And what newcomers learn it from just sheet music? Newcomers who never listen to any ITM CDs or hear any ITM played but just decide one day out of the blue to buy some ITM sheet-music for a laugh and learn a few tunes from it? Whence their motivation? Where are these people? This is just lofty, empty talk, Michael!
here in Australia there are a HUGE amount of people who attempt to learn their ITM exclusively through the written notes. The bizarre sight of a session full of music stands, with a whole lot of people playing music but no one playing music *together* is a path actively persued by more than few...
I often find when I'm teaching that these people get quite assertive about their right to learn their music by plonking O'Neill's on the table, sticking a little post-it flag on the page that contains the tune I'm teaching (and it's often quite a different version to the one i'm attempting to teach)and just playing through this regardless of what's going on around them... and then get furious when i insist that the books have to be put away. ("i'll never remember it!" "the O'Neill's version is actually the 'correct' version anyway" etc.)
I'm a ITM musician with a "typical" background. I started on the whistle with a tape and a tutor book (dots). Having a basic "parent-enforced" piano background, dots were the thing, so that transferred naturally to the whistle/tape/dots period. But I was told by many people that I needed to LISTEN to the music in order to "get" it. I did. That has included "learning" the tunes. I hung on to the sheets and the O'Neill's, and others for a couple of years, but it soon became clear to me that people who played the dots (myself included) weren't really playing the music as intended. Even the dots with all the ornaments added didn't give me the true feel of the tunes. So, long ago, I quit looking at sheets of paper, and found the internal, mental path of "hearing" the music and trying to reproduce it with my fingers and my heart. Sorry, llig wins.
This may come as a shock to some, but I totally agree with Michael on this one. I think the clearest way to explain what I think he has been trying to say is that while learning tunes from sheet music is USEFUL, the ability to listen is ESSENTIAL, especially when playing in a group with other people. How many times have you heard a guitarist thumping out chords which clearly don't match the tune? I've even heard melody players playing in a different key to the rest of the room - and what's worse, only one note away from everyone else; a whole tune of discordant intervals!
I've been leading a beginners session for some time now, and have experienced the same frustration as SirNose (is it just an Aussie thing?). The book we use for learning tunes has some errors in it, so occasionally the red pen needs to come out. I find myself often pointing out musical errors which many of the students seem oblivious to. I'm forced to ask "can't you hear that that is wrong?" and the answer is often "No". It's fair enough that some of the changes are merely preference, but others are definate mistakes - a G that should really be an A, backed up by the fact that there's an A chord marked as accompaniment. Sometimes I despair that people can play the music by rote and not hear what they are playing.
On the plus side, there are also some careful sight readers who actually play the correct note even though that's not what's written in front of them, so there's hope for us all
Eno
And here's another point that's just occurred to me...
You know those annoying people who start another set or a song right on the coat tails of the previous one, even stepping on the last note? Could it be that they aren't listening to what's going on? I couldn't do that simply because my mind needs the correct amount of time for the last note to die away before I could even think of the next set. And perhaps that's why it annoys me so much and seems so rude to me - it's upsetting my sense of what sounds 'right'.
The dots have uses. For instance, there were no recordings of a lot of the tunes in Captain O'Farrell's collection. So if you (or Jerry O'Sullivan) wanted to learn some of those tunes, you'd better be able to sight read them from sheet music.
I respectfully disagree wth jtrout and Michael.You just can't say that sheet music has no place in ITM. It has a different role than, say, classical music, for sure, but to blithely say toss it all away is taking away a valuable tool for many.
I can listen to Matt Malloy play Toss the Feathers for hours and still be unable to come close, but a quick peek at the notation and now I have something to build on.
I have my session.org tunebook printed out in standard notation, and refer to it all week long. I don't use it at my session, and that's where the ears come in. I have the framework of the tune, and now I can complete its construction.
I, too, would shudder at the sight of music stands and O'Neill's at my session; you need to sit close and look at each other and listen; but to prepare new tunes, and to review old ones, the notation is a useful tool for me; perhaps for many others as well.
I don't think they were saying get rid of it completely, Greg, just don't use it as the sole source to learn from.
Personally I find I need to 'see' the notes to make a tune stick in my memory for all time. Things I learn by ear then stop playing tend to fade. Tunes initially learned from the dots stick better. That's possibly because I was classically trained. Now I've realised that is the case I make sure I write the tune out to help me remember it (and so I can go back to it in the future if I forget a section of it).
Having said that, I've heard several professional recordings which to me sound totally lifeless. I have a feeling these are exactly the phenomena that Michael is complaining about. The music is 'not perfect' but totally soul-less.
It's 'The Phantom Button's Allegory Corner' again...
Learning this music from sheet music would be like not knowing how to cook but trying to do so by only having the list of ingredients from a recipe. If you had no understanding of how to cook or how to combine the ingredients and all you had done was taste the food somewhere else a few times and liked it, then the odds are good you'd end up poisoning yourself or at least making you and anyone else very sick who eats what you prepare.
This concludes 'The Phantom Button's Allegory Corner'... thank you for your attention.
A) Alone in your bedroom with Oneills for two years - It is naive to believe you could learn any form of music anything but superficially by this method (classical, bluegrass, whatever...)
B) Sheet music in groups
So the "music" gets beaten around the head with music stands wielded by the aforementioned "newcomers", big deal, this usually happens in slow session groups where you should know what you are in for.
Regardless of the method they employ they are enjoying themsleves and learning more about the music (at the very least there is a chance they may forget their sheet music one week!)
In my experience people have their little epiphanies and come to realise the richness of learning from what music they hear,
Is this not a valid path?
Will the printed page be inexorably burned into my mind leading me into Lady Macbeth style manias "Out damn dot!"?
I personally play tunes that i've learned in a variety of ways. Some from dots, some from sessions. some from c.d.'s, some from people slowing them down and teaching it to me. I have never had a person say any of the following to me:
" you play like you learned that from dots"
" that tune was much nicer than those ones you learned from dots"
" you can't play those tunes here because you learned them from dots".
The ability to play any tune well and in a sylistically appropriate manner comes down to an understanding of the elements that give irish music it's particular style (ornaments, phrasing, tone etc) and the technical proficiency/time spent with the tune to execute these things effectively. I believe firmly that time spent absorbing and learning the way to approach and interperet tunes, irrespective of which way they are learned, is a much more worthwhile excersise to invest your time in than agonising over where/how you get your tunes. I understand whole heartedly the points raised against the "dot locked" method of learning, but i believe it has more to do with a flawed approach to learning a musical style than a flawed system of transmitting melodies. Used in conjunction with LOTS of listening (both recordings and live players) i feel dots can be quite useful. Just my two cents
This really comes down to whether you think the major factor in what makes Irish-trad Irish-trad is the *style* or the *tunes*...
Irish music is a style and approach of playing. On one level the tunes are irrelevant, that's why all the more modern recordings of Irish players playing Breton/Macedonian/Klezmer/Spanish tunes are still essentially *irish* music - just with the notes of a tune from elsewhere. I've been told by a luminary of the "Aussie Bush Scene" that the "Aussie Trad" tunes I've been getting into recently do not represent "Aussie" music because i play them too "irish".
And this style can ONLY be learned by listening and direct teaching. Sure, once you've done the hard yards and have a handle on the style and approach, knock yourself out with the dots, but you need to have the listening/playing experience to 'extract' the music from the dots!
Exactly my point beeno! The fact that someone plays in an innapropriate fashion has to do with a flaw in the learning process, not the demonic possession of written music. By the way, hope the winter school goes well. Can't wait to crank it up on the black boards ;)
I think llig was treated appallingly in that last thread. All he ever gets is rude and sarcastic comments and accusations back in his face, even though he's genuinely trying to help.
(of course it was your point. or more realitically, your point was my point. I mean, I gave you, like, what, 1 lesson? That's more than enough time for someone to bask in my radiant glory, and essentially means that ALL your points are *my* points really. Dude, i like *own* you. )
c'mon beebs, you havn't heard the waves of rush until you've heard it with the subtle tinkling of the glorious lagerphone!!!
(on a tangent - I was at a ceili last night and someone told me they were at bush dance where they had re-named the dance "the waves of Tory" into "the waves of Bondi". God being Aussie's embarrising sometimes )
Beeno with the likes of you frequenting message boards touting the benefits of larger phones i've never been more proud . And as far as you owning me goes? I challenge you to a bodhran off next week. Tope end at 50 paces!!! (note i said bodhran off NOT flute off as you still obviously own my ass on that front although i'm workin' on it). What say ye varment!!!!?
Yes - but Beano you didnt even tell me what your doing learning bush tunes...whats going on? And you Ben - get back to work
See what I have to go through??? late in the evening and Sirnose are both named Ben and they both play flute and Bodhran it gets very confusing around here sometimes
Top-end players, with their extra-long sticks and all that faux-black-leather taping on their skins, always make me feel like their compensating for something. REAL men play with both ends.
Yeah - Undertones is not Aussie bush tunes,or at least I dont think so...I dont know what youve heard but you do realise that dads welsh right??? Not even Australian or anything
for your contemplation, the music of :
Sally Sloane - considered by some to be "bush music"
Simon McDonald - considered by some to be "bush music"
Joe Yates - considered by some to be "bush music"
Joe Cashmere - considered by some to be "bush music"
Jacko Kevans -considered by some to be "bush music"
Mick McGarry -considered by some to be "bush music"
Declan Affley - considered by some to be the father of the savior of Aussie ITM
I saw my first bush bass at the NFF and was mentally scarred by it. Still haven't seen a lagerphone, or at least I might have seen one but haven't known what it was. Surely you haven't started associating with these people because of that Undertones thing have you, SirNose? I wondered what the beard was all about.
That's coz it's *not* bush music! (at least not according to the afore-mentioned luminary). But the appropriation (and on one level, creation) of Aussie Bush Music is a discussion for another day (and probably another website)
(and dow, surely you've seen a lagerphone?! the largerphone player is the guy who looks like he's whacking the severved, be-jiggled leg of a morris dancer with a vicious-looking serated stick. quite beautiful actualy)
you guys crack me up. Yeah TIsh there is a michael Banjos who plays the fiddle and a Michael Fiddle who plays the banjo (ie greenwiggle) Sydney is a strange place!
I can't get over the image of all those folks down under crowded together in a room with their music stands. They're just never going to learn it that way. Dots can be a very useful supplement to listening ... but those guys aren't listening, and they aren't learning to listen. So they can't possibly get it.
benhall, it's ok, I'm sure there are no folks in Ross-On-Wye who use music stands. Lucky you being in the centre of the world of trad and not having to worry about these things.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! And here i was thinking it would be really low to make that exact same post. Good to know i can always rely on you to do my dirty work for me dowser!!
I also, of course, do recognise that living in Ross-on-Wye means I'm not entitled to an opinion on this, unlike you guys immersed in the true tradition down in Oz.
Ah, right ... pompous ... mmm ... suppose thinking it's a good idea to listen, and to *learn* to listen *is* a bit pompous ... I'll obviously have to work on that ...
No just working on not thinking your better than others because of the way you go about learning things. I've heard a hell of a lot of self serving, ego centric, elitist hack musicians in my time who all learned their tunes according to the strict guidelines set down in the trad mafia hand book. I whole heartedly agree that listening is the corner stone of traditional music i just don't believe that perscribing to one method of learning guarantees a great player or vice versa.
hahaha!! Dow i love ye sure i always have. If i remember correctly it was YOU who supplied me with dots for the tune John Brady (shameless name drop i know) wrote for us so you're aiding and abbeding this hideous slight against traditional music!!! I mean really dow if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem. This really has been a nice distraction from working lads. I think it's time for a new job given that this one has driven me to the longest continual posting session i've ever been involved in.!!
"Sure, once you've done the hard yards and have a handle on the style and approach, knock yourself out with the dots, but you need to have the listening/playing experience to 'extract' the music from the dots!" - Exactly, SirNose!
This whole debate was started by bazouki_Dave asking about dots for a tune on a Four Men & a Dog CD & the point was that Dave *has*, I am reliably informed, already "done the hard yards"!
We sorted this all out in the last thread, so I'm not quite sure what this one's all about!
We all recognise, don't we, that:
1 - The best way to learn ITM is by using your Ear.
2 - Written music is a valiable resource.
3 - Being able to read music is a useful skill.
So what, if some newcomers have a lifetime's experience of reading music & find that an easy way to get a quick handle on a tune. I'm sure, as mature, intelligent individuals, most of them will also have enough wit to understand that really knowing a tune only comes with lots of playing & lots of listening to different players & different versions.
If, on the other hand, we're talking about young children coming to music for the first time, well, I already made my views very clear on that subject, in the previous thread.
I would caution that we should be mindful of others weaknesses & be careful not to discourage, through intolerance!
There is never only one way to Skin a Cat!
Here's a thought - since ITM began, I wonder how many good tunes have been lost, because nobody wrote them down?
I agree too with ptarmigan and it was my request that started this thread .
And you know what ?I dont read the dots I never learned I just wanted them for a friend who likes the music .Who had difficulty because the band played tuned up to Eb
I don't think I'm better than others. I've re-read my posts, and I can't see how what I said could be interpreted that way. Ah well, the power of the internet, I suppose.
Out of interest, I know I'm nowhere near good enough - for me, I mean. That is, for the sound I want to be able to make. But, even if I was, I'd still be entitled to an opinion. And, in my opinion, not bothering to learn to listen is not the way to learn this music. Just my opinion.
I also agree with Ptarmigan. As I said before - "Dots can be a very useful supplement to listening"
I wonder if there would have been much point to this discussion 30 years ago.
Then there were very few sources of written music available, other than Tin Pan Alley and "art" music - remember all those great transcriptions: "Jumpin' Jack Flash" arranged for pianoforte and voice?
Thirty years ago you were pretty much forced to learn by ear. If I remember correctly it was initially a very slow process. Tens of thousands of hours later I'm much quicker. Point: ear training can't be done overnight. It's HARD work.
Having said that, I will often listen to a tune and record it in dots as an aide-memoire. Like, you know, sometimes when I'm going to the shops I write down the items I want to purchase on a piece of paper. When I get to the shops I try to snatch the occasional glance at my list when nobody is looking.
