Last night I had a discussion with someone about playing a tune EXACTLY like his favorite artist. He plays along with a CD a zillion times, if thats what it takes, until he can play the piece as an exact duplication then never deviates from that rendition.
While I would love to have the ability to play exactly like Kevin Burke, Johnny Cunningham and some others I really don't like the duplication thing. To me music should be your own. Of course we all want to play it so that it's reconizable as the composer intended but it's such a personal thing. Adding your own little grace note here or there or doing a slur instead of individual bows won't hurt and adds interest.
I learn by listening AND reading the music when available. I can then ornament the tune as it suits me.
Do you play someone else's exact version or do you make it your own?
From what I understand of the copyright law, if the tune is public domain -- you can play the tune, but you can't copy the arrangement they used. Like you can play Amazing Grace, but it can't exactly sound the same as another artist.
So, from that stance point, it is good practice to have your own style.
There's nothing to stop you from sounding exactly the same as another artist, but if you do it in public they could conceivably attempt to charge a fee if they wanted to. I can't imagine this actually happening in the context of session musicians playing ITM.
Still, I also agree that it's better to have your own style.
I sometimes start out trying to copy someone's version (a few years ago I spent hours notating Andrew MacNamara's amazing and unique recording of Miss MacLeod's), but my rudimentary technique, faulty memory, and impatience with playing the same thing over and over again the same way always takes over long before anyone would recognize it as imitation (though they might guess the source).
I think copying (or trying to,) great players is a good way to learn phrasing, licks, etc . But it's a good idea to add some of your own stuff to a tune, otherwise you're just a walking juke box, yeah?
On one of Kevin Burke's instructional DVD he says in the introduction to Bonnie Kate/Jenny's Chickens that he learned the tunes from a Michael Coleman recording, and that his own playing of the tunes is based on that. Then he says, "I found that there were things he was doing that I couldn't do, so I had to do something else."
You can't copyright performance style, only arrangements. Lots of people copy another artist's style all the time, imitate licks, etc. To copy an arrangement, every instrument needs to be copying everything that went on in the recording. Proving that an arrangement of a traditional tune has been copied is very difficult.
Its a good excersize to aspire to a precisely faithful version of a tune or two, but it might be a bit overdone to load your entire playlist with this formula. As a tribute, I have certain tunes I continue to perfect, hoping to achieve an indistinguishable facsimile. Its quite a humbling experience.
Most people don’t have the patience and skill to exactly duplicate what they’re listening to, so if you attempt it, you invariably won’t sound like the original and you’ll end up playing it your own way. So for that reason I think it’s a good exercise to go through, but not to the extent your friend has.
I don’t think people do this enough. They learn common versions of tunes in a non-regional, non-specific style, get to a certain level of competence and stay there forever. If you spend time studying someone’s style and trying to duplicate it, you can learn quite a bit. Later, you can put your own flourishes in and make the tune your own, especially if you’ve forgotten the exact way you’ve learnt it, which is bound to happen over time and a thousand more tunes have gone in since. So I’m agreeing with everyone else here.
What a terrible thought, hundreds of Frankie Gavins, Kevin Burkes, Martin Hayes's out there playing in our sessions. It's the individuality of musicians that makes trad what it is. To me Tommy Peoples is "the fiddler" and no matter how long I tried I'm sure I'd have a much better chance of winning the lotto than playing just one tune sounding identical to him. However, should I find that Genie in the bottle and be given the chance to play just like him, I'd decline the offer as there's only one Tommy Peoples and that's the way I'd like it to stay!
Serious painters and musicians have very often modelled their early efforts on the work of a master they admire, to the point of copying or reproducing it; it's been the expected work of apprentices through history, and has been a stage in the careers of modern artists who haven't had to work as literal apprentices but have chosen to copy, the better to understand an admired artist's way of working.
It sounds a pretty worthwhile thing to do as long as one doesn't get too wound up by the differences that are likely to emerge, or go off down the weird path of forgery!
There are several tunes that I think I started playing very, very similar to a version I studied (Paddy Glackin's Gooseberry Bush comes to mind). To me it's part of my learning the instrument. I don't want to continue doing that, and I find sometimes that if I've heard several versions of a tune, my own playing can go off in different directions -- and this is where the fun begins. I hope that in a couple of years more and more of my playing will be my own, but I see nothing wrong with me trying to learn from closely studying the playing of others. I've been playing the fiddle for less than a year and a half and I'm trying to be very forgiving of myself at this point.
I have a built-in protection against this problem. I lack the talent to exactly copy a Burke, Gavin or Peoples. But, seriously ... Oh, wait, I *was* being serious. Anyway, no matter if I tried, it would always come out "my way" in the end.
