There have been quite a few conversations about the way we post tunes. In my mind we generally agree that a simplified version can become a good base for a tune. Ornamented versions and variations can be posted in the comments. Ornaments serve two purposes: One, to share our take of the tune with each other. Two, give folks who are new to the tradition, a general idea of how the music is played.
Will and I shared a conversation on how to present the simplified versions of tunes. He ultimately convinced me that his evil ways make more sense than my evil ways. I argued that simplifying a tune might be to take a notation like ~d3 and change it into dcd or ded. To me, the music is more aesthetically pleasing and would very likely sound better when the midi generator has a shot at it. Perhaps that is true but it would be a failure to convey the correct tune. When you see notation like dcd it should be because those are the notes to the tune and not a translation of an ornament. In an effort to create some decent sounding music, I have ruined the tune.
Will's suggestion was to change ~d3 into d3. In most cases you have a boring dotted quarter note. The point behind it, however, can become evident. Most Irish musicians see d3 as a grand opportunity. Normally you would see a roll associated with it but there are quite a few additional opportunities within the simple innocent d3. You can play around with them and find the expression that best suites you playing level and your interpretation.
Here is a list for d3:
D3 , ~d3 , ddd , d2d , dd2 , dcd, ded , d (3ddd) , d d/2d/2 , d/2d/2 d , (d ~d2)
If you wish you can add in slides up or down. Take care to use the more common ornamentation at session. That's generally what your mates will be doing.
How about a list for d2:
D2 , dd , d>d , ~d2 , (3ddd).
There are many more but I may have gone too far already with them. Besides – those are the most common. Once again, slides can be used. I have found that the plain old rolls and triplets go a long way.
I'm with Will, if you want to be super simple, use d3. ~d3 just says it's a "roll" and leaves it up to you on how to perform the roll (i.e., flute players and pipers will probably do a crann instead). Specifying the actual notes is overkill.
This is a point where i think we should make the printed music be correct, rather than trying to get the MIDI generator to create something pleasant.
Admirable suggestions, which I'd go along with. However, the examples for D2 and D3 now demonstrate the virtual impossibility of carrying out a 100% reliable character search for a tune fragment in advanced mode in this or any other database. It is not only the alternatives for D2, D3 and the like which cause problems in searching, it is also that a simple 4/4 measure such as |GDGA Befg| can appear as |GD GA Be fg| or |GDGABefg|, and a dotted rhythm such as d3d can be written as d>d.
This is not to say that the advanced search is useless; far from it. You can still get a positive result (if it exists) if you use a bit of lateral thinking. A negative result, though, is always a little worrying, if only because it is so difficult, or impossible, to prove a universal negative. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the best search engine is the human brain backed up by 20 or more years of experience.
Generally I would have thought it better to post tunes with no ornamentation (if they actually exist that way). Otherwise, less skillful players may have difficulties learning them. However, it is also useful as a beginner to see where (and to a certain extent how) more experienced players place their ornaments.
I use an excellent piece of shareware that can take a midi file and turn it into sheeet music and some of the ornamented stuff turns into a real dog's breakfast!
I rarely use the search function to see if I'm duplicating a tune. Generally I'll use the Will Harmon brain engine instead. "Will -- does this tune have another name?" or sometimes even "Will -- what is this tune?" *grin*
During my 24 year career as a flute teacher I have had hundreds of students. Some were brilliant, some were no good at all and the most flew somewere in between.
But they all learned to read notes! It's even quite easy to have a chimpansee read notes.
I fully agree that Irish music is about auditive tradition and that printed music is only for help, this site is a good example, it helped me finding tunes.
Notes, ABC, Klavarscribo, Tablature, you name it, they're all very rough compared to what we hear in real life, but notes are by far the most accurate. Especially regarding ornaments.
Mark, I would agree with Will & Glauber and stick with the simple note values and leave the ornamentation to the discretion of the individual. I thought your posting of Dr. O'Neills was fine in this respect.
The type of ornament employed for a particular length of note must surely depend on the context and rhythym of the tune (jig, reel etc.), so attempts to prescribe a list of possibilities is worthy but hazardous. My comments on your list for d3 for what they're worth:
D3 , ~d3 , d2d, dcd, ded are fine
ddd too dull
dd2 the old Scoth snap is not used in ITM
d (3ddd) Triplets (i.e. where the note are of equal length) are never in my experience played in Irish Traditional Dance music
d d/2d/2 , d/2d/2 d , don't add up to d3
(d ~d2) how is this executed?