"I dont read the dots I never learned I just wanted them for a friend who likes the music" Ha Ha Dave ...... so what your saying is that, if you'd said that sooner, say about *98* posts ago, you could have saved all this debate!
I must remember to read between *your* lines, in future!
DonaldK - you might be surprised by just how quickly some youngsters do learn to memorise their music & are actually able to *hear* subtle changes in a tune! All I'm saying is let's try not to discourage those who aren't gifted in that dept.
As a child, growing up, I learned many Hymns by ear & later loads of Pop songs too, aye including Jumping Jack Flash. I have no doubt at all that my years of doing that, helped to prepare my *ear* for the task of learning hundreds of IT tunes, a task I only started in my 20s.
Oh dear, someone on Footstompin' has just accused me of being a member of the "folk police". Please be nice to me here.
Anyway, on this occasion, I'm very happy to agree with Ptarmigan
" - The best way to learn ITM is by using your Ear.
2 - Written music is a valiable resource.
3 - Being able to read music is a useful skill."
I'd suggest that the "sheet music" option is probably more common in Scottish music as I don't think the tradition has always been quite as alive or "living" as in Ireland. It's much better these days, of course, but over the years much of the music was played by pipe bands, fiddle societies, fiddle and accordion clubs, Scottish dance bands and much of it was written by known composers, e.g the Gows, Marshall, Skinner etc and readily available in written publications.
The above is probably an over simplication, of course, and the music seems to be a lot "free-er" these days, especially with the younger bands and tunes are more frequently passed on via sessions and elsewhere.
Reading the dots at a session is like doing an orienteering event with satellite navigation. But then I know someone who does this (reading) at session speed very successfully. Shame because he has to rummage through all his books every time there's a change to a new tune (except if he's leading of course.) He is slowly weaning off the dots though, so he is aware of the prob.
General consensus here and I'm glad.
Phrases like, "progressing to learning by ear" and Pt's 123 have it about right. And of course no one has ever said, "that sheet music has no place in the music".
As for Pt's thoughts about how many good tunes that have been lost, because nobody wrote them down ... what about all those dire tunes that should have been lost, but survive because someone did write them down?
And as for bazouki dave ... If he'd answered "I just wanted them for a friend who likes the music" to my "why do you need the dots if you have a recording?" Then I would have said, "Do your friend a favour and knock the recording down a semitone in slowdowner, or whatever, and give them that instead. If you're not sure how to do that, e-mail me an mp3 and I'll do it for you"
I'm totally with Michael on this. Different things go on in my tiny brain depending on whether I'm dot-dependent or playing by ear. Years ago when i played the piano more than I do now, I used to love just sitting down and improvising. But if i set my mind to learning other people's music off dots, it generally took me a while to get my brain back into being able to improvise. I find something similar with the fiddle. It's like i feel my wings clipped or something if I start playing tunes from the dots. A part of me that's awake and on edge if I'm playing by ear goes to sleep.
Also agree with Sir Nose and others about the surreal experience of playing with dot-addicts who bang away with written chords or melody lines that bear no resemblance to the sounds other people are making. How do you catch someone's eye and feel like you're getting in there together if everyone's looking at sheet music? It sorta just dumbs the whole experience down. If you haven't learned a tune backwards by ear, it's hard to play by heart, if you know what i mean.
Ptarmigan, I wouldn't want to discourage youngsters learning to play by ear.
Playing by ear, to me, is essential to being a good musician. Most of the time I play by memory (i.e., a fixed part like a tune) or by ear (an instrumental break in a song).
But in the first stages of learning a tune I might well work from dots. This is because too often in the past I have learned a tune at a session or workshop only to have partiall or totally forgotten it by the time I get home. So I'll now probably quickly jot it down in dots, like my shopping list (which isn't generally in dot form I have yo admit), and just like my shopping list it's not definitive.
And like you, it was all the improvising and learning guitar solos from LPs (often played at 16 and 2/3) when I were a nipper that trained my ear. That was my exact point. There weren't the same written resources available then (in the 70s) so you had tae use yer lugs.
"Playing by ear, to me, is essential to being a good musician."
Yes, a good musician of any genre of music. Let's not forget that listening and ear training is essential to being a good classical musician as well. Written notes on a page are only a representation of classical music too. The difference is that with classical music it's all about dynamics. With trad, it's about variation, rhythm and articulation.
Yep, and the top classical players have developed much much better ears and memories that your so called top trad musos. It's really not that hard. There is absolutely no excuse for not being able to pic up a mere 16 or 32 bars of more often than not repetitive stuff with just a single line that hardly ever modulates.
It's funny how so many people say that reading notes is easier and quicker and that learning by ear is hard word and takes lots of practice. For me it's the opposite---I can pick up a tune fairly quickly by ear and it's fun, like figuring out a puzzle, but give me a written tune and it's a chore, almost boring by comparison. I force myself to read because I want to know how to do both.
It seems to me that the musicians with classical training can have a real disadvantage coming to traditional music because they're so dependent on written music. I still admire that ability, though---put me in front of a Mozart concerto and I'd be totally lost.
Yes. It's no wonder some classical players scoff at trad players when they whinge and complain that they have to memorise a few simple tunes. Think of a top concert pianist memorising whole piano concertos. They probably have all the orchestras parts in their heads too. That's the problem when you have a bunch of simple tunes. Music like that attracts lazy people who want to be musicians but can't be bothered to put the time in and learn the tunes. So they pick up a drum instead. See? all this is interconnected. Poor Michael sings his protests seemingly every day, but unfortunately he's wasting his breath, because people will always give him a hard time for stating the bleeding obvious. It's a sad world.
The original assertion at the head of this thread, that newcomers to ITM learning it from the dots is the most awful thing to happen, is not proven. What you learn from dots is the bare bones of a tune, not "the music." These are two entirely different things, but those who condemn dot-learners are getting the two confused. It is entirely valid to learn a tune from dots then go and float it on that big ITM ocean out there, which the only place where you'll learn "the music." I want to know where all these cancerous hordes of awful ITM wreckers are who put music stands up in sessions. I've seen folk passing around notation and discussing it but I have never seen anyone playing from dots in any session I've attended. Which is not to say it doesn't happen somewhere or other but it's scarcely believable that it's so widespread that it's having an "awful" effect on ITM. Take a hundred different ITM players and you'll find a hundred different strategies for learning tunes/"the music." Singling out for condemnation those who choose to build up a repertoire from dots is something you're really going to have to justify with some evidence that such people make "worse" ITM players than anyone else. There's a challenge for you. And just in case anyone suspects from all this that I'm a dottist, I can hardly read sheet music at all and ABC and tablature are utterly foreign to me. Ear every time for me!
Never mind how people get there, for 'tis only by their fruits that ye shall know them!
I think the phrase "*learning* it from the dots" (emphasis mine) is quite significant here.
I'm sure Michael doesn't mean that there's loads of people reading off music stands or from sheet music(in general) within sessions. The musicians may well have committed the tunes to memory but it will be the "written" version which may just be the bare bones or different from what is normally heard. So, that's where listening is obviously important. If you can "learn by ear" well, then you have no problem. Otherwise, you have to listen to what others are doing and adapt accordingly.
I have seen some sessions where the players will play "off the sheet music" as a matter of course but not(usually) in pubs or traditional Irish sessions.
OK, you saw it coming, which may help lessen the horror. Now I don't want to creep anybody out here, but which of the many possible combinations of fruit, meat and two (yet to be specified) veggies will lead to you being taken wrongly?
Steve, you say, " What you learn from dots is the bare bones of a tune, not "the music." These are two entirely different things".
I'm sorry mate but you really can't divorce things like that. Of course the bones are the music, all of it is the music. An animal is the flesh and the bones, and the organs and everything else etc. And music is the same. Please don't tell me you are saying that it's just the flesh that is the music.
Michael, don't you see? Steve views tunes in a different way than you do. He sees a tune not simply as "a tune", or "the music", but as a series of notes you play and that you can then embellish with some twiddly bits. That's where he's wrong of course, but you'd be wasting your time to try and explain it to him.
llig is guilty of a certain amount of inconsistency. In a recent discussion he complains (quote): I'm worried that there is a plethora of posts that have nothing whatsoever to do with ... "The exchange of tunes is what keeps traditional Irish music alive. This web-site is one way of passing on jigs, reels and other dance tunes." How does he think it achieves this? er, transcriptions I think.
Nope, sorry, I've always said that there is nothing wrong with sharing tunes via notation among people you know and know can already play. And I've always said it's a bad way to share music with strangers, you never know how wrong it'll be interpreted. The main point of the argument remains that notation is a very very bad way of learning music. And the vast majority here, thankfully, agree
Of course. It's as plain as day. Music is stuff that we hear, therefore we learn it by listening. To say otherwise is like saying that the best way to learn to paint is by closing your eyes and listening to a picture on the wall. Michael seriously mate you're wasting your time explaining this time and time again to people who don't want to listen to you. It almost upsets me that you are so open-hearted as to want to help people unknown to you who don't understand the obvious, and yet you take a deep breath and trudge on resiliently every time someone kicks dirt in your face. Fair play to you though, they should give you a knighthood or something.
tee he, I'm just sitting in my office listening to Fats Waller, drawing pie charts and finishing off last night's kink prawn jalfrezi. I've got plenty of time
Literacy itself is highly over-rated - I bet Llig eschews even notes to the milkman, and prefers to warble "an extra pint today" from the window in a gruff baritone. We should go back to verbal culture, learnt by listening at the campfire and passed from generation to generation. The hero of our tales of derring-do shall be Sir Llig - arise, Sir Llig! (we already have SirNose). I like the idea that this Brotherhood can share notated tunes among people they know (secret handshakes? rolled up trouser legs?). Strangers may only learn aurally or they won't do it right!
Learning this music is like learning a language. The language can either be your native tongue or it can be a foreign language to you. Either way it has to be learned. You learn it by listening, and to a certain extent watching what people are doing. With language, you're listening to the pronunciation of the words and how to use them and how they link together to form long flowing sentences and phrases with differing intonation. You're watching what native speakers tongues and lips are doing and looking at how they shape their mouths to form the sounds. With the music, you're listening to how notes are articulated and how they're put together to form phrases that are meaningful and pleasing to the ear. You're watching how great musicians are doing with their fingers or whatever to produce a good sound. Then, with both language and music, you take what you've learnt and you make something new with it - something that's your own. You can learn a language out of a book, but it's going to sound awfully odd to a native speaker. You won't be fluent enough to play about with the language unless you immerse yourself in it aurally until you can produce the same yourself. You'll probably not be able to pronounce the words very well and native speakers will be able to tell you haven't spent any time amongst native speakers. So if you learn only from the dots and don't immerse yourself in the music and listen, then you won't acquire the skills necessary to creating inventive variations and good articulation etc. In other words, your playing will be sh1te.
Michael's oft-expressed view is "you can't expect to make any progress with this music if you rely on printed music, so don't bother to learn how to read it". It's only the last bit that I disagree with (though I waited until I was in my 50's before making the effort). Don't wait that long: a whole world opens up to you.
If you go researching in libraries you'll find manuscript collections of literally thousands of tunes from the 17/18th centuries that haven't been played for 150 years or more. If you want to play one of those tunes in a session, or even perhaps perform or record it, then someone (perhaps you) has to play it or, ideally, mentally assimilate it from the manuscript dots right at the very beginning of the process. And, when you come to play the tune, that's when your previous experience of such music comes into effect.
"There is absolutely no excuse for not being able to pic up a mere 16 or 32 bars of more often than not repetitive stuff with just a single line that hardly ever modulates." Oh dear, is that a hint of the old dictatorial, or should I now say monarchial, () attitude shining through again!
Llig, that's like saying to someone - there's absolutely no excuse for not being able to pick up that Javelin & throw it at least six metres, only to discover that a physically handicapped child is standing behind you!
The truth is, we are *not* all born equal & I dislike this idea that just because some people don't learn their music the way *you* are happy with & the way you feel they should, that they are therfore some sort of inferior, creatures that should really just crawl away off into the undergrowth, from whence they came, & not embarrass you further!
Isn't the land of ITM supposed to be a warm, cuddly place where strangers & newcomers are welcomed into the body of the kirk & encouraged in a friendly manner ...... not scorned, shunned & laughed at because they haven't learned all *your* rules yet.
Dow came out with: "So if you learn only from the dots and don't immerse yourself in the music and listen, then you won't acquire the skills necessary to creating inventive variations and good articulation etc. In other words, your playing will be sh1te." I don't believe anyone here has ever suggested, or hinted, much less advocated, that anyone should learn their music *only* from the dots.
I'm not convinced that your comparing this to learning a language is a useful one either Dow. For example, how many of us experienced say a French or Spannish child joining our class at School & having them romp away at the Aural exam, only to fall flat on their faces when it came to the nitty gritty of spelling, grammar, syntax, morphology & semantics. So the foreign student will be great at speaking the language, but may well not be a hot shot when it comes to actually writing it down! So with languages, a good knowledge of the dots [letters, words etc etc] is very valuable.
Obviously the only way to learn to speak a language fluently is to hear it spoken, & then mimic what you hear, but to really fully understand a language, I believe, requires an element of bookwork too. So if you are trying to promote a no notation at any cost approach to learning, perhaps adopting a big Ian P. *Never, Never Never* approach to the dots, I think perhaps you need to find a better example for comparison.
Llig says - "The main point of the argument remains that notation is a very very bad way of learning music." We all know you can't learn a language unless you can hear it & you can't play ITM unless you can listen to it, but nobody here has said, or is saying that you should only learn your music by the dots. Just that it should not be regarded as a hanging offence if someone finds it useful to use the dots for cross reference when trying to get their ear around some tricky 6 part hornpipe or 4 part reel they heard & taped Tommy Peoples play in the pub last night.
After all, the likes of Tommy, it seems, never repeats a phrase the same way twice, so mere mortals of ITM often need all the help they can get, fitting the pieces of some tune jigsaws together.
For this, I don't think they should be condemned!