If the music is in your bones and you've got a level of mastery of your instrument, it'll come out as yours.
The great players are great because they've mastered the craft of their instrument, the've got the tunes in their soul, and they let themselves come out in the music. If you're robotically playing along to a CD, then that's all your music will be good for -- playing by yourself in your living room to a CD.
Don't get me wrong. Listening is essential -- for technique, ideas for ornamentation and variation, and just getting the feel of the music. But give me someone who plays their music with their personality and flubs a few notes rather than someone who is technically precise but has no soul.
Hmmmm. I think that while trying to exactly copy the way one musician plays a tune is a good exercise, it shouldn't become a method for learning the tunes. Has anyone here read Fountainhead by Ayn Rand? It kinda ties in with the whole copying the masters idea.
What you're missing is that when you listen to a recording of someone playing a tune, it is a single slice of time. That person is unlikely to play it that way again. They might be in a different mood the next day and play it completely differently.
If you get stuck playing a tune exactly the same way every time, then you are forever stuck being just the player you are right now. And the tradition might as well be dead. Or that single tune, at least!
There's another level that can be achieved, where you have a better grasp of both your instrument and the tunes themselves, where the world opens up to you and you can explore the tune every time you play it. I think that you will find that a much richer experience can be had!
Who continues to play it the same way every time? I get the impression that some think that having learned a tune that way, that's the way that one plays it from then on... which seems an odd assumption to make. Or that learning one tune this way means that a person is learning every tune that way. Or that a person should have infinite impressionistic abilities a year in. How idealistic.
I wish I could duplicate the playing of someone like Mairtin O'Connor or John Williams or Joe Derrane........sigh..............no matter how much I practice, I will never be accused of stealing from guys like that!
When I learn a tune, I move to my own interpretation fairly quickly. I will listen to as many versions as I can find, and continue to develop the tune. If I find that the result differs significantly from that of the people I play with, I will adapt as necessary to avoid discord. Occasionally I will abandon the tune, or put it aside for a while.
Every tune I learn by ear, I learn by the way the performer plays it. Even so, everything I play, whether by ear or by written music, sounds consistently like me, so I think it's pretty unlikely you're sounding as much like an admired performer as you might think you are.
Hey oldstrings, we'd love to have you. But be warned and observe the rules of the session:
1. You must have been playing Irish -- and only Irish -- music for at least 20 years
2. No bodrans, piano accordions, or singing allowed
3. Each tune shall be played three times through. Three is the number and the number shall be three.
4. Under no circumstances are you to play The Butterfly or Harvest Home
Hehe, can you tell I've had a pint already? What? It's after 5:00 here ; )
I think it's enormously valuable to copy people as accurately as you can... and then to stop copying them.
For example, some of the best fiddlers I've ever heard used to spend hours (if not days) trying to copy Coleman, Morrison, and Killoran. I, for one, LOVE listening to anybody who can accurately copy any of those guys. (and there aren't many that can!)
Liz Carroll once put it this way (if I remember correctly--and I might not): "Copy everybody you like. You DON'T play like them, so don't worry about it.". In the end, you'll learn something, and you'll come out the other side as a better musician for it.
Copy away, but copy WELL! Learn the way they do rolls, figure out their bowings, figure out their rhythm... Even copy from other instruments. Noel Hill says he learned his rhythm from fiddlers and his ornamentation from pipers. I, for one, love trying to copy concertina players!
So copy away! It's good for you!
But in the end, though, it's generally more interesting to hear someone play something that's not an attempted copy of someone else. Coming up with your own music is more important, in the end. It's just nice to have giants around, on whose shoulders you can stand.
i agree with georgi.....i have read here and there that imitating masters is a stage of learning.....but that ultimately, who you want to sound like is, uniquely yourself. well, uniquely yourself, with influences and within a tradition, ineveitably......
You are not talking symphony orchestra here, where bows and things are working in unison (and I am sure symphony orchestras all sound different anyhow).
I agree that it is virtually impossible to copy a "master" - which is why there are master classes - to help people express what they mean through music - to take a different tack. I think the masters who mentor master classes do so to open expanded possibilities to those who attend to learn.
As others have already said, a master is unlikely to ever play a tune the same way twice, so if you were to learn from a recording then try to play with that master in real life, you would find that the master would have changed the way he/she plays the tune, the hue would be different, so you would still come out sounding like yourself.
Playing a tune is a creative undertaking, it isn't (or at least shouldn't be) computer driven with exact reproduction. I have no doubt there are people who are able to reproduce quite accurate copies of a single performance. But I know I ain't one of those tg. Whatever I do, I still come out sounding exactly like me, so there isn't an issue of plagerism the way I see it.
