where it *is* played the same way every time you rewind and hit the play button again. But that's not how real people actually play the tunes. What we do is "live" and impromptu and exploratory. A recording cannot be these things, so they tend to teach us the habit of repetition.
In the beginning, repetition isn't necessarily a bad thing--you can focus on learning technique or tone or intonation, etc., while attemtping to play a tune. But to really play a tune, I think you have to let go of the idea that the notes themselves are sacrosanct, are some immutable tune. Even the "crux" notes can be changed (often resulting in the most interesting new sounds to explore), and the tune will follow whatever replaces them.
Example: Silver Spear
Most of us learn some basic version that emphasizes the F and A notes in the opening bar. On fiddle, it typically looks something like:
|FA A/A/A BAFA|dfed BcdA|
Fluters learn to roll the A:
|F~A3 BAFA|
But you can easily bring other notes into play here:
|DFAB {d}BAFA|
or
|FAdA BAFA|
or
|DFAF BFAB|
or (particularly nice on flute):
|FA F/G/A BAFA|
Granted, I cheated on the last one, using a triplet (to articulate the phrase differently), but my aim here is to show that you can even use a note somewhat 'outside' the chord scheme - in this case, a G note against a D maj chord.
ceolachan - i tend to not conclude well. i'll read the rest of your post later, but i gotta go eat. but i would liek to note unless i misread you that i said you are lost if you cannot play without ornamentation, not that you are lost if you dont have it. haha, if you restating what i said was exactly that or if i said it wrong, sorry.
i have recordings of him playing of course, being his cd's, but no, i have not recorded what he says. but i like to bring up old topics we've talked about to hear what he's already said a year or two ago.
Thanks Jack. And now we're even. (Although carrying on simultaneous conversations on two different threads is a bit too much like marriage...that headache is coming back.
I didn't fully appreciate the point of ornamentation until I started playing smallpipes (OK, Scottish...). And then, of course, it's a different kettle of fish altogether - beccause the pipes produce a constant unshapeable stream of air and cuts, doublings and so on are used as a substitute for articulation or attack on the notes. I really think it's important to remember this - because so much of ITM and scottish music comes from a vocal and piping bacground.
Playing a tune on the pipes and the flute are different experiences - on the flute, my head decides where to ornament, on the pipes, my heart decides. Mmm. The instrument has a say in it all of course.
What learning the pipes has made me realise is that - for me - ornamentation on the flute used to be an 'intellectual' exercise. I got so worried about sounding like I was a cool player - and cool meant loads of ornaments - that I forgot to open my heart to the tune. Now I do that on the flute as well. The funny thing is taht I actually do a little more ornamentation on some tunes - but it is more appropriate to the music.
And I've learned to make it crisper - the pipes teach you that.
Do we have to stop before this thread reaches 100? Or do we measure success by the magnitude of Will's and Jack's headaches?
I'll let this one go Will by concluding: the person I play with now demands that we learn all the notes as he plays them.
I have learned a great deal by doing this as it helps to stretch me. I have played note combinations that I have never played before and approached tunes in a new way. No sliding into my preferred style or approach.
Also, I guess the way that I like to learn tunes from session tapes or recordings is to learn the notes on the first pass of the tune. Many players adhere to the tradition of playing the tune once straight and then adding to it upon repetition.
In a session, it is more difficult, and I guess I would pick up a tune in a more general manner. However, my eventual goal is to learn all the notes from the person who introduces the tune.
Yes, I've learned tunes from people who insist you get every note just as they play it, and I agree--a great exercise for pushing you out of your normal habits. And sometimes I hear things I want to get exactly as they were played--either because it captures some essence of the tune so well, or to incorporate the idea into my own playing. No harm in any of that.
Playing precisely and in unison can also be important for playing in bands. If you're doing arrangements, everyone needs to know their parts, down to the molecular level.
In the early stages of an addiction to this music, I think it helps to listen to experienced players and do what they do. You're benefitting from their greater exposure to the music. But eventually you develop your own sense of how the music "should" sound, and you realize that all those Martin Hayes tunes in F and G dorian work just as well or better in D and E dorian and A dorian, where everyone else plays them, and you'll rely on your own sense of what notes constitute a given tune on any given playing of that tune.
In my experience, learning tunes from real people is a lengthy, intricate, simple, frustrating, thoroughly enjoyable process, and is as much about absorbing attitudes and a sense of history or context as it is about memorizing a string of notes.
"learning tunes from real people" ... as opposed to learning them from fairies, as in the "Gold Ring" story.
Learning tunes (or anything) "live" from people rather than hiding away with the music or a recording requires a certain level of self-confidence, too. (...gawd, he'll think I'm an idiot, I'm not picking this up very quickly!)
Hah, Greg, in the beginning, learning tunes live takes only a blundering obliviousness to your own inadequacies. A few years of that, and voila, you're self-confident.
No, seriously, at various stages of my own inadequacy I've sat down with some brilliant players and learned a tune or two, and these people were all very patient, encouraging, and generous with their time and insights. To a person. That's partly what I meant about learning tunes is also about absorbing attitudes. As I've come to understand it, you can't get really good without facing your own weaknesses as a musician, and this makes you very tolerant of other people's weaknesses, even if they're different ones than your own.
Hmmmph...the only tunes I've gotten from faeries are ones no one else knows, so there's not much cause to haul them out at sessions. BTW 'C,' you've got a piece of stem stuck between your teeth....
I can see that Grego, you at a session in an undersized sailor's suit singing and doing that YMCA 'dance' while everyone else goes to the bar for a drink... I wouldn't go admitting too much...
Damn fairies, I'm seeing double. Get away from the keyboard you guys, modern technology will pollute you. Ouch, no, I don't want to play 'King of the Fairies' again. Huh, Albert Ammons style? You must be kidding. That's not the sort of keyboard this is...
Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my!
The cowboy's also more highly ornamented, sort of moving back on course, what with those pearl buttons and the chaps, and the spurs, and those boots, and the hat and band and buckles and rhinestones and all those stringy things - - - Yeah!, you've got it.
"As lnog as the frsit and lsat ltrtes are in the rgiht pcales, no metatr how sambercld the oehtr lrttes are, you wlil be albe to raed it."
That's not exactly true. Another study came out soon after that one that showed if you simply reverse the orders of the internal letters, it becomes generally unreadable.
I'm too tired for anything else at the moment, as I've been quite ill these past few days.
Heh, works best for me on words with only 4-5 letters. And it seems easier if you keep the phonemes (prolly not using that term correctly here, but what the hell) together: smablcred
Maybe not.
Even with the new findings sifu reports, I think the general analogy still applies to music--we can change things around some and still have a recognizable tune. You don't have to learn a tune "note for note" to really learn the tune, as long as you get the gist of it.
If you tried to write down the "program" our brains follow when learning a tune by ear, I suspect you'd end up with a littany of exceptions longer than the 'rules.'
Not surprisingly, the author concludes that there are some circumstances in which scrambling letters has little effect on readability, and other circumstances in which it brings the reader to a grinding halt, or worse, is ambiguous. There is an obvious analogy with music, in that some modifications to a tune will work fine, and others will sound wrong. The skill is in knowing the difference between the two, and understanding (often intuitively) the rules that determine what works and what doesn't.
Near the end of the article the author gives the following example of a sentence to unscramble:
"The sprehas had ponits and patles"
This might come out as...
The sherpas had pitons and plates.
The shapers had points and pleats.
The seraphs had pintos and petals.
The sphaers had pinots and palets.
The sphears had potins and peltas.
All are apparently proper words, though some are now seldom used.
Now, back to the latest issue of the Journal of Mundane Behavior...
Earning a good chunk of my living as an editor, all that was very interesting reading. I am now much better infromed about the excuses I can use wehn I miss certian common typos in text. Thnaks Graeme!
"You don't have to learn a tune note for note, you only have to get the gist of it."
Agree to disagree?
I believe that if you have the opportunity to learn a tune from a reputable source, that you should always learn the tune note for note. And that if you hear a tune that you like, you should find a reputable source for it (if you can).
If you want to play along in the session and can get the gist, then go for it. However, this is still not "fully learning" the tune. I have some tunes that I "half learned" in sessions and will not teach anyone because I know that I do not have the full tune. I just have the gist. Nor would I perform these tunes, or even start them at a session.
Another thing...if we accept that "sherpas had pintons and plates" is the same as "sphears had potins and peltas", how soon will "Boys of Tulla" become the "Humours of Tulla" or the "Mist Covered Mountains" become "Mug of Brown Ale"?
Jode, I think you're misunderstanding me. By "gist of the tune" I don't mean that you only half-know the tune. I mean that you have the tune well in your head and can fully play it, but that you may use different notes and articulations than your source did.
I often change tunes as I'm learning them, even from a 'reputable' source. Try it some time--it can be gratifying to play a tune back to an honored veteran of the music, an All-Ireland champ or some such, and see their eyes light up at the tweak you've given it. Suddenly they're asking you to play that part again so they can learn it.
As I see it, your approach of learning a tune note for note from a 'reputable' source suggests that there is one version of a tune that is better or more official than all others. And that the essence of the tune is in some fixed sequence of notes. And I do disagree with that.
A lot depends on how long you've been playing. In the early stages, learning note for note is a good way to deepen your understanding of the music and how good players interpret it. But after years of playing, you have to start trusting your own understanding of the music, and play true to yourself. With more experience, it's possible - and thoroughly enjoyable - to do this even as you're learning a new tune, no matter who you're learning it from.