After all, where would we all be without the excellent ABC dots on this site?
Let's hope Jeremy doesn't catch your bug llig & decide to delete all the ABC & notation from this site - just in case someone might be crazy enough to try learning a tune from them!
I know what you mean RichardB. I only started learning how to read the dots in my mid 40s, after playing for twenty odd years, simply because I started teaching & I could see how useful it was for some of my students. Some kids love learning by ear, some love reading the dots, so I encourage the learning of both skills ....... but I always emphasise the vital importance of being able to listen carefully & learn tunes by ear ...... even with my Bodhran students!
As for myself, I can sometimes join in 2nd or third time through a simple tune in a session, so I can assure you there's nowt wrong with my ear ..... whatever, about the rest of me! By the way, I have never actually learned a tune by the dots myself, but I do find them very useful in so many ways.
I have indeed learned some tunes from the dots for my own interest (and this is in my present happy state of being able to learn by ear most of the time), but those are tunes I've never heard before, either in sessions or on record. I suppose this remark follows on logically from my previous post.
On the other hand, there are a number of tunes that I have learned entirely from sessions and have never seen the dots.
Ptarmigan, you've just shown that you haven't got the point. Of course the dots are a useful tool. Never said otherwise.
My point was, you can't learn a language well by only learning about its syntax and grammar from a book.
Similarly, you can't learn music just by looking at dots on the page. That's all Michael was trying to say, and you and others have scorned him for saying so on this and previous threads. It's amazing really that Michael gets such a reaction from people.
Dow, I think it's fair to say that, most of the time, each of us receives the reaction we court, by our manner of posting.
Perhaps that's why Llig & Bliss get on so well!
"My point was, you can't learn a language well by only learning about its syntax and grammar from a book." Agreed, but just remember, I never said that you could.
Dear Llig and Ptamigan
Sorry but you were all having so much fun I didn’t want to interrupt.
This issue has obviously been brewing for some time and I think there have been a lot of valid points made.
Is there a prize for starting off the longest discussion
Aye Dave, there's nothing like a good old thrash on the mustard page, is there!
However, I've absolutely no idea what the longest thread is here ........ but just remember one important thing, it's not the length that's important!
After all, we don't get paid by the word here!
Oooops, shouldn't have mentioned the idea of money.
But just think, if we were paid to post here, every post would then become a performance!
Dow,
When I lurk through long posts Michael and Bodhran Bliss have been involved in, I always chuckle. Great office reading...Usually good posting from both.
I think Michael gets that reaction cause he comes across rude and patronising. I generally am in agreement with what he writes, but he does come across rude.
I know this is intentional, I ike it.
I wonder though would some young one or young lad think so after plucking up all their courage to post on an online forum?
To be honest I think a lot of people totally overreact to much of what he says. A lot of it is him saying "but hang on a minute, [states bleeding obvious fact] blah blah blah" and then someone goes "god Michael you're so rude and patronising and you make such snide and horrible remarks and this and that blah blah blah", and he must be sitting there going "um, all I did was [state obvious fact]". I'm amazed he manages to keep going. I can only assume that he finds people's reactions amusing. I just find it rather weird and a little bit disturbing...
I agree,
Firstly, lets not imagine what he's doing when he's sitting there reading...
Thats not really for you to say is it? (Although I know Michael would probably cut your post and paste as a reply to this.
All I'm doing, is.....sitting here going "um, all I did was [state obvious fact)")
People usually post because they don't understand the "bleeding obvious"! (although they may not know it yet)
So therefore more constructive is better....no?
Some are, some aren't. Like everyone else on the board. Sometimes you write crap and sometimes you get into a good discussion - depends on your mood and the general mood of the discussion board. A lot of what I've read of Michael's posts as made for very interesting reading, and I can't be the only one here who thinks so. What *isn't* constructive is jumping down his throat every time he opens his mouth to tell him he's snide or whatever, even when he's being perfectly well-behaved and sensible. So just give the guy a break fer feck's sake.
Sorry to come into this so late........
My feelings are that if anyone on this board discourages even one person for one hour....... from learning new Traditional tunes -
There we go again, implying that Michael has been going around discouraging people. Sorry, but I think it's largely in the heads of the already-discouraged.
I half agree with you, Morning Star. But I think it's an impossible goal. Even your own post may have discouraged someone, who knows? We take things differently and somtimes, no matter how carefully we - or, say, Michael - try to say things, someone will get offended.
I wrote recently: "I believe I can feel the presence of past generations of musicians and dancers with us. They draw nearer to the sound of the pipes and fiddle, their involvement and longing are a tangible thing in the room, sharing again something that is forever new and forever timeles"
Llig wrote: This is worse than mere twaddle, it's self delusion of the highest order.
Dow a écrit:
"Michael, don't you see? Steve views tunes in a different way than you do. He sees a tune not simply as "a tune", or "the music", but as a series of notes you play and that you can then embellish with some twiddly bits. That's where he's wrong of course, but you'd be wasting your time to try and explain it to him."
Oh yeah? And how do you know this? You haven't the foggiest idea of my concept of "tunes" or "the music" and I will thank you to keep your gratuitous and cynical insults to yourself. You are the one person (no, there's another...) whom I would NOT buy a pint of Doom Bar for if you disgraced Cornwall with a visit. Why don't you just stick your own twiddly bits where the sun don't shine, cobber. Even Michael would only get a half. Actually, push him overboard, Michael, why don't you! He's only off preparing his next piece of trollery!
WAHEY!!! Rebel against Dow! I'm afraid I think that any way of getting into the music is fine and people should move on with the times and not be completely stuck in the tradition and unwilling to accept new ideas! Who are we to judge the way anyone else learns music?!
...... & I absolutely agree with everything you disagree with, Eliot!
The fact is Dow, Llig's manner & sense of humour can, & I know for a fact has, upset a number of folks in the past. However, I know he is certainly not alone in that regard, & I'd be the first to admit that I myself have also trodden on a number of toes in the past, but I'd like to think that while I'm eejit enough to give out $hit sometimes, I'm also big enough to take it on the chin when others throw it back at me.
I also reckon that Llig too, has a broad back & a solid chin & is therefore well able to fend off any $hit I, or anyone else, throws at him, without you having to try & nanny him!
Mind you Dow, have you considered for a moment, the possibility that I may actually be a plant, snuck in here by Llig's camp to throw mud at him, so that he might gain the sympathy vote?
Or had you forgotten about the - "the next Scottish Parliamentary and local government elections ..... on Thursday, 3 May 2007."
P.S. Has anyone spotted Llig's campaign posters up in Bells yet?
I am not upset but I am severely irritated when a couple of tossers waste bandwidth with their weird concept of "wit" that has nothing to do with discussing ITM but everything to do with boosting their own pathetic egos. Apart from that I love life and all its tunes. I'm even prepared to discuss the mechanics of learning 'em, shock horror! Twiddly bits and all. But mine, not his.
There's nothing hilarious about Doom Bar, what?!!? me old fruit. It's a serious Cornish beer that's won competitions. But it's only suitable for proper ITM tune-learners, big-ears or dotters both. Cynics have to get by on Aussie gnat's-p*ss. That's why they turn out all gnarled.
This may be a new record: long, weird post, The Dots Discussion, with a mention of The Performance Discussion, references to Private Parts, and Danny has re-used a screen name. If you get in a reference to Cr*p Tunes I Hate to Play and The Hierarchy of Traditional Instruments, a discreet whine about bad session etiquette, my day will be complete.
Couldn't agree more Steve, so much of this valuable space has been wasted on bull$hit (no that's not a Beer!) which has absolutely nothing to do with good old ITM, like Cornish Beer & Aussie's gnat's-p*ss!
"I'm also very confused about what's going on around here ..." - don't worry Steve, just stick around for a while, it'll all start to make sense ...... eventually!
You can see from above that Batlady can ... *Dig It*.
You see, to some, this is simply a discussion board, but to others it is actually an *ASTRAL PLANE* ........ heavy Man!
Just woken up ready to fight another day for truth and justice only to find this magnificently rabid post still in full stride! Now Steve, having sung in the bass section of a number of community choirs I'm well familiar with Doom Bar...it's usually part of one of those Gospel numbers where the bass section goes "doom bar doom bar doom bar doom bar doom diddly doom..etc". After singing such things we used to toss back a bowl of nuts, drown our sorrows in gnat's-p and dream of balmy Cornish summers.
You mustn't be too upset by Michael and Dow. Their calling (and it's a noble one) is to drop boiling oil on the infidels at the gates. Okay, some of it splashes up on the true believers sometimes...but just think of it as collateral damage and dip the burnt bits in some Doom Bar (if it's not too warm that is ; ))
It's an interesting point that when notation was first used (circa the sixth, seventh or eighth century) in neumic form it existed in a manner that would do nothing more than serve as an aide memoire to the monks singing the plainchant in question. They had to learn tunes by ear, and the idea of a fixed 5 line notational system was (again, from my slightly sketchy memory) developed from a simple 2 line system to a five line system by the 16th century.
Clearly things have changed since the end of the dark ages
Then again, when I arrange stuff I quite like sitting in front of my computer with Sibelius.
No fear, Dick and Ger. I'm an old hand hereabouts, just with a long bit of exile, that's all. These guys feel threatened when an unfamiliar presence threatens their stranglehold on the board. They're pathetic. And as for you, Batlady (howya!), I regard the harmonica as second only to the hurdy-gurdy in the hierarchy of ITM instruments, and it's well-documented that I regard Drowsy Maggie as the most cr@ppiest tune that I hate to play. Happy to make your day! Now, we could of course discuss the hierarchy of the most useless list-lizards...
Bugger, I forgot about session etiquette...don't believe in it personally...
Interesting that the board allows "bugger" but not "crap" or "p*ss." I could spend my life pondering these things. Beats learning tunes from dots any day.
Well, lots to agree with and some to disagree. So here we go again ...
Dow's language analogy, despite Pt's disagreement is a good one. Pt's argument self evidently misses the point. His example of the foreign kid at school doing great in the aural exam but badly in the written one is a spectacular blunder. Considering the whole point of playing the music is to "sound" right. Think also of the way children learn to speak. They really are very fluent well before they learn to read. All I am advocating is the same approach to music.
I was miss quoted earlier: Michael's oft-expressed view is "you can't expect to make any progress with this music if you rely on printed music, so don't bother to learn how to read it". I have never said this. All I say is, if you are beginning the journey of getting into this stuff, leave the music aside until you are well on your way. If you can't read music, wait until you can play until you learn (if you want to learn). If you can already read music, leave it aside and force yourself to use only your ears, at least until you can play. If you use the sheet music as a short cut to learning tunes, you will, in the long run, be doing yourself a disservice.
And the example of the tricky 6 part hornpipe or 4 part reel from Tommy Peoples who never repeats a phrase the same way twice is perfect for illustrating the futility of trying to nail it down on paper.
And this analogy: "there's absolutely no excuse for not being able to pick up that Javelin & throw it at least six metres, only to discover that a physically handicapped child is standing behind you!" is a bad one. If you have a physical/mental disability that bars you from playing music, then find something else you can do. I know I'll get grief for saying that, but, to quote dow, I'm only stating the bleeding obvious.
Steve, you stated quite clearly that your concept of the music was the separation of flesh and bones. This is what dow and I reacted to.
Rook, sorry mate, but it's still worse than mere twaddle, and it's still self delusion of the highest order. And I'm sorry, but that's stating the bleeding obvious as well
i agree with the allegory and all pro-listening thoughts. but for the record, a surprising number of players in ireland.....use written notation. perhaps they are getting their listening in the air they breathe, as it were, since they are hearing more itm in their environment if they are taking lessons, getting cds, going to shows, etc. but a surprising number learn from, and use, written music. whether that is a gotterdammerung of some kind, no clue. after realizing i was serious about playing itm, i went to school at night for three semesters of ear training classes because having been acclimated to written music as a kid, the ear thing was so counterintuitive for me. and it was worth all the pain and suffering. but i'm just saying....i've been in so-called master classes at clancy week with irish players who were learning by reading music.....now, most of the students were "ace" at ear learning. but people are learning with written music, and i was told by another clare teacher that many top musicians, particularly fiddlers (why fiddlers i don't know), use notation.
At Michael's request - something I put in the "A question of BPM" which is probably more to the point than my ramblings on Gregorian Plainchant.......
"Hang about.....dancers dance in 2/2 to a reel. Surely the difference in playing is interpretational - ie. how the notes are stressed within the bar? Which in itself seems to be what time signature defines? Having spent a chunk of today notating some tunes I've reminded myself the extent to which notation seems to be only useful to within certain tolerances."
"Oh yeah? And how do you know this? You haven't the foggiest idea of my concept of "tunes" or "the music" and I will thank you to keep your gratuitous and cynical insults to yourself."
Har har har - this coming from the guy who can look at a musician playing and beleive that they have "no soul".
And actually - has anyone noticed that the insults seem to be getting very below the belt here - but it all seems fine if you put a smiley face next to it.........
I strongly feel that anyone claiming to be a veritable "master" of their instrument would be able to hear a tune a couple of times and, much in the manner that they could sing it back to you, they could play it back to you. That's how I would define a mastery.
God, the bleedin' cobbers are gangin' up tonite! Grab a tinny, guys and gals, and chill!
To be "serious:"
Quoth Michael:
"All I say is, if you are beginning the journey of getting into this stuff, leave the music aside until you are well on your way. If you can't read music, wait until you can play until you learn (if you want to learn). If you can already read music, leave it aside and force yourself to use only your ears, at least until you can play. If you use the sheet music as a short cut to learning tunes, you will, in the long run, be doing yourself a disservice."
Michael. I should like to reiterate my request. Try not to ignore it this time, please, otherwise I'll acquire an inferiority complex and that just makes me go all nasty. Would you please provide evidence for your assertion that people who learn tunes from dots are doing themselves a disservice or doing ITM a disservice. You will of course have to show that people who have learned this way are less good than those who have learned by ear. Come on, pal. Checkable statistics applied to an objective standard or long lists of names, in two columns natch, of the illustrious versus the less so would also be acceptable. Or save yourself the homework and just admit that you're talking lofty bullsh1t. Gawd, where's the bloody eye-roll emoticon when you need it. Prepare for evasion, chaps...
