I was thinking recently about the difference in style between fiddlers I've known in the States and the playing of fiddlers I've seen in Ireland. After reviewing some recordings I've taken in Ireland, there were some thoughts I wanted to jot down that would, hopefully, develop into a lovely exchange of ideas.
1) DOUBLE-STOPS -- I'm beginning to believe that the use of double-stops are generally very sparse in traditional playing. The use of double-stops tends to be very short, as if the sound were a type of ornament. Otherwise, the double stop is used to accent the end of a phrase, and then, done richly but gently. On the other hand, several fiddlers I've heard in the States playing ITM, tend to use double stops very liberally and forcefully.
2) DROPPING NOTES -- Notes are rarely dropped from a tune, unless its part of an individual variation of the theme (but most often the variation has as many notes if not more than the 'straight' version).
3) SOUND ENGINEERS -- Recordings of tunes tend to skew and exaggerate the original sound. The use of compressors and other aids that 'improve' the recorded sound may give people who are not brought up in the tradition (or have an opportunity to hear it up close) a distorted sense of how the music is approached. The recordings I have taken (and digitally 'improved' in ways similiar to those used by professional sound engineers), give the impression that the musicians are playing louder and more forcefully than they really were. In fact, the sound of the fiddlers wasn't that loud and they didn't use a great deal of bow either. I think the same must go for large stage venues where the performers are amplified. Just a thought!
Anyway, I'm beginning to develop a new 'world view' on this style of music and how to play it. Does anyone agree/disagree with these observations? Otherwise, please share your own revelations or insights of being a non-Irish ITM player. What have you learned that makes you sound more traditional? My recordings were mostly in Connaught, so perhaps that skewed my perception away from other styles.
In general I would agree that fiddlers in the US might tend to double stop more, especially if they played old timey or bluegrass fiddling before taking up ITM. On the other hand, Kevin Burke does quite a bit of double-stopping.
I find that many American recordings (and some Irish as well) of ITM use back-up instruments like the guitar in too intense a manner. Groups like Lunasa or Solas spring to my mind. I know they are popular but I feel that it is the melody instruments that should be in the foreground. I recently listened to a cassette tape of Ileen Ivers that was horribly mixed. It sounded like a typical pop song mix where the lead melody is almost in the background and the guitar and bass are pumping away like mad.
One of my pet peeves is the way hornpipes are played by many people. Hornpipe rhythm is syncopated. In my experience many Americans play hornpipes too even and too fast. The recent trend of playing ITM as fast as possible detracts from the music. Yes, you do have to play at a fast tempo for dancers but some of the recordings put out recently go way beyond that.
I have not been playing all that long, and I initially was faced with the decision of whether I wanted to do American country/bluegrass or ITM. I switched back and forth for awhile and determined I like ITM better. Anyway delving into each of these styles without a teacher led me to the purchase of a number of CD/instruction books and tapes. The American fiddle books basically stress double stops from the very beginning together with shuffle bowing. It is almost like you really do not play American fiddle if you do not double stop everything.
Some of the American books contain Irish tunes, and the instructions usually say to play it with a swing feel. There is nothing in these books about rolls or treble bowing, and again, there will be a lot of double stops.
On the other hand, the ITM books and tapes barely mention double stops. Matt Cranitch's book and CD talks about double stops only in the sense of ending a phrase. Kevin Burke, in both his video and his cassettes says that double stops are rarely used, and when they are, they should be used in such a way that they sort of sound like accidents. He does, of course, spend a great deal of time talking about rolls, cuts and treble bowing. He also talks about sliding notes, which he says he does too much in his ITM playing.
To ramble on further, I live in the Houston area, and you cannot find an ITM fiddle teacher around here. You can find a lot of fiddle teachers who will do the incidental Irish tune, but if you listen to ITM you know that it is different. So, my thought is a lot of people over here in the States learn country/bluegrass fiddle, and go with the versions of ITM tunes they are either taught or pickup up from American fiddle instructional materials. I try to stay traditional by only listening to ITM fiddle player versions of the tunes.
I hope you are taking advantage of the great fiddle players in Austin Texas. Often the ITM players in Houston will make road trip to the sunday session in Austin. Perhaps you know Heather Gilmer? Christopher Buckley? Fantastic players, Christopher especially!