The word "triplet" causes confusion as classical musicians take this to mean three notes of EQUAL time value. These are NEVER played in ITM with the possible exception of someone who is trying to jazz it up. I prefer to use the term used by the older fiddle players (and dancers) "treble" in which the first two notes are half the value of the third. e.g a d crotchet would be d/2d/2 d.
Sorry for labouring this last point, but I think it's important.
Miles, I totally agree with you that "The type of ornament employed for a particular length of note must surely depend on the context and rhythym of the tune", but with one more consideration. The instrument being played!! As a concertina player, guitarist, and banjo player, I will most certainly play the same ornamented note in any given tune three different ways depending on which instrument I'm playing. The symbol "~" is just an indicator that a note is usually (but not always) ornamented in some manner. Fiddlers may roll, box players may triplet (the same note or adjacent notes, or thirds), banjo players may triplet (usually on the same note). Of course these same players may ornament the note in any number of other ways. For that matter, if a tune is played more than once thru (virtually always the case) experienced players will almost certainly play the tune, and the ornaments, slightly differently each time thru. That's what ornamentation is about. It's not set in stone, nor should it be in the notation.
Your observation about triplets is right on the money. ITM triplets are not the same as classical triplets. This is one of the reasons that the ornaments don't sound correct when MIDI files are played. The computer treats notated triplets as classical or(mathematically correct) triplets. Another reason to be very careful about notating ornamentation.
First off - these are certainly opinions. I respect when someone says NEVER. It gives me a good idea where someone is coming from.
Let me correct the two that Miles pointed out.
d2 d/2d/2 , d/2d/2 d2
Also Miles asked how I would execute (d ~d2) . In truth it is only a roll that can be noted as ~d3, but I was able to annotate a delay before starting the roll. I like the effect.
As for the d (3ddd) - Eighth followed by a triplet. I believe this annotation is correctly and well used in ITM. Thanks for giving the name for it - a "treble".
I like the dd2 or as you called it "Scot snap". It invariably points out why we should not post our personal preferences as the base of a tune. Some folk who are likeminded with miles might dismiss the tune as Scottish.
Great input Miles.
Bart,
What can I say? I will not rehash a discussion about notes, versus ABCs or whatever tool strikes someone’s fancy, as the best method for learning music. I’ll just share my opinions. I read sheet music. When I learn a tune from ear - I transcribe it to sheet music. ABC’s are a tool for me to transcribe sounds into the notes. They are the notes that you and everyone else who reads music can see on this very site. All of the ABCs have helped all of us to have access to thousands and thousands of tunes. When we get them, we can compile an entire book of notes if we wish. That book would contain only the tunes that we specifically wanted. (Hardly true of any collection I might purchase).
As per your suggestion that each person should know how to read music, I am with you all the way. Some folk get by with other methods and may actually do well with other methods. I believe they would be farther along if they learned to read the music. I also agree that it is not a long road to travel. I believe that someone who practices steadily with notes will be further along than without it within a month.
Now the ABCs are a different matter. They take a tiny amount of space to store. I have thousands on my PC and they hardly take more that a scratch of space to store on the hard drive. I can share them easily and my friends can translate them into notes within a few moments. I have had friends send me hundreds at once that I converted to notes.
With those useful facets of ABCs discussed, I can now mention another advantage. We can discuss the actual notes that will appear on the page without having to use the actual notes. Could you imagine us trying to use notes? I wish we could, but until we get that ability, I’ll share discussions with the ABCs.
I could not agree more that we should learn to read music. When dealing with sharing and discussing music at this site and many others, I suggest that you take a little time to learn the ABCs if you have not already.
Oy corumba Bart.
I'm dislexic and I didn't find learning to read music easy, I managed it in the end but I'm never going to be able to site read a tune at nornal speed.
Well I've learnt a new word "auditive" whats rong with Aural?
All the best PP
Well Mark, thanks for your comprehensive reply, I'll be back with you later (you know, dinner, friends etc.).
And thanks Pied Piper (flute - I reckon....;)
Sorry (mean it), I wasn't talking about dislextion (nor blindness) but of course...that would make an exception, though I've had some students with dislextion who read better notes than words.
But we're all different, are we not, thank goodness.
And you obviously haven't learned a new word: I was too lazy to check my dictionary and guessed that the 'Dutch' word Auditive could be used in English.