I'm a writer for a living, and I enjoy thinking out loud about all this ineffable stuff. Within reason, it's fun to try to use words to explore musical ideas. But the music itself is a great antidote after a day spent wrestling with syntax and word choices and language in general.
That's the beauty of the tunes for me - they aren't symbols for anything. The tune is its own experience.
That's fair, Trevor. Of course, what's 'easier' for one might not be for another. I sometimes roll a note my source is doing a double hammer-on on, just to get the pitch and time in my head, while making a mental note of the hammer-on.
When you learn a tune on the fly, on fiddle at least, sometimes you're set up for a string change or a long bow or a slur, and sometimes you're not. What I play may not be the exact same notes, but it sets a reminder for me of what the source played in that spot, and I'll try to anticpate it the next time around.
For instance, when learning Kevin Burke's jig, Up in the Air, I remember he played the opening bars something like this:
K:Bm/D
|FBB BAB|cA/B/c AFE|FBB ~B3|cBA B2 A|FBB FBB|~c3 ABc|...
Right away, I put in a ~B3 roll in the 1st bar and a ~c3 roll in the second bar. Then the FBB FBB thing leapt out at me, and I must've stuck that in every measure one time through, just to cement it. Then I got rid of it entirely and played the first bar |~B3 BAB| because it saved me from having to cross strings.
A lot depends on where you are on the bow, and how agile you can be with it.
'authentic Irish ornamentation'
'authentic Irish ornamentation'
OK, this'll take a bit to explain. This isn't exactly scoffing at current-day, please bear with me.
Nowadays we all know of fiddlers like Kevin Burke, who are great fiddlers, and sound very good, and use lots of ornamentation. We know about flute players and fiddlers and concertinaists and such that use all this ornamentation.
Now, that hasn't really been my thing. While on the low-d whistle (which isn't exactly a traditional Irish instrument...) I certainly could play with lots of ornamentation and flair, I always thought that tunes sounded better with ornamentation and variation used sparingly - like a welcome surprise, instead of what seems sometimes to be the focus of the piece.
I had an interesting conversation with an amazing fifer and flautist who's name I can't remember, but we were talking about just this. He was talking about how he was originally trained - classically, in fact - as a percussionist. He was talking about how in percussion, its not the notes that matter - but the space between the notes.
And then it hit me, perhaps that's why I'm not a fan of ornamenting every other note. I think that maybe doing that takes OUT the space between the notes to an extent, and destroys a part of the melody. Don't get me wrong, I like listening to it and all, but its just not how I like to play (usually. There are exceptions!!!)
This is part A. What do others here think about this?
Additionally, the whole thing about mimicing people - about having a style like certain people. He's actually encountered people who do it like him, try to mimic him, and he's rather sad to see that, because he thinks its not really true to the music to try to play exactly like someone else. And the idea of contest fiddling and contest tinwhistling and standards on how it should be done - we both agreed that it just so went against how WE saw ITM: to sit around and have a good time palying lovely music with friends. That's sortof part B: do you think that contest fiddling/tinwhistling/etc. goes against the spirit of ITM?
Part C is here. I was reading the wonderful introduction to a good little Irish fiddle tune book, "Irish Traditional Fiddle Music volumes 1-3 with additional tunes fiddlecase edition", entitled 'Sounding the Heartstone' by Danny M. Hathaway. Anyways, in it he was talking about his travels through Ireland on foot, how he'd go to places and generally many old-time Irish farmer-types playing their cracked fiddles and frayed bows would play without much ornamentation. I actually stole his words earlier when I was talking about ornamentation being used sparingly and it being a welcome surprise. However, that was in the 70's or 80's. I wonder if anyone knows accurately historically how this music was played long, long ago? If you were more likely to find those who COULD play it like Kevin Burke (well, not as virtuosoistic, but you know, with lots of ornaments) and chose not to, or if people chose to, or if people simply couldn't play their instruments (technically) well?
I guess you can see that I don't have a very good understanding of the history of ITM. If you could actually point me to resources that'd answer part C it'd be nice as well.
Thanks.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by sifudave54
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Listen to recordings by the late Micho Russell to get a different perspective on ornamentation.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by murfbox
As this has the 'whistle' in it, you'd also enjoy the recording "Darby's Farewell: Josie McDermott", a personal favourite.
Here's a tale though, without giving too much away. I had to adjudicate at this fleadh, in Eire, and I was pretty much being told by the powers that hired me and others 'who' should be winning. They were making good use of me, and I had some group of musicians in front of me for two days running.
Somewhere in this I had a group of young fiddlers. Now, I didn't know them from Adam or Eve, but there was this one influential family and I was told the 'lad' that was supposed to get top honours for fiddle. I listened to them all intently, and when his turn came he played masterfully, in the style of the 'big smoke', meaning certain ornament heavy players in Dublin and the big groups. He was a masterful technician, nice listening pieces, and he did get honours, but to the disappointment of the over-lords, only second place.
There was this one waif of a young girl in the group too, mousey hair, shy - but not with what she could pull out of her fiddle. She danced the bow across that instrument and instead of just listening intently my feet were moving and I wanted to dance. The ornamentation was sparce, most of her work in what she did with the bow. It was in keeping with the older traditions I'd become familiar with in the area, and at sessions in the evening. I much later found out that she came from a long line of dancers and musicians, both in the same body, and she also danced, and she sang songs that had been handed down to her by her parents.
The girl's family were what you would call 'salts of the earth', unpretentious, shy like their daughter, friendly, and like her fiddle. The lads folks were definitely upper middle class with little or no history of music or dance in their background, and 'influential', officialdom. His kit, fiddle, bow and case - were easily valued in the thousands. I could feel the knives at my back, though others were pleasantly shocked at my decision.
The rest of the lad's family took firsts, categories I didn't deal with, but he was in my group and he took second to a quiet but talented girl... I have to say, the lad himself was a nice kid, though a bit full of himself. We talked some. There was no doubting the 'roots' to both their music. I didn't know her history till after she'd played, and yet I knew, I could feel it. It got under my skin, and I wasn't the only one keeping time to her playing.
I've also noticed some musicians who play differently when they are on stage as to what they play when they are just kicking back and playing for a bunch of dancers or in a rural session. My sense, however crafted, favours the latter. I'd much rather the music made me want to dance than stilled my feet and called out something more analytical in me.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Or listen to The Branch Line by Jack And Charlie Coen , my particular favourite with the most "economical" ornamentation i've heard on the flute and a very beautiful and relaxed style of playing .
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Seasider
If you can get your hands on a copy of 'The Northern Fiddler' - Alan Feldman, inter-library loan or a friend - it's a good read, the interviews, a good grounding, highly recommended.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
The idea of the "spaces between the notes" is a bit clichéd and zen-sounding, and when you think about it, it's daft in this context: unless you're playing a percussion instrument or a plucked string instrument in Irish dance music (or unless you're Micho Russell), there basically isn't any space between nearly all the notes.
However I do like to the idea of idea of feeling space _inside_ a tune, and this to me is a certain unhurried feeling that comes when the rhythm and lift is just right and every note is in the right place (not because it has space either side of it). Poorly executed ornamentation, or possibly excessive ornamentation, can ruin this feeling. But lots of players who do many more twiddly bits than your example of Kevin Burke still get this spacey feeling, just as lots of players who use no ornamentation at all don't produce it.
Executive summary: I think the right feeling in a tune is a much more complex business than you are suggesting.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Jeeves Tones
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
It's not the ornamentation that makes it music. Its the rhythm. When too much stuff is put in the tune turns to mush. Everything is lost.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Martinfamilyband
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Amen to Brother Steve.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
To add to Martinfmailyband's comment, no matter how melodic it might sound, the ornamentation is primarily rhythmic. It's purpose is to add lift. If it's not doing that, it doesn't need to be there.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Each tune has it's own personality. I think you lose a lot if you try to impose some blanket rule of thumb for ornamentation versus simplicity over the music.
As for copying another player--I just posted this on another thread not three days ago: If you want to grow as a musician, don't play what the other musician plays, but strive to understand what s/he understands. Then make your own choices.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Will Harmon
Amen and Hallelujah! - articulation - It doesn't matter what you've got in your arsenal if you're not in the groove, if you ain't got the beat...
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I did a workshop once where students wanted to learn about ornamentation. One student suggested that they throw out tune names and that I show them how to ornament it.
I wish I could remember the tune now, but I remember that I put little to no ornamentation into it. It just seems that some tunes do not need it, and are musical and rhythmic of their own accord. Other tunes seem more open to interpretation.
My opinions:
A. Ornaments are accent pieces and if you bunch them all together or put too many in, they will not be appreciated. As I say above, it also depends on the tune and the style that you wish to play in.
B. Mimic only what you like in someone's style and make it your own. Also, realize what that does to your style if you are seeking some sort of regional flavour.
C. Depends...
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
" It doesn't matter what you've got in your arsenal if you're not in the groove, if you ain't got the beat... " In other word's, "It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing!" Right?
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by grego
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
So, when there's a session in progress, and each of the players are adding ornaments sparingly and tastefully (according to their individual tastes) isn't it probable that the group effort will end up being over-ornamented?