There are two ways of playing hornpipes in the US (I don't know about elsewhere). There's the syncopated way, and there's the straight way. (John Williams, for instance, plays hornpipes the straight way on the videos I've seen of him.) What I've heard from players in Ireland and elsewhere is that either way is all right and perfectly acceptable, unless you're playing for dancers, in which case you want the syncopated way. And certainly a dancer is going to want the hornpipe slower than it's played in most sessions (anywhere) -- but then, they generally want reels and jigs slower than they play them in sessions too.
However, I've never done much research into all this, which I would imagine would reach all the way back to the original hornpipes on the original hornpipes and their impact on ITM. So the jury's still out on that one for me.
Pearse, consider taking lessons from a non-fiddler. The music is the music, and you can learn the music just as well from someone like EJ or Turlach (I keep mentioning them because they're the only two players I personally know in that area) whether they play fiddle or not. My own teacher was Shannon Heaton, a fluter, and her teacher was John Williams, a box/concertina player.
The only caveat is that you must be aware that you will learn different ornaments and perhaps different settings from most fiddlers -- not necessarily a bad thing, though.
Where you hear double stops in Ireland -- I'm not sure, but I know that an acquaintance of mine went to Ireland for a few months and fell in with a bunch of fiddlers of the Old Men sort at her local. She said occasionally she wondered if they were double-stopping on purpose because there were so many it was starting to sound like the bow simply slopping over onto another string. (She came to the conclusion that it was on purpose because it was always in key.) But I forget where she was.
Austin is a three hour drive for me, as husband and dad, not much chance of heading up there for a Sunday. Heck, Houston itself is 45 minutes to an hour to two hours away, depending on traffic and where you are going. Anyway, thanks for the recommendations.
One thing I wanted to mention about fiddle and ITM from the Kevin Burke tapes and videos. He never says anything as an absolute, and he says that there are no rules in ITM. All he ever says is this is the way I do it or this is the way most of the people I have heard do it. When he says this is the way to do it, he says to take all of his comments with a pinch of salt, then he adds, "maybe a box of salt." I guess the point is that he is not very dogmatic about ITM.
Double stopping:
In Irish music, it is generally used as a percusive decoration. If say your tune goes up to an F sharp roll, hit the D string on the way up and let it resonate, a very traditional sound.
A Scottish thing which works well in diddly music is double stopping the open A with the same note on the D string (or the open E with the same note on the A string.
A thing I like to do when playing with Irish pipes is to double stop in harmony with the regulators. You have to work this out with the piper first.
Hornpipes; Reels; dotted? straight? Syncopated?
It's one of my bugbears that alot of people seem to play all their reels like hornpipes, heavily dotted. If there was only one way of playing reels, I would certainly stump for dead straight. But the truth is, one of the most illusive style things in diddly music is "how much do you swing?"
Kevin Burk's "Up Close" is a good example of the range between dotted and straight. And it's "range between" that I'm stressing.
Here I go with an I am no expert again, and I've never been to America (but would definitely like to one day, especially to visit Zina and Dirk's SCTLS), but I find as a very enthusiastic non-Irish ITM player influenced directly and indirectly by some players from around Clare (and others), that there seems there could be this tendency in players who have not grown up in the idium to cut short the emphasis notes (or ornaments, or whatever) instead of letting them hang or ring. Too quick to get fingers and bows off the notes and on to the next ones.
Tunes come out shallow instead of flowing with depth, so the feeling, the 'droiocht' can be lost. It can sound quite pretty but it doesn't mean what it could. No extra dimension. The 'droiocht' is a feel, rather than a technique, coming from deeply exploring sounds. And there are all kinds of very subtle little bends and ornamentations to help the music lift and soar.
I guess though it has to do with what the player wants from the music. If it is just dance music, then straight and fast (or slow, or whatever suits the dancers) is Ok. If the player wants more, its there in the music to take it to wherever he/she wants to go. The beauty of ITM is that it can be as simple or as complex as you want. But how you play it is a personal thing. How you play it is how you play it. There are so many right ways - only one of them is yours. Enjoy the journey.
Cheers
Heh. Shannon Heaton always says that -- "There's a million ways to be right. There's also a million ways to be wrong."