Heh. Pied's been watching too much "The Simpsons". I think he means, Ay carumba, which is a phrase that the cartoon character Bart uses in the cartoon for comic effect. I've no idea if it's an actual phrase in any language -- it's sort of like "Ay de mi", I think.
I was at a workshop a couple of years ago with James Kelly. We played The Kesh Jig... mostly because all 30 of us knew it. Through every section we discussed possibled ways of using ornamentation and how to identify opportunities. It was most fascinating to see how each group came up with different ideas. All the ideas worked with the tune and the group concensus was that they were all correct.... and this was just fiddle players. What I really got out of the workshop was the grounding to start looking for those moments. I personally like the simple version of a tune posted 'cause I get a real kick out of figuring out how to ornament it... when I'm ready. (I think I have to learn my abc's this discussion has been very hard to follow).
The way I read any form of music notation, when I come across (3ddd or ~B3, I don't worry too much about what the writer intended, and certainly not what the midi file spits out. Instead, I just insert whichever Irish trad ornament seems appropriate to me. And I usually try a few different approaches. I can understand the urge to worry about whether (3ddd signifies three even notes versus a more typical Irish triplet, but I just see it as shorthand (to me, it's much easier to read at a glance than the stuff with all the slashes and extra numbers). So it becomes a convention within the genre, just like ~ to a fiddler means roll (not the classical mordent), and a banjo player might see it as a triplet, etc.
Let's get Aye Caramba a little closer to home. I used to hear it as a child from the Mexicans I lived near. It is an expression that could be be used for whoops or oh darn. I do not know where the Mexicans got it from. It could have been originated in another Spanish speaking country or it could have come all the way from Spain. I don't know. I do know that it was very popular 35 years ago.
Showing my age? As long as I have Will around, I'm still a punk kid. Yep - he was a fourth grader by the time I hit First grade.
Hear, hear, Will. That's the way I read the stuff, anyway, so of course I agree.
I stopped really worrying about whether written transcriptions matched the played music and ornaments exactly when I listened to a great player who shall go un-named talk to someone who wanted to dot every i and cross every t where it came to sheet music and transcription. After a while of answers getting shorter and shorter and shorter, the player finally looked at the questioner quizzically for a moment, and then told him that he might want to relax a bit more about things and that his playing would probably be better for it.
If you want to see what a note-by-note transcription of a recording looks like, you can try this guy: http://flyingpiper.com/
You have to email him if you want to buy a transcription. I bought something from him once, and it wasn't very expensive. (I don't think this is a good way to learn a tune, by the way, but the transcription i got was very good; it's somewhere in one of my book shelves, i may even be able to find it if i look around. )
Folks, I don't want to be trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs! The banging on about the difference between triplets and trebles was more for the benefit of those relatively new to ITM who might intepret the triplet in the classical way with even note lengths, blissfully unaware that this common but erroneous notation is meant to be played as a treble as described above.
If anyone can give me an example of a recording of a bona fide traditional musician playing a triplet with even length notes I'll eat my shorts (or at any rate a wedge of humble pie).
As for the Scotch snap in ITM, I've only heard it in strathpeys (mostly Donegal) and scottish players would probably regard them as not snappy enough!
Mark, I am still puzzled about (d ~d2). Do you mean a d followed by a short d roll, the whole being the length of a dotted crotchet? (A crotchet is a quarter note).
Troy,
It's nice to know who your friends are (YES, I do have some, honest!). Anyhow you should benefit by the many years of listening and hopefully learn lots of tunes along the way. Happy listening!
The Value of a note
The Value of a note
The Value of a note
There have been quite a few conversations about the way we post tunes. In my mind we generally agree that a simplified version can become a good base for a tune. Ornamented versions and variations can be posted in the comments. Ornaments serve two purposes: One, to share our take of the tune with each other. Two, give folks who are new to the tradition, a general idea of how the music is played.
Will and I shared a conversation on how to present the simplified versions of tunes. He ultimately convinced me that his evil ways make more sense than my evil ways. I argued that simplifying a tune might be to take a notation like ~d3 and change it into dcd or ded. To me, the music is more aesthetically pleasing and would very likely sound better when the midi generator has a shot at it. Perhaps that is true but it would be a failure to convey the correct tune. When you see notation like dcd it should be because those are the notes to the tune and not a translation of an ornament. In an effort to create some decent sounding music, I have ruined the tune.
Will's suggestion was to change ~d3 into d3. In most cases you have a boring dotted quarter note. The point behind it, however, can become evident. Most Irish musicians see d3 as a grand opportunity. Normally you would see a roll associated with it but there are quite a few additional opportunities within the simple innocent d3. You can play around with them and find the expression that best suites you playing level and your interpretation.