Sarcasm is a dangerous thing to use in an internet forum. With no non-verbal cues to indicate that you are teasing or joking, people often take the sarcasm literally. I myself try to avoid it for that very reason, or use a smiley face to indicate that I am joking.
Try learning a version of tune played on another instrument that you don't play. The chances are that you'll be making necessary changes just to make the tune playable on your own instrument. A simple example - a version of a tune that lies easily under the hands of a box player doesn't necessarily always play easily under the left hand and bow of the fiddle player. And vice versa.
Duplicating an artist
Duplicating an artist
Last night I had a discussion with someone about playing a tune EXACTLY like his favorite artist. He plays along with a CD a zillion times, if thats what it takes, until he can play the piece as an exact duplication then never deviates from that rendition.
While I would love to have the ability to play exactly like Kevin Burke, Johnny Cunningham and some others I really don't like the duplication thing. To me music should be your own. Of course we all want to play it so that it's reconizable as the composer intended but it's such a personal thing. Adding your own little grace note here or there or doing a slur instead of individual bows won't hurt and adds interest.
I learn by listening AND reading the music when available. I can then ornament the tune as it suits me.
Do you play someone else's exact version or do you make it your own?
Mary
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Antikhntr
Re: Duplicating an artist
From what I understand of the copyright law, if the tune is public domain -- you can play the tune, but you can't copy the arrangement they used. Like you can play Amazing Grace, but it can't exactly sound the same as another artist.
So, from that stance point, it is good practice to have your own style.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by TheBloodyIrish
Re: Duplicating an artist
Thanks BloodyIrish,
I don't want to get into copyright issues. I'm just talking about playing for personal pleasure and was wondering what the majority does.
Mary
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Antikhntr
Re: Duplicating an artist
There's nothing to stop you from sounding exactly the same as another artist, but if you do it in public they could conceivably attempt to charge a fee if they wanted to. I can't imagine this actually happening in the context of session musicians playing ITM.
Still, I also agree that it's better to have your own style.
I sometimes start out trying to copy someone's version (a few years ago I spent hours notating Andrew MacNamara's amazing and unique recording of Miss MacLeod's), but my rudimentary technique, faulty memory, and impatience with playing the same thing over and over again the same way always takes over long before anyone would recognize it as imitation (though they might guess the source).
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by GaryAMartin
Re: Duplicating an artist
Don't put the "dupe" in duplicate.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by drone
Re: Duplicating an artist
I think copying (or trying to,) great players is a good way to learn phrasing, licks, etc . But it's a good idea to add some of your own stuff to a tune, otherwise you're just a walking juke box, yeah?
On one of Kevin Burke's instructional DVD he says in the introduction to Bonnie Kate/Jenny's Chickens that he learned the tunes from a Michael Coleman recording, and that his own playing of the tunes is based on that. Then he says, "I found that there were things he was doing that I couldn't do, so I had to do something else."
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Youbetter
Re: Duplicating an artist
You can't copyright performance style, only arrangements. Lots of people copy another artist's style all the time, imitate licks, etc. To copy an arrangement, every instrument needs to be copying everything that went on in the recording. Proving that an arrangement of a traditional tune has been copied is very difficult.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Duplicating an artist
Its a good excersize to aspire to a precisely faithful version of a tune or two, but it might be a bit overdone to load your entire playlist with this formula. As a tribute, I have certain tunes I continue to perfect, hoping to achieve an indistinguishable facsimile. Its quite a humbling experience.
Jim
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by jhol111964
Re: Duplicating an artist
Most people don’t have the patience and skill to exactly duplicate what they’re listening to, so if you attempt it, you invariably won’t sound like the original and you’ll end up playing it your own way. So for that reason I think it’s a good exercise to go through, but not to the extent your friend has.
I don’t think people do this enough. They learn common versions of tunes in a non-regional, non-specific style, get to a certain level of competence and stay there forever. If you spend time studying someone’s style and trying to duplicate it, you can learn quite a bit. Later, you can put your own flourishes in and make the tune your own, especially if you’ve forgotten the exact way you’ve learnt it, which is bound to happen over time and a thousand more tunes have gone in since. So I’m agreeing with everyone else here.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Fiddlebabe
Re: Duplicating an artist
I refer m'learned friend to:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/2708
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by showaddydadito
Re: Duplicating an artist
What a terrible thought, hundreds of Frankie Gavins, Kevin Burkes, Martin Hayes's out there playing in our sessions. It's the individuality of musicians that makes trad what it is. To me Tommy Peoples is "the fiddler" and no matter how long I tried I'm sure I'd have a much better chance of winning the lotto than playing just one tune sounding identical to him. However, should I find that Genie in the bottle and be given the chance to play just like him, I'd decline the offer as there's only one Tommy Peoples and that's the way I'd like it to stay!