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by grego
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
According to Dow; it aint a hornpipe unless you have little men in your head going *clickity clackity clickity clackity*
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Phantom Button
'counterpoint'
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by ceolachan
Has anybody seen Dow about?
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Grego...good thing it's a session and not a gig.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I see your point, Jode, but...
Many of the discussions here conclude you should "ask not what your session can do for you, but what you can do for your session." In other words, don't play at all if it takes away from rather than enhances the music.
If you buy that, shouldn't you avoid adding ornaments if it's only gilding the ornamentation lily already created by the session leader or top player?
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by grego
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
*clickity clackity clickity clackity* sounds a bit jiggy to me.
I like my hornpipes to be fairly *ooomphty booomphty ooomphty booomphty*
Anybody know any liitle men who go like that?
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by philgregg
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I think the enhancement or detraction from the session comes primarily in the form of rhythm, secondarily in the form of tunes (mostly on the enhancement side).
When a fellow fiddler does a roll and I do a triplet, I do not think of this as over-ornamenting a tune. It matters more that neither of us screw up the triplet/roll and throw the timing off.
I think they only time I may lay off an ornament is when I am trying to hear something cool that the other person is doing. Then I may throw something in during the next phrase.
I think people sitting up at the bar are absorbing the rhythm and overall sound of the session. They are not listening for the amount or quality of ornaments.
Still Grego, I will think about your point at the next session!
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Maybe the little guys from Willy Wonka?
Don't ask me -- those little men aren't clickity clacking in MY head... ask Dow.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Actually, Jode, I think the people at the bar are wondering why we don't sing "The Fields of Athenry" or "The Wild Rover." :(
When I think about it more, I don't want the other people in the session to hold back on enhancing the tunes so long, as you say, it doesn't screw up the rythym. It makes the session fresh and interesting, even though we rehash a lot of the same tunes.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by grego
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Greg, in smaller, intimate sessions, the core players tend to get in a common groove, and the ornamentation can gel surprisingly well, even if you're new to each other. Of course, it's easier when you've played together for years, but even with strangers, a little listening and anticipation goes a long way. With experience, you can often tell when someone is winding up to throw something in, and you also learn to recognize whether a player likes to add more layers each time through a tune or prefers to just heap it on right away and then simply changes things around. You also pick up on favored ornaments--this fiddler does a lot of bowed triplets, that one prefers rolls--etc.
In mass sessions, it doesn't much matter, eh?
Ultimately, the variations common in this music are not as wide ranging as in most other genres, and one of the constraints is that ornamentation and rhythmic and melodic variation should generally blend with what everyone else is doing. If it doesn't, you're likely playing bluegrass or Jean Luc Ponty.
I lean toward a less heavily ornamented style myself, some sort of blend of West Clare and East Galway, and when I've had the pleasure of playing with some fine exponents of more embellished styles (Sligo, for example), I find myself keeping to the basic melody (more than usual) while listening to all the rolls, triplets, triplet runs, doublestops, cuts on top of cuts, etc. Later I'll go over some of the tunes and experiment with what I heard, adding bits and pieces, but rarely adopting whole fistfuls of ornaments. But that's just my personal taste (I like the playing of Martin Rocheford and Mike Rafferty, among others, and though I thoroughly enjoy listening to the inventiveness of Bobby Casey, James Kelly, and Brian Conway, say, I prefer to play in a less busy style).
Which gives me pause--we often talk about the importance of listening on this site, but rarely does it come up in the context of listening *while* you're playing, except to stay on a common beat. In my experience, you can listen really closely to about 3 to 4 musicians in a session. When a session gets bigger than that, you have to choose which 1 to 4 players to focus on and hope the others are also listening to the same core. Msot times, that happens naturally, and so the music has a decent amount of cohesiveness. Sessions of just 2-4 players can acheive a remarkable unity, even when playing seat-of-the-pants. That's why some of us get upset about eager backers who don't know the tunes or noodlers ostensibly learning tunes on the fly.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
As Will says, ornamentation is to do with adding lift, and as Ceolachan says articulation. I don't think it's there to make the music sound pretty, it's to push it along (or maybe sometimes to momentarily hold it back!). Too much has the opposite effect. It's very tempting to ornament any long note, but plain long notes on the flute can sound gorgous as they are - the more so because they are unexpected.
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Ottery
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
"...plain long notes on the flute can sound gorgous...."
Mark, are you saying that the Gorgan style of flute playing favors plain long notes? I suppose the Klingon approach is more forcefully ornamented?
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Touché
Unfortunately, I know little about ATE (American Traditional Entertainment) and have no knowledge whatsoever of Star-Trek ornamentation...
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Ottery
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
For sparse ornamentation, listen to Aly Bain or Alasdai Fraser, any of their tunes. They both have a vast repertoire of Scots and Irish tunes, and I think it's just *so* refreshing to hear the Irish stuff played 'cleanly' and with more purity of tone than most of the other contemporary big boys.
Jim
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Mark, fortunately I too know little (to nothing) about ATE or Star Trek. But that never stops me from free associating. Must be the little white pills in my oatmeal every morning....
# Posted on September 13th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Oooh this thread realy bugs me because of this whole misconception of ornamentation/decoration.
If you take those words at their face value then an Irish diddley tune is meerly the eight (reel) six (jig) notes that you see written down in the dots/ABC whatever.
But of course this is not the case. These "extra" notes, as they are refered to are not extra to the tune at all, they are part and parcel. I like that phrase "part and parcel", they are not just a part of it, but the very escence of the whole parcel.ˇ
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Sometimes people use language to split hairs, sometimes we use it to communicate.
I tend to think of those essential 'extra' notes as articulations rather than ornaments, because a cut or a roll or a triplet or a slide or smear or hammer-on, etc., is really just how you articulate the melody. And yes, I agree: those are essential to this music, not some extra adornment.
But I think that's what most people mean when they say "ornament." It's just shorthand, which happens to be widely accepted. It's also a convention, borrowed from classical music no doubt, much like the dots themselves. You have to know this music to understand what it really means.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Michael, they may - and indeed are - 'part and parcel'. But they are not 'The Tune'. They are the interchangable/movable part of the feast. They are the part of the feast that identifies it as being as feast from Clare, or from Sligo, or bastard spawn of some Godforsaken session in Oxford (or Edinburgh?). Some ornamentation, depending on the instrument you are abusing, may be necessary for the very articulation of the tune. Of course if you simply play the 'eight notes' that is not 'the tune' in any meaningful sense, but the other stuff is variable and really, for me, what makes the music fun to play. Dance music is by nature repetitive. Excessive melodic variation is dangerous in a genre where there are 'too many tunes' (similar tunes that is). Ornamentation and dynamics are where we can express ourselves...
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Ottery
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
my $.02
The first tionol I ever went to, Brian McNamara taught. One of first things he taught us beginners was closure; control of the chanter so the notes stop. So you can do tight triplets...your rolls will be crisp. His phrase closure has stuck with me when trying to play.
and from that, I've REALLY enjoyed listening to Brian play his pipes. Listen to Gander in the pratie hole, he puts his triplets in where a silence would be ( its where my silence is, right now in my playing).n Can you tell what tune I'm trying to learn right now??
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by I_Fel
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I'm not quite sure which tune that is I-Fel, too many rolls, cuts, crans, cripplets, glissandos, arpeggios and the like
For everyone, my $0.04 (Aus dollar)is that it isn't the tune until you have stripped it back to the bones and then fleshed it out with the meat (your own interpretation coupled with the version/dots it is learnt from.)
After this you still have a naked figure but it is at least true to form.
Then you can began to clothe it in fine embroidered materials with ornamentations as it fits the form.(Whether they be considered 'authentic' or not.)
But remember that the true tailors' art is not to hide the form, but to drape it's natural beauty (or hide any disfigurations)and present a facet which accentuates that which lies beneath.
Too much ornamentation on a tune fits like a cheap polyester suit bought off the rack, whilst not enough ornamentation can feel like you are at a wedding in your underwear.
Whilst the auld ITM has come from a rural subsistence history accompanying the economy/culture of the times, you can rest assured that as the centuries have turned and the peoples playing it are generally more adept at Microsoft than a slean it can be accepted that we are all playing a different version of the music than previous.
Such is the nature of progress, blah,blah, blazee.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Greenwiggle
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Michael, do you mean that there is only one version of a tune and the "extra" bits are to be played by everybody ?
Have I misunderstood ?
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by BegF
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Greenwiggle: respek'.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
No, not at all. It's that this music is a fluid thing that cannot be written down or even repeated. I know that the dots are usefull to people who already know this, but for those misguided people who think the dots are the tune, it's very dangerous.
There are two ways to "record" a tune and both are unsatisfactory:
One: write down the dots. (tadpoles or ABC).
Two: put a tape (minidisk, whatever) to it.
The first meerly gives you an idea of how it goes. (which I admit is fine for people who already know the music).
And all the second does is tell you (all be it very accuratly) how it went once.
And that's the whole point of diddley music. Every time you play a tune, you make it up as you go along
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Authentic Irish ornamentation? You mean that stuff my granny has on her fireplace?
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Conán McDonnell
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
So I did missunderstand.
So what approach would you have when learning a new tune you liked ?
Learn the way you heard it the first time with the extra diddly bits, as you
would view these as all part and parcel - or strip it down and play it differently
with your own diddly bits ?
