Just something thats interested me for a while, and I'm curious to hear people's opinions..lets take a random set of, say, 3 reels, that someone in a session may decide to play together. To what extent does the key of the reel influence your choice? It seems for example, very rare that you will hear 3 Emin reels in a row. Much more often to hear an E minor reel going to a D major to a G major for example. It seems there is frequently at least a subconcious approach to the 3 separate tunes as one overall piece of music..the ideas of the music "lifting" or "building", or at least of 'contrast' seem to be in there.
This also links in with a secondary question, which is the extent to which certain tunes have become inseparable from one another and why. (Eg when I was in Kerry the Bucks and The Foxhunter were never heard separately-always those 2 in that order usually at the end of the session/gig.)
Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?
Yesterday I was playing a tune in Aminor and for some reason wanted to go to Dmix without really consciously knowing why.
Now that I'm looking at it......... D is a fourth up, with exactly the same notes -so it looks to me like it might be a natural progression logically as well as instinctively. It could just be a matter of personal taste, however.
Key changes between tunes generally give a lift to the music (playing Miss McCleod followed by Sally Gardens and Duke of Leinster would, I think, be a bit monotonous). However, with trad "the rule is there aren't any rules" because one of the great sets is Joe Cooley's Humours of Tulla, Skylark and Roaring Mary all of which are in "D".
Seanòs dancing does a lot of tunes in the same key. The musican for example may play Miss Mclouds and then the Sally Gardens but when beganing the second tune leave a split second gap without any notes being played.It adds great lift.
Overlooking music for dancing, as far as listeners are concerned I think it's the differences or contrasts between the tunes that's the overriding factor. Changing key is one way to achieve this but in the case of the Cooley set, it's the differing structure of the three tunes that makes the combination work. Martin Wynne's Nos. 1 & 2 is another example of this where, although in the same key, both reels have very contrasting melodies.
I think that it's fun (to the listener) when one feels that "lift" at the changing of the tunes. This is often achieved by a change of key. A set composed of tunes that are so similar to one another that the casual listener does not notice the tune change is not a good set.
"A set composed of tunes that are so similar to one another that the casual listener does not notice the tune change is not a good set."
I just can't lay off it, I just can't help myself. If You are concerened about the casual listener, what the hell are you playing diddly musiuc for in the first place?
Have to agree that tunes like the Boys of Malin, O'Rourke's and the Gravel Walk (not strictly "A" but similar) and the Reconcilliation will always give a bit of a lift to any session.
yeah, ok, but that's where keys and chords probably conflict I suppose! Without getting unduly theoretical about things - especially in view of the reality that my theoretical knowledge is rather limited - to all intent and purpose the 4th part is in C - the C being the dominant chord? Please don't bamboozle me with musical technicalities now. Being a trad player I tend to think of things in terms of what chords go with the tunes rather than keys maybe (probably an invitation for a welter of comments that chords have no place in blah blah).
I don't much like the tune in sessions anyway, I'd certainly never play it outside of my kitchen
The gravel walks is generally played in public spaces in a manner that I perceive to be a travesty of whatever the tune suggests it should or could be. If there was ever any mystery to be unlocked in knowing that the 4th part might not technically speaking be in C "proper", I tend to find that such mystery has finally been sealed in a lead coffin never to return if I hear it in a pub.
The more I think about it, the more this "lift" thing seems a bit daft (and I'm guilty of using the cliche myself). We play sets of tunes because we need to play with sufficient length, and we don't just play the same tune six or nine times because only a fabulous arrangement or exceptionally-skilled exponent of variation could make that sound anything other than tedious. Sometimes a three- or four-part tune can stand alone nicely, played three times. So I don't think it matters too much which tunes we put together in sets and whether they change key/mode. There's a lovely pair of single jigs on Music at Matt Molloy's which are in the same key and it's a cracking good track. And the Cooley one mentioned above. A good tune has enough lift unto itself.
Well, while you wrestle with the laws of physics and launch into hackneyed tunes like drowsy maggie in a flat minor I guess the rest of us will carry on as usual playing the tunes we like and changing key as and when we feel like it. Seems to have worked for me - physics or no.
As for the just v equal thing .... I like a bit of dissonance in my music ... don't think there was much physics in the children of the night.