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Bannerman
Re: Duplicating an artist
Serious painters and musicians have very often modelled their early efforts on the work of a master they admire, to the point of copying or reproducing it; it's been the expected work of apprentices through history, and has been a stage in the careers of modern artists who haven't had to work as literal apprentices but have chosen to copy, the better to understand an admired artist's way of working.
It sounds a pretty worthwhile thing to do as long as one doesn't get too wound up by the differences that are likely to emerge, or go off down the weird path of forgery!
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by nicholas
Re: Duplicating an artist
There are several tunes that I think I started playing very, very similar to a version I studied (Paddy Glackin's Gooseberry Bush comes to mind). To me it's part of my learning the instrument. I don't want to continue doing that, and I find sometimes that if I've heard several versions of a tune, my own playing can go off in different directions -- and this is where the fun begins. I hope that in a couple of years more and more of my playing will be my own, but I see nothing wrong with me trying to learn from closely studying the playing of others. I've been playing the fiddle for less than a year and a half and I'm trying to be very forgiving of myself at this point.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by winterowl
Re: Duplicating an artist
I have a built-in protection against this problem. I lack the talent to exactly copy a Burke, Gavin or Peoples. But, seriously ... Oh, wait, I *was* being serious. Anyway, no matter if I tried, it would always come out "my way" in the end.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Bob himself
Re: Duplicating an artist
If the music is in your bones and you've got a level of mastery of your instrument, it'll come out as yours.
The great players are great because they've mastered the craft of their instrument, the've got the tunes in their soul, and they let themselves come out in the music. If you're robotically playing along to a CD, then that's all your music will be good for -- playing by yourself in your living room to a CD.
Don't get me wrong. Listening is essential -- for technique, ideas for ornamentation and variation, and just getting the feel of the music. But give me someone who plays their music with their personality and flubs a few notes rather than someone who is technically precise but has no soul.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by zoetrope
Re: Duplicating an artist
Hmmmm. I think that while trying to exactly copy the way one musician plays a tune is a good exercise, it shouldn't become a method for learning the tunes. Has anyone here read Fountainhead by Ayn Rand? It kinda ties in with the whole copying the masters idea.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by rob_handel
Re: Duplicating an artist
At last ! A good reason to learn from sheet music . . .
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Justintime
Re: Duplicating an artist
What you're missing is that when you listen to a recording of someone playing a tune, it is a single slice of time. That person is unlikely to play it that way again. They might be in a different mood the next day and play it completely differently.
If you get stuck playing a tune exactly the same way every time, then you are forever stuck being just the player you are right now. And the tradition might as well be dead. Or that single tune, at least!
There's another level that can be achieved, where you have a better grasp of both your instrument and the tunes themselves, where the world opens up to you and you can explore the tune every time you play it. I think that you will find that a much richer experience can be had!
Pete
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Reverend
Re: Duplicating an artist
Who continues to play it the same way every time? I get the impression that some think that having learned a tune that way, that's the way that one plays it from then on... which seems an odd assumption to make. Or that learning one tune this way means that a person is learning every tune that way. Or that a person should have infinite impressionistic abilities a year in. How idealistic.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by winterowl
Re: Duplicating an artist
I wish I could duplicate the playing of someone like Mairtin O'Connor or John Williams or Joe Derrane........sigh..............no matter how much I practice, I will never be accused of stealing from guys like that!
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Duplicating an artist
When I learn a tune, I move to my own interpretation fairly quickly. I will listen to as many versions as I can find, and continue to develop the tune. If I find that the result differs significantly from that of the people I play with, I will adapt as necessary to avoid discord. Occasionally I will abandon the tune, or put it aside for a while.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by oldstrings
Re: Duplicating an artist
Zoetrope, I'm with you. Can I come to your session?
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by oldstrings
Re: Duplicating an artist
Every tune I learn by ear, I learn by the way the performer plays it. Even so, everything I play, whether by ear or by written music, sounds consistently like me, so I think it's pretty unlikely you're sounding as much like an admired performer as you might think you are.
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Ailin
Re: Duplicating an artist
Hey oldstrings, we'd love to have you. But be warned and observe the rules of the session:
1. You must have been playing Irish -- and only Irish -- music for at least 20 years
2. No bodrans, piano accordions, or singing allowed
3. Each tune shall be played three times through. Three is the number and the number shall be three.
4. Under no circumstances are you to play The Butterfly or Harvest Home
Hehe, can you tell I've had a pint already? What? It's after 5:00 here ; )
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by zoetrope
Re: Duplicating an artist
But zoetrope what if The Butterfly or Harvest Home are in your soul ? Are they less Irish than other tunes?