When I first joined the Session I hardly ever agreed with what Michael said. Now, I agree with most of it. I find that sort of interesting. I think I've learned to look past his blunt way of posting and been able to see what he's actually trying to convey.
I've seen loads and loads of people who are in so called 'trad irish' bands with their silver flutes and music stands...and never once have I thought any of them were any good. I cant give you statistics....but it stands to reason doesnt it..that if you dont listen....then you wont know how to play the stuff. Michael did not say dont learn music off the dots - he said learn to listen *first* and actually that is a bloody good piece of advice....it seems to me most people who are reacting badly to his posts are not actually reading them...as soon as they see its written by Llig their back just goes up.
PS - what is the cobber thing that you keep going on about? I'm sure it means something about aussies - but you do realise that Dow is a Pommie just like you Steve.
And there was a guy who recently tried to get the word "Pommie" banned in Australia you know cause he thought it was racist- he took it to the high court and he lost.....bloody typical pom
*Yawn* Do I have to realise these things? Maybe that's why he's so bleedin' cantankerous. I'm an aficionado of all those Northumbrian tunes too but then I can get up there in an hour or six. As for this confounded dots stuff, just listen to yourselves rattling on about it all theoretical like. Jeez, close yer eyes and listen to the music and see if you're enjoying it. Never ask how the tunes were learned as the answer may give you indigestion. If Beethoven were alive today he'd be turning in his grave. Now go and have another Fosters.
Yawn....yawn...yawn. Its obvious that you actually know that this is just bleeding obvious - you know to listen. If Beethoven were alive today then I'm pretty sure he'd be......alive.
I sit forlornly at my lonely, Fosters-free keyboard and await the arrival of those statistics (as opposed to those "it stands to reason innit" posts). If I didn't know better I'd be thinking I was going all dotty in my dotage.. or is that my dottage...flippin' 'eck, I'm all mixed up...
Steve, this is you: "I was simply trying to make the point that to say that "the only way to learn a tune right is to learn it by ear" is to erect a barrier against newcomers learning to play ITM"
Let me juxtapose that with:
"Tommy Peoples who never repeats a phrase the same way twice is perfect for illustrating the futility of trying to nail it down on paper".
You have stated your bones and flesh theory. Please think again.
Steve - all late in the evening was trying to point out is you obviously dont have a clue about aussies or australia - as its very rare that you actually get fosters here...its an export thing.
You seem to have a thing about aussies -dont worry mate - if I was from Cornwall - I'd be jealous of Aussies too.
In this particular context i use ignorant to define anyone who is so oblivious to the actual cultural specifics of the ethnic group he is slagging as to stereo type them via a beer that no one in said country actually drinks.
Clear enough?? It would be like me slagging all british people because you made the unfortunate decision to devote your life to the harmonica hehehe i really need to stop hanging out with you dow!!!
You disingenuous ol' thingie you, Michael. So let's see if I have this right. A tune learned from dots is an immutable thing, as unchanging as that lump of kerbstone down there. It can never be taken out and used as a foundation for building on. The player must always play it exactly the same, note for note, for the sheer act of learning it from the dots has condemned the player to play it thus forever. A Damoclean sword shall hang over his head lest he dare insert even the merest ornament or variation!
Come off it, Michael. Hypothetical, theoretical bullsh1t not founded on anything remotely to do with real life. ITM is played by thousands of enthusiasts like me who are determined to try their best to do it right but we want a repertoire some time before we reach the age of 199. You and your purist adherents would deny us that. Well tough luck. This is the age of the CD, the iPod and the tune-book and there's no going back and it's going to work for ITM just fine. A little bit of faith from old fogies stuck in the pure droppist past would be nice but we'll just have to wait till they're all in the churchyard I suppose!
Gawd, all these sensitive Aussies and their Fosters! Well, we all wear smocks in Cornwall and suck straws and play Wurzels CDs incessantly and go "oo-arr." Go on, have a go - we lurve it!
You can't play a harmonica by ear anyway. You have to put it in...oh, never mind. It's late in the evening late in the evening and it's time for beddiebyes. Enjoy your rooburger brekkie, y'all down under!
Hal-an-Tow, jolly rumbelow
We were up long before the day-o
To welcome in the summertime
To welcome in the May-o
For summer is coming in
And winter's gone away!
It's got round to that half of the year when the clock in my car is right!
Most of my music students learn faster with reading than by listening, but I encorporate both methods.
I agree that a room full of people reading & playing ITM sounds flat, but who's to say that they are "awful" or "wrong"? If & and when they want to, they will move on and develop their playing skills at their own speed. Who cares, anyway? It's not as if you're forced to listen to them or anything.
I laughed long and hard at this post till my eyes almost popped out of their sockets:
"Er, excuse me, but:
I wrote recently: "I believe I can feel the presence of past generations of musicians and dancers with us. They draw nearer to the sound of the pipes and fiddle, their involvement and longing are a tangible thing in the room, sharing again something that is forever new and forever timeles"
Llig wrote: This is worse than mere twaddle, it's self delusion of the highest order.
How nice to have the final authority around.
Cheers."
That's like popping your head round the door at a party and saying "excuse me everyone, I'd just like to remind everyone that I'm a complete idiot. Thank you!" And then expecting people not to laugh and make sarcastic comments. I mean, how can you really expect Michael *not* to react to posts like this?! And you wonder why he makes snide remarks?!!!
I once thought i could feel the departed players from sydney pulling closer to a fiddle being played by a particular canadian visitor once until i turned around and realised it was beebs and cors kicking me Hey i'll be late tonight dow but i am coming so don't pike! mmmmmm townie?
'mon, Mr. Shaw has a fair point. If you play by the dots and don't bother to listen, then of course other people playing by the dots sound just as good as anything else.
See, if we'd all just listen with the same disregard for what it sounds like, everyone would be happy....
late in the evening, I just wanted to let you know that every time I session with you guys on a Tuesday, the music reaches such an intense peak that I can actually sense the ghosts of past ITM masters around me as I play. They caress my skin yearningly with their cool but gentle touch as they perform their whirling, swirling, dervish-like airdance to the music, which drifts out onto the streets below, causing children to stop playing and look up at the window of their local alehouse. And their grandfathers and grandmothers smile too, as they are reminded of past times and the fervour of their youth.
BOLLOX!!!!
Whassha madder, Dow? Y' can't see 'em? Why, Mashter Crowley hisself ish here beshide me, sipping outta same bottle o' Powers as we shpeak. Hic. A shmart little quiver he putsh in the aire, too.
38+189 comments posted so far dont stop yet we are on a roll. 4 men and a dog Recordings and its nothing to do with 4 men and a dog. Bet the lads never thought they could cause such controversy .At 4.45am have to say its entertaining .I am working the night shift and its filled in a good hour getting up to date with the Banter.As I am half blind I cant read the dots to learn and I am half deaf so I cant learn by ear think I will take up the Bodhran Oh sh!t Ive done it now
Well, back from work and this one's still going. I wonder if we'll make 40 days and 40 nights eating nothing but locusts in this particular desert. Someone needs to do something...so...
On a related topic, I have to play at a wedding on the weekend, and i thought it would be really lovely to play something really traditional sounding. I have something in mind, but I don't have the dots. Does anyone know where I can get the music for that song Celine Dion sings in Titanic...you know, the one with the tin whistle bit that sounds all sort of...well...authentically irish? I'd learn it by ear but sadly i don't have the cd...unless someone could hum it for me on YouTube or something? Michael? Dow? Steve? Ptarmy?
English humour, Jack 'n' beeb, English humour. No Brit would ever have picked me up on the Beethoven gag. Try this one too. Teacher yells into face of naughty boy: "...and don't DARE open your mouth when you're talking to ME, boy!" See, it's the way you tell 'em. Now who bloody woke me up so early? Ah, maybe it was Will with his incomprehensible intervention. Plus ça change...
And this is an important subject worthy of civilised debate. Maybe I'll start a thread.
A good player can take a tune learned from dots and use it as a foundation for building on. A learner can't do this. For a learner, it is an immutable thing, as unchanging as that lump of kerbstone down there. If the learner learnt the tune by ear, they would be acutely aware that the very nature of the music is it's shifting sand.
Unfortunately, this music is played by thousands of enthusiasts who are determined to try their best to do it right but, want a repertoire some time before they reach the age of 199.
There was an intelligent post from the morning star:
"Most of my music students learn faster with reading than by listening. I agree that a room full of people reading & playing ITM sounds flat, but who's to say that they are awful or wrong? Who cares, anyway? It's not as if you're forced to listen to them or anything."
Maybe Dow is right, why should I care? It's an open question I suppose, and I will ponder it. But for now, all I can say is I do care. I love this music and I hate to hear it ruined by the clamour for repertoire. Maybe you should just dig that hole in the churchyard for me.
OK, for an example of how sheet music can be misleading taking a transcription off this site of "The Heights of Cassino" which I'd transcribed yesterday - http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/3833
For starters, it's not a jig, it's a 6/8 march. This aside, many of the semi-quavers which litter the piece, plus the demisemiquavers which crop up in the anacrusis, would be better notated as appoggiatura to give a *better* (and it's by no means perfect) representation of the way the peice is played (on any of the recordings / live performances I've ever heard). But anyone who tried to play what they saw on that sheet music would play semiquavers unless they were able to listen to the music and pick up the difference - a skill aquired by learning by ear.
Which is why learning from the dots initially isn't the best idea, untill you have enough understanding of the way tunes sound to interpret the sheet music.
When do you stop being a learner and start being a good player? Ah, such musings make life worth living. Anyway, less of this theory and back to reality. Now - where did I put that friggin' tune book...
Michael, you keep reiterating one more time for the cloth-eared, but you must realise deep down that you're wasting your time. You surely must only be doing this for amusement. Surely you must get sick of it after a point.
It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I'm sorry but one of the most awful things that happen to this music is newcomers to it attempting to learn it from sheet music.
For those who haven't been following it ...
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/466/comments#comment270191
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
And what newcomers learn it from just sheet music? Newcomers who never listen to any ITM CDs or hear any ITM played but just decide one day out of the blue to buy some ITM sheet-music for a laugh and learn a few tunes from it? Whence their motivation? Where are these people? This is just lofty, empty talk, Michael!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I'm also very confused about what's going on around here, but don't bother to enlighten me anybody.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
here in Australia there are a HUGE amount of people who attempt to learn their ITM exclusively through the written notes. The bizarre sight of a session full of music stands, with a whole lot of people playing music but no one playing music *together* is a path actively persued by more than few...
I often find when I'm teaching that these people get quite assertive about their right to learn their music by plonking O'Neill's on the table, sticking a little post-it flag on the page that contains the tune I'm teaching (and it's often quite a different version to the one i'm attempting to teach)and just playing through this regardless of what's going on around them... and then get furious when i insist that the books have to be put away. ("i'll never remember it!" "the O'Neill's version is actually the 'correct' version anyway" etc.)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I'm a ITM musician with a "typical" background. I started on the whistle with a tape and a tutor book (dots). Having a basic "parent-enforced" piano background, dots were the thing, so that transferred naturally to the whistle/tape/dots period. But I was told by many people that I needed to LISTEN to the music in order to "get" it. I did. That has included "learning" the tunes. I hung on to the sheets and the O'Neill's, and others for a couple of years, but it soon became clear to me that people who played the dots (myself included) weren't really playing the music as intended. Even the dots with all the ornaments added didn't give me the true feel of the tunes. So, long ago, I quit looking at sheets of paper, and found the internal, mental path of "hearing" the music and trying to reproduce it with my fingers and my heart. Sorry, llig wins.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by jtrout
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
This may come as a shock to some, but I totally agree with Michael on this one. I think the clearest way to explain what I think he has been trying to say is that while learning tunes from sheet music is USEFUL, the ability to listen is ESSENTIAL, especially when playing in a group with other people. How many times have you heard a guitarist thumping out chords which clearly don't match the tune? I've even heard melody players playing in a different key to the rest of the room - and what's worse, only one note away from everyone else; a whole tune of discordant intervals!
I've been leading a beginners session for some time now, and have experienced the same frustration as SirNose (is it just an Aussie thing?). The book we use for learning tunes has some errors in it, so occasionally the red pen needs to come out. I find myself often pointing out musical errors which many of the students seem oblivious to. I'm forced to ask "can't you hear that that is wrong?" and the answer is often "No". It's fair enough that some of the changes are merely preference, but others are definate mistakes - a G that should really be an A, backed up by the fact that there's an A chord marked as accompaniment. Sometimes I despair that people can play the music by rote and not hear what they are playing.
On the plus side, there are also some careful sight readers who actually play the correct note even though that's not what's written in front of them, so there's hope for us all
Eno
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bc_box_player
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
And here's another point that's just occurred to me...
You know those annoying people who start another set or a song right on the coat tails of the previous one, even stepping on the last note? Could it be that they aren't listening to what's going on? I couldn't do that simply because my mind needs the correct amount of time for the last note to die away before I could even think of the next set. And perhaps that's why it annoys me so much and seems so rude to me - it's upsetting my sense of what sounds 'right'.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bc_box_player
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
The dots have uses. For instance, there were no recordings of a lot of the tunes in Captain O'Farrell's collection. So if you (or Jerry O'Sullivan) wanted to learn some of those tunes, you'd better be able to sight read them from sheet music.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by TheSilverSpear
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I respectfully disagree wth jtrout and Michael.You just can't say that sheet music has no place in ITM. It has a different role than, say, classical music, for sure, but to blithely say toss it all away is taking away a valuable tool for many.
I can listen to Matt Malloy play Toss the Feathers for hours and still be unable to come close, but a quick peek at the notation and now I have something to build on.
I have my session.org tunebook printed out in standard notation, and refer to it all week long. I don't use it at my session, and that's where the ears come in. I have the framework of the tune, and now I can complete its construction.