I am not being pedantic. You were being inaccurate. I understand these things rather well actually, and in fact I've written about them a number of times for people to read. Anyone referring to "Just temperament" is being inaccurate as Just intonation is not a temperament. It's as simple as that. We don't refer to The Atlantic Pool or the Amazon Brook. Maybe the physicists at Georgia university are not very musical. I've learned (mainly through being criticised for lax use of terminology) that this is an area that requires careful expression if clarity is to be attained.
As for playing tunes six times, hands up all those who make a regular habit of that in sessions. And I'll thank you to not make pejorative statements about my playing unless you've heard it for yourself. That is not civil.
Just curious, trad...If I play Drowsie Maggie in a similar style to how Matt Molloy does on Heathery Breeze (minus a few ornaments, of course), i.e. in a slower, "dreamier" style, would this be similar to your idea of the song?
guys i didn't mean any of that! I meant simply playing a tune in D, then one in G, then one in Am etc etc. I was just curious about any "patterns" that emerge when u consier your sets. eg going round the cycle of 4ths seems common (eg am, D, finish on G)...doing 2 minor or dorian ones followed by a cheerful G major seems popular too.
Just curious to what extent people do this conciously or subconciously..
hak, I myself like to do the following sometimes:
1) Go from relative minor to major (Em to G for example)
2) Add sharps as I go (G to D to A for example).
3) Go dorian to a step lower (Edor to D or vice versa G to Ador)
4) stay in same key.
And sometimes I just string together what sounds good. I find that hard and fast rules don't always works, a lot depends on the shapes of the tunes, and quite a bit of what works together depends on how the tail of one tune fits with the head of the next. But good set construction can create something that sounds good, and creates a bit of excitement as you go from tune to tune. And one thing I like to do is go from the obscure to the more common, something that gets talked about on the board here from time to time. Sets always sound better when more people join in along the way, as opposed to the set that loses players along the way because they don't know the tunes.
Hard physics is one thing. What the music sounds like is entirely another. I've heard countless wonderful musicians changing key in sets and sounding wonderful. I've even been daft enough to ask one or two of them what fine-tuning their instrument was in, and they usually don't have a clue what you're talking about, and quite right too. Live music is a human activity. It isn't intended that it complies with the hard physics as measured by [insert suitable prefix]-ometers. I know the theory but I give it the day off when I'm listening to good stuff and enjoying myself. I listen to music, not physics, and I'd like to suggest that you'd enjoy what you were listening to a lot more if you did the same.
Aye, aye, Capt'n Trad...tune, not song...so noted, sir. Here's another question--would you follow playing the tune Drowsie Maggie with the song Danny Boy? Could be a killer combo... what do you think?
I don't mind key changes. I like them. But they get boring when they happen too often. A Bit like M.phil, D.phil, PhD people - they seem impressive and fascinating when you don't encounter them very often: but after you've met a few hundred they get rather commonplace.
I was hoping, and of course that (as far as I could hope [hope being of course something loosely religious and therefore something from which I'd ordinarily abstain]) is something to which trust seems diametrically opposed, to parenthesise more than I actually did.
Well, "parenthesise" is in mine, loud and clear. Perhaps you should take another look. You clearly don't make much use of dictionaries or books about grammar and punctuation. People in glass houses and all that.
Ah well. "Parenthesise" is in Chambers, and I personally rather prefer the spelling with an 's', as one which is rather more English and rather less American.
Blind as well. It's in the Oxford Concise, in both spellings. And it's prononced [sic] the same with a z as it is with an s. You float over the English language with the same lack of precision that you employ to float over ITM. When are you going away please?
Send me a big box and return postage and I'll send you my copy of the OCD with it in. For goodness sake, man, calm down. You're wrong, get it? And not for the first time in your life I don't doubt!
Are you really Liam O'Flynn in disguise, by the way?
Here's a set for harmonica players with a low D harp with key-changes but with no need for harp-changes - hackneyed but hey, damn good chunes! Gillan's Apples/Tripping Upstairs/Morrison's. Always gets us a whoop and a clap!
Here's a man who don't know how to back down gracefully when he's wrong. You gotta admire his balls, in the words of Blackadder (or was it one of his accomplices?)
Back to the original post, the issue of key changes is very interesting in ITM. Often traditional players will like key changes which don't do anything for me personally, and I wonder what it is that their ear is responding to.
