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ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I noticed a lot of people were a bit perplexed by Iarla O"Lianards performance with the Crash Ensemble at the TG4 Awards recently.
I can understand why a lot of people just didn't get it but I'm wondering is this because
(a) The piece itself didn't work or
(b) people just aren't open to new experiments with traditional musicians.
I'm involved with a few projects myself which will mix classical and trad musicians and have done a few already. I'd never go as dissonant as the Crash Ensembles piece with Iarla but I still like to think there's room for experimentation which will allow traditional musicians a new outlet for creativity without impinging on the tradition.
So what do any of you think?
Do you like it when traditional musicians experiment with new ideas?
Do you think classical and traditional musicians can mix together?
If not then why not?
Do you think traditional musicians should just stick to playing traditional music? Why so?
Do any of you listen to contemporary classical music? If so what composers do you like, if not then why not?
Answers on a postcard please to
Points of View,
The Session.org,
The World Wide Web,
Ireland
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Yes, I always like to hear any breed of musician experimenting.
The problem with classically trained musicians mixing with trad musicians really boils down to the training itself. The two have so many contradictory fundamentals that it's hard to find common ground. What usually happens instead is that somebody creates a piece of music that simply splices the two traditions and instead of the two sets of musicians actually playing together, they merely play simultaneously. Common ground is not found.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Rock musicians have seen occasional commercial success when collaborating with classically trained musicians. Without passing judgment on the quality of such works, which is of course subjective, it's at least indicative of the potential.
To my ear traditional music and classical music have much more in common than rock and classical, so I'd think there is at least the potential to find common ground (even if it's not been done yet).
Playing simultaneously rather than together - that was nicely put llig. It's a good distinction to make; I imagine the musicians would need serious time to work together before recording or performing. "Meet at the studio and we'll lay down some tracks" is probably not the best way to collaborate.
Another good question rob: what makes music classical?
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I don´t think that there has to be a lot of common ground: if there is a connection, and if there is passion and an authentic interest - meaning not because someone pays for it or because it´s trendy or because whatsoever -, there will be a good starting point. Still there is not automatically a nice result. Of course it´ll never satisfy those who expect the perfect, non-eclectic blend, but should rather be something personal, individual that digests the ideas of a specific, creative artist. I believe that it many cases it is not the music that kills the fun, but the expectations of people listening to it.
Since many recordings of ITM or STM that are available these days are "original" or "authentic", we should assume that a lot of blending has already been done. And when I listen to most of the piece4s from the Transatlantic Sessions or many Chieftains recording, I rather picture myself in a chamber music recital room than in a pub - makes me feel very comfortable.
My personal favourites of contemporary classical composers are, first and foremost, Joby Talbot, and then Tönu Körvits and Graham Fitkin. I rather go for tonal music, but that´s due to my individual musicla "thinking" and how I was brought up and not part of any counter-revolutionary strategy in the world of New Music".
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
It can work together, I imagine. The Breandan Voyage did something like this, O Riada's work was a bit like trad in a baroque setting; and there have been other examples, like the piece The Jockey to the Fair and other stuff by Micheál ó Suillebhean, other stuff on A River of Sound and Bringing It All Back Home, etc etc.
It's good for the tradition, I imagine it's good for classically trained musicians to get their heads round it, I quite like listening to *some* of it -- BUT -- please don't call it trad. But good luck anyway in your endeavours.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Oh and BTW, I think Rob was pointing out an oxymoron: shouldn't it be called "Contemporary Art Music" as "Classical" strictly speaking refers to the period around Beethoven, Schubert, even going back to Mozart - but who cares (on this site anyway)?
Also, I am very mildly concerned that some people should feel the need to "elevate" trad music into an Art Music, or orchestral music setting. If you're experimenting, fine. But personally speaking, I don't think it needs elevating. It's strong enough as it is. IMHO.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Slainte got it in one and the last thing any of us wants is watered down trad! I always remember the James Last stuff some years ago which was nice but a million miles away from what we recognise as "the real thing". Various other musicians have experimented with trad such as Horslips and that great uilleann piper, Davy Spillane with those "Bo Diddley" type accompaniment to his reels, etc. These things come and go and I have no problem with them like KML so long as they aren't labelled as "trad". The fact is that, unlike Joe Cooley, these manifestations never last for long perhaps says it all.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
As someone who works in fusion music I will give my highly professional opion (ha ha). Fusion music is always based around any similarites, common ground, between the types of music to be fused. This is why so many fusions work (ie. Classical-Metal, Irish-African, Bhangra) and can sound brilliant.