I, too, would shudder at the sight of music stands and O'Neill's at my session; you need to sit close and look at each other and listen; but to prepare new tunes, and to review old ones, the notation is a useful tool for me; perhaps for many others as well.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I don't think they were saying get rid of it completely, Greg, just don't use it as the sole source to learn from.
Personally I find I need to 'see' the notes to make a tune stick in my memory for all time. Things I learn by ear then stop playing tend to fade. Tunes initially learned from the dots stick better. That's possibly because I was classically trained. Now I've realised that is the case I make sure I write the tune out to help me remember it (and so I can go back to it in the future if I forget a section of it).
Having said that, I've heard several professional recordings which to me sound totally lifeless. I have a feeling these are exactly the phenomena that Michael is complaining about. The music is 'not perfect' but totally soul-less.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bc_box_player
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
That last line makes more sense if you realise I meant 'note perfect', not 'not perfect'.
D'oh!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bc_box_player
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
It's 'The Phantom Button's Allegory Corner' again...
Learning this music from sheet music would be like not knowing how to cook but trying to do so by only having the list of ingredients from a recipe. If you had no understanding of how to cook or how to combine the ingredients and all you had done was taste the food somewhere else a few times and liked it, then the odds are good you'd end up poisoning yourself or at least making you and anyone else very sick who eats what you prepare.
This concludes 'The Phantom Button's Allegory Corner'... thank you for your attention.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
A) Alone in your bedroom with Oneills for two years - It is naive to believe you could learn any form of music anything but superficially by this method (classical, bluegrass, whatever...)
B) Sheet music in groups
So the "music" gets beaten around the head with music stands wielded by the aforementioned "newcomers", big deal, this usually happens in slow session groups where you should know what you are in for.
Regardless of the method they employ they are enjoying themsleves and learning more about the music (at the very least there is a chance they may forget their sheet music one week!)
In my experience people have their little epiphanies and come to realise the richness of learning from what music they hear,
Is this not a valid path?
Will the printed page be inexorably burned into my mind leading me into Lady Macbeth style manias "Out damn dot!"?
I think not
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by harrywhohaa
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I personally play tunes that i've learned in a variety of ways. Some from dots, some from sessions. some from c.d.'s, some from people slowing them down and teaching it to me. I have never had a person say any of the following to me:
" you play like you learned that from dots"
" that tune was much nicer than those ones you learned from dots"
" you can't play those tunes here because you learned them from dots".
The ability to play any tune well and in a sylistically appropriate manner comes down to an understanding of the elements that give irish music it's particular style (ornaments, phrasing, tone etc) and the technical proficiency/time spent with the tune to execute these things effectively. I believe firmly that time spent absorbing and learning the way to approach and interperet tunes, irrespective of which way they are learned, is a much more worthwhile excersise to invest your time in than agonising over where/how you get your tunes. I understand whole heartedly the points raised against the "dot locked" method of learning, but i believe it has more to do with a flawed approach to learning a musical style than a flawed system of transmitting melodies. Used in conjunction with LOTS of listening (both recordings and live players) i feel dots can be quite useful. Just my two cents
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
This really comes down to whether you think the major factor in what makes Irish-trad Irish-trad is the *style* or the *tunes*...
Irish music is a style and approach of playing. On one level the tunes are irrelevant, that's why all the more modern recordings of Irish players playing Breton/Macedonian/Klezmer/Spanish tunes are still essentially *irish* music - just with the notes of a tune from elsewhere. I've been told by a luminary of the "Aussie Bush Scene" that the "Aussie Trad" tunes I've been getting into recently do not represent "Aussie" music because i play them too "irish".
And this style can ONLY be learned by listening and direct teaching. Sure, once you've done the hard yards and have a handle on the style and approach, knock yourself out with the dots, but you need to have the listening/playing experience to 'extract' the music from the dots!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Exactly my point beeno! The fact that someone plays in an innapropriate fashion has to do with a flaw in the learning process, not the demonic possession of written music. By the way, hope the winter school goes well. Can't wait to crank it up on the black boards ;)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I think llig was treated appallingly in that last thread. All he ever gets is rude and sarcastic comments and accusations back in his face, even though he's genuinely trying to help.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
(of course it was your point. or more realitically, your point was my point. I mean, I gave you, like, what, 1 lesson? That's more than enough time for someone to bask in my radiant glory, and essentially means that ALL your points are *my* points really. Dude, i like *own* you.
)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Sirnose - Aussie trad music?? I cant beleive you just told everyone that you are learning Bush music!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
c'mon beebs, you havn't heard the waves of rush until you've heard it with the subtle tinkling of the glorious lagerphone!!!
(on a tangent - I was at a ceili last night and someone told me they were at bush dance where they had re-named the dance "the waves of Tory" into "the waves of Bondi". God being Aussie's embarrising sometimes
)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Beeno with the likes of you frequenting message boards touting the benefits of larger phones i've never been more proud
. And as far as you owning me goes? I challenge you to a bodhran off next week. Tope end at 50 paces!!! (note i said bodhran off NOT flute off as you still obviously own my ass on that front although i'm workin' on it). What say ye varment!!!!?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yes - but Beano you didnt even tell me what your doing learning bush tunes...whats going on? And you Ben - get back to work
See what I have to go through??? late in the evening and Sirnose are both named Ben and they both play flute and Bodhran it gets very confusing around here sometimes
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Top-end players, with their extra-long sticks and all that faux-black-leather taping on their skins, always make me feel like their compensating for something. REAL men play with both ends.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Hey! Bush tunes...what gives?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
brides, did you even *vaguely* get what undertones was about!?!? i'm so embarresed for you right now.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I wanna know too.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
?!?!?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Undertones stuff and "Bush" tunes - there's a big difference. Brides and I want you to tell us you're kidding
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yeah - Undertones is not Aussie bush tunes,or at least I dont think so...I dont know what youve heard but you do realise that dads welsh right??? Not even Australian or anything
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
for your contemplation, the music of :
Sally Sloane - considered by some to be "bush music"
Simon McDonald - considered by some to be "bush music"
Joe Yates - considered by some to be "bush music"
Joe Cashmere - considered by some to be "bush music"
Jacko Kevans -considered by some to be "bush music"
Mick McGarry -considered by some to be "bush music"
Declan Affley - considered by some to be the father of the savior of Aussie ITM
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I saw my first bush bass at the NFF and was mentally scarred by it. Still haven't seen a lagerphone, or at least I might have seen one but haven't known what it was. Surely you haven't started associating with these people because of that Undertones thing have you, SirNose? I wondered what the beard was all about.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Okay okay. I give up - but I still dont think Undertones sounds like bush music
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
That's coz it's *not* bush music! (at least not according to the afore-mentioned luminary). But the appropriation (and on one level, creation) of Aussie Bush Music is a discussion for another day (and probably another website)
(and dow, surely you've seen a lagerphone?! the largerphone player is the guy who looks like he's whacking the severved, be-jiggled leg of a morris dancer with a vicious-looking serated stick. quite beautiful actualy)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
It's worse than that, beebs - don't you have a Michaelbanjo that plays fiddle and a Michaelfiddle who plays banjo?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Tish
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Beeno just becaue it takes you twice as many ends to get the job done doesn't mean your more manly.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"Real men play with both ends" is a REALLY unfortunate sentence...oops
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Gosh! All this has happened overnight?! ...including a deleted thread that I now can't catch up on ... rats ...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Two ends is more beautiful to watch, I have to say. One enders look like they're whisking cake mix.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Do we really want to go down the path that this thread is taking us?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Um, no...
Sooooooooooooo, er, how about that 4 men and a dog then?!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by SirNose
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
you guys crack me up. Yeah TIsh there is a michael Banjos who plays the fiddle and a Michael Fiddle who plays the banjo (ie greenwiggle) Sydney is a strange place!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Getting back to the subject ...
I can't get over the image of all those folks down under crowded together in a room with their music stands. They're just never going to learn it that way. Dots can be a very useful supplement to listening ... but those guys aren't listening, and they aren't learning to listen. So they can't possibly get it.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
benhall, it's ok, I'm sure there are no folks in Ross-On-Wye who use music stands. Lucky you being in the centre of the world of trad and not having to worry about these things.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! And here i was thinking it would be really low to make that exact same post. Good to know i can always rely on you to do my dirty work for me dowser!!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Just goes to show that deep down, you're as much of a sarcastic bitch as I
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I know I know. Oh the shame!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (imagine jane austinesque fainting).
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
But no-one will ever take you seriously in that pastry chef's hat.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Ay, well ... Ross-on-Wye is indeed the hub
You've got nothing useful to say to my point that they're not learning music, then?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I also, of course, do recognise that living in Ross-on-Wye means I'm not entitled to an opinion on this, unlike you guys immersed in the true tradition down in Oz.
(I can be a sarcastic bitch, too.
)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I think it's just that the pompous attitude seeping through your post out weighed any point you might have been trying to make
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
... if only I could play bush music ... THEN I'd understand what this stuff's all about ...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Ah, right ... pompous ... mmm ... suppose thinking it's a good idea to listen, and to *learn* to listen *is* a bit pompous ... I'll obviously have to work on that ...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
No just working on not thinking your better than others because of the way you go about learning things. I've heard a hell of a lot of self serving, ego centric, elitist hack musicians in my time who all learned their tunes according to the strict guidelines set down in the trad mafia hand book. I whole heartedly agree that listening is the corner stone of traditional music i just don't believe that perscribing to one method of learning guarantees a great player or vice versa.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I'm not speaking to you anymore, late in the evening. You learn tunes from sheetmusic eugh.
I resolve instead to speak to you early in the afternoon.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
hahaha!! Dow i love ye sure i always have. If i remember correctly it was YOU who supplied me with dots for the tune John Brady (shameless name drop i know) wrote for us so you're aiding and abbeding this hideous slight against traditional music!!! I mean really dow if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem.
This really has been a nice distraction from working lads. I think it's time for a new job given that this one has driven me to the longest continual posting session i've ever been involved in.!!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"Sure, once you've done the hard yards and have a handle on the style and approach, knock yourself out with the dots, but you need to have the listening/playing experience to 'extract' the music from the dots!" - Exactly, SirNose!
This whole debate was started by bazouki_Dave asking about dots for a tune on a Four Men & a Dog CD & the point was that Dave *has*, I am reliably informed, already "done the hard yards"!
We sorted this all out in the last thread, so I'm not quite sure what this one's all about!
We all recognise, don't we, that:
1 - The best way to learn ITM is by using your Ear.
2 - Written music is a valiable resource.
3 - Being able to read music is a useful skill.
So what, if some newcomers have a lifetime's experience of reading music & find that an easy way to get a quick handle on a tune. I'm sure, as mature, intelligent individuals, most of them will also have enough wit to understand that really knowing a tune only comes with lots of playing & lots of listening to different players & different versions.
If, on the other hand, we're talking about young children coming to music for the first time, well, I already made my views very clear on that subject, in the previous thread.
I would caution that we should be mindful of others weaknesses & be careful not to discourage, through intolerance!
There is never only one way to Skin a Cat!
Here's a thought - since ITM began, I wonder how many good tunes have been lost, because nobody wrote them down?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Well put Ptarmi. Totally agree.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I agree too with ptarmigan and it was my request that started this thread .
And you know what ?I dont read the dots I never learned I just wanted them for a friend who likes the music .Who had difficulty because the band played tuned up to Eb
Its a funny world
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I don't think I'm better than others. I've re-read my posts, and I can't see how what I said could be interpreted that way. Ah well, the power of the internet, I suppose.
Out of interest, I know I'm nowhere near good enough - for me, I mean. That is, for the sound I want to be able to make. But, even if I was, I'd still be entitled to an opinion. And, in my opinion, not bothering to learn to listen is not the way to learn this music. Just my opinion.
I also agree with Ptarmigan. As I said before - "Dots can be a very useful supplement to listening"
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I wonder if there would have been much point to this discussion 30 years ago.
Then there were very few sources of written music available, other than Tin Pan Alley and "art" music - remember all those great transcriptions: "Jumpin' Jack Flash" arranged for pianoforte and voice?
Thirty years ago you were pretty much forced to learn by ear. If I remember correctly it was initially a very slow process. Tens of thousands of hours later I'm much quicker. Point: ear training can't be done overnight. It's HARD work.
Having said that, I will often listen to a tune and record it in dots as an aide-memoire. Like, you know, sometimes when I'm going to the shops I write down the items I want to purchase on a piece of paper. When I get to the shops I try to snatch the occasional glance at my list when nobody is looking.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by DonaldK
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"I dont read the dots I never learned I just wanted them for a friend who likes the music" Ha Ha Dave ...... so what your saying is that, if you'd said that sooner, say about *98* posts ago, you could have saved all this debate!
I must remember to read between *your* lines, in future!
bazouki_Dave - the new master of the *Wind-up*!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
DonaldK - you might be surprised by just how quickly some youngsters do learn to memorise their music & are actually able to *hear* subtle changes in a tune! All I'm saying is let's try not to discourage those who aren't gifted in that dept.
As a child, growing up, I learned many Hymns by ear & later loads of Pop songs too, aye including Jumping Jack Flash. I have no doubt at all that my years of doing that, helped to prepare my *ear* for the task of learning hundreds of IT tunes, a task I only started in my 20s.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
(I thought Michaelbanjelo was the painter.)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by nicholas
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yes he was nicholas, but I thought everyone knew he painted all this with a Plectrum:
http://www.youer.com/photo/T/420jingdian1458.jpg
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Oh dear, someone on Footstompin' has just accused me of being a member of the "folk police". Please be nice to me here.
Anyway, on this occasion, I'm very happy to agree with Ptarmigan
" - The best way to learn ITM is by using your Ear.
2 - Written music is a valiable resource.
3 - Being able to read music is a useful skill."
I'd suggest that the "sheet music" option is probably more common in Scottish music as I don't think the tradition has always been quite as alive or "living" as in Ireland. It's much better these days, of course, but over the years much of the music was played by pipe bands, fiddle societies, fiddle and accordion clubs, Scottish dance bands and much of it was written by known composers, e.g the Gows, Marshall, Skinner etc and readily available in written publications.