"Right" and "wrong" are very dangerous words to use, at any time, anywhere. They're particularly dangerous when it comes to ITM. For instance, pearse is correct that Kevin Burke is not particularly dogmatic (and no truly good player I know of is really all that dogmatic about the music, at least in public). On the other hand, during a phone interview, Mr. Burke described a session to me about which he said he was sorry he was there, because they weren't very good players. So he's certainly got standards.
(It's possibly worth mentioning that Kevin Burke's definition of a "not very good player" is probably still heaps better than I can currently play.)
I too prefer an only slightly swung rhthym rather than the heavily swung, but that's for my music. I first came to the music through the Scottish side, which probably partially explains it. I can certainly still appreciate the music that's heavily swung, and even play with someone who swings a lot. (Although it changes where I can ornament a tune.)
Why should you ever stop double-stopping, bb? Personally I like it an awful lot when someone does it well. (I don't, yet. But I keep trying anyway. *grin*)
I went to a little Kevin Burke work shop quite a few years ago at a local Irish Festival. I am pretty sure that Caoimghgin was there as well. I doubt that he would have missed it for the world. Anyway, Kevin kept playing the first two measures of Uncle Joe. He was showing us all the ways we could variate it. He went into details on the rolls, triplets, doublets, accents and trios. I never heard him mention slides which would have sounded horrid on the piece.
The reason I mention this is because I felt he was leaving out double stops. I was so tempted to bring that up! Not that I haven't already proven that my playing preferences are radical at times, but that would have taken the cake!
"HEY KEVIN - YOU LEFT OUT DOUBLE STOPS!"
People would have a brand new reason to point at me and snigger.
Yes, I was there for the Burke workshop! There must have been 200 hundred fiddles in the audience waiting to go and all of those fiddles lonely for a bow at the end of 45 minutes. I'll bet Alistair Frasier would've had all 200 fiddles going at a tune and what a racket we could have made!
Next time you come to session, you'll probably notice that I use a lot of double-stopping in my tunes. I wonder if that's simply my Texas/American ear at work. Though I've never played any other genre of music, I think something has got to seep in after watching X amount of hours of Hee Haw (as a kid, I thought there was only news programs and Hee Haw on the TV, and I wasn't far wrong back then).
I like what Jill said about clipping the notes. "Too quick to get fingers and bows off the notes and on to the next ones. " Mea Culpa!
Zina has a good point too. Most master players seem to be thrilled that anyone from anywhere is playing their music in any fashion and are generally very supportive - even delighted. I swear I wasn't trying to start a "THIS RIGHT AND THAT WRONG" thread. Just using thesession as a sounding board for some new concepts (well, new to me anyway). No matter what, eventually, everyone will play like themselves - and that sounds great to me!
Nor I. There is far too much of this "right and wrong" business in this world. It shouldn't be a competition for winners and losers here, its ITM, a creative pursuit, for goodness sake.
Oh, everything in moderation -- including good *and* bad things.
I wouldn't want to sit next to one of Brad's Tweeties all night at a session, for instance. Unless I had to (because it was my session), I probably wouldn't figure it was my place to speak to that Tweety, but I imagine I'd be happy enough if someone did.
As Michael (and Shannon) says -- a million ways to be right, and a million ways to be wrong. But the person who decides right and wrong for me is...me. I'd personally not be too crushed if someone thought all my ways were wrong, so long as I had my reasons for my ways being what they are. More power to them. They deserve their stupid opinions as much as I do mine. ;)
And sometimes you take a friend and your ITM (and automatically the way you play it) out into the world around you and, out of the blue, you get heard by someone looking for the very thing that you are putting out there to share and you get asked to play a gig. Yes, it is fabulous to play ITM down under (or anywhere for that matter), and I wouldn't have it any other way. Its the only way I know.
I don't mind what other people think. In fact I tend to find other peoples' opinions have tremendous value - consider them, then in the nicest possible way, either take them or leave them. I know that ITM has been very good to me. What more could anyone want.
Tweeties will be tweeties, whether they're from London, Ohio, Sliabh Luachra or Connemara. It is not for us conventional types judge the authenticity of their tweeting.
Then let all the authentic tweeters have ther own tweetie sessions and leave the rest of us alone. Anyone tweeting in my ear will be sent packing. JUDGED
Oh yes, Glauber, it adds so much to the music, don't you think? *grin*
Semi-seriously, though, I suppose improvisation and variation are somewhat tied together, but shouldn't the improvisation have something to do with the tune you're playing? I'd hope so, anyway.