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by flossie
Re: Duplicating an artist
My other fav tunes are The Kesh and The Bucks (although I can't actually play the latter) Is there any hope for me?!
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by flossie
Re: Duplicating an artist
Zoe no Bodhran no soul
# Posted on April 5th 2007 by Saint
Re: Duplicating an artist
I think it's enormously valuable to copy people as accurately as you can... and then to stop copying them.
For example, some of the best fiddlers I've ever heard used to spend hours (if not days) trying to copy Coleman, Morrison, and Killoran. I, for one, LOVE listening to anybody who can accurately copy any of those guys. (and there aren't many that can!)
Liz Carroll once put it this way (if I remember correctly--and I might not): "Copy everybody you like. You DON'T play like them, so don't worry about it.". In the end, you'll learn something, and you'll come out the other side as a better musician for it.
Copy away, but copy WELL! Learn the way they do rolls, figure out their bowings, figure out their rhythm... Even copy from other instruments. Noel Hill says he learned his rhythm from fiddlers and his ornamentation from pipers. I, for one, love trying to copy concertina players!
So copy away! It's good for you!
But in the end, though, it's generally more interesting to hear someone play something that's not an attempted copy of someone else. Coming up with your own music is more important, in the end. It's just nice to have giants around, on whose shoulders you can stand.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by Georgi
Re: Duplicating an artist
i agree with georgi.....i have read here and there that imitating masters is a stage of learning.....but that ultimately, who you want to sound like is, uniquely yourself. well, uniquely yourself, with influences and within a tradition, ineveitably......
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by ceemonster
Re: Duplicating an artist
You are not talking symphony orchestra here, where bows and things are working in unison (and I am sure symphony orchestras all sound different anyhow).
I agree that it is virtually impossible to copy a "master" - which is why there are master classes - to help people express what they mean through music - to take a different tack. I think the masters who mentor master classes do so to open expanded possibilities to those who attend to learn.
As others have already said, a master is unlikely to ever play a tune the same way twice, so if you were to learn from a recording then try to play with that master in real life, you would find that the master would have changed the way he/she plays the tune, the hue would be different, so you would still come out sounding like yourself.
Playing a tune is a creative undertaking, it isn't (or at least shouldn't be) computer driven with exact reproduction. I have no doubt there are people who are able to reproduce quite accurate copies of a single performance. But I know I ain't one of those tg. Whatever I do, I still come out sounding exactly like me, so there isn't an issue of plagerism the way I see it.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by Clear Drops
Re: Duplicating an artist
Just a quick off-topic reply: that was sarcasm. Why is that so difficult to convey on ye old mustard board?
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by zoetrope
Re: Duplicating an artist
Have you thought of just not using sarcasm?
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Duplicating an artist
Careful. The Pihrana Brothers used sarcasm and look what happened to them.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by Youbetter
Re: Duplicating an artist
Sarcasm is a dangerous thing to use in an internet forum. With no non-verbal cues to indicate that you are teasing or joking, people often take the sarcasm literally. I myself try to avoid it for that very reason, or use a smiley face to indicate that I am joking.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Duplicating an artist
Huh! ;-(
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by Clear Drops
Re: Duplicating an artist
Try again
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by Clear Drops
Re: Duplicating an artist
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Duplicating an artist
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by Reverend
Re: Duplicating an artist
"I'm so-o-o-o so-o-o-o so-rr-rr-rr-yyyyy" "Now THAT'S sarcasm"
:- Father Jack in Father Ted
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Duplicating an artist
That was a rhetorical question.
Sorry to have hijacked your thread, Mary.
I'm off now to try and figure out how to get those darn smiley faces to post.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by zoetrope
Re: Duplicating an artist
ooh, it worked. I'm back, I guess.
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by zoetrope
Re: Duplicating an artist
What was a rhetorical question?
That was.
I once saw this, in English, on succesive individual boards covering a distance of about 3 kilometers, in Central France:
"Is this a question.
This is an answer?"
# Posted on April 6th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Duplicating an artist
Try learning a version of tune played on another instrument that you don't play. The chances are that you'll be making necessary changes just to make the tune playable on your own instrument. A simple example - a version of a tune that lies easily under the hands of a box player doesn't necessarily always play easily under the left hand and bow of the fiddle player. And vice versa.
# Posted on April 8th 2007 by lazyhound