The bad ones and regrettable collaborations always come when two types of music with very little in common try to fuse. I agree with michael, the musicians end up playing simultaneously rather than together. IMHO, ITM-Contemporary Classical fusion won't work. But I'd like to be proven wrong.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"Fusion music is always based around any similarites, common ground, between the types of music to be fused"
sounds like a recipe for blandness to me
That's the problem I have with most "fusion" - not the concept itself, just the results. They're too often just boring.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I saw a new piece by M O'S last week in Donegal that was commissioned for the Aras ar Ais festival in Buncrana. It was called Francesco Walks with Micheál's string ensemble and a group of 12 local trad musicians (fiddles, 3 box and pipes). I usually am suspect about these collaborations but this really worked with a beautiful song sang by a local female trad singer as a sort of narative.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"sounds like a recipe for blandness to me"
It's the recipe for fusion music. It can be done well, or it can be done terribly. But it kinda has to be done in this way. Or you have a disaster on your hands. I'd rather be bored by a piece of music than horrified by it. But each to their own.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Well, I always had Beethoven down as Classical, but checked out a few sites and they say he was the transition between Classical and Romantic. Oh well. Lively debate over here as to just what he was: http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=11540
Certainly the earlier symphonies sound Classical to me. Where's Trevor when we need him?
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Not ITM, but Kathryn Tickell recently played her pipes in The Durham Concerto, a Classical-aspiring piece by Deep Purple member Jon Lord (who began as a Classical musician) that was recently performed in Durham Cathedral. I didn't go and haven't yet acquired the disk, but hope to do so.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Contemporary Art Music has always taken from whatever sources it unbent to notice. Generally speaking when they "redo" folk music the result is lauded to the skies in the high art fraternity and heard with disgust in the areas borrowed from (but "the artist never borrows - he steals"). The ones that occur to me are "Milkwort and Bog Cotton" from Hugh McDiarmid - can't remember the composer - and The Relief of Derry Symphony.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Yeah but at least frisbee, Iarla O'Lianard Kathryn Tickell and Micheál ó Suillebheann come from "within" the tradition, so shouldn't they be "allowed" to explore outside of it. They're not thieving-- are they?
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
YoYo Ma, Mark O’Connor, Edgar Meyer; Appalachia Waltz. You all should recognize some of the sets, i.e., College Hornpipe, The Green Groves of Erin / The Flowers of Red Hill, Speed the Plow Medley. This is, flat out, a gorgeous recording. The musicians are not traditional, but perform very well in the traditional genre.
Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush, Mike Meyer; “Short Trip Home”. Not ITM, but origins in various folk genres. Bell does get the dirt in really well. Not ITM style fiddling but fiddling rather than violin playing, and god, that fiddle of his is beautiful. Death by Fiddle is fabulous.
Have been listening to Annbjørg Lien of late. She has mixed her Norwegian trad with other genres. Not strictly “classical” but the mix of styles and traditions work well. She herself, is a classically trained violinist. I’ve just about worn out Ms. Lien’s Aliens Alive recording. This is a wonderful live recording. I am now lusting to play the Hardanger.
Michael Gill indicates “Though I agree, the idea of "elevating" traditional Irish diddley music into "art" is absurd. It already is art of the highest order.” Bravo Michael.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Mark O'Connor is not traditional? Since when? He is Old-time, which is a "traditional" genre of music, master of Texas-style. I know his fiddle teachers (when he was younger, the Barretts in Montana), have played with him, and EVERYBODY knows he's not a classical player.
And he's playing here this June.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Iarla O'Lionard is a wonderful sean-nos singer with beautiful Irish and his collaboration with Crash Ensemble was,as far as I am concerned ,a 'dumbing down' of this wonderful tradition that he is steeped in. Elevator music of the worst kind. And just plain boring.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Check out Colcannon's work, they have done some things with symphonies, I think The Red Kite is one of the pieces. They are an "Irish" band from the front Range area of Colorado/Wyoming. I put "Irish" in parenthesis, because only one of the members is from Ireland, but they play Irish music. Very popular around here. The musicians are versatile, playing many styles of music as individuals.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I wonder along with rob_handel.
*CCM*
Which style of classic music?
For that matter which style of Irish traditional?
That aside if one explores Irish musical tradition; prior to contemporary sessioning, it is possible to think outside the box. As much as we all love our 'tradition' it does tend to be self limiting. Traditional ~ as 'classical' ~ is not something you can pin down.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Ok seems I need to elaborate a bit more.