There's also a difference between improvising to a melody that you already know, and noodling around over the chords of a tune you've never played before. To me, the first is appropriate--in moderation--at a session, but the second isn't (unless it's done so quietly no one else can hear it, or if the player's intent is to learn the tune).
I like the way Altan's Ciaran Tourish adds little flourishes of harmony and rhythmic emphasis (sometimes with with quarter- or half-note double stops) to his duets with Mairead and Dermot, but 97 percent of the time he's playing the same notes as they are, not freewheeling all over the tune. IMHO, musicians who improvise over the whole tune at a session are missing the point of an ITM session--for the most part, the notes are *supposed* to be played in unison with other players. Players who like to improvise a la Charlie Parker might be better off in a band than forcing themselves on a session.
I've been playing for years and have encountered so many idaes of what constitutes 'traditional'. I've been in sessions all over the east coast of Australia and shared tunes with musicians from all over the world and I agree with Jill, ultimately it's the sharing of the music and the exchange of tunes that brings the joy. Nothing can kill a session like a player who has to have the music set in the concrete of a "tradition " about which they are so preciuos that variations and creative additions result in disapproving vibes and the cessation of spontaneus sessioning. Traditions are healthier for evolution and growth and the gift of what has gone before is to provide us all with places from which to begin exploring. This is not to cast aspersions on those of us who specialise in a particular tradition of choice; maybe just to say that (in a very mixed metaphore) a rainbow is beautiful because
of all the colours it forms~ when you get hung up on where one colour starts and another finishes you miss the point.(..and a lot of good times!). cheers, Avril.
Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
I was thinking recently about the difference in style between fiddlers I've known in the States and the playing of fiddlers I've seen in Ireland. After reviewing some recordings I've taken in Ireland, there were some thoughts I wanted to jot down that would, hopefully, develop into a lovely exchange of ideas.
1) DOUBLE-STOPS -- I'm beginning to believe that the use of double-stops are generally very sparse in traditional playing. The use of double-stops tends to be very short, as if the sound were a type of ornament. Otherwise, the double stop is used to accent the end of a phrase, and then, done richly but gently. On the other hand, several fiddlers I've heard in the States playing ITM, tend to use double stops very liberally and forcefully.
2) DROPPING NOTES -- Notes are rarely dropped from a tune, unless its part of an individual variation of the theme (but most often the variation has as many notes if not more than the 'straight' version).
3) SOUND ENGINEERS -- Recordings of tunes tend to skew and exaggerate the original sound. The use of compressors and other aids that 'improve' the recorded sound may give people who are not brought up in the tradition (or have an opportunity to hear it up close) a distorted sense of how the music is approached. The recordings I have taken (and digitally 'improved' in ways similiar to those used by professional sound engineers), give the impression that the musicians are playing louder and more forcefully than they really were. In fact, the sound of the fiddlers wasn't that loud and they didn't use a great deal of bow either. I think the same must go for large stage venues where the performers are amplified. Just a thought!
Anyway, I'm beginning to develop a new 'world view' on this style of music and how to play it. Does anyone agree/disagree with these observations? Otherwise, please share your own revelations or insights of being a non-Irish ITM player. What have you learned that makes you sound more traditional? My recordings were mostly in Connaught, so perhaps that skewed my perception away from other styles.
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by Caoimghgin
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
In general I would agree that fiddlers in the US might tend to double stop more, especially if they played old timey or bluegrass fiddling before taking up ITM. On the other hand, Kevin Burke does quite a bit of double-stopping.
I find that many American recordings (and some Irish as well) of ITM use back-up instruments like the guitar in too intense a manner. Groups like Lunasa or Solas spring to my mind. I know they are popular but I feel that it is the melody instruments that should be in the foreground. I recently listened to a cassette tape of Ileen Ivers that was horribly mixed. It sounded like a typical pop song mix where the lead melody is almost in the background and the guitar and bass are pumping away like mad.
One of my pet peeves is the way hornpipes are played by many people. Hornpipe rhythm is syncopated. In my experience many Americans play hornpipes too even and too fast. The recent trend of playing ITM as fast as possible detracts from the music. Yes, you do have to play at a fast tempo for dancers but some of the recordings put out recently go way beyond that.