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by BegF
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Now Greenwiggle, while I occassionally like 'dress-up', and have even been caught out in a kilt and at other times in opanke, don't tell anyone, I in the main just like well worn bluejean and an old T-shirt, but, whenever I get the chance or the spirit moves me - I love skinny dipping...
I've been blessed with having experienced and shared some time with a number of notables in the Irish Trad scene, past to present, some for whose music, when you analyze their playing to the bone, ends up on paper just being black dots and very little of what some call that 'extra', no flash brass buttons, no bright red sash, no snakeskin boots or silk underwear. But, that's not taking into account the other ways we speak the music and give it accent - with whatever tongue we're using - tongue, bow, plectrum, fingernail, tipper - the way we cut the consonants of our conversation, and also where we choose to put in those 'pauses', bits of tight sharp silence, or holding on a vowel, a note - as well whether we choose to play it clean and sweat or with a raw edge to it. (easily influenced by a number of variables...) If a bow, how and where we choose to saw or sing, the rough and the sweet of it. Frankly, too much of the latter can get under my skin as much as rolling a tune into mush, but I also don't like six teaspoons of sugar in my tea.
It's also about who we're dressin' to impress, who we're speaking to. If it's dancers, as opposed to an audience or a fellow sessioneer, then those 'Ps' and 'Qs'are also about telling them something clearly, dance instructions, helping so they can get into that 'swing'. And that works both ways. That 'understanding' Will so eloquently speaks of, it isn't just about the mechanics of the instrument we play, but the 'dance' in the music. The curious thing I've found is that you're more likely to gain that understanding with two left feet, if you gave dancing a try, than if you were a Michael Flatley or a Fred Astaire... Trial by fire -
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by ceolachan
Yes Conan, the little plastic leprechaun on that grey piece of Connemara marble...
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Nicely put Greenwiggle.
Deconstruct and reconstruct.
I like changing the rhythm too. One of my favourites is 9/8 > 3/2 > 6/8 > 4/4.
PP
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Pied Piper
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Ceolachan, you forget the shillelagh.
"Now where's me lucky chaaaaaaaaarms?"
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Conán McDonnell
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
If all the ornamentation is part and parcel of a tune then lots of people must be playing the tunes wrong. Was Sean Casey playing Lad O'Beirnes wrong the other night is everyone else? Or, as I prefer, was he adding his own ornamentation (wonderfully!) to the bare bones?
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Paul_draper
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
You see if you learn a tune the old way there is no "Would you learn it the way you heard it the first time?" because you can never remember where you first heard it. Your version becomes an amalgamation of all the times you heard it and your own self expression.
All my favourite tunes were learned this way, but life is not perfect of course. So yes, there are tunes I learned off recordings, both dots and tapes. And yes, usually when I learn a tune off a tape I learn it exactly the way it's played, then strip it down and start again. Or a better way is to find other people who know it and get to play it with them, multiple sources are always best.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by llig leahcim
Once you've developed your own accent on things, Will's 'understanding', then it doesn't matter where you get the seed for a tune from. It ceased to surprise me that the old sources weren't as 'illiterate' musically as some would have us believe. It may not have been the 'dots', but I never came across a musician who hadn't some kind of notation, from Solfeggio, often church learning, to tab to some variant of ABCs... And, while they might represent well an identified 'tradition', such as Donegal and the fiddle, they weren't averse to catching an air of the wireless or some passerby from Amerikay or Finland... The only completely 'illiterate' (I don't like the term but it will suffice) musicians I ever came across were 'young folk' who more often had 'superior' airs about it. Now by 'young', well, probably in their 40s, 50s and 60s by now.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by ceolachan
There were a lot of copies of Francis Roche's "The Roche Collection Of Traditional Irish Music", 3 vols., (1912-1927), knocking about Northern Ireland....the black dots... The copies I saw were well used and valued and not as door props.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Don't get me wrong here. I'm not dissing the dots, meerly pointing out that of course you can learn and pass on tunes with them, but you can't learn the music from them. And by that I meen the 'authentic Irish ornamentation' which IS the music (and the title of this thread)
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Agreed Michael -
A bit more on the above, concerning those older musicians who couldn't read the 'dots', I never met one that didn't want to. However, the scary part of it is reflected in one such discussion - that assumption that "if it's written it must be right!" I'd ran across a few that were worried that they might not have 'it' right. For those who were of that mind it was better for them and the 'tradition' they represented that they didn't read the 'dots'.
As has been said elsewhere, about the meat of the music, though that reference was limited to the 'ornaments' - I'll fill that out a bit more as the muscle, tendons, veins, arteries, heart - blood flow and pulse, that life force, including the mind and spirit of it - you're right - 'dots' just don't do it. They are just the bones of it, with barely a ligament or tendon. They can't support themselves. Without the rest it's just a calcium deposit, rubble. That's where the 'flu' of tradition comes in, passing the bug about, from person to person, whether in the flesh or through a recording, getting that slightly intoxicated feeling a high temperature gives you, and then turning it around and finding yourself in it. Mind you, with each of us being unique, no matter how hard you might try to emulate another, like all those Michael Coleman wannabes, you'll always be something else, so why not yourself...
I think there's a place for emulation, just so long as you allow yourself choice, both in variety of sources and in being able to say no to something. The 'roll' isn't for everyone. Find what fits your temperament and the setting your find yourself in. There's the compromise, if you're a sessioner you also adapt yourself to that community, as that is part of your 'tradition' - and accent...
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Crikey, a poet
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
So it's like, all very mysterious, kinda...
A bit like(excuse the mixed religious metaphors) tongues of fire descending on you after you've put in what the gods consider to be sufficient listening time.
And no-one can tell you where's a good place to stick your triplet, because any source other than the mystic traditional ether is invalid.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by grego
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Does anyone have experiences with arrogant classical musicians that think they can learn Irish music in 5 minutes?
Statements like this always scare me: "And that's the whole point of diddley music. Every time you play a tune, you make it up as you go along."
Perhaps I've taken it out of context, but I always hate to give that kind of license to a person that wants to learn Irish music and is coming from another background. Especially when they already have musical experience.
I agree that it is grey. We could go down the path of debate around whether there is a right or wrong way to play a tune.
BUT...aren't we talking about "ornaments" here and not variations? I mean, whether I play a triplet or a roll, it is the same tune.
So what you make up as you go along is not the tune, but how you play it, what ornaments you throw in.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I once received a phone call from someone who described himself as a professional classical floutist. He told me that he was hired to play Irish music at a wedding, and he bought O'Neill's book. He wanted me to tell him what tunes were the best. I told him that he'd have to hear the music to properly be able to play the tunes. He told me that unlike Irish folk musicians -- he can sight-read and doesn't need to hear the music first. I wished him luck.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Jode, I'd say the same thing, only differently: What you make up as you go along is not the tune but how you articulate it.
That's where Michael's logic gets a bit fuzzy because it sounds like he's saying how you articulate it *is* the tune. To me, that's the intent or spirit of the tune. The bones of the tune are the basic melody notes. How you articulate those notes (with so-called 'ornaments' and other techniques) is what makes the tune come alive.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
"I always hate to give that kind of license to a person..." The person has that license anyway, whether you give it to them or not. There's no hard and fast line between "ornament" and "variation". I think the point about "you make it up as you go along" is that each time you play the tune, you're speaking the melody, giving it whatever meaning and articulation you can bring to it. Similar to a storyteller, I guess - the root story might be the same, but it's enhanced by spur-of-the-moment variations and twists. I like to think of playing this kind of music as trying to create a kind of complex frequency that resonates with whoever's listening or playing along. And just as a tuning fork can inspire a sympathetic motion in your A string, a tune played right, to an amenable ear, can inspire dancing, beautiful embellishment and joy, gradually building in depth, like a Tibetan singing bowl... I say "complex" frequency, because this is the human brain we're talking about, not a simple fiddle string. And the human brain has evolved, by nature and by nurture, to resonate to the sounds and rhythms of human speech. The ornamentation, the imperceptible pauses, the feel of the notes themselves, all are subservient to this whole: the gathering and focusing of attention and understanding on the tune itself. This is, I reckon, why session playing can be such an uplifting (and sometimes frustrating) experience. Resonance being a fundamentally two-way process, playing with or to folks that don't respond appopriately (noodlers, deaf drunks) is bound to be frustrating, as there's no way for the joy to start building. And perhaps this also helps to rationalise why there are some people who just "click" when playing together, even through great disparities of ability and even musical genre - they just have the same "frequency" of musical perception...
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by rog
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
[sorry, with newlines where they should be, this time!]
"I always hate to give that kind of license to a person..."
The person has that license anyway, whether you give it to them or not. There's no hard and fast line between "ornament" and "variation".
I think the point about "you make it up as you go along" is that each time you play the tune, you're speaking the melody, giving it whatever meaning and articulation you can bring to it. Similar to a storyteller, I guess - the root story might be the same, but it's enhanced by spur-of-the-moment variations and twists.
I like to think of playing this kind of music as trying to create a kind of complex frequency that resonates with whoever's listening or playing along. And just as a tuning fork can inspire a sympathetic motion in your A string, a tune played right, to an amenable ear, can inspire dancing, beautiful embellishment and joy, gradually building in depth, like a Tibetan singing bowl...