Here is a list for d3:
D3 , ~d3 , ddd , d2d , dd2 , dcd, ded , d (3ddd) , d d/2d/2 , d/2d/2 d , (d ~d2)
If you wish you can add in slides up or down. Take care to use the more common ornamentation at session. That's generally what your mates will be doing.
How about a list for d2:
D2 , dd , d>d , ~d2 , (3ddd).
There are many more but I may have gone too far already with them. Besides – those are the most common. Once again, slides can be used. I have found that the plain old rolls and triplets go a long way.
Comments and suggestions welcome.
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by Mark Cordova
Re: The Value of a note
I'm with Will, if you want to be super simple, use d3. ~d3 just says it's a "roll" and leaves it up to you on how to perform the roll (i.e., flute players and pipers will probably do a crann instead). Specifying the actual notes is overkill.
This is a point where i think we should make the printed music be correct, rather than trying to get the MIDI generator to create something pleasant.
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by glauber
Re: The Value of a note
Admirable suggestions, which I'd go along with. However, the examples for D2 and D3 now demonstrate the virtual impossibility of carrying out a 100% reliable character search for a tune fragment in advanced mode in this or any other database. It is not only the alternatives for D2, D3 and the like which cause problems in searching, it is also that a simple 4/4 measure such as |GDGA Befg| can appear as |GD GA Be fg| or |GDGABefg|, and a dotted rhythm such as d3d can be written as d>d.
This is not to say that the advanced search is useless; far from it. You can still get a positive result (if it exists) if you use a bit of lateral thinking. A negative result, though, is always a little worrying, if only because it is so difficult, or impossible, to prove a universal negative. I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that the best search engine is the human brain backed up by 20 or more years of experience.
trevor
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by lazyhound
Re: The Value of a note
Generally I would have thought it better to post tunes with no ornamentation (if they actually exist that way). Otherwise, less skillful players may have difficulties learning them. However, it is also useful as a beginner to see where (and to a certain extent how) more experienced players place their ornaments.
I use an excellent piece of shareware that can take a midi file and turn it into sheeet music and some of the ornamented stuff turns into a real dog's breakfast!
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by ParaHandy
Re: The Value of a note
I rarely use the search function to see if I'm duplicating a tune. Generally I'll use the Will Harmon brain engine instead. "Will -- does this tune have another name?" or sometimes even "Will -- what is this tune?" *grin*
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Value of a note
And they're all Gan Ainm. But then every time Zina sends me the notes, it's always the same tune....
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: The Value of a note
*snicker* Well, if you'd learn to read the damn abcs....
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Value of a note
Everything I need to know I learned *before* kindergarten.
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: The Value of a note
LOL -- sounds like a pretty advanced neighborhood gang of kids to me...
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Value of a note
Well (sigh), this discussion beats me, I mean it.
During my 24 year career as a flute teacher I have had hundreds of students. Some were brilliant, some were no good at all and the most flew somewere in between.
But they all learned to read notes! It's even quite easy to have a chimpansee read notes.
I fully agree that Irish music is about auditive tradition and that printed music is only for help, this site is a good example, it helped me finding tunes.
Notes, ABC, Klavarscribo, Tablature, you name it, they're all very rough compared to what we hear in real life, but notes are by far the most accurate. Especially regarding ornaments.
And it's so easy to learn.
Bart
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by Bart
Re: The Value of a note
Mark, I would agree with Will & Glauber and stick with the simple note values and leave the ornamentation to the discretion of the individual. I thought your posting of Dr. O'Neills was fine in this respect.
The type of ornament employed for a particular length of note must surely depend on the context and rhythym of the tune (jig, reel etc.), so attempts to prescribe a list of possibilities is worthy but hazardous. My comments on your list for d3 for what they're worth:
D3 , ~d3 , d2d, dcd, ded are fine
ddd too dull
dd2 the old Scoth snap is not used in ITM
d (3ddd) Triplets (i.e. where the note are of equal length) are never in my experience played in Irish Traditional Dance music
d d/2d/2 , d/2d/2 d , don't add up to d3
(d ~d2) how is this executed?
The word "triplet" causes confusion as classical musicians take this to mean three notes of EQUAL time value. These are NEVER played in ITM with the possible exception of someone who is trying to jazz it up. I prefer to use the term used by the older fiddle players (and dancers) "treble" in which the first two notes are half the value of the third. e.g a d crotchet would be d/2d/2 d.