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by radriano
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
I have not been playing all that long, and I initially was faced with the decision of whether I wanted to do American country/bluegrass or ITM. I switched back and forth for awhile and determined I like ITM better. Anyway delving into each of these styles without a teacher led me to the purchase of a number of CD/instruction books and tapes. The American fiddle books basically stress double stops from the very beginning together with shuffle bowing. It is almost like you really do not play American fiddle if you do not double stop everything.
Some of the American books contain Irish tunes, and the instructions usually say to play it with a swing feel. There is nothing in these books about rolls or treble bowing, and again, there will be a lot of double stops.
On the other hand, the ITM books and tapes barely mention double stops. Matt Cranitch's book and CD talks about double stops only in the sense of ending a phrase. Kevin Burke, in both his video and his cassettes says that double stops are rarely used, and when they are, they should be used in such a way that they sort of sound like accidents. He does, of course, spend a great deal of time talking about rolls, cuts and treble bowing. He also talks about sliding notes, which he says he does too much in his ITM playing.
To ramble on further, I live in the Houston area, and you cannot find an ITM fiddle teacher around here. You can find a lot of fiddle teachers who will do the incidental Irish tune, but if you listen to ITM you know that it is different. So, my thought is a lot of people over here in the States learn country/bluegrass fiddle, and go with the versions of ITM tunes they are either taught or pickup up from American fiddle instructional materials. I try to stay traditional by only listening to ITM fiddle player versions of the tunes.
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by pearse
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
pearse,
I hope you are taking advantage of the great fiddle players in Austin Texas. Often the ITM players in Houston will make road trip to the sunday session in Austin. Perhaps you know Heather Gilmer? Christopher Buckley? Fantastic players, Christopher especially!
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by Caoimghgin
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
There are two ways of playing hornpipes in the US (I don't know about elsewhere). There's the syncopated way, and there's the straight way. (John Williams, for instance, plays hornpipes the straight way on the videos I've seen of him.) What I've heard from players in Ireland and elsewhere is that either way is all right and perfectly acceptable, unless you're playing for dancers, in which case you want the syncopated way. And certainly a dancer is going to want the hornpipe slower than it's played in most sessions (anywhere) -- but then, they generally want reels and jigs slower than they play them in sessions too.
However, I've never done much research into all this, which I would imagine would reach all the way back to the original hornpipes on the original hornpipes and their impact on ITM. So the jury's still out on that one for me.
Pearse, consider taking lessons from a non-fiddler. The music is the music, and you can learn the music just as well from someone like EJ or Turlach (I keep mentioning them because they're the only two players I personally know in that area) whether they play fiddle or not. My own teacher was Shannon Heaton, a fluter, and her teacher was John Williams, a box/concertina player.
The only caveat is that you must be aware that you will learn different ornaments and perhaps different settings from most fiddlers -- not necessarily a bad thing, though.
Where you hear double stops in Ireland -- I'm not sure, but I know that an acquaintance of mine went to Ireland for a few months and fell in with a bunch of fiddlers of the Old Men sort at her local. She said occasionally she wondered if they were double-stopping on purpose because there were so many it was starting to sound like the bow simply slopping over onto another string. (She came to the conclusion that it was on purpose because it was always in key.) But I forget where she was.
Zina
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Austin is a three hour drive for me, as husband and dad, not much chance of heading up there for a Sunday. Heck, Houston itself is 45 minutes to an hour to two hours away, depending on traffic and where you are going. Anyway, thanks for the recommendations.
One thing I wanted to mention about fiddle and ITM from the Kevin Burke tapes and videos. He never says anything as an absolute, and he says that there are no rules in ITM. All he ever says is this is the way I do it or this is the way most of the people I have heard do it. When he says this is the way to do it, he says to take all of his comments with a pinch of salt, then he adds, "maybe a box of salt." I guess the point is that he is not very dogmatic about ITM.
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by pearse
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
I do double stops all the time! I'm begining to think maybe I shouldnt!
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by bb
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Double stopping:
In Irish music, it is generally used as a percusive decoration. If say your tune goes up to an F sharp roll, hit the D string on the way up and let it resonate, a very traditional sound.
A Scottish thing which works well in diddly music is double stopping the open A with the same note on the D string (or the open E with the same note on the A string.
A thing I like to do when playing with Irish pipes is to double stop in harmony with the regulators. You have to work this out with the piper first.