In general, it does seem that going up one step, from major to minor, nearly always seems to give that "lift" people are talking about. You'll hear over and over people going from D major to E minor, or G major to A minor.
The major/minor thing isn't even crucial, as going from G to A, both tunes being major, also sounds good. Example is playing Foxhunter's Reel in G, then doing the same tune in A. It has great "lift".
A formula that works so well that I play several 3-reel sets using it is starting in D major, going up to E minor, and ending in G major. This works well for dancing because you can cycle back around to the first tune well in most cases.
Another effective thing is to take away sharps. This is how a lot of Cape Breton sets are done. The set will stay in A, but start in A major, go to A mixolydian, and finish in A minor. In Irish music this works really well if you start for example in D major then go into a D mixolydian tune. The C naturals really jump out.
Key changes within a set.
Key changes within a set.
Just something thats interested me for a while, and I'm curious to hear people's opinions..lets take a random set of, say, 3 reels, that someone in a session may decide to play together. To what extent does the key of the reel influence your choice? It seems for example, very rare that you will hear 3 Emin reels in a row. Much more often to hear an E minor reel going to a D major to a G major for example. It seems there is frequently at least a subconcious approach to the 3 separate tunes as one overall piece of music..the ideas of the music "lifting" or "building", or at least of 'contrast' seem to be in there.
This also links in with a secondary question, which is the extent to which certain tunes have become inseparable from one another and why. (Eg when I was in Kerry the Bucks and The Foxhunter were never heard separately-always those 2 in that order usually at the end of the session/gig.)
Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Key changes within a set.
Yesterday I was playing a tune in Aminor and for some reason wanted to go to Dmix without really consciously knowing why.
Now that I'm looking at it......... D is a fourth up, with exactly the same notes -so it looks to me like it might be a natural progression logically as well as instinctively. It could just be a matter of personal taste, however.
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by morning star
Re: Key changes within a set.
tradpiper i hope ur not driving while under the influence of snuff?!
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Key changes within a set.
Key changes between tunes generally give a lift to the music (playing Miss McCleod followed by Sally Gardens and Duke of Leinster would, I think, be a bit monotonous). However, with trad "the rule is there aren't any rules" because one of the great sets is Joe Cooley's Humours of Tulla, Skylark and Roaring Mary all of which are in "D".
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by Bannerman
Re: Key changes within a set.
ok..but that kind of begs the question..WHY is that a great set? and tradpiper says "tune sets they have found work well"..WHY?
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Key changes within a set.
Seanòs dancing does a lot of tunes in the same key. The musican for example may play Miss Mclouds and then the Sally Gardens but when beganing the second tune leave a split second gap without any notes being played.It adds great lift.
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by dinn2
Re: Key changes within a set.
Overlooking music for dancing, as far as listeners are concerned I think it's the differences or contrasts between the tunes that's the overriding factor. Changing key is one way to achieve this but in the case of the Cooley set, it's the differing structure of the three tunes that makes the combination work. Martin Wynne's Nos. 1 & 2 is another example of this where, although in the same key, both reels have very contrasting melodies.
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by Bannerman
Re: Key changes within a set.
Sometimes it's fun to find tunes that in some way have small similarities........ or even an inversion of the same phrase.
# Posted on August 12th 2007 by morning star
Re: Key changes within a set.
I think that it's fun (to the listener) when one feels that "lift" at the changing of the tunes. This is often achieved by a change of key. A set composed of tunes that are so similar to one another that the casual listener does not notice the tune change is not a good set.
# Posted on August 13th 2007 by sixholes
Re: Key changes within a set.
You mean the Barry Manilow "lift" where every modulation goes up 1/2 step... until magically, the tune is over?
# Posted on August 13th 2007 by pastrings
Re: Key changes within a set.
"A set composed of tunes that are so similar to one another that the casual listener does not notice the tune change is not a good set."
I just can't lay off it, I just can't help myself. If You are concerened about the casual listener, what the hell are you playing diddly musiuc for in the first place?
# Posted on August 13th 2007 by llig leahcim
Re: Key changes within a set.
because they are human beings too, llig. A bit of courtesy goes a long a way..
# Posted on August 13th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Key changes within a set.
I know its boring but most of the stuff i play ends up D into G into A.
Nothing beats a reel in A.
# Posted on August 13th 2007 by jfiddlerh
Re: Key changes within a set.