Sorry for labouring this last point, but I think it's important.
# Posted on January 9th 2003 by milesnagopaleen
Re: The Value of a note
Miles, I totally agree with you that "The type of ornament employed for a particular length of note must surely depend on the context and rhythym of the tune", but with one more consideration. The instrument being played!! As a concertina player, guitarist, and banjo player, I will most certainly play the same ornamented note in any given tune three different ways depending on which instrument I'm playing. The symbol "~" is just an indicator that a note is usually (but not always) ornamented in some manner. Fiddlers may roll, box players may triplet (the same note or adjacent notes, or thirds), banjo players may triplet (usually on the same note). Of course these same players may ornament the note in any number of other ways. For that matter, if a tune is played more than once thru (virtually always the case) experienced players will almost certainly play the tune, and the ornaments, slightly differently each time thru. That's what ornamentation is about. It's not set in stone, nor should it be in the notation.
Your observation about triplets is right on the money. ITM triplets are not the same as classical triplets. This is one of the reasons that the ornaments don't sound correct when MIDI files are played. The computer treats notated triplets as classical or(mathematically correct) triplets. Another reason to be very careful about notating ornamentation.
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Tusong200
Re: The Value of a note
First off - these are certainly opinions. I respect when someone says NEVER. It gives me a good idea where someone is coming from.
Let me correct the two that Miles pointed out.
d2 d/2d/2 , d/2d/2 d2
Also Miles asked how I would execute (d ~d2) . In truth it is only a roll that can be noted as ~d3, but I was able to annotate a delay before starting the roll. I like the effect.
As for the d (3ddd) - Eighth followed by a triplet. I believe this annotation is correctly and well used in ITM. Thanks for giving the name for it - a "treble".
I like the dd2 or as you called it "Scot snap". It invariably points out why we should not post our personal preferences as the base of a tune. Some folk who are likeminded with miles might dismiss the tune as Scottish.
Great input Miles.
Bart,
What can I say? I will not rehash a discussion about notes, versus ABCs or whatever tool strikes someone’s fancy, as the best method for learning music. I’ll just share my opinions. I read sheet music. When I learn a tune from ear - I transcribe it to sheet music. ABC’s are a tool for me to transcribe sounds into the notes. They are the notes that you and everyone else who reads music can see on this very site. All of the ABCs have helped all of us to have access to thousands and thousands of tunes. When we get them, we can compile an entire book of notes if we wish. That book would contain only the tunes that we specifically wanted. (Hardly true of any collection I might purchase).
As per your suggestion that each person should know how to read music, I am with you all the way. Some folk get by with other methods and may actually do well with other methods. I believe they would be farther along if they learned to read the music. I also agree that it is not a long road to travel. I believe that someone who practices steadily with notes will be further along than without it within a month.
Now the ABCs are a different matter. They take a tiny amount of space to store. I have thousands on my PC and they hardly take more that a scratch of space to store on the hard drive. I can share them easily and my friends can translate them into notes within a few moments. I have had friends send me hundreds at once that I converted to notes.
With those useful facets of ABCs discussed, I can now mention another advantage. We can discuss the actual notes that will appear on the page without having to use the actual notes. Could you imagine us trying to use notes? I wish we could, but until we get that ability, I’ll share discussions with the ABCs.
I could not agree more that we should learn to read music. When dealing with sharing and discussing music at this site and many others, I suggest that you take a little time to learn the ABCs if you have not already.
Thanks for the perspective.
Mark
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Mark Cordova
Sorry folks
I think I'll stop using word to write up these long winded comments. It appears that the hex value of a quote in Word is different than this package.
The symbol ' in word translates to ’
If I were actually cursing - I wouldn't use as many numbers.
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Mark Cordova
Re: The Value of a note
Oy corumba Bart.
I'm dislexic and I didn't find learning to read music easy, I managed it in the end but I'm never going to be able to site read a tune at nornal speed.
Well I've learnt a new word "auditive" whats rong with Aural?
All the best PP
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Pied Piper
Re: The Value of a note
Well Mark, thanks for your comprehensive reply, I'll be back with you later (you know, dinner, friends etc.).
And thanks Pied Piper (flute - I reckon....;)
Sorry (mean it), I wasn't talking about dislextion (nor blindness) but of course...that would make an exception, though I've had some students with dislextion who read better notes than words.
But we're all different, are we not, thank goodness.