Hornpipes; Reels; dotted? straight? Syncopated?
It's one of my bugbears that alot of people seem to play all their reels like hornpipes, heavily dotted. If there was only one way of playing reels, I would certainly stump for dead straight. But the truth is, one of the most illusive style things in diddly music is "how much do you swing?"
Kevin Burk's "Up Close" is a good example of the range between dotted and straight. And it's "range between" that I'm stressing.
It don't mean a thang, if it aint got that twang
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by ...
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Here I go with an I am no expert again, and I've never been to America (but would definitely like to one day, especially to visit Zina and Dirk's SCTLS), but I find as a very enthusiastic non-Irish ITM player influenced directly and indirectly by some players from around Clare (and others), that there seems there could be this tendency in players who have not grown up in the idium to cut short the emphasis notes (or ornaments, or whatever) instead of letting them hang or ring. Too quick to get fingers and bows off the notes and on to the next ones.
Tunes come out shallow instead of flowing with depth, so the feeling, the 'droiocht' can be lost. It can sound quite pretty but it doesn't mean what it could. No extra dimension. The 'droiocht' is a feel, rather than a technique, coming from deeply exploring sounds. And there are all kinds of very subtle little bends and ornamentations to help the music lift and soar.
I guess though it has to do with what the player wants from the music. If it is just dance music, then straight and fast (or slow, or whatever suits the dancers) is Ok. If the player wants more, its there in the music to take it to wherever he/she wants to go. The beauty of ITM is that it can be as simple or as complex as you want. But how you play it is a personal thing. How you play it is how you play it. There are so many right ways - only one of them is yours. Enjoy the journey.
Cheers
# Posted on August 22nd 2002 by Jill
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
There are indeed so many right ways
Unfortunately, there are even more wrong ways
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by ...
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Heh. Shannon Heaton always says that -- "There's a million ways to be right. There's also a million ways to be wrong."
"Right" and "wrong" are very dangerous words to use, at any time, anywhere. They're particularly dangerous when it comes to ITM. For instance, pearse is correct that Kevin Burke is not particularly dogmatic (and no truly good player I know of is really all that dogmatic about the music, at least in public). On the other hand, during a phone interview, Mr. Burke described a session to me about which he said he was sorry he was there, because they weren't very good players. So he's certainly got standards.
(It's possibly worth mentioning that Kevin Burke's definition of a "not very good player" is probably still heaps better than I can currently play.)
I too prefer an only slightly swung rhthym rather than the heavily swung, but that's for my music. I first came to the music through the Scottish side, which probably partially explains it. I can certainly still appreciate the music that's heavily swung, and even play with someone who swings a lot. (Although it changes where I can ornament a tune.)
Why should you ever stop double-stopping, bb? Personally I like it an awful lot when someone does it well. (I don't, yet. But I keep trying anyway. *grin*)
Zina
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
I went to a little Kevin Burke work shop quite a few years ago at a local Irish Festival. I am pretty sure that Caoimghgin was there as well. I doubt that he would have missed it for the world. Anyway, Kevin kept playing the first two measures of Uncle Joe. He was showing us all the ways we could variate it. He went into details on the rolls, triplets, doublets, accents and trios. I never heard him mention slides which would have sounded horrid on the piece.
The reason I mention this is because I felt he was leaving out double stops. I was so tempted to bring that up! Not that I haven't already proven that my playing preferences are radical at times, but that would have taken the cake!
"HEY KEVIN - YOU LEFT OUT DOUBLE STOPS!"
People would have a brand new reason to point at me and snigger.
Cheers,
Mark
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by Mark Cordova
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Hey Mark!
Yes, I was there for the Burke workshop! There must have been 200 hundred fiddles in the audience waiting to go and all of those fiddles lonely for a bow at the end of 45 minutes. I'll bet Alistair Frasier would've had all 200 fiddles going at a tune and what a racket we could have made!
Next time you come to session, you'll probably notice that I use a lot of double-stopping in my tunes. I wonder if that's simply my Texas/American ear at work. Though I've never played any other genre of music, I think something has got to seep in after watching X amount of hours of Hee Haw (as a kid, I thought there was only news programs and Hee Haw on the TV, and I wasn't far wrong back then).
I like what Jill said about clipping the notes. "Too quick to get fingers and bows off the notes and on to the next ones. " Mea Culpa!