I say "complex" frequency, because this is the human brain we're talking about, not a simple fiddle string. And the human brain has evolved, by nature and by nurture, to resonate to the sounds and rhythms of human speech. The ornamentation, the imperceptible pauses, the feel of the notes themselves, all are subservient to this whole: the gathering and focusing of attention and understanding on the tune itself.
This is, I reckon, why session playing can be such an uplifting (and sometimes frustrating) experience. Resonance being a fundamentally two-way process, playing with or to folks that don't respond appopriately (noodlers, deaf drunks) is bound to be frustrating, as there's no way for the joy to start building. And perhaps this also helps to rationalise why there are some people who just "click" when playing together, even through great disparities of ability and even musical genre - they just have the same "frequency" of musical perception...
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by rog
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Ah ha ... you have it. How you articulate it *is* the tune. Without the articulation it's just dots/bones, whatever. With the articulation it "is" the music
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I'm seeing double!
I've been out on the bike in the pissin' rain and flashes of inspiration came on me as I lilted with burbles.
I know there will be contention on this one, but here's a test as to whether or not you've got that 'understanding' that Will and others of us have been talking about.
Take a tune, any tune, and wipe it clean of all the twiddly bits, the 'extras', hey, that's what they are, extras, a bit of extra joy to work into the weave of a melody you're fond of, a kind of caressing. Anyway, cut all that, and then cut your tempo, let's be drastic and say half speed, yeah, 50% of what you usually play it at. No, I don't want a bunch of Martin Hayes pixies out there, just give this a try.
Now, and here's me makin' dogma, always not to be trusted - if you can't pull it off with lift and interest, you need to check out that understanding, re-evaluate, something we all should do every once in awhile, eh? I think I've missed mine this month. Anyway, as the 'ornaments' are 'extras', a bit of spark you can add here and there, and give a bit more jump to what should already be lively, well, you should then be able to pull of that 'swing' even without those twiddly bits, and at half speed.
So, why am I saying this? Well, a lot of us have been guilty at one time or t'other of covering up our weaknesses with speed and twiddly bits, like rolling over the music with a Churchill tank... I've also noticed a few 'stars' who when lost in a session in the countryside somewhere, and not necessarily out front, enjoy the relaxation of taking the music easy and what some might mistakenly call simple, let's say 'naturally', not having to meet the technical expectations of an audience or a studio.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Yeah, I disagree with Michael. It is entirely possible and even desirable at times to play the bones but give them lift and life with the barest of articulation--on fiddle, leaning into the bow at the right places can do this, without any cuts, triplets, rolls, etc.
Of course the articulations make it more musical, danceable, etc., but the tune itself exists separate from that. If you don't believe me, just listen to some poor beginning plonker wading into Wind that Shakes the Barley. The tune is recognizable, but there's little or no music in it. These are different things.
I'm guessing that Michael means this, but we're coming at it with a different semantic emphasis. Which only goes to show that just cuz you can play this stuff doesn't mean you can talk clealy about it, and vice versa. And some of us have way too much time on our hands.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I like the comment about playing it with rhythm and style even without ornaments or articulation. That is the tune itself. That is how I would initially teach a tune to a beginning fiddler. Yet, I would also demonstrate it with subtle articulation.
I do disagree with Rog on a couple of points. People are free to play what they like, but they also are free to call it something other than ITM. Call it giving license or giving bad advice...
And, regional and personal variations are very different from the ornamentation/articulation that we are discussing here.
If you take out the articulation and your phrases are different from mine, we have different variations of the same tune. If it is just a matter of a note here or there, then maybe not.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Jode, Good Point for beginner's. My first lesson, I was given the old Faba Polka. I was taught the notes along with the rhythm. Obviously little time was spent on this tune. But I still learn tunes this way, slowly with bare bones and rhythm. I am just now learning the ornaments. I'm rather comfortable with this approach. Once I have the bare bones down, the dots/abc's etc are no longer needed and I concentrate on the "articulation".
Big difference between learning Irish tunes & learning to play Irish music.
My own view is that only an arrogant jack a*s would consider himself "playing" Irish music having never listened to the music to begin with (re: Jack's classical musician).
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Agnes Nutter
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
The thought just occurred, I am referring to the gentleman who contacted Jack, not Jack himself!
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Agnes Nutter
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
That's ok, Deb... no offence taken. I had to endure going through grammer school with this name... I've heard it all. hahaha
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I still feel bad Jack so apologies. I don't want to give any more encouragement to the Aussie contingent! He doesn't seem to need any.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Agnes Nutter
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I hadn't made that connection before -- Dow IS kind of like a cruel schoolyard bully isn’t he?
Ha ha! Sorry Dow – couldn’t resist. I only tease you cause you’re so cute.
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
If Dow get's on his creative high horse, I will have to tell him he does look fat in the floaty skirt!
# Posted on September 14th 2004 by Agnes Nutter
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
a little thing about dots. i am in an irish vacuum. i live in a place where its an hour to chicago, 2 to milwaukee, whicm means there are a lot of great players nearby. but i dont drive yet, so i cant get to them. and i'm going to be starting irish flute lessons sometime next year (teacher's wife just had a baby). if it werent for the dots, i would be nowhere.
my uncle is an irish flutist (brian mccoy). so, i have him. i can call him any time, and ask him about ornamentation, about nyah, anything. but its not the same. he cant teach me a song over the phone. the dots teach me my tunes.
but when i see him, or i see other players (which really only has happened so far at milwaukee fest, which i went to for the first time this year) i learn the 'music' as some people have called it. i know the tunes, and will learn more, and i learn from all the great musicians how to play it. i know that i play jig of slurs (which i learned yesterday and today) without enough of a swing to it, i know that i play too fast, i know that i try to do things i cant do, and this is all cuz i teach myself. but let me tell you something, without those dots, i would have nothing. i wouldnt play amazingly, i wouldnt play well with a lot of bad habits. i just wouldnt play. i'm learning to play by ear, and can pick up a tune if someone teaches it to me by ear (fiddle, whatever, i can learn it from). i picked up how to do that in a week. but i have no one to learn from. yeah, there's cd's, but i havent played with anyone enough to be able to pick up tunes that fast. and maybe i dont try hard enough, i'm sure if i spent like 2 hours on a tune i would get it. but still, without the "dots" i would be nowhere.
and i agree, too much ornamentation is unnecessary. my uncle has always said to me it doesnt matter, its not the music, the rest of it is the music. and i'm finally starting to get it. because i can finally at cuts and taps pretty well to a lot of tunes, but i only add them when i can fit them in and it doesnt interfere with the rhythm, which isnt terribly much, but when i do put them in they sound like they belong. but now i'm seeing how much is too much, and a spot where i cut every double f in lark in the morning last week and had so much fun doing so sounds cheap to me now.
i think there are people, however, who can ornament like crazy and get away with it sounding really good, and these are the people who understand its not the point. that its just a little fun thing they do in it. whether it drives, makes more exciting, shows off, whatever. some people can pull it off, some people cant. the people who can pull it off know when to not do it.
i saw some people at irish fest who couldnt not cut a double note, and couldnt tongue on the flute, they'd forgotten how even though they were classically trained. sure, i had to relearn how to tongue when getting back into classical, but not tongueing double notes, tongueing every note.
i think you lose something when you lose the ability to play a tune without ornamentation. i have seen many people like this, and it is sad. i have seen of course some people who have trouble with it, but usually within a run through they can get all the ornamentation out. because, if you cant play without it, how do you know when to put them in? whether or not you want know how to put them in sparingly, or know how to put them in crazily, you just cant do it well if you have no control over it.
even though it does become instinctual, it should not be come habitual.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by daiv
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Debwah you can say what you like, I'm on Atkins and my cellulite's disappearing already. In a few months' time, you'll be wishing you had an ass like mine.
I'm really interested in what Will and Michael have been saying on this thread. They seem to have 2 very different ways of viewing tunes.
Will says that "the tune" exists separately from the articulation, and that the articulation represents the "intent or spirit" of "the tune". Therefore tunes exist as a pool of static musical ideas that you can draw from and play with according to your own individual interpretation. So according to Will, to become good at trad music, you'd learn how to interpret tunes through articulation etc, and then you can go on to draw as many static ideas from the pool as you want and "bring them alive" with your skill on whatever musical instrument you're playing.
Michael views "the tune" as being a much more fluid thing in a way. To Michael, the musical "pool of ideas" and the tunes themselves exist as a much more abstract idea than the static "bare bones" that Will describes. For Michael, the only important thing is the tune as a whole, with rhythmic detail and articulation. This is what is given to you, by ear, from another musician.
It's like a singer giving a song to you. Singers ornament their songs just like we ornament tunes, but the human voice is so versatile that the ornamentation is even more complex. It's pointless to even try and write it down or even try and copy the ornamentation. The song is just given to you as this whole, abstract thing. If you can't then recreate that abstract thing in your own way and make it sound good, then you don't know the song or can't sing.
This is what Michael's talking about when he mentions his favourite tunes. They're abstract entities that have been given to him by other musicians. Now that he "has" the tune, he can produce the tune himself on his instrument, without needing to check the dots or get ideas for ornamentation. Every time he decides to produce the tune it's going to be different. But whether he articulates it or plays it "bare", *both* ways of playing the tune are exactly the same thing - just this abstract musical idea being produced in its different forms, i.e. "the tune".