And you obviously haven't learned a new word: I was too lazy to check my dictionary and guessed that the 'Dutch' word Auditive could be used in English.
So it's me who learned a new word, thanks
Be well,
Bart
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Bart
Re: The Value of a note
Hey, BTW PP,
What means Oy corumba?
B.
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Bart
Re: The Value of a note
Heh. Pied's been watching too much "The Simpsons". I think he means, Ay carumba, which is a phrase that the cartoon character Bart uses in the cartoon for comic effect. I've no idea if it's an actual phrase in any language -- it's sort of like "Ay de mi", I think.
Zina
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Value of a note
I was at a workshop a couple of years ago with James Kelly. We played The Kesh Jig... mostly because all 30 of us knew it. Through every section we discussed possibled ways of using ornamentation and how to identify opportunities. It was most fascinating to see how each group came up with different ideas. All the ideas worked with the tune and the group concensus was that they were all correct.... and this was just fiddle players.
What I really got out of the workshop was the grounding to start looking for those moments. I personally like the simple version of a tune posted 'cause I get a real kick out of figuring out how to ornament it... when I'm ready. (I think I have to learn my abc's this discussion has been very hard to follow).
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by ANNY
Re: The Value of a note
The way I read any form of music notation, when I come across (3ddd or ~B3, I don't worry too much about what the writer intended, and certainly not what the midi file spits out. Instead, I just insert whichever Irish trad ornament seems appropriate to me. And I usually try a few different approaches. I can understand the urge to worry about whether (3ddd signifies three even notes versus a more typical Irish triplet, but I just see it as shorthand (to me, it's much easier to read at a glance than the stuff with all the slashes and extra numbers). So it becomes a convention within the genre, just like ~ to a fiddler means roll (not the classical mordent), and a banjo player might see it as a triplet, etc.
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: The Value of a note
Let's get Aye Caramba a little closer to home. I used to hear it as a child from the Mexicans I lived near. It is an expression that could be be used for whoops or oh darn. I do not know where the Mexicans got it from. It could have been originated in another Spanish speaking country or it could have come all the way from Spain. I don't know. I do know that it was very popular 35 years ago.
Showing my age? As long as I have Will around, I'm still a punk kid. Yep - he was a fourth grader by the time I hit First grade.
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Mark Cordova
Re: The Value of a note
Hear, hear, Will. That's the way I read the stuff, anyway, so of course I agree.
I stopped really worrying about whether written transcriptions matched the played music and ornaments exactly when I listened to a great player who shall go un-named talk to someone who wanted to dot every i and cross every t where it came to sheet music and transcription. After a while of answers getting shorter and shorter and shorter, the player finally looked at the questioner quizzically for a moment, and then told him that he might want to relax a bit more about things and that his playing would probably be better for it.
Zina
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: The Value of a note
If you want to see what a note-by-note transcription of a recording looks like, you can try this guy:
)
http://flyingpiper.com/
You have to email him if you want to buy a transcription. I bought something from him once, and it wasn't very expensive. (I don't think this is a good way to learn a tune, by the way, but the transcription i got was very good; it's somewhere in one of my book shelves, i may even be able to find it if i look around.
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by glauber
Re: The Value of a note
Folks, I don't want to be trying to teach my grandmother to suck eggs! The banging on about the difference between triplets and trebles was more for the benefit of those relatively new to ITM who might intepret the triplet in the classical way with even note lengths, blissfully unaware that this common but erroneous notation is meant to be played as a treble as described above.
If anyone can give me an example of a recording of a bona fide traditional musician playing a triplet with even length notes I'll eat my shorts (or at any rate a wedge of humble pie).
As for the Scotch snap in ITM, I've only heard it in strathpeys (mostly Donegal) and scottish players would probably regard them as not snappy enough!
Mark, I am still puzzled about (d ~d2). Do you mean a d followed by a short d roll, the whole being the length of a dotted crotchet? (A crotchet is a quarter note).
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by milesnagopaleen
Re: The Value of a note
Now you got me looking really hard for a traditional musician playing a triplet with even length notes! I'm looking foreward to seeing this!
-Troy
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by RTP
Re: The Value of a note
Troy,
It's nice to know who your friends are (YES, I do have some, honest!). Anyhow you should benefit by the many years of listening and hopefully learn lots of tunes along the way. Happy listening!
# Posted on January 10th 2003 by milesnagopaleen
Re: The Value of a note
Miles - Your description works for me.
# Posted on January 13th 2003 by Mark Cordova