Zina has a good point too. Most master players seem to be thrilled that anyone from anywhere is playing their music in any fashion and are generally very supportive - even delighted. I swear I wasn't trying to start a "THIS RIGHT AND THAT WRONG" thread. Just using thesession as a sounding board for some new concepts (well, new to me anyway). No matter what, eventually, everyone will play like themselves - and that sounds great to me!
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by Caoimghgin
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Nor I. There is far too much of this "right and wrong" business in this world. It shouldn't be a competition for winners and losers here, its ITM, a creative pursuit, for goodness sake.
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by Jill
Everyone's a winner with the music.
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by Jill
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Oh, everything in moderation -- including good *and* bad things.
I wouldn't want to sit next to one of Brad's Tweeties all night at a session, for instance. Unless I had to (because it was my session), I probably wouldn't figure it was my place to speak to that Tweety, but I imagine I'd be happy enough if someone did.
As Michael (and Shannon) says -- a million ways to be right, and a million ways to be wrong. But the person who decides right and wrong for me is...me. I'd personally not be too crushed if someone thought all my ways were wrong, so long as I had my reasons for my ways being what they are. More power to them. They deserve their stupid opinions as much as I do mine. ;)
Zina
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
And sometimes you take a friend and your ITM (and automatically the way you play it) out into the world around you and, out of the blue, you get heard by someone looking for the very thing that you are putting out there to share and you get asked to play a gig. Yes, it is fabulous to play ITM down under (or anywhere for that matter), and I wouldn't have it any other way. Its the only way I know.
I don't mind what other people think. In fact I tend to find other peoples' opinions have tremendous value - consider them, then in the nicest possible way, either take them or leave them. I know that ITM has been very good to me. What more could anyone want.
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by Jill
On Tweeties
Tweeties will be tweeties, whether they're from London, Ohio, Sliabh Luachra or Connemara. It is not for us conventional types judge the authenticity of their tweeting.
# Posted on August 23rd 2002 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Then let all the authentic tweeters have ther own tweetie sessions and leave the rest of us alone. Anyone tweeting in my ear will be sent packing. JUDGED
# Posted on August 26th 2002 by ...
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
The tweeties don't care about your judgement. They're better than you, because they know how to improvise.
# Posted on August 27th 2002 by glauber
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
Oh yes, Glauber, it adds so much to the music, don't you think? *grin*
Semi-seriously, though, I suppose improvisation and variation are somewhat tied together, but shouldn't the improvisation have something to do with the tune you're playing? I'd hope so, anyway.
Zina
# Posted on August 27th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
There's also a difference between improvising to a melody that you already know, and noodling around over the chords of a tune you've never played before. To me, the first is appropriate--in moderation--at a session, but the second isn't (unless it's done so quietly no one else can hear it, or if the player's intent is to learn the tune).
I like the way Altan's Ciaran Tourish adds little flourishes of harmony and rhythmic emphasis (sometimes with with quarter- or half-note double stops) to his duets with Mairead and Dermot, but 97 percent of the time he's playing the same notes as they are, not freewheeling all over the tune. IMHO, musicians who improvise over the whole tune at a session are missing the point of an ITM session--for the most part, the notes are *supposed* to be played in unison with other players. Players who like to improvise a la Charlie Parker might be better off in a band than forcing themselves on a session.
# Posted on August 27th 2002 by Will Harmon
Re: Thoughts on Irish Fiddling
I've been playing for years and have encountered so many idaes of what constitutes 'traditional'. I've been in sessions all over the east coast of Australia and shared tunes with musicians from all over the world and I agree with Jill, ultimately it's the sharing of the music and the exchange of tunes that brings the joy. Nothing can kill a session like a player who has to have the music set in the concrete of a "tradition " about which they are so preciuos that variations and creative additions result in disapproving vibes and the cessation of spontaneus sessioning. Traditions are healthier for evolution and growth and the gift of what has gone before is to provide us all with places from which to begin exploring. This is not to cast aspersions on those of us who specialise in a particular tradition of choice; maybe just to say that (in a very mixed metaphore) a rainbow is beautiful because
of all the colours it forms~ when you get hung up on where one colour starts and another finishes you miss the point.(..and a lot of good times!). cheers, Avril.
# Posted on September 23rd 2002 by cs