Have to agree that tunes like the Boys of Malin, O'Rourke's and the Gravel Walk (not strictly "A" but similar) and the Reconcilliation will always give a bit of a lift to any session.
# Posted on August 14th 2007 by Bannerman
Re: Key changes within a set.
i don't think there's any A major part in the gravel walks? Not in my world anyhow.
# Posted on August 14th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
no worries, part 4 is in C too, not G. You were right first time.
# Posted on August 14th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
yeah, ok, but that's where keys and chords probably conflict I suppose! Without getting unduly theoretical about things - especially in view of the reality that my theoretical knowledge is rather limited - to all intent and purpose the 4th part is in C - the C being the dominant chord? Please don't bamboozle me with musical technicalities now. Being a trad player I tend to think of things in terms of what chords go with the tunes rather than keys maybe (probably an invitation for a welter of comments that chords have no place in blah blah).
I don't much like the tune in sessions anyway, I'd certainly never play it outside of my kitchen
Anyhow, I stand corrected.
# Posted on August 14th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
The gravel walks is generally played in public spaces in a manner that I perceive to be a travesty of whatever the tune suggests it should or could be. If there was ever any mystery to be unlocked in knowing that the 4th part might not technically speaking be in C "proper", I tend to find that such mystery has finally been sealed in a lead coffin never to return if I hear it in a pub.
I almost always know 'roughly' what key I'm in.
# Posted on August 14th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
yeah, that'll be it - too many ornaments ...
# Posted on August 14th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
The more I think about it, the more this "lift" thing seems a bit daft (and I'm guilty of using the cliche myself). We play sets of tunes because we need to play with sufficient length, and we don't just play the same tune six or nine times because only a fabulous arrangement or exceptionally-skilled exponent of variation could make that sound anything other than tedious. Sometimes a three- or four-part tune can stand alone nicely, played three times. So I don't think it matters too much which tunes we put together in sets and whether they change key/mode. There's a lovely pair of single jigs on Music at Matt Molloy's which are in the same key and it's a cracking good track. And the Cooley one mentioned above. A good tune has enough lift unto itself.
And Just is not a temperament.
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
And, come to think of it, equal temperament is not an arbitrary standard. It is a precise and immutable mathematical relationship between pitches.
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
Well, while you wrestle with the laws of physics and launch into hackneyed tunes like drowsy maggie in a flat minor I guess the rest of us will carry on as usual playing the tunes we like and changing key as and when we feel like it. Seems to have worked for me - physics or no.
As for the just v equal thing .... I like a bit of dissonance in my music ... don't think there was much physics in the children of the night.
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
I am not being pedantic. You were being inaccurate. I understand these things rather well actually, and in fact I've written about them a number of times for people to read. Anyone referring to "Just temperament" is being inaccurate as Just intonation is not a temperament. It's as simple as that. We don't refer to The Atlantic Pool or the Amazon Brook. Maybe the physicists at Georgia university are not very musical. I've learned (mainly through being criticised for lax use of terminology) that this is an area that requires careful expression if clarity is to be attained.
As for playing tunes six times, hands up all those who make a regular habit of that in sessions. And I'll thank you to not make pejorative statements about my playing unless you've heard it for yourself. That is not civil.
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
Just curious, trad...If I play Drowsie Maggie in a similar style to how Matt Molloy does on Heathery Breeze (minus a few ornaments, of course), i.e. in a slower, "dreamier" style, would this be similar to your idea of the song?
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by InSearchofCraic
Re: Key changes within a set.
guys i didn't mean any of that! I meant simply playing a tune in D, then one in G, then one in Am etc etc. I was just curious about any "patterns" that emerge when u consier your sets. eg going round the cycle of 4ths seems common (eg am, D, finish on G)...doing 2 minor or dorian ones followed by a cheerful G major seems popular too.
Just curious to what extent people do this conciously or subconciously..
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by hakanozel
Re: Key changes within a set.
hak, I myself like to do the following sometimes:
1) Go from relative minor to major (Em to G for example)
2) Add sharps as I go (G to D to A for example).
3) Go dorian to a step lower (Edor to D or vice versa G to Ador)
4) stay in same key.
And sometimes I just string together what sounds good. I find that hard and fast rules don't always works, a lot depends on the shapes of the tunes, and quite a bit of what works together depends on how the tail of one tune fits with the head of the next. But good set construction can create something that sounds good, and creates a bit of excitement as you go from tune to tune. And one thing I like to do is go from the obscure to the more common, something that gets talked about on the board here from time to time. Sets always sound better when more people join in along the way, as opposed to the set that loses players along the way because they don't know the tunes.