The above is probably an over simplication, of course, and the music seems to be a lot "free-er" these days, especially with the younger bands and tunes are more frequently passed on via sessions and elsewhere.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Johannes J
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Hmmm...and to think I'm still learnin' my abc's.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Bodhi
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Reading the dots at a session is like doing an orienteering event with satellite navigation. But then I know someone who does this (reading) at session speed very successfully. Shame because he has to rummage through all his books every time there's a change to a new tune (except if he's leading of course.) He is slowly weaning off the dots though, so he is aware of the prob.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"......so he is aware of the prob."
Exactly.
Those that hear themselves this way, usually progress to learning by ear, or getting a teacher etc. Eventually unlearning the bad habbits.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
General consensus here and I'm glad.
Phrases like, "progressing to learning by ear" and Pt's 123 have it about right. And of course no one has ever said, "that sheet music has no place in the music".
As for Pt's thoughts about how many good tunes that have been lost, because nobody wrote them down ... what about all those dire tunes that should have been lost, but survive because someone did write them down?
And as for bazouki dave ... If he'd answered "I just wanted them for a friend who likes the music" to my "why do you need the dots if you have a recording?" Then I would have said, "Do your friend a favour and knock the recording down a semitone in slowdowner, or whatever, and give them that instead. If you're not sure how to do that, e-mail me an mp3 and I'll do it for you"
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Or in the case of Martin Hayes, an "Amazing Speed Upper", eh Michael?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Johannes J
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I'm totally with Michael on this. Different things go on in my tiny brain depending on whether I'm dot-dependent or playing by ear. Years ago when i played the piano more than I do now, I used to love just sitting down and improvising. But if i set my mind to learning other people's music off dots, it generally took me a while to get my brain back into being able to improvise. I find something similar with the fiddle. It's like i feel my wings clipped or something if I start playing tunes from the dots. A part of me that's awake and on edge if I'm playing by ear goes to sleep.
Also agree with Sir Nose and others about the surreal experience of playing with dot-addicts who bang away with written chords or melody lines that bear no resemblance to the sounds other people are making. How do you catch someone's eye and feel like you're getting in there together if everyone's looking at sheet music? It sorta just dumbs the whole experience down. If you haven't learned a tune backwards by ear, it's hard to play by heart, if you know what i mean.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ger the Rigger
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Ptarmigan, I wouldn't want to discourage youngsters learning to play by ear.
Playing by ear, to me, is essential to being a good musician. Most of the time I play by memory (i.e., a fixed part like a tune) or by ear (an instrumental break in a song).
But in the first stages of learning a tune I might well work from dots. This is because too often in the past I have learned a tune at a session or workshop only to have partiall or totally forgotten it by the time I get home. So I'll now probably quickly jot it down in dots, like my shopping list (which isn't generally in dot form I have yo admit), and just like my shopping list it's not definitive.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by DonaldK
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
And like you, it was all the improvising and learning guitar solos from LPs (often played at 16 and 2/3) when I were a nipper that trained my ear. That was my exact point. There weren't the same written resources available then (in the 70s) so you had tae use yer lugs.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by DonaldK
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"Playing by ear, to me, is essential to being a good musician."
Yes, a good musician of any genre of music. Let's not forget that listening and ear training is essential to being a good classical musician as well. Written notes on a page are only a representation of classical music too. The difference is that with classical music it's all about dynamics. With trad, it's about variation, rhythm and articulation.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
That's a very good point. Interestingly, you never see classical soloists in concert playing from sheet music. it's always from memory.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ger the Rigger
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yep, and the top classical players have developed much much better ears and memories that your so called top trad musos. It's really not that hard. There is absolutely no excuse for not being able to pic up a mere 16 or 32 bars of more often than not repetitive stuff with just a single line that hardly ever modulates.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
It's funny how so many people say that reading notes is easier and quicker and that learning by ear is hard word and takes lots of practice. For me it's the opposite---I can pick up a tune fairly quickly by ear and it's fun, like figuring out a puzzle, but give me a written tune and it's a chore, almost boring by comparison. I force myself to read because I want to know how to do both.
It seems to me that the musicians with classical training can have a real disadvantage coming to traditional music because they're so dependent on written music. I still admire that ability, though---put me in front of a Mozart concerto and I'd be totally lost.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by kennedy
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yes. It's no wonder some classical players scoff at trad players when they whinge and complain that they have to memorise a few simple tunes. Think of a top concert pianist memorising whole piano concertos. They probably have all the orchestras parts in their heads too. That's the problem when you have a bunch of simple tunes. Music like that attracts lazy people who want to be musicians but can't be bothered to put the time in and learn the tunes. So they pick up a drum instead. See? all this is interconnected. Poor Michael sings his protests seemingly every day, but unfortunately he's wasting his breath, because people will always give him a hard time for stating the bleeding obvious. It's a sad world.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
The original assertion at the head of this thread, that newcomers to ITM learning it from the dots is the most awful thing to happen, is not proven. What you learn from dots is the bare bones of a tune, not "the music." These are two entirely different things, but those who condemn dot-learners are getting the two confused. It is entirely valid to learn a tune from dots then go and float it on that big ITM ocean out there, which the only place where you'll learn "the music." I want to know where all these cancerous hordes of awful ITM wreckers are who put music stands up in sessions. I've seen folk passing around notation and discussing it but I have never seen anyone playing from dots in any session I've attended. Which is not to say it doesn't happen somewhere or other but it's scarcely believable that it's so widespread that it's having an "awful" effect on ITM. Take a hundred different ITM players and you'll find a hundred different strategies for learning tunes/"the music." Singling out for condemnation those who choose to build up a repertoire from dots is something you're really going to have to justify with some evidence that such people make "worse" ITM players than anyone else. There's a challenge for you. And just in case anyone suspects from all this that I'm a dottist, I can hardly read sheet music at all and ABC and tablature are utterly foreign to me. Ear every time for me!
Never mind how people get there, for 'tis only by their fruits that ye shall know them!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Steve, the thought of you rummaging through my fruits is vaguely disconcerting.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ger the Rigger
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
You're OK mate. I'm more of a meat and two veg chap meself.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
And I can see how that's going to be taken wrongly...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I think the phrase "*learning* it from the dots" (emphasis mine) is quite significant here.
I'm sure Michael doesn't mean that there's loads of people reading off music stands or from sheet music(in general) within sessions. The musicians may well have committed the tunes to memory but it will be the "written" version which may just be the bare bones or different from what is normally heard. So, that's where listening is obviously important. If you can "learn by ear" well, then you have no problem. Otherwise, you have to listen to what others are doing and adapt accordingly.
I have seen some sessions where the players will play "off the sheet music" as a matter of course but not(usually) in pubs or traditional Irish sessions.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Johannes J
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Learning it from the dots is learning the bare bones. Listening is learning "the music." I contend that you can do both.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
OK, you saw it coming, which may help lessen the horror. Now I don't want to creep anybody out here, but which of the many possible combinations of fruit, meat and two (yet to be specified) veggies will lead to you being taken wrongly?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ger the Rigger
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
You must think I'm nuts.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"I contend that you can do both."
So did I, I think.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Johannes J
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Steve, you say, " What you learn from dots is the bare bones of a tune, not "the music." These are two entirely different things".
I'm sorry mate but you really can't divorce things like that. Of course the bones are the music, all of it is the music. An animal is the flesh and the bones, and the organs and everything else etc. And music is the same. Please don't tell me you are saying that it's just the flesh that is the music.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
It's OK, Michael, Steve's getting his body parts throroughly confused, in any case ...
He's just started talking about his nuts ...
(Do nuts count as veg?)
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Michael, don't you see? Steve views tunes in a different way than you do. He sees a tune not simply as "a tune", or "the music", but as a series of notes you play and that you can then embellish with some twiddly bits. That's where he's wrong of course, but you'd be wasting your time to try and explain it to him.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Just maybe, just maybe this once, must maybe there's a tint tiny chance I'm not wasting my time
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
by the way, isn't this best title for a thread in ages?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
llig is guilty of a certain amount of inconsistency. In a recent discussion he complains (quote): I'm worried that there is a plethora of posts that have nothing whatsoever to do with ... "The exchange of tunes is what keeps traditional Irish music alive. This web-site is one way of passing on jigs, reels and other dance tunes." How does he think it achieves this? er, transcriptions I think.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by RichardB
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Nope, sorry, I've always said that there is nothing wrong with sharing tunes via notation among people you know and know can already play. And I've always said it's a bad way to share music with strangers, you never know how wrong it'll be interpreted. The main point of the argument remains that notation is a very very bad way of learning music. And the vast majority here, thankfully, agree
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Of course. It's as plain as day. Music is stuff that we hear, therefore we learn it by listening. To say otherwise is like saying that the best way to learn to paint is by closing your eyes and listening to a picture on the wall. Michael seriously mate you're wasting your time explaining this time and time again to people who don't want to listen to you. It almost upsets me that you are so open-hearted as to want to help people unknown to you who don't understand the obvious, and yet you take a deep breath and trudge on resiliently every time someone kicks dirt in your face. Fair play to you though, they should give you a knighthood or something.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
For services to Diddley music.........
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Johannes J
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Sir Llig. LOL.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
tee he, I'm just sitting in my office listening to Fats Waller, drawing pie charts and finishing off last night's kink prawn jalfrezi. I've got plenty of time
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
king
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Literacy itself is highly over-rated - I bet Llig eschews even notes to the milkman, and prefers to warble "an extra pint today" from the window in a gruff baritone. We should go back to verbal culture, learnt by listening at the campfire and passed from generation to generation. The hero of our tales of derring-do shall be Sir Llig - arise, Sir Llig! (we already have SirNose). I like the idea that this Brotherhood can share notated tunes among people they know (secret handshakes? rolled up trouser legs?). Strangers may only learn aurally or they won't do it right!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by RichardB
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Learning this music is like learning a language. The language can either be your native tongue or it can be a foreign language to you. Either way it has to be learned. You learn it by listening, and to a certain extent watching what people are doing. With language, you're listening to the pronunciation of the words and how to use them and how they link together to form long flowing sentences and phrases with differing intonation. You're watching what native speakers tongues and lips are doing and looking at how they shape their mouths to form the sounds. With the music, you're listening to how notes are articulated and how they're put together to form phrases that are meaningful and pleasing to the ear. You're watching how great musicians are doing with their fingers or whatever to produce a good sound. Then, with both language and music, you take what you've learnt and you make something new with it - something that's your own. You can learn a language out of a book, but it's going to sound awfully odd to a native speaker. You won't be fluent enough to play about with the language unless you immerse yourself in it aurally until you can produce the same yourself. You'll probably not be able to pronounce the words very well and native speakers will be able to tell you haven't spent any time amongst native speakers. So if you learn only from the dots and don't immerse yourself in the music and listen, then you won't acquire the skills necessary to creating inventive variations and good articulation etc. In other words, your playing will be sh1te.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
If you don't proofread your posts, your grammar will also be sh1te.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Michael's oft-expressed view is "you can't expect to make any progress with this music if you rely on printed music, so don't bother to learn how to read it". It's only the last bit that I disagree with (though I waited until I was in my 50's before making the effort). Don't wait that long: a whole world opens up to you.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by RichardB
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
If you go researching in libraries you'll find manuscript collections of literally thousands of tunes from the 17/18th centuries that haven't been played for 150 years or more. If you want to play one of those tunes in a session, or even perhaps perform or record it, then someone (perhaps you) has to play it or, ideally, mentally assimilate it from the manuscript dots right at the very beginning of the process. And, when you come to play the tune, that's when your previous experience of such music comes into effect.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"There is absolutely no excuse for not being able to pic up a mere 16 or 32 bars of more often than not repetitive stuff with just a single line that hardly ever modulates." Oh dear, is that a hint of the old dictatorial, or should I now say monarchial, (
) attitude shining through again! 
Llig, that's like saying to someone - there's absolutely no excuse for not being able to pick up that Javelin & throw it at least six metres, only to discover that a physically handicapped child is standing behind you!
The truth is, we are *not* all born equal & I dislike this idea that just because some people don't learn their music the way *you* are happy with & the way you feel they should, that they are therfore some sort of inferior, creatures that should really just crawl away off into the undergrowth, from whence they came, & not embarrass you further!
Isn't the land of ITM supposed to be a warm, cuddly place where strangers & newcomers are welcomed into the body of the kirk & encouraged in a friendly manner ...... not scorned, shunned & laughed at because they haven't learned all *your* rules yet.
Dow came out with: "So if you learn only from the dots and don't immerse yourself in the music and listen, then you won't acquire the skills necessary to creating inventive variations and good articulation etc. In other words, your playing will be sh1te." I don't believe anyone here has ever suggested, or hinted, much less advocated, that anyone should learn their music *only* from the dots.
I'm not convinced that your comparing this to learning a language is a useful one either Dow. For example, how many of us experienced say a French or Spannish child joining our class at School & having them romp away at the Aural exam, only to fall flat on their faces when it came to the nitty gritty of spelling, grammar, syntax, morphology & semantics. So the foreign student will be great at speaking the language, but may well not be a hot shot when it comes to actually writing it down! So with languages, a good knowledge of the dots [letters, words etc etc] is very valuable.
Obviously the only way to learn to speak a language fluently is to hear it spoken, & then mimic what you hear, but to really fully understand a language, I believe, requires an element of bookwork too. So if you are trying to promote a no notation at any cost approach to learning, perhaps adopting a big Ian P. *Never, Never Never* approach to the dots, I think perhaps you need to find a better example for comparison.
Llig says - "The main point of the argument remains that notation is a very very bad way of learning music." We all know you can't learn a language unless you can hear it & you can't play ITM unless you can listen to it, but nobody here has said, or is saying that you should only learn your music by the dots. Just that it should not be regarded as a hanging offence if someone finds it useful to use the dots for cross reference when trying to get their ear around some tricky 6 part hornpipe or 4 part reel they heard & taped Tommy Peoples play in the pub last night.
After all, the likes of Tommy, it seems, never repeats a phrase the same way twice, so mere mortals of ITM often need all the help they can get, fitting the pieces of some tune jigsaws together.
For this, I don't think they should be condemned!