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
MArk, I wouldn't say that some static tune exists--even the bare bones change from one playing to the next, and there is no "correct" version. All I'm suggesting is that at some point, an assemblage of notes forms a recognizable tune, a piece of music that can be distinguished from similar but different pieces of music. So your average Irish trad player has no trouble telling Wind that Shakes the Barley apart from Rolling in the Ryegrass (and your experienced Irish trad player may take liberties with both and wind them together like braids of a rope
.
As a music teacher, I've found it helps many students to strip out most of the articulations and give them the barest melody, and a consistent melody at that. But I didn't learn this way myself. I learned by listening to whole tunes, and grasping at the notes and articulations flying past, and gradually getting hold of some tunes *and* a sense of how to articulate them all at once.
But only a fraction of students seem able to learn that way. Most get frustrated and overwhelmed, until the bones are laid bare for them.
So it wouldn't surprise me if Michael and I have a lot in common about how we personally engage this music. But as a teacher, I've had to find ways to make it more accessible to a wide range of people and abilities. All with the aim of helping them understand the whole tune as well, which they do, eventually.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
There's no doubt that both you and Michael are talking in terms of tunes as being separate, like "Wind That Shakes The Barley" and "Rolling In The Ryegrass", but that doesn't seem to be where you differ. The difference is that you see "the barest melody" and "the whole tune with articulation" as being 2 different things. Michael sees no sense in seeing it that way. To him they're one and the same thing - just "the tune" as an abstract concept that's given to you. It's probably not a case of there being a right or wrong way of looking at this, it's just that your view of the music is actually very different to Michael's I think, regardless of how you taught yourself to play.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I'd be interested to hear how Michael would go about teaching a beginner. I have a feeling that he probably wouldn't go about it the same way - i.e. stripping the tune down *for* the student. I bet the student would have to listen to Michael's playing and acquire the tune through repeated hearing while M produces the tunes as he would normally - a different way each time. I'm sure that, although it might be daunting at first, a student would learn the actual skills required for playing tunes, i.e. honing listening skills, knowing your instrument so you can express on it what you hear in your head, ornamentation/articulation (whatever you want to call it), a sense of rhythm, variations etc. All so that it makes it easier for the student to pick up more tunes, that is, tunes as abstract entities rather than a bunch of difficult notes strung together...
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Um, that said, I *do* still have a sense of the articulations being somehow part of the tune rather than the tune itself. I say this because as I'm learning flute, I naturally, instinctively put cuts and taps in, *but they go places they wouldn't on fiddle.* Same tune, different articutlations, and it has to do with how you respond to the tune on different instruments.
slip in. Observant students will say, "Wait, you changed it. Which way does it really go? Play it again." But the students who don't really need a teacher will say, "Wait, you changed it. Cool. Play it some more."
Mark, I appreciate you trying to suss out what we're all after here--your insights are good ones and you're helping me clarify my own thinking. But in the end we're trying to make words stick on the ineffable. This is music. If we could wholly explain it by talking or writing about it, it wouldn't be music.
Funny, one of the hardest things to do when teaching someone a tune is to play it the same way twice. No matter how you concentrate, nuances (or wholesale transmorgrifications
There's a world of difference between "play it again" and "play it some more."
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Cross posting, but thinking along similar lines. Who says 12,000 miles is far apart?
I tend to think of tunes as chord progressions rather than strings of notes. I played guitar and 5 string banjo long before I took up fiddle or any other single-line melody instrument, and I still hear tunes more harmonically than just linear notes. But even that may not be as holistically as you suspect Michael hears tunes--I don't know.
As for teaching "a beginner" - teaching one student is easy. But teaching a parade of diffferent students demands a pallette of different approaches, helping people with different strengths and weaknesses. In short, teaching music adds a whole 'nother skill set on top of those needed to play the music in the first place. If anything, I'm probably a better teacher than I am a player--I've certainly had students surpass me in musicality (my own son included--he's a much better guitarist than I ever was or will be).
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
LOL "That's lovely son, lovely chord there! (you little sh*t grr)"
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Will, by "static musical idea" I didn't mean to suggest that you must think that there is only one valid version of a tune open to interpretation. You think that there are an infinite number of "versions" of a tune right? However, at some point, whichever "version" of a tune you choose, the more articulation you put in, it stops being the "bare bones" and becomes "the whole tune with all its detail and articulation", right? Michael doesn't see it that way.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
To be clear -
Dow wrote: "...you see 'the barest melody' and 'the whole tune with articulation' as being 2 different things."
No, not two different things. Both are the 'whole tune.' What differs is *how you play* it. Mind you, not just how you articulate the notes (or not), but your experience of the tune as it unfolds. Playing a tune isn't just a matter of re-creating it, but of re-enlivening it.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
And that's probably where you differ. Michael sees no sense in talking about "re-enlivening", because for him the tune is there and already living. I think that when he talks about "making it up as you go along", what he's trying to say is that he's taking the abstract idea of the living tune and "recreating" it each time, i.e. producing it creatively... making the "living thing" pop out of him, kinda like giving birth.
You know you're right Will, I'm getting a bit ridiculous. All my critics will be sniping I'm sure, saying that I'm going all analytical again. Bully for them
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Now that my posts have reached today's peak of ridiculousness, I must do some work! Cheers Will.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Dr. Dow
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Still at it. I've gotta hit the sheets--due to be up in 5 hours and driving 120 miles to a meeting. Ugh.
No, I don't think there are infinite versions of a tune. More that each tune is infinite in its variety. Certainly, some "versions" do exist--it's sad, but some people insist on playing the Tarbolton set, say, exactly as Coleman did once on a recording, and repeating that week after week, like some sort of fossilzed sysiphean rite. Shudder.
Maybe this will help: articulation isn't something you add to a tune. You play a tune by articulating the notes. How you articulate them is what makes it music.
Nonetheless, you can sort of artificially strip out the "articulations" if need be to help someone else understand the intervals between pitches that comprise the tune. As a player and a teacher, it's good to be able to hold two or more contradictory ideas in your head at the same time and still retain a sense of humor. I have my understanding of music, and I have to communicate with someone who has a different understanding. You can beat them over the head for years with "the tune isn't what you play, but how you play it" (and a lucky few will eventually grasp that), or you can meet them halfway and leave some doors open for them.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Giving birth. Yes, that's what I meant. Re-creating to me means reinventing the wheel, or simply regurgitating. By re-enlivening, I meant letting the living tune loose. As Kevin Burke says, they're all there, in the air around you. All you have to do is invite them to come out and play. Or as Cait Reed says, it's not that the tunes exist for us to play, but that we exist so the tunes have someone to play them.
G'night.
(Gilder will have us both involuntarily committed after this....
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Good morning Masters Dow and Harmon - Are we ready for your psych counsel?! - - -
One patient to another -
Daiv first (pre the Will/Dow dialogues) - as it's flute you're on about, like the oxygen of life, it's in the breath and on the tip of your tongue, and the tips of your fingers - how you drop, lift and slide. That's the oxygen to give the music life too. That includes those 'extra bits', the 'ornaments' you might choose to place here and there to add to the definition of punctuation and articulation hopefully already breathed into it. Your uncle sounds a wise man. I hope you've had him record some things for you, and I don't just mean the music, but his ideas on it all, the humour of the man. If you find yourself trapped, meaning that you 'always' do a twiddly bit in a given place, not uncommon with beginners, or anyone else for that matter, then there's likely something wrong there. However, that's also one of those steps in learning, one of those 'plateaus' on the road to 'understanding' or 'enlightenment'. As you put it yourself - "it's just a little fun thing". It shouldn't be in control, you and the tune have that honour, and 'tradition', whether obvious as with the Sligo-American accent, or your local session's way with things, how they speak it. However, if you are dependant on 'ornamentation', like sheet music, it can cripple you, blind you to those other elements that lift the music and set the blood of it flowing, that give it pulse, that give a strong base for those 'extras'. Those twiddly bits are just that, extras, lovely stuff, but not the heart of what makes it rock, though they definitely can be great seasoning. They aren't the steak, or if you're vegetarian, they aren't the mango or the peanut butter... (? - sad!) In your loose conclusion - that one's lost without ornamentation, well, you've passed judgement on a lot of fine musicians who either don't use the twiddly bits, or use them very sparingly. Some have already been listed earlier. I like Bloody Marys, but I also like a shot of Moskovskaya vodka neat, and that is mostly how I have it, at room temperature too. I like your summation: "~ it should not become habitual." Sadly though, I'm not about to give up straight shots of Moskovskaya...I just won't over indulge that fancy.
Check this bit of kit out - it will help you with the CDs and you can more easily learn from those whose playing you're drawn to: 'Tascam CD-GT-1'. It's portable and it allows you to turn your CDs into 'lessons from the masters'. Another bit of kit others use is 'Amazing Slow Downer', one of a number of software packages that offer similar options but through a computer. If you do a search in 'discussions' here on site you'll find out more.
Now gently, I hope, into the world of Dow and Will - with respect, I hope:
I have that same problem as Will in teaching, it never coming out 'exactly' the same way each time, which as Will says, works for some students and not for others. Out of respect for those differences, some are not blessed with music throughout their life, I do make an effort to give them something consistant they can hold on to. But with time I work them away from this, and when they make a nice 'mistake' (wrong word in my teaching vocabulary, but it makes the point), I let them know I like it, so they can start to make things their own.