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Key changes within a set.
Hard physics is one thing. What the music sounds like is entirely another. I've heard countless wonderful musicians changing key in sets and sounding wonderful. I've even been daft enough to ask one or two of them what fine-tuning their instrument was in, and they usually don't have a clue what you're talking about, and quite right too. Live music is a human activity. It isn't intended that it complies with the hard physics as measured by [insert suitable prefix]-ometers. I know the theory but I give it the day off when I'm listening to good stuff and enjoying myself. I listen to music, not physics, and I'd like to suggest that you'd enjoy what you were listening to a lot more if you did the same.
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
Aye, aye, Capt'n Trad...tune, not song...so noted, sir. Here's another question--would you follow playing the tune Drowsie Maggie with the song Danny Boy? Could be a killer combo... what do you think?
# Posted on August 15th 2007 by InSearchofCraic
Re: Key changes within a set.
u studied accademic subjects huh? let me guess...Eton?
# Posted on August 16th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
is that Doctor Philip? He's in practice with Dr Gilbert isn't he? Amazing that he's got a PhD too.
# Posted on August 16th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
I don't mind key changes. I like them. But they get boring when they happen too often. A Bit like M.phil, D.phil, PhD people - they seem impressive and fascinating when you don't encounter them very often: but after you've met a few hundred they get rather commonplace.
# Posted on August 16th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
I trust that you're speaking parenthetically...
# Posted on August 16th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
I was hoping, and of course that (as far as I could hope [hope being of course something loosely religious and therefore something from which I'd ordinarily abstain]) is something to which trust seems diametrically opposed, to parenthesise more than I actually did.
# Posted on August 17th 2007 by pavlf
Re: Key changes within a set.
Well, "parenthesise" is in mine, loud and clear. Perhaps you should take another look. You clearly don't make much use of dictionaries or books about grammar and punctuation. People in glass houses and all that.
# Posted on August 20th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
Ah well. "Parenthesise" is in Chambers, and I personally rather prefer the spelling with an 's', as one which is rather more English and rather less American.
# Posted on August 20th 2007 by benhall.1
Re: Key changes within a set.
Blind as well. It's in the Oxford Concise, in both spellings. And it's prononced [sic] the same with a z as it is with an s. You float over the English language with the same lack of precision that you employ to float over ITM. When are you going away please?
# Posted on August 20th 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
Send me a big box and return postage and I'll send you my copy of the OCD with it in. For goodness sake, man, calm down. You're wrong, get it? And not for the first time in your life I don't doubt!
Are you really Liam O'Flynn in disguise, by the way?
Here's a set for harmonica players with a low D harp with key-changes but with no need for harp-changes - hackneyed but hey, damn good chunes! Gillan's Apples/Tripping Upstairs/Morrison's. Always gets us a whoop and a clap!
# Posted on August 21st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
Please, calm down tradpiper!
# Posted on August 21st 2007 by Nico
Re: Key changes within a set.
Here's a man who don't know how to back down gracefully when he's wrong. You gotta admire his balls, in the words of Blackadder (or was it one of his accomplices?)
# Posted on August 21st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Key changes within a set.
Back to the original post, the issue of key changes is very interesting in ITM. Often traditional players will like key changes which don't do anything for me personally, and I wonder what it is that their ear is responding to.
In general, it does seem that going up one step, from major to minor, nearly always seems to give that "lift" people are talking about. You'll hear over and over people going from D major to E minor, or G major to A minor.
The major/minor thing isn't even crucial, as going from G to A, both tunes being major, also sounds good. Example is playing Foxhunter's Reel in G, then doing the same tune in A. It has great "lift".
A formula that works so well that I play several 3-reel sets using it is starting in D major, going up to E minor, and ending in G major. This works well for dancing because you can cycle back around to the first tune well in most cases.
Another effective thing is to take away sharps. This is how a lot of Cape Breton sets are done. The set will stay in A, but start in A major, go to A mixolydian, and finish in A minor. In Irish music this works really well if you start for example in D major then go into a D mixolydian tune. The C naturals really jump out.
# Posted on August 29th 2007 by Richard D Cook