After all, where would we all be without the excellent ABC dots on this site?
Let's hope Jeremy doesn't catch your bug llig & decide to delete all the ABC & notation from this site - just in case someone might be crazy enough to try learning a tune from them!
I know what you mean RichardB. I only started learning how to read the dots in my mid 40s, after playing for twenty odd years, simply because I started teaching & I could see how useful it was for some of my students. Some kids love learning by ear, some love reading the dots, so I encourage the learning of both skills ....... but I always emphasise the vital importance of being able to listen carefully & learn tunes by ear ...... even with my Bodhran students!
As for myself, I can sometimes join in 2nd or third time through a simple tune in a session, so I can assure you there's nowt wrong with my ear ..... whatever, about the rest of me! By the way, I have never actually learned a tune by the dots myself, but I do find them very useful in so many ways.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I have indeed learned some tunes from the dots for my own interest (and this is in my present happy state of being able to learn by ear most of the time), but those are tunes I've never heard before, either in sessions or on record. I suppose this remark follows on logically from my previous post.
On the other hand, there are a number of tunes that I have learned entirely from sessions and have never seen the dots.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by lazyhound
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"I suppose this remark follows on logically from my previous post." Shock Horror! I believe you have actually set a precedent there, Hound!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Very well said, Ptarmi...I love the way you can explain things.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by irishfiddler32
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Ptarmigan, you've just shown that you haven't got the point. Of course the dots are a useful tool. Never said otherwise.
My point was, you can't learn a language well by only learning about its syntax and grammar from a book.
Similarly, you can't learn music just by looking at dots on the page. That's all Michael was trying to say, and you and others have scorned him for saying so on this and previous threads. It's amazing really that Michael gets such a reaction from people.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Dow, I think it's fair to say that, most of the time, each of us receives the reaction we court, by our manner of posting.
Perhaps that's why Llig & Bliss get on so well!
"My point was, you can't learn a language well by only learning about its syntax and grammar from a book." Agreed, but just remember, I never said that you could.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Dear Llig and Ptamigan
Sorry but you were all having so much fun I didn’t want to interrupt.
This issue has obviously been brewing for some time and I think there have been a lot of valid points made.
Is there a prize for starting off the longest discussion
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Aye Dave, there's nothing like a good old thrash on the mustard page, is there!
However, I've absolutely no idea what the longest thread is here ........ but just remember one important thing, it's not the length that's important!
After all, we don't get paid by the word here!
Oooops, shouldn't have mentioned the idea of money.
But just think, if we were paid to post here, every post would then become a performance!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
The longest thread had 1000+ posts. Can't remember what it was called...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
this one http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/11933
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Dow,
When I lurk through long posts Michael and Bodhran Bliss have been involved in, I always chuckle. Great office reading...Usually good posting from both.
I think Michael gets that reaction cause he comes across rude and patronising. I generally am in agreement with what he writes, but he does come across rude.
I know this is intentional, I ike it.
I wonder though would some young one or young lad think so after plucking up all their courage to post on an online forum?
Do you not notice this at all???
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I should have guessed what the posting would be about Dow
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by bazouki dave and the real tooty flutey
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
To be honest I think a lot of people totally overreact to much of what he says. A lot of it is him saying "but hang on a minute, [states bleeding obvious fact] blah blah blah" and then someone goes "god Michael you're so rude and patronising and you make such snide and horrible remarks and this and that blah blah blah", and he must be sitting there going "um, all I did was [state obvious fact]". I'm amazed he manages to keep going. I can only assume that he finds people's reactions amusing. I just find it rather weird and a little bit disturbing...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I agree,
Firstly, lets not imagine what he's doing when he's sitting there reading...
Thats not really for you to say is it? (Although I know Michael would probably cut your post and paste as a reply to this.
All I'm doing, is.....sitting here going "um, all I did was [state obvious fact)")
People usually post because they don't understand the "bleeding obvious"! (although they may not know it yet)
So therefore more constructive is better....no?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yes, that's why Michael explains the bleeding obvious to them, every single time. I think he's tremendously patient.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
So you keep saying, but its not constructive......
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
What isn't?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
his replies..
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
ie "Michael explains the bleeding obvious to them"
I understand what you are saying, and what he is saying alot of the time.
but its not done constructively.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Some are, some aren't. Like everyone else on the board. Sometimes you write crap and sometimes you get into a good discussion - depends on your mood and the general mood of the discussion board. A lot of what I've read of Michael's posts as made for very interesting reading, and I can't be the only one here who thinks so. What *isn't* constructive is jumping down his throat every time he opens his mouth to tell him he's snide or whatever, even when he's being perfectly well-behaved and sensible. So just give the guy a break fer feck's sake.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
OK!
Agreed thoroughly - Lets get that out of the way ...
But if he can give, he has to take no?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Sorry to come into this so late........
My feelings are that if anyone on this board discourages even one person for one hour....... from learning new Traditional tunes -
then it is a sad day indeed.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by morning star
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"Sorry to come into this so late........"
I'm not.
***
My impression of Michael.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Hugo Chavez
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
There we go again, implying that Michael has been going around discouraging people. Sorry, but I think it's largely in the heads of the already-discouraged.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I half agree with you, Morning Star. But I think it's an impossible goal. Even your own post may have discouraged someone, who knows? We take things differently and somtimes, no matter how carefully we - or, say, Michael - try to say things, someone will get offended.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Er, excuse me, but:
I wrote recently: "I believe I can feel the presence of past generations of musicians and dancers with us. They draw nearer to the sound of the pipes and fiddle, their involvement and longing are a tangible thing in the room, sharing again something that is forever new and forever timeles"
Llig wrote: This is worse than mere twaddle, it's self delusion of the highest order.
How nice to have the final authority around.
Cheers.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Rook
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
He says nice things sometimes ...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I disagree with everything above.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Eliot
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Dow a écrit:
"Michael, don't you see? Steve views tunes in a different way than you do. He sees a tune not simply as "a tune", or "the music", but as a series of notes you play and that you can then embellish with some twiddly bits. That's where he's wrong of course, but you'd be wasting your time to try and explain it to him."
Oh yeah? And how do you know this? You haven't the foggiest idea of my concept of "tunes" or "the music" and I will thank you to keep your gratuitous and cynical insults to yourself. You are the one person (no, there's another...) whom I would NOT buy a pint of Doom Bar for if you disgraced Cornwall with a visit. Why don't you just stick your own twiddly bits where the sun don't shine, cobber. Even Michael would only get a half. Actually, push him overboard, Michael, why don't you! He's only off preparing his next piece of trollery!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
WAHEY!!! Rebel against Dow! I'm afraid I think that any way of getting into the music is fine and people should move on with the times and not be completely stuck in the tradition and unwilling to accept new ideas! Who are we to judge the way anyone else learns music?!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by squeezyjoe
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Would people rather they just didn't learn it at all? Rather than from sheet music?
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by squeezyjoe
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
...... & I absolutely agree with everything you disagree with, Eliot!
The fact is Dow, Llig's manner & sense of humour can, & I know for a fact has, upset a number of folks in the past. However, I know he is certainly not alone in that regard, & I'd be the first to admit that I myself have also trodden on a number of toes in the past, but I'd like to think that while I'm eejit enough to give out $hit sometimes, I'm also big enough to take it on the chin when others throw it back at me.
I also reckon that Llig too, has a broad back & a solid chin & is therefore well able to fend off any $hit I, or anyone else, throws at him, without you having to try & nanny him!
Mind you Dow, have you considered for a moment, the possibility that I may actually be a plant, snuck in here by Llig's camp to throw mud at him, so that he might gain the sympathy vote?
Or had you forgotten about the - "the next Scottish Parliamentary and local government elections ..... on Thursday, 3 May 2007."
P.S. Has anyone spotted Llig's campaign posters up in Bells yet?
P.P.S. I'll let you into a secret Dow, here's his own personal Blog, with a photo of him & his trusty geetar!:
http://www.blogger.com/profile/4636362
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I am not upset but I am severely irritated when a couple of tossers waste bandwidth with their weird concept of "wit" that has nothing to do with discussing ITM but everything to do with boosting their own pathetic egos. Apart from that I love life and all its tunes. I'm even prepared to discuss the mechanics of learning 'em, shock horror! Twiddly bits and all. But mine, not his.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
There's nothing hilarious about Doom Bar, what?!!? me old fruit. It's a serious Cornish beer that's won competitions. But it's only suitable for proper ITM tune-learners, big-ears or dotters both. Cynics have to get by on Aussie gnat's-p*ss. That's why they turn out all gnarled.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
This may be a new record: long, weird post, The Dots Discussion, with a mention of The Performance Discussion, references to Private Parts, and Danny has re-used a screen name. If you get in a reference to Cr*p Tunes I Hate to Play and The Hierarchy of Traditional Instruments, a discreet whine about bad session etiquette, my day will be complete.
I love this Board!!!!
;-D
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Batlady
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Couldn't agree more Steve, so much of this valuable space has been wasted on bull$hit (no that's not a Beer!) which has absolutely nothing to do with good old ITM, like Cornish Beer & Aussie's gnat's-p*ss!
"I'm also very confused about what's going on around here ..." - don't worry Steve, just stick around for a while, it'll all start to make sense ...... eventually!
You can see from above that Batlady can ... *Dig It*.
You see, to some, this is simply a discussion board, but to others it is actually an *ASTRAL PLANE* ........ heavy Man!
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Just woken up ready to fight another day for truth and justice only to find this magnificently rabid post still in full stride! Now Steve, having sung in the bass section of a number of community choirs I'm well familiar with Doom Bar...it's usually part of one of those Gospel numbers where the bass section goes "doom bar doom bar doom bar doom bar doom diddly doom..etc". After singing such things we used to toss back a bowl of nuts, drown our sorrows in gnat's-p and dream of balmy Cornish summers.
You mustn't be too upset by Michael and Dow. Their calling (and it's a noble one) is to drop boiling oil on the infidels at the gates. Okay, some of it splashes up on the true believers sometimes...but just think of it as collateral damage and dip the burnt bits in some Doom Bar (if it's not too warm that is ; ))
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Ger the Rigger
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
It's an interesting point that when notation was first used (circa the sixth, seventh or eighth century) in neumic form it existed in a manner that would do nothing more than serve as an aide memoire to the monks singing the plainchant in question. They had to learn tunes by ear, and the idea of a fixed 5 line notational system was (again, from my slightly sketchy memory) developed from a simple 2 line system to a five line system by the 16th century.
Clearly things have changed since the end of the dark ages
Then again, when I arrange stuff I quite like sitting in front of my computer with Sibelius.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Andy V
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
No fear, Dick and Ger. I'm an old hand hereabouts, just with a long bit of exile, that's all. These guys feel threatened when an unfamiliar presence threatens their stranglehold on the board. They're pathetic. And as for you, Batlady (howya!
), I regard the harmonica as second only to the hurdy-gurdy in the hierarchy of ITM instruments, and it's well-documented that I regard Drowsy Maggie as the most cr@ppiest tune that I hate to play. Happy to make your day! Now, we could of course discuss the hierarchy of the most useless list-lizards...
Bugger, I forgot about session etiquette...don't believe in it personally...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Interesting that the board allows "bugger" but not "crap" or "p*ss." I could spend my life pondering these things. Beats learning tunes from dots any day.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Excuse me, but I got crap and Batlady didn't ...
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Well, lots to agree with and some to disagree. So here we go again ...
Dow's language analogy, despite Pt's disagreement is a good one. Pt's argument self evidently misses the point. His example of the foreign kid at school doing great in the aural exam but badly in the written one is a spectacular blunder. Considering the whole point of playing the music is to "sound" right. Think also of the way children learn to speak. They really are very fluent well before they learn to read. All I am advocating is the same approach to music.
I was miss quoted earlier: Michael's oft-expressed view is "you can't expect to make any progress with this music if you rely on printed music, so don't bother to learn how to read it". I have never said this. All I say is, if you are beginning the journey of getting into this stuff, leave the music aside until you are well on your way. If you can't read music, wait until you can play until you learn (if you want to learn). If you can already read music, leave it aside and force yourself to use only your ears, at least until you can play. If you use the sheet music as a short cut to learning tunes, you will, in the long run, be doing yourself a disservice.
And the example of the tricky 6 part hornpipe or 4 part reel from Tommy Peoples who never repeats a phrase the same way twice is perfect for illustrating the futility of trying to nail it down on paper.
And this analogy: "there's absolutely no excuse for not being able to pick up that Javelin & throw it at least six metres, only to discover that a physically handicapped child is standing behind you!" is a bad one. If you have a physical/mental disability that bars you from playing music, then find something else you can do. I know I'll get grief for saying that, but, to quote dow, I'm only stating the bleeding obvious.
Steve, you stated quite clearly that your concept of the music was the separation of flesh and bones. This is what dow and I reacted to.
Rook, sorry mate, but it's still worse than mere twaddle, and it's still self delusion of the highest order. And I'm sorry, but that's stating the bleeding obvious as well
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Congratulations, llig.
You now own Irish Tradional Music.
It's all yours, so please use it wisely.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by morning star
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
well, mr/ms morning star. That's a darn stupid thing to say. And that's also stating the bleeding obvious
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
and it's Ms. to you.
# Posted on March 26th 2007 by morning star
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Ah so that's Ms. MS?
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I don't have multiple sclerosis, if that's what you mean.....
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by morning star
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
i agree with the allegory and all pro-listening thoughts. but for the record, a surprising number of players in ireland.....use written notation. perhaps they are getting their listening in the air they breathe, as it were, since they are hearing more itm in their environment if they are taking lessons, getting cds, going to shows, etc. but a surprising number learn from, and use, written music. whether that is a gotterdammerung of some kind, no clue. after realizing i was serious about playing itm, i went to school at night for three semesters of ear training classes because having been acclimated to written music as a kid, the ear thing was so counterintuitive for me. and it was worth all the pain and suffering. but i'm just saying....i've been in so-called master classes at clancy week with irish players who were learning by reading music.....now, most of the students were "ace" at ear learning. but people are learning with written music, and i was told by another clare teacher that many top musicians, particularly fiddlers (why fiddlers i don't know), use notation.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by ceemonster
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
At Michael's request - something I put in the "A question of BPM" which is probably more to the point than my ramblings on Gregorian Plainchant.......