Now back to the discussion about the heart of a tune, dem 'bones', this thing about the whole or the sum of its parts... I get a kick out of catching dancers leaving the floor humming or lilting the melody of the tune or tunes they've just been dancing to - always recognizable, though often one dancer recreates his experience slightly different from another, such as between humming and lilting and their individual voice, and with lilting their choice of consonants and vowels and how they order them and what accent they give it. But it's always a recognizable tune, the same between them all - and I could learn that tune from at least some of those with the obviously stronger memory. That 'bare bones' just speaks to you if you let it in, you become the vessel of its transmission. We're talking about some dancers carrying it off who aren't in the slightest 'musicians' as some would judge it. The easiest student to teach, for me, is like these dancers, they just give up themselves up to it without question or thought, to the thing being taught, it's like play to a child, instead of fighting to take control of it. The fighters are a pain, but also have my respect and understanding, but the worst to teach are those that already know. Preconceptions, especially of the cast iron variety, are shight. But back to the dancers - despite musicians or a musician playing it with variations...the dancesr are able to get ahold of the gist of it, and, in a few rare cases, are even better able to give dance the melody to life than the original source (- sometimes that being yours truly!).
Yes Will - 'enliven it!' - give it life. I would never mistake anything said previously by Will as suggestive of embalment (-to preserve a corpse with spices; preserve from oblivion; make fragrant.) Evolution and adaption are proof of life, those lovely little fluctuations that can seem completely out of your control, they just happen, as if on their own (and sometimes they're cack!). That's part of reaching an understanding, getting comfortable enough with the music and tune that you learn from it, instead of being completely a control freak and having to impose yourself on the thing by whatever means on hand. Having read a lot of Will's musings, I've only seen that the music is very much 'alive' for him, and that 'to enliven' is just being used as and active verb, not a negation in any sense, but that when you 'give it schtick' there's the answer of that spark of life, that first breath. Mind you, the level of life present can be variable, but just by being recognizable, being able to name it, there's something trying to wiggle free from the mud and dance. That gasp for air, that first consonant of articulation... And, let's not forget the other necessary element in all this - 'humour', the 'play' as Will quotes from Mr. Burke, a damn site more important than the twiddly bits, to me anyway. I have to say, that's what drew me in, the 'play' in it, the dancing sprite of it, the 'humours' of it, happy and sad... It gets under your skin, and while I may never do it full justice, and too often I neglect it, it forgives me and keeps calling me out to play.
Damn, I'm late for work - - - ;-P
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Dow, you’re on. Years end, we’ll compare notes. You said “The song is just given to you as this whole, abstract thing. If you can't then recreate that abstract thing in your own way and make it sound good, then you don't know the song or can't sing.” I agree. I don’t consider that I know a tune until I am happy with it and enjoy playing it. I think whether you start learning with only the bare bones or learn it with all the ornaments, articulation, etc. The learning process involves fleshing out and then filling in. As for beginners, I think we tend to "regurgitate" our tutor's version(person, books, CD's etc). It isn't until we make it our own that the music starts breathing.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Agnes Nutter
Please, no regurgitating, there's enough whistle spit and drool flyin' around without everyone getting into the act. It's not a requirement or a right of passage. That first sentence regarding Dow of Oz sounds a bit like an episode of early Star Trek, this amorphous glowing gaseous cloud floating around that would possess people, or did it zap the hell out of them, some such thing... I like the bit about getting comfortable with music, when in a sense you've made up for all the fighting and can settle down to being friends and having a good romp together...
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
My eyes hurt.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
ceolachan, can you elaborate?
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by grego
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Can we separate ornamentation/articulation from version here? Some of what people are saying seems to be about versions rather than ornaments.
Rolls, cuts, triplets, taps and such are ornaments, devices. They can (or should) be interspersed throughout a tune.
Let's say that we are playing a tune together, and you play a roll and I play a bowed triplet, and they are both based off the same note. We are playing the same version of the tune, just using different ornaments.
If we are playing a tune together, and our B parts don't match, or you have a C part, then we are not playing the same version of the tune.
Dow has much to say for Michael. Is he saying that Michael would prefer to teach a tune by ear by playing it over and over to the student and not restricting his use of ornaments? So this would teach the student the flexible nature of the music, and the artistic way of putting in different ornaments?
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
The thing that confuses me about this conversation is this: if you learn a tune from someone, does it matter what notes you learn?
I have been learning a bunch of tunes recently, and some are complex and difficult to play. At various points I think that I have them. I can, in fact, play them with other people and not have notes akimbo, stickin
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
"...something trying to wriggle free from the mud...."
Och, I'm tearing up over that, the nicest thing anyone has ever said about my playing.
:oD :oD :oD
Jode, I'm not sure, but it seems like musical phrases within tunes are like words:
As lnog as the frsit and lsat ltrtes are in the rgiht pcales, no metatr how sambercld the oehtr lrttes are, you wlil be albe to raed it.
In other words, musical phrases have strong notes and beats (like the first and last letters of words), and as long as you learn those (or even some harmonically blending equivalent), you'll get the tune.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Sorry, my second posting got mangled. The point I was going to drive at was that I am learning these complicated tunes. I get to a point where I can play them with people. I think I know them. But then I go back to the source and find that I am missing some choice bits.
Now these bits are notes, not ornaments.
So when you have picked up the strong notes and beats, is that enough? Shouldn't we be trying to learn the whole tune?
And then, once you have learned the tune, you can play with it and create your own version if inspired to do so. But shouldn't you be able to go back to your source and play that tune with him/her, note for note?
And again, I am not talking ornaments here.
# Posted on September 15th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Depends. Does your source always play exactly the same notes? Some trad players do, but some (maybe most) really change things around a lot. As I said above, one of the hardest things for me to do when teaching is replay the tune--same notes as the last time. Seems I'm always wandering around, picking up other notes, sometimes even changing those "strong" notes for something that opens a room in the tune I haven't visited before. But it's till "the same" tune.
"The same tune is never the same tune twice." - Ciaran Carson (thanks Aimee).
I think this notion of getting "all the notes right" - meaning getting the same notes in the same sequence as your source before you start tinkering and making it your own - probably comes from learning off of recordings, where it *is* played the same way every time you rewind and hit the play button again. But that's not how real people actually play the tunes. What we do is "live" and impromptu and exploratory. A recording cannot be these things, so they tend to teach us the habit of repetition.
In the beginning, repetition isn't necessarily a bad thing--you can focus on learning technique or tone or intonation, etc., while attemtping to play a tune. But to really play a tune, I think you have to let go of the idea that the notes themselves are sacrosanct, are some immutable tune. Even the "crux" notes can be changed (often resulting in the most interesting new sounds to explore), and the tune will follow whatever replaces them.
Example: Silver Spear
Most of us learn some basic version that emphasizes the F and A notes in the opening bar. On fiddle, it typically looks something like:
|FA A/A/A BAFA|dfed BcdA|
Fluters learn to roll the A:
|F~A3 BAFA|
But you can easily bring other notes into play here:
|DFAB {d}BAFA|
or
|FAdA BAFA|
or
|DFAF BFAB|
or (particularly nice on flute):
|FA F/G/A BAFA|
Granted, I cheated on the last one, using a triplet (to articulate the phrase differently), but my aim here is to show that you can even use a note somewhat 'outside' the chord scheme - in this case, a G note against a D maj chord.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Now my head hurts too.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Imagine how *mine* feels....
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Did you enjoy the limerick I made up for you, Will? It might help your headache.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
ceolachan - i tend to not conclude well. i'll read the rest of your post later, but i gotta go eat. but i would liek to note unless i misread you that i said you are lost if you cannot play without ornamentation, not that you are lost if you dont have it. haha, if you restating what i said was exactly that or if i said it wrong, sorry.
i have recordings of him playing of course, being his cd's, but no, i have not recorded what he says. but i like to bring up old topics we've talked about to hear what he's already said a year or two ago.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by daiv
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Thanks Jack. And now we're even. (Although carrying on simultaneous conversations on two different threads is a bit too much like marriage...that headache is coming back.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I didn't fully appreciate the point of ornamentation until I started playing smallpipes (OK, Scottish...). And then, of course, it's a different kettle of fish altogether - beccause the pipes produce a constant unshapeable stream of air and cuts, doublings and so on are used as a substitute for articulation or attack on the notes. I really think it's important to remember this - because so much of ITM and scottish music comes from a vocal and piping bacground.
Playing a tune on the pipes and the flute are different experiences - on the flute, my head decides where to ornament, on the pipes, my heart decides. Mmm. The instrument has a say in it all of course.
What learning the pipes has made me realise is that - for me - ornamentation on the flute used to be an 'intellectual' exercise. I got so worried about sounding like I was a cool player - and cool meant loads of ornaments - that I forgot to open my heart to the tune. Now I do that on the flute as well. The funny thing is taht I actually do a little more ornamentation on some tunes - but it is more appropriate to the music.
And I've learned to make it crisper - the pipes teach you that.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Alister
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Do we have to stop before this thread reaches 100? Or do we measure success by the magnitude of Will's and Jack's headaches?
I'll let this one go Will by concluding: the person I play with now demands that we learn all the notes as he plays them.
I have learned a great deal by doing this as it helps to stretch me. I have played note combinations that I have never played before and approached tunes in a new way. No sliding into my preferred style or approach.
Also, I guess the way that I like to learn tunes from session tapes or recordings is to learn the notes on the first pass of the tune. Many players adhere to the tradition of playing the tune once straight and then adding to it upon repetition.