'Classical Music' is a generic term for Western 'Art' music, I hate the term "art' music so I chose not to use it. All music is art to me.
Some people get pedantic and say Classical Music refers to a certain form of Western Art Music i.e. music in the time of Mozart and Haydn, this is not 'Classical Music' this is the 'Classical Period'.
The generic term 'Classical Music' refers to all European 'art' music from the early renaissance composers like Palestrina through to Baroque composers like Bach through to todays 'Contemporary Classical' composers like Steve Reich and Arvo Part.
So by Contemporary Classical Music I mean contemporary music written primarily for classically trained musicians by classically trained composers. I refuse to use the term Contemporary Art Music because that implies that other music styles are not 'Art'.
I agree wholeheartedly that it is wrong to think that you can elevate the best trad tunes into a higher place, they are perfectly formed as they are. In fact I don't like the idea of taking any trad tunes and sticking them into 'new' contemporary classical pieces. That is more arrangement than composition, Iarla's piece with the Crash Ensemble was more of an arrangement than a composition in that sense.
So what I'm getting at is not what do people think of fusing trad style tunes with Baroque or Romantic harmony ala the Brendan Voyage or putting trad tunes into contemporary classical harmonic theories.
I'm talking about exploring new ways for traditional musicians to perform where they don't play any existing tunes but play new music that can be a combination of new tunes written in trad forms which don't sound exactly like old tunes or more abstract music which doesn't have particular reference to trad tune forms, instead the sounds of trad instruments are explored in new ways.
Very little has been done in these areas and I think some trad musicians are itching to experiment with such ideas. Iarla clearly doesn't want to be pigeonholed as a 'trad' musician. Pure sean nós is just part of what he does, so why begrudge him for trying new things?
If you listen to recordings of older players they were wild in their experimentation, it remained true enough to the tradition but it wasn't as 'safe' as a lot of the trad that is churned out in recent years.
Like the whole discussion started by Caoimhín O'Raghallaigh I think trad has been playing it very safe for the last while. Most experimentation has been done with world music, soft rock and jazz styles. Very little has been done with Contemporary Classical music which is a shame because a lot of Contemporary Classical Music is modal, based on cyclic repetition and variation, vibrato free, uses notes outside the equal tempered scale etc. just like Irish traditional music does. So there are a lot of common links there and something interesting could be found by exploring them. First and foremost though I think anyone who does this experimenting needs to understand and respect the traditions they are working with.
Perhaps the reason very little has been done so far is because very few people have understood both traditions. Anyway I think that's gonna change in the coming years and some interesting music will be created that won't be trad nor will it be European 'Art' music, it'll be a new form of contemporary Irish music, strongly rooted in the tradition but going along a different path.
So am I mad to think this will happen? Is it heresy? Ah who cares anyway........
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I remember the Irish pipes being used very effectively at the beginning of Mike Oldfield's "Ommadawn". (Now, he *was* brilliant. I didn't know till recently he was still in his teens when he wrote "Tubular Bells".)
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"some "fusion" between the O'Carolan legacy and baroque music"
Except, isn't O'Carolan's music already a kind of 'fusion'? He aspired to being a composer in the Baroque idiom - the 'contemporary classical' music of his day - but with a background in the Irish harping tradition. This might not have been a deliberate fusion of the kind that Frisbee is talking about (or was it?), but it was a fusion nevertheless, and was enough to make his work difficult to categorise.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
This is an interesting and very worthwhile discussion. I've been a member of the Michael Nyman Band (I think this definitely qualifies as "Contemporary Classical Music") for over 20 years and Michael has "fused" the band with a number of traditional musicians from Sardinia, India, Morocco although, as yet, nothing Celtic (I'm working on it!).
The fusions have worked well through the open-ness of both sides to move towards each other with mutual respect.
On the other hand, I went to Belfast a few years ago specifically to see the Ornette Coleman Trio play with the cream of today's Trad Irish players (including Mike McGoldrick, John McSherry and Jonjo Kelly) as part of Ornette"s ongoing quest to go round the world collaborating with musicians from different cultures. It didn't work at all because, fluid and inventive, as Ornette's trio was, the Irish lads, fine as they are, just seemed to play "a few tunes" and couldn't, or wouldn't, move their music anywhere.
I hope that, with all the talk of "the tradition" that one hears, Celtic music doesn't become a museum piece, allbeit one which seems to be getting faster with every passing day.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Imagine Steve Reich and Liz Carroll (I'm a fiddler) doing something together. Not a bad idea. However, contemporary music is not forced to have 'classic' sonorities....
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I believe that to mix two music styles such as this that the musician/arranger/composer must have a high level of ability/understanding/knowledge of the two styles...
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
At this point in the discussion fusion seems like a good idea.
The sense of wonder is gone once I made 2 discoveries.
Something classic can "be" contemporary.
&
Something traditional can be perfect "as is"
I feel jaded.
How about Classical Contemporary Western Art/ Celtic/ Traditional Performance?
/Music?
/Session . . .
Just kidding.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Chief Wanganui - If Ornette was just doing a one-off gig with the Irish lads, maybe so as to "tick the Celtic box" on their tour, that encounter was hardly a substitute for a longer period of serious collaboration and a maybe gradual business of each party getting to understand and respect each other's music. Ornette's agenda might not have been one of the priorities of McGoldrick and co. at the time; though I wasn't there and may be being unjust to say so, it sounds a bit gimmicky to me.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I don't know how long the period of collaboration was, although I did speak to Ornette afterwards (I had performed his string quartet some years before with the Balanescu Quartet) but then went on the lash with McSherry and the lads so memory loss became a factor.
I don't think, however, that a musician of Coleman's seriousness "ticks boxes". On the night his band were taking the Irish ideas and running with them. I guess his brand of jazz is free enough to do that but I just thought the Celtic music seemed rigid and formulaic by comparison, even though each very fine player was ornamenting the tunes like billy-o.
I think some of Coleman's collaborations with other "ethnic" musicians have been more convincing. It may be that when you start to de-construct Celtic music, if you're not carefull, you can end up with a Hollywood film score and I should know about that. Difficult one, isn't it!
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I think what you're suggesting is that Celtic music - ITM and others - insist on being treated on their own terms and haven't so far met other musical forms half-way; and if so, that seems to me to be a fair point to make.
But how Celtic trad might be united with contemporary Classical is a question whose answer is bound to be affected by another question: what is contemporary Classical music *for*?
Obviously many Classical composers today are trying many different things. CCM could be trying to:
- Continue the chamber and concert music of the past, trying to please, or transport the hearers into grandiose yet still humanistic reveries (Beethoven, Schubert);
- Accompany drama, again with a sense of past opera if not its past musical forms;
- Exorcise the past by using harrowing musical devices (James MacMillan);
- Hypnotise, affect a change in the hearer's mental processes;
- Wrest a Western hearer's sensibilities into appreciating something radically different or alien (Atonal / twelve-tone music);
- Compose music principally about itself: the texture of the sounds themselves;
- and so on. And as for dance, so important in the inspiration and social place of ITM, modern Classical seems at first sight to have left it very much to the other musical forms, though no doubt CC musicians are composing for ballet.
So: what is contemporary Classical music actually for?
i.e., what are individual CC composers setting out to achieve?
and, which aspects of ITM will help each best effect his aim?
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I would have liked to hear the Coleman McGoldrick thing. Two superficially similar players. But I fear that is was scuppered by the incompatible forms of the music. Diddley music is so entrenched in the "tune", to expect McGoldrick to break from that is to ask him to deny the very soul of it. And Coleman's music is so entrenched in the freedom, to ask him to bury that in linear melody would be to ask him to deny the very soul of it.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
two outings that come to mind are tony macmahon's with kronos quartet, and the cd bowhouse quintet, made in ennis by various string players including peoples pere et fille on one track.....not sure what you are asking when you ask "can it work?" sometimes that means, "should it be permitted by the trad police?" sometimes that means, "does it ever sound good?"....can mean a slew of things. in any event, of course all experimentation is open and up for grabs, right? and as for whether it sounds good....my take on fusion stuff, including much that has been cited above, is, most of it isn't horrible (ok, i find mark o'connor appalling), and yet at the same time, most of it is pretty forgettable and unessential. but you don't need permission. go for it if that is what floats your boat.,...listeners and history will decide the rest...
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"And as for dance, so important in the inspiration and social place of ITM, modern Classical seems at first sight to have left it very much to the other musical forms" says nicholas,
I guess you haven't heard the music of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams and others a lot of which is very much pulse based and based on motoric 'dance' rhythms, in fact Reich and Glass are seen to be partly responsible for techno or house 'dance' music. So to say modern Classical seems to have left dance to other musical forms is way off the mark.
And ceemonster, I'm not asking permission to do what I do, I'm just curious as to what people think of the stuff that's already been done, it seems that most of these 'experiments' haven't worked so I'm interested to know what people think the reasons are that they haven't, I think the person who hit the mark on the reason is 'riada' who said
'I believe that to mix two music styles such as this that the musician/arranger/composer must have a high level of ability/understanding/knowledge of the two styles...'
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
The dance thing is interesting. A lot of old classical music is based on old dances. For example, Bach's suites for solo cello are basically collections of old dances - Allemandes, Sarabandes, Courantes, Minuets, Gigues etc. I think some classical cellists get too far away from the original dance rhythms and try to turn the music into something with huge gravitas. On a more contemporary note, Michael Nyman's String Quartet No. 2, a piece I have performed many times and recorded, was first written for the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company. Shobana gave Michael the rhythms the dancers feet make in the Bharata Natyam dance tradition that she comes from. He then wrote a piece of "Contemporary Classical" music to which the dancers danced the same steps they would have done to the original South Indian musical accompaniment. It might be an idea if contemporary composers were to take the rhythms of jigs, reels, hornpipes, strathspeys etc and write completely new music to them. Not the diatonic Celtic stuff but something much more wacky.
Perhaps we'll find some aliens doing it on the next Star Wars film.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
What still amazes me is the discussion about the "elevation". Does anybody still feel inferior - or superior - to anybody else?
Beyond that I think it is not fortunate to say that classical music and ITM can mix or work together, since both are just generic terms describing specific musical phenomena. But we are talking about people, human beings with a very individual approach and passion. So everyone who writes a piece has a very personal idea that makes him/her start working, then developing the piece and finally finishing it, which I personally find the hardest thing to do. As a consequence I believe that every example of the aforementioned collaboration should be regarded on its own and placing it into a larger context is ineffective and inappropriately intellectual.
Dave Heath has written such pieces: his concerto "The Celtic" and his solo piece "Lochalsh" are relevant examples - whether you enjoy them or not.
And as much as the writer´s approach is individual, every reception by every listener is, too. So reception should go beyond "fine" and "bad" and be open to change as time and listening go by.
Re: John Lord - "Durham Concerto" (ITM / CCM thread)
I mentioned this work above, and now have the album. I find it very pleasant; my understanding of Classical music is very superficial but I'd say much of it sounds like early c20 symphonic stuff, Vaughan Williams and the like. There is a bit of Northumbrian piping for atmosphere in places, and the odd incorporated trad tune or bit of one, but there's little of these overall and this is certainly not a trad / Classical fusion work. But as I've said, a nice piece of music nonetheless.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Reelin' - well, if you ask me, yes, there is a sense among some trad players of inferiority wrt classical music and vice versa - a sense of superiority of a certain type of classical player towards trad players. Both are unjustified.
I've seen it with my own eyes with much bemusement.
I remember one Paddy's Day in a packed pub in Greenwich, S E London, we were doing a session, hosted by a very respected fiddle player, who plays mostly Northern style, with many Donegal tunes. On the evening, he got the word that there was a young woman who could play fiddle, could she have a go on his fiddle? He assented, so herself came swanning over, set herself up with straight back, commanding posture, a la Alexander technique, only to play a couple of melodies, such as Danny Boy and She Moved Through the Fair, complete with vibrato and all the dramatic actions of a virtuoso, head thrown back and all that bawlicks. When she finished the local audience gave her a partisan rapturous applause.
In truth, she did nothing special, except dependably hit the right note, plus she could do vibrato on the long notes; but looking at her performance from a traditional musician's viewpoint her performance was sterile and contrived, and there was no guts or feeling to it. Yet she received whoops of applause, much to the consternation of said Northern player, who has an ego which demands continuous affirmation. Quite an amusing episode to remember, and to record here for posterity, if it weren't for the fact that the rest of the evening was utter sh!te - and the type of thing that makes me think twice nowadays about committing myself to paddy's do's... but I digress.
What came out of it is to me the perception that the general public has more respect for classical music than traditional music. They, for no other reason other than that someone (ie the Meedjia) told them it's better, and that's cos those employed in the meedjia don't know any better.
So, yes, "Classical" music is held in higher regard than the various forms of traditional music, and even maybe arguably rightly so - it is widely regarded as the tip of the arrow of the evolution of Western musical thinking.. but then, if one pursues some of the other less narcissistic, less "musically" oriented threads on this site, eg the recent anarchist music thread, it may behove us all to consider in totality the mindset which spawns the analytically-oriented "Westernised" notion of the pursuance of "perfection", rather than, as survives as a zeitgheist in most worthwhile sessions, the most direct delivery of interpretations of .....the music.
As far as I am concerned, that is sufficient stretch of the intellect....within this idiom, anyway. Why does one require to "go beyond" other than to feed some narcissistic hunger? A narcissism created several thousand years of inculcation of reductionism. OK, frissers, fair enough, do it, it tosss your intellectual willy, but please bear in mind that for most of us "hacks", what you might consider as a boring run of the mill little session is a session amongst good people ---NOT psychopaths or morons, but good, caring, concerned, enlightened (in varying degrees) , and even - some talented - people.
And some of them wait all week for those three hours of fun.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
This taken from Key Maniac Lads profile
"Nor do I Iike it when the thankfully few ignoramuses come on here and trumpet out ill-formed opinions and half-truths, using ill-formed punctuation, syntax and grammar, with unreadable English - or they belittle or patronise a younger, or older, member."
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Ok Dave, I apologise. Sometimes when I wind someone up it comes over as offensive, which it did this time. There was no need for the last comment. Sorry.
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Last year we played Scott McMillan's "Celtic Mass for the Sea", which I suppose is CCM with the Celtic parts written into the score. As Classical music it's different enough to be interesting - it's got the grand sweeping themes, Stravinsky-like wackiness, and it uses the Irish parts well (Ships are Sailing, an original jig, and a couple of highlands from Altan). It's written for orchestra, choir and "Celtic ensemble" (Uilleann pipes, fiddle, whistle, harp), and sounds kind of Cape Breton-ey rather than Irish.
I'm not all that enthusiastic about Classical music, but that was good fun. It's a challenge for both groups of musicians to make room for the other, and the whole thing is complicated enough to require some serious rehearsal, so we get to spend a some time together. I enjoyed that part as much as the music itself. And I never fail to be impressed by watching a bunch of trained professionals read through acres of little dots.
But to the audience I think it's just another flavour of Classical music, with all the formality that people expect from that kind of performance. If you're not interested in Classical, maybe the best thing it offers is a chance to play for that audience. Who are, it must be said, appreciative and very well dressed.
ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I noticed a lot of people were a bit perplexed by Iarla O"Lianards performance with the Crash Ensemble at the TG4 Awards recently.
I can understand why a lot of people just didn't get it but I'm wondering is this because
(a) The piece itself didn't work or
(b) people just aren't open to new experiments with traditional musicians.
I'm involved with a few projects myself which will mix classical and trad musicians and have done a few already. I'd never go as dissonant as the Crash Ensembles piece with Iarla but I still like to think there's room for experimentation which will allow traditional musicians a new outlet for creativity without impinging on the tradition.
So what do any of you think?
Do you like it when traditional musicians experiment with new ideas?
Do you think classical and traditional musicians can mix together?
If not then why not?
Do you think traditional musicians should just stick to playing traditional music? Why so?
Do any of you listen to contemporary classical music? If so what composers do you like, if not then why not?
Answers on a postcard please to
Points of View,
The Session.org,
The World Wide Web,
Ireland
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Bored with thesession.org
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Yes, I always like to hear any breed of musician experimenting.
The problem with classically trained musicians mixing with trad musicians really boils down to the training itself. The two have so many contradictory fundamentals that it's hard to find common ground. What usually happens instead is that somebody creates a piece of music that simply splices the two traditions and instead of the two sets of musicians actually playing together, they merely play simultaneously. Common ground is not found.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Contemporary Classical music?
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by rob_handel
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Rock musicians have seen occasional commercial success when collaborating with classically trained musicians. Without passing judgment on the quality of such works, which is of course subjective, it's at least indicative of the potential.
To my ear traditional music and classical music have much more in common than rock and classical, so I'd think there is at least the potential to find common ground (even if it's not been done yet).
Playing simultaneously rather than together - that was nicely put llig. It's a good distinction to make; I imagine the musicians would need serious time to work together before recording or performing. "Meet at the studio and we'll lay down some tracks" is probably not the best way to collaborate.
Another good question rob: what makes music classical?
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
It's like mixing milk and water....
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by slainte
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
But milk is mostly water anyway (sorry, couldn't resist!)
Do you mean it's like watering down a good thing?
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I don´t think that there has to be a lot of common ground: if there is a connection, and if there is passion and an authentic interest - meaning not because someone pays for it or because it´s trendy or because whatsoever -, there will be a good starting point. Still there is not automatically a nice result. Of course it´ll never satisfy those who expect the perfect, non-eclectic blend, but should rather be something personal, individual that digests the ideas of a specific, creative artist. I believe that it many cases it is not the music that kills the fun, but the expectations of people listening to it.
Since many recordings of ITM or STM that are available these days are "original" or "authentic", we should assume that a lot of blending has already been done. And when I listen to most of the piece4s from the Transatlantic Sessions or many Chieftains recording, I rather picture myself in a chamber music recital room than in a pub - makes me feel very comfortable.
My personal favourites of contemporary classical composers are, first and foremost, Joby Talbot, and then Tönu Körvits and Graham Fitkin. I rather go for tonal music, but that´s due to my individual musicla "thinking" and how I was brought up and not part of any counter-revolutionary strategy in the world of New Music".
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Reelin´ man
Sorry, I meant to say that many ITM/STM is NOT original or authentic.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Reelin´ man
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
It can work together, I imagine. The Breandan Voyage did something like this, O Riada's work was a bit like trad in a baroque setting; and there have been other examples, like the piece The Jockey to the Fair and other stuff by Micheál ó Suillebhean, other stuff on A River of Sound and Bringing It All Back Home, etc etc.
It's good for the tradition, I imagine it's good for classically trained musicians to get their heads round it, I quite like listening to *some* of it -- BUT -- please don't call it trad. But good luck anyway in your endeavours.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Oh and BTW, I think Rob was pointing out an oxymoron: shouldn't it be called "Contemporary Art Music" as "Classical" strictly speaking refers to the period around Beethoven, Schubert, even going back to Mozart - but who cares (on this site anyway)?
Also, I am very mildly concerned that some people should feel the need to "elevate" trad music into an Art Music, or orchestral music setting. If you're experimenting, fine. But personally speaking, I don't think it needs elevating. It's strong enough as it is. IMHO.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Beethoven's was/is classed as "romantic" rather than classical.
Though I agree, the idea of "elevating" traditional Irish diddley music into "art" is absurd. It already is art of the highest order.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Slainte got it in one and the last thing any of us wants is watered down trad! I always remember the James Last stuff some years ago which was nice but a million miles away from what we recognise as "the real thing". Various other musicians have experimented with trad such as Horslips and that great uilleann piper, Davy Spillane with those "Bo Diddley" type accompaniment to his reels, etc. These things come and go and I have no problem with them like KML so long as they aren't labelled as "trad". The fact is that, unlike Joe Cooley, these manifestations never last for long perhaps says it all.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Bannerman
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
As someone who works in fusion music I will give my highly professional opion (ha ha). Fusion music is always based around any similarites, common ground, between the types of music to be fused. This is why so many fusions work (ie. Classical-Metal, Irish-African, Bhangra) and can sound brilliant.
The bad ones and regrettable collaborations always come when two types of music with very little in common try to fuse. I agree with michael, the musicians end up playing simultaneously rather than together. IMHO, ITM-Contemporary Classical fusion won't work. But I'd like to be proven wrong.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by mehitabel23
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"Fusion music is always based around any similarites, common ground, between the types of music to be fused"
sounds like a recipe for blandness to me
That's the problem I have with most "fusion" - not the concept itself, just the results. They're too often just boring.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Bren
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I saw a new piece by M O'S last week in Donegal that was commissioned for the Aras ar Ais festival in Buncrana. It was called Francesco Walks with Micheál's string ensemble and a group of 12 local trad musicians (fiddles, 3 box and pipes). I usually am suspect about these collaborations but this really worked with a beautiful song sang by a local female trad singer as a sort of narative.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by iwerzon
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"sounds like a recipe for blandness to me"
It's the recipe for fusion music. It can be done well, or it can be done terribly. But it kinda has to be done in this way. Or you have a disaster on your hands. I'd rather be bored by a piece of music than horrified by it. But each to their own.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by mehitabel23
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Well, I always had Beethoven down as Classical, but checked out a few sites and they say he was the transition between Classical and Romantic. Oh well. Lively debate over here as to just what he was:
http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=11540
Certainly the earlier symphonies sound Classical to me. Where's Trevor when we need him?
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Not ITM, but Kathryn Tickell recently played her pipes in The Durham Concerto, a Classical-aspiring piece by Deep Purple member Jon Lord (who began as a Classical musician) that was recently performed in Durham Cathedral. I didn't go and haven't yet acquired the disk, but hope to do so.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Contemporary Art Music has always taken from whatever sources it unbent to notice. Generally speaking when they "redo" folk music the result is lauded to the skies in the high art fraternity and heard with disgust in the areas borrowed from (but "the artist never borrows - he steals"). The ones that occur to me are "Milkwort and Bog Cotton" from Hugh McDiarmid - can't remember the composer - and The Relief of Derry Symphony.
Now and then it works. But mostly it stinks.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Innocent Bystander
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Yeah but at least frisbee, Iarla O'Lianard Kathryn Tickell and Micheál ó Suillebheann come from "within" the tradition, so shouldn't they be "allowed" to explore outside of it. They're not thieving-- are they?
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
YoYo Ma, Mark O’Connor, Edgar Meyer; Appalachia Waltz. You all should recognize some of the sets, i.e., College Hornpipe, The Green Groves of Erin / The Flowers of Red Hill, Speed the Plow Medley. This is, flat out, a gorgeous recording. The musicians are not traditional, but perform very well in the traditional genre.
Joshua Bell, Edgar Meyer, Sam Bush, Mike Meyer; “Short Trip Home”. Not ITM, but origins in various folk genres. Bell does get the dirt in really well. Not ITM style fiddling but fiddling rather than violin playing, and god, that fiddle of his is beautiful. Death by Fiddle is fabulous.
Have been listening to Annbjørg Lien of late. She has mixed her Norwegian trad with other genres. Not strictly “classical” but the mix of styles and traditions work well. She herself, is a classically trained violinist. I’ve just about worn out Ms. Lien’s Aliens Alive recording. This is a wonderful live recording. I am now lusting to play the Hardanger.
Michael Gill indicates “Though I agree, the idea of "elevating" traditional Irish diddley music into "art" is absurd. It already is art of the highest order.” Bravo Michael.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Agnes Nutter
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Mark O'Connor is not traditional? Since when? He is Old-time, which is a "traditional" genre of music, master of Texas-style. I know his fiddle teachers (when he was younger, the Barretts in Montana), have played with him, and EVERYBODY knows he's not a classical player.
And he's playing here this June.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by wyogal
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Geez, I almost forgot, Charlie Lennon. Check out "Flight from the Hungry Land". Lovely stuff
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Agnes Nutter
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Iarla O'Lionard is a wonderful sean-nos singer with beautiful Irish and his collaboration with Crash Ensemble was,as far as I am concerned ,a 'dumbing down' of this wonderful tradition that he is steeped in. Elevator music of the worst kind. And just plain boring.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by bullwall
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Wyogal, I meant to key in not Irish Trad musician. Sam Bush is Bluegrass as well, trad roots.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Agnes Nutter
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Check out Colcannon's work, they have done some things with symphonies, I think The Red Kite is one of the pieces. They are an "Irish" band from the front Range area of Colorado/Wyoming. I put "Irish" in parenthesis, because only one of the members is from Ireland, but they play Irish music. Very popular around here. The musicians are versatile, playing many styles of music as individuals.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by wyogal
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
The closest we come to Irish/Classical fusion is when the dear lady who plays the recorder sits in with us to play Irish tunes on it.
I'd like to see some examples of what everyone is talking about, or hear them. Is it just The Chieftains in the chamber?
"Though I agree, the idea of "elevating" traditional Irish diddley music into "art" is absurd. It already is art of the highest order."
Also, I agree totally. Elevate what? It's already up there. It's pure art as is. [thumps table]
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I agree as well
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I wonder along with rob_handel.
*CCM*
Which style of classic music?
For that matter which style of Irish traditional?
That aside if one explores Irish musical tradition; prior to contemporary sessioning, it is possible to think outside the box. As much as we all love our 'tradition' it does tend to be self limiting. Traditional ~ as 'classical' ~ is not something you can pin down.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Random_notes
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Ok seems I need to elaborate a bit more.
'Classical Music' is a generic term for Western 'Art' music, I hate the term "art' music so I chose not to use it. All music is art to me.
Some people get pedantic and say Classical Music refers to a certain form of Western Art Music i.e. music in the time of Mozart and Haydn, this is not 'Classical Music' this is the 'Classical Period'.
The generic term 'Classical Music' refers to all European 'art' music from the early renaissance composers like Palestrina through to Baroque composers like Bach through to todays 'Contemporary Classical' composers like Steve Reich and Arvo Part.
So by Contemporary Classical Music I mean contemporary music written primarily for classically trained musicians by classically trained composers. I refuse to use the term Contemporary Art Music because that implies that other music styles are not 'Art'.
I agree wholeheartedly that it is wrong to think that you can elevate the best trad tunes into a higher place, they are perfectly formed as they are. In fact I don't like the idea of taking any trad tunes and sticking them into 'new' contemporary classical pieces. That is more arrangement than composition, Iarla's piece with the Crash Ensemble was more of an arrangement than a composition in that sense.
So what I'm getting at is not what do people think of fusing trad style tunes with Baroque or Romantic harmony ala the Brendan Voyage or putting trad tunes