"Hang about.....dancers dance in 2/2 to a reel. Surely the difference in playing is interpretational - ie. how the notes are stressed within the bar? Which in itself seems to be what time signature defines? Having spent a chunk of today notating some tunes I've reminded myself the extent to which notation seems to be only useful to within certain tolerances."
From http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/13136
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Andy V
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yes yes yes, use it. It's a great tool. But learn to play first
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
"Oh yeah? And how do you know this? You haven't the foggiest idea of my concept of "tunes" or "the music" and I will thank you to keep your gratuitous and cynical insults to yourself."
Har har har - this coming from the guy who can look at a musician playing and beleive that they have "no soul".
Ha hahaha!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
thanks andy
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
thanks bb
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
And actually - has anyone noticed that the insults seem to be getting very below the belt here - but it all seems fine if you put a smiley face next to it.........
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
I strongly feel that anyone claiming to be a veritable "master" of their instrument would be able to hear a tune a couple of times and, much in the manner that they could sing it back to you, they could play it back to you. That's how I would define a mastery.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Andy V
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I wonder how many people might discover that they agree with Michael if they'd quit misrepresenting what he actually says.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I agree Will.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
God, the bleedin' cobbers are gangin' up tonite! Grab a tinny, guys and gals, and chill!
To be "serious:"
Quoth Michael:
"All I say is, if you are beginning the journey of getting into this stuff, leave the music aside until you are well on your way. If you can't read music, wait until you can play until you learn (if you want to learn). If you can already read music, leave it aside and force yourself to use only your ears, at least until you can play. If you use the sheet music as a short cut to learning tunes, you will, in the long run, be doing yourself a disservice."
Michael. I should like to reiterate my request. Try not to ignore it this time, please, otherwise I'll acquire an inferiority complex and that just makes me go all nasty. Would you please provide evidence for your assertion that people who learn tunes from dots are doing themselves a disservice or doing ITM a disservice. You will of course have to show that people who have learned this way are less good than those who have learned by ear. Come on, pal. Checkable statistics applied to an objective standard or long lists of names, in two columns natch, of the illustrious versus the less so would also be acceptable. Or save yourself the homework and just admit that you're talking lofty bullsh1t. Gawd, where's the bloody eye-roll emoticon when you need it. Prepare for evasion, chaps...
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
When I first joined the Session I hardly ever agreed with what Michael said. Now, I agree with most of it. I find that sort of interesting. I think I've learned to look past his blunt way of posting and been able to see what he's actually trying to convey.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by soft black stars
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Michael doesn't "say." Michael postures.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I've seen loads and loads of people who are in so called 'trad irish' bands with their silver flutes and music stands...and never once have I thought any of them were any good. I cant give you statistics....but it stands to reason doesnt it..that if you dont listen....then you wont know how to play the stuff. Michael did not say dont learn music off the dots - he said learn to listen *first* and actually that is a bloody good piece of advice....it seems to me most people who are reacting badly to his posts are not actually reading them...as soon as they see its written by Llig their back just goes up.
PS - what is the cobber thing that you keep going on about? I'm sure it means something about aussies - but you do realise that Dow is a Pommie just like you Steve.
And there was a guy who recently tried to get the word "Pommie" banned in Australia you know cause he thought it was racist- he took it to the high court and he lost.....bloody typical pom
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
*Yawn* Do I have to realise these things? Maybe that's why he's so bleedin' cantankerous. I'm an aficionado of all those Northumbrian tunes too but then I can get up there in an hour or six. As for this confounded dots stuff, just listen to yourselves rattling on about it all theoretical like. Jeez, close yer eyes and listen to the music and see if you're enjoying it. Never ask how the tunes were learned as the answer may give you indigestion. If Beethoven were alive today he'd be turning in his grave. Now go and have another Fosters.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yawn....yawn...yawn. Its obvious that you actually know that this is just bleeding obvious - you know to listen. If Beethoven were alive today then I'm pretty sure he'd be......alive.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Fosters? I find it funny so funny that often the most ignorant people are the ones that are the most self-a-SHAWED
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I sit forlornly at my lonely, Fosters-free keyboard and await the arrival of those statistics (as opposed to those "it stands to reason innit" posts). If I didn't know better I'd be thinking I was going all dotty in my dotage.. or is that my dottage...flippin' 'eck, I'm all mixed up...
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Define "iggerant" s'il vous plonk... Would it be "an attribute shared by all those with whom I disagree" perchance? Have you an opinion of your own?
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Ah, another Aussie!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Steve, this is you: "I was simply trying to make the point that to say that "the only way to learn a tune right is to learn it by ear" is to erect a barrier against newcomers learning to play ITM"
Let me juxtapose that with:
"Tommy Peoples who never repeats a phrase the same way twice is perfect for illustrating the futility of trying to nail it down on paper".
You have stated your bones and flesh theory. Please think again.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Steve - all late in the evening was trying to point out is you obviously dont have a clue about aussies or australia - as its very rare that you actually get fosters here...its an export thing.
You seem to have a thing about aussies -dont worry mate - if I was from Cornwall - I'd be jealous of Aussies too.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
In this particular context i use ignorant to define anyone who is so oblivious to the actual cultural specifics of the ethnic group he is slagging as to stereo type them via a beer that no one in said country actually drinks.
Clear enough??
It would be like me slagging all british people because you made the unfortunate decision to devote your life to the harmonica 
hehehe i really need to stop hanging out with you dow!!!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
You disingenuous ol' thingie you, Michael. So let's see if I have this right. A tune learned from dots is an immutable thing, as unchanging as that lump of kerbstone down there. It can never be taken out and used as a foundation for building on. The player must always play it exactly the same, note for note, for the sheer act of learning it from the dots has condemned the player to play it thus forever. A Damoclean sword shall hang over his head lest he dare insert even the merest ornament or variation!
Come off it, Michael. Hypothetical, theoretical bullsh1t not founded on anything remotely to do with real life. ITM is played by thousands of enthusiasts like me who are determined to try their best to do it right but we want a repertoire some time before we reach the age of 199. You and your purist adherents would deny us that. Well tough luck. This is the age of the CD, the iPod and the tune-book and there's no going back and it's going to work for ITM just fine. A little bit of faith from old fogies stuck in the pure droppist past would be nice but we'll just have to wait till they're all in the churchyard I suppose!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Gawd, all these sensitive Aussies and their Fosters! Well, we all wear smocks in Cornwall and suck straws and play Wurzels CDs incessantly and go "oo-arr." Go on, have a go - we lurve it!
Oops - sorry, wurzel...not you...
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
You can't play a harmonica by ear anyway. You have to put it in...oh, never mind. It's late in the evening late in the evening and it's time for beddiebyes. Enjoy your rooburger brekkie, y'all down under!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Hal-an-Tow, jolly rumbelow
We were up long before the day-o
To welcome in the summertime
To welcome in the May-o
For summer is coming in
And winter's gone away!
It's got round to that half of the year when the clock in my car is right!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Ottery
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I think anyone putting a harmonica in their....."oh never mind" would be an improvement. At least it would keep the bloody thing quiet
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I'll swear I bought a radio cassette in Rumbelows once...oops, I'm s'posed to be abed...
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Not on my bloody diet it wouldn't.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Lots and lots of venom, so very little real disagreement. Par for the course.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by TaoCat
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Aw, you came in and said that just when we were trying a bit harder! Bad timing!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I do appreciate someone who, even over the internet, can appreciate when the p**s is well and truly being taken
.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Morpheus calleth.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
.......last word from me on this:
Most of my music students learn faster with reading than by listening, but I encorporate both methods.
I agree that a room full of people reading & playing ITM sounds flat, but who's to say that they are "awful" or "wrong"? If & and when they want to, they will move on and develop their playing skills at their own speed. Who cares, anyway? It's not as if you're forced to listen to them or anything.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by morning star
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Although trad is a very small world - you never know who you might run into...
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I laughed long and hard at this post till my eyes almost popped out of their sockets:
"Er, excuse me, but:
I wrote recently: "I believe I can feel the presence of past generations of musicians and dancers with us. They draw nearer to the sound of the pipes and fiddle, their involvement and longing are a tangible thing in the room, sharing again something that is forever new and forever timeles"
Llig wrote: This is worse than mere twaddle, it's self delusion of the highest order.
How nice to have the final authority around.
Cheers."
That's like popping your head round the door at a party and saying "excuse me everyone, I'd just like to remind everyone that I'm a complete idiot. Thank you!" And then expecting people not to laugh and make sarcastic comments. I mean, how can you really expect Michael *not* to react to posts like this?! And you wonder why he makes snide remarks?!!!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I once thought i could feel the departed players from sydney pulling closer to a fiddle being played by a particular canadian visitor once until i turned around and realised it was beebs and cors kicking me
Hey i'll be late tonight dow but i am coming so don't pike! mmmmmm townie?
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by late in the evening
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
'mon, Mr. Shaw has a fair point. If you play by the dots and don't bother to listen, then of course other people playing by the dots sound just as good as anything else.
See, if we'd all just listen with the same disregard for what it sounds like, everyone would be happy....
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
late in the evening, I just wanted to let you know that every time I session with you guys on a Tuesday, the music reaches such an intense peak that I can actually sense the ghosts of past ITM masters around me as I play. They caress my skin yearningly with their cool but gentle touch as they perform their whirling, swirling, dervish-like airdance to the music, which drifts out onto the streets below, causing children to stop playing and look up at the window of their local alehouse. And their grandfathers and grandmothers smile too, as they are reminded of past times and the fervour of their youth.
BOLLOX!!!!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Whassha madder, Dow? Y' can't see 'em? Why, Mashter Crowley hisself ish here beshide me, sipping outta same bottle o' Powers as we shpeak. Hic. A shmart little quiver he putsh in the aire, too.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Will CPT
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
38+189 comments posted so far dont stop yet we are on a roll. 4 men and a dog Recordings and its nothing to do with 4 men and a dog. Bet the lads never thought they could cause such controversy .At 4.45am have to say its entertaining .I am working the night shift and its filled in a good hour getting up to date with the Banter.As I am half blind I cant read the dots to learn and I am half deaf so I cant learn by ear think I will take up the Bodhran
Oh sh!t Ive done it now 
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Dphil
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
sorry got the count wrong 38+194 now yippie!
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Dphil
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Maybe you could make a bodhran from your mandola
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Saint
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Steve writes: "If Beethoven were alive today he'd be turning in his grave."
If anyone was alive in their grave I think they'd be turning.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Well, back from work and this one's still going. I wonder if we'll make 40 days and 40 nights eating nothing but locusts in this particular desert. Someone needs to do something...so...
On a related topic, I have to play at a wedding on the weekend, and i thought it would be really lovely to play something really traditional sounding. I have something in mind, but I don't have the dots. Does anyone know where I can get the music for that song Celine Dion sings in Titanic...you know, the one with the tin whistle bit that sounds all sort of...well...authentically irish? I'd learn it by ear but sadly i don't have the cd...unless someone could hum it for me on YouTube or something? Michael? Dow? Steve? Ptarmy?
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Ger the Rigger
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
English humour, Jack 'n' beeb, English humour. No Brit would ever have picked me up on the Beethoven gag. Try this one too. Teacher yells into face of naughty boy: "...and don't DARE open your mouth when you're talking to ME, boy!" See, it's the way you tell 'em. Now who bloody woke me up so early? Ah, maybe it was Will with his incomprehensible intervention. Plus ça change...
And this is an important subject worthy of civilised debate. Maybe I'll start a thread.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
I like English Humour - you know...when its actually funny....maybe I'm missing something.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Yeah, you've never met me. That would make you laugh.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Dows post about the ghosts and music was very funny - and he's a Pom....see - I find English humour funny....
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by bb
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Right then, one more time for the cloth eared:
A good player can take a tune learned from dots and use it as a foundation for building on. A learner can't do this. For a learner, it is an immutable thing, as unchanging as that lump of kerbstone down there. If the learner learnt the tune by ear, they would be acutely aware that the very nature of the music is it's shifting sand.
Unfortunately, this music is played by thousands of enthusiasts who are determined to try their best to do it right but, want a repertoire some time before they reach the age of 199.
There was an intelligent post from the morning star:
"Most of my music students learn faster with reading than by listening. I agree that a room full of people reading & playing ITM sounds flat, but who's to say that they are awful or wrong? Who cares, anyway? It's not as if you're forced to listen to them or anything."
Maybe Dow is right, why should I care? It's an open question I suppose, and I will ponder it. But for now, all I can say is I do care. I love this music and I hate to hear it ruined by the clamour for repertoire. Maybe you should just dig that hole in the churchyard for me.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Time we settle this debate with a drinking contest, aye?
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Bodhi
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
OK, for an example of how sheet music can be misleading taking a transcription off this site of "The Heights of Cassino" which I'd transcribed yesterday - http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/3833
For starters, it's not a jig, it's a 6/8 march. This aside, many of the semi-quavers which litter the piece, plus the demisemiquavers which crop up in the anacrusis, would be better notated as appoggiatura to give a *better* (and it's by no means perfect) representation of the way the peice is played (on any of the recordings / live performances I've ever heard). But anyone who tried to play what they saw on that sheet music would play semiquavers unless they were able to listen to the music and pick up the difference - a skill aquired by learning by ear.
Which is why learning from the dots initially isn't the best idea, untill you have enough understanding of the way tunes sound to interpret the sheet music.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Andy V
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
When do you stop being a learner and start being a good player? Ah, such musings make life worth living. Anyway, less of this theory and back to reality. Now - where did I put that friggin' tune book...
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
When you don't want your tune book
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
Michael, you keep reiterating one more time for the cloth-eared, but you must realise deep down that you're wasting your time. You surely must only be doing this for amusement. Surely you must get sick of it after a point.
# Posted on March 27th 2007 by Dow
Re: It's got nothing to do with 4 men & a dog
...Sorry, did someone speak? I had two cl