In a session, it is more difficult, and I guess I would pick up a tune in a more general manner. However, my eventual goal is to learn all the notes from the person who introduces the tune.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Yes, I've learned tunes from people who insist you get every note just as they play it, and I agree--a great exercise for pushing you out of your normal habits. And sometimes I hear things I want to get exactly as they were played--either because it captures some essence of the tune so well, or to incorporate the idea into my own playing. No harm in any of that.
Playing precisely and in unison can also be important for playing in bands. If you're doing arrangements, everyone needs to know their parts, down to the molecular level.
In the early stages of an addiction to this music, I think it helps to listen to experienced players and do what they do. You're benefitting from their greater exposure to the music. But eventually you develop your own sense of how the music "should" sound, and you realize that all those Martin Hayes tunes in F and G dorian work just as well or better in D and E dorian and A dorian, where everyone else plays them, and you'll rely on your own sense of what notes constitute a given tune on any given playing of that tune.
In my experience, learning tunes from real people is a lengthy, intricate, simple, frustrating, thoroughly enjoyable process, and is as much about absorbing attitudes and a sense of history or context as it is about memorizing a string of notes.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
"learning tunes from real people" ... as opposed to learning them from fairies, as in the "Gold Ring" story.
Learning tunes (or anything) "live" from people rather than hiding away with the music or a recording requires a certain level of self-confidence, too. (...gawd, he'll think I'm an idiot, I'm not picking this up very quickly!)
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by grego
Personally, I like the fairies, no practice necessary, they just zap it to yuh...but I do wish they'd quite serving me that mushroom stew of theirs.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Hah, Greg, in the beginning, learning tunes live takes only a blundering obliviousness to your own inadequacies. A few years of that, and voila, you're self-confident.
No, seriously, at various stages of my own inadequacy I've sat down with some brilliant players and learned a tune or two, and these people were all very patient, encouraging, and generous with their time and insights. To a person. That's partly what I meant about learning tunes is also about absorbing attitudes. As I've come to understand it, you can't get really good without facing your own weaknesses as a musician, and this makes you very tolerant of other people's weaknesses, even if they're different ones than your own.
Hmmmph...the only tunes I've gotten from faeries are ones no one else knows, so there's not much cause to haul them out at sessions. BTW 'C,' you've got a piece of stem stuck between your teeth....
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Of course, maybe I learned "YMCA" from fairies.
(sorry, not PC, 100 lashes...)
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by grego
I can see that Grego, you at a session in an undersized sailor's suit singing and doing that YMCA 'dance' while everyone else goes to the bar for a drink... I wouldn't go admitting too much...
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by ceolachan
I'll stick with the fairies, purer stuff, no TV or radio...
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Here I always pictured Greg as the construction worker....
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Will Harmon
I'll stick with the fairies, purer stuff, no TV or radio...
By the by, do you also do a Judy Garland impersonation?
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by ceolachan
Damn fairies, I'm seeing double. Get away from the keyboard you guys, modern technology will pollute you. Ouch, no, I don't want to play 'King of the Fairies' again. Huh, Albert Ammons style? You must be kidding. That's not the sort of keyboard this is...
Sorry guys, gotta go... Duty calls.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my! Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my!
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by grego
Actually, the cowboy might be more appropriate. (Both geographically, and also in the Irish sense of the word "cowboy")
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by grego
The cowboy's also more highly ornamented, sort of moving back on course, what with those pearl buttons and the chaps, and the spurs, and those boots, and the hat and band and buckles and rhinestones and all those stringy things - - - Yeah!, you've got it.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Well this certainly is a lively discussion.
Just one thing to contribute:
"As lnog as the frsit and lsat ltrtes are in the rgiht pcales, no metatr how sambercld the oehtr lrttes are, you wlil be albe to raed it."
That's not exactly true. Another study came out soon after that one that showed if you simply reverse the orders of the internal letters, it becomes generally unreadable.
I'm too tired for anything else at the moment, as I've been quite ill these past few days.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by sifudave54
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
sambercld - that took a few seconds. Hope you get better soon, Dave.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by grego
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Heh, works best for me on words with only 4-5 letters. And it seems easier if you keep the phonemes (prolly not using that term correctly here, but what the hell) together: smablcred
Maybe not.
Even with the new findings sifu reports, I think the general analogy still applies to music--we can change things around some and still have a recognizable tune. You don't have to learn a tune "note for note" to really learn the tune, as long as you get the gist of it.
If you tried to write down the "program" our brains follow when learning a tune by ear, I suspect you'd end up with a littany of exceptions longer than the 'rules.'
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
For anyone interested in the readability of scrambled words, there is some analysis of this topic at http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/
Not surprisingly, the author concludes that there are some circumstances in which scrambling letters has little effect on readability, and other circumstances in which it brings the reader to a grinding halt, or worse, is ambiguous. There is an obvious analogy with music, in that some modifications to a tune will work fine, and others will sound wrong. The skill is in knowing the difference between the two, and understanding (often intuitively) the rules that determine what works and what doesn't.
Near the end of the article the author gives the following example of a sentence to unscramble:
"The sprehas had ponits and patles"
This might come out as...
The sherpas had pitons and plates.
The shapers had points and pleats.
The seraphs had pintos and petals.
The sphaers had pinots and palets.
The sphears had potins and peltas.
All are apparently proper words, though some are now seldom used.
Now, back to the latest issue of the Journal of Mundane Behavior...
Cheers
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by GraemeO
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Earning a good chunk of my living as an editor, all that was very interesting reading. I am now much better infromed about the excuses I can use wehn I miss certian common typos in text. Thnaks Graeme!
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Will Harmon
Wow! - Faerie dust! - I love the analogy lads, brilliant...
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by ceolachan
But then - I am a certified dyslexic... We'll stop there with just the one certificate...
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by ceolachan
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
"You don't have to learn a tune note for note, you only have to get the gist of it."
Agree to disagree?
I believe that if you have the opportunity to learn a tune from a reputable source, that you should always learn the tune note for note. And that if you hear a tune that you like, you should find a reputable source for it (if you can).
If you want to play along in the session and can get the gist, then go for it. However, this is still not "fully learning" the tune. I have some tunes that I "half learned" in sessions and will not teach anyone because I know that I do not have the full tune. I just have the gist. Nor would I perform these tunes, or even start them at a session.
Another thing...if we accept that "sherpas had pintons and plates" is the same as "sphears had potins and peltas", how soon will "Boys of Tulla" become the "Humours of Tulla" or the "Mist Covered Mountains" become "Mug of Brown Ale"?
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Jode, I think you're misunderstanding me. By "gist of the tune" I don't mean that you only half-know the tune. I mean that you have the tune well in your head and can fully play it, but that you may use different notes and articulations than your source did.
I often change tunes as I'm learning them, even from a 'reputable' source. Try it some time--it can be gratifying to play a tune back to an honored veteran of the music, an All-Ireland champ or some such, and see their eyes light up at the tweak you've given it. Suddenly they're asking you to play that part again so they can learn it.
As I see it, your approach of learning a tune note for note from a 'reputable' source suggests that there is one version of a tune that is better or more official than all others. And that the essence of the tune is in some fixed sequence of notes. And I do disagree with that.
A lot depends on how long you've been playing. In the early stages, learning note for note is a good way to deepen your understanding of the music and how good players interpret it. But after years of playing, you have to start trusting your own understanding of the music, and play true to yourself. With more experience, it's possible - and thoroughly enjoyable - to do this even as you're learning a new tune, no matter who you're learning it from.
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
Sounds like we are closer to agreeing to agree.
I am not saying there is one true version, that's for sure.
And many of my comments are directed at people who are newer to this music and tradition.
It is truly difficult to use words to describe these notions. But, hey, that is why I am attracted to this site.
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Jode
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I'm a writer for a living, and I enjoy thinking out loud about all this ineffable stuff. Within reason, it's fun to try to use words to explore musical ideas. But the music itself is a great antidote after a day spent wrestling with syntax and word choices and language in general.
That's the beauty of the tunes for me - they aren't symbols for anything. The tune is its own experience.
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
I've got to the stage now where I'll make changes to a tune as I'm learning it, if only to make it easier
Trevor
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: 'authentic Irish ornamentation'
That's fair, Trevor. Of course, what's 'easier' for one might not be for another. I sometimes roll a note my source is doing a double hammer-on on, just to get the pitch and time in my head, while making a mental note of the hammer-on.
When you learn a tune on the fly, on fiddle at least, sometimes you're set up for a string change or a long bow or a slur, and sometimes you're not. What I play may not be the exact same notes, but it sets a reminder for me of what the source played in that spot, and I'll try to anticpate it the next time around.
For instance, when learning Kevin Burke's jig, Up in the Air, I remember he played the opening bars something like this:
K:Bm/D
|FBB BAB|cA/B/c AFE|FBB ~B3|cBA B2 A|FBB FBB|~c3 ABc|...
Right away, I put in a ~B3 roll in the 1st bar and a ~c3 roll in the second bar. Then the FBB FBB thing leapt out at me, and I must've stuck that in every measure one time through, just to cement it. Then I got rid of it entirely and played the first bar |~B3 BAB| because it saved me from having to cross strings.
A lot depends on where you are on the bow, and how agile you can be with it.
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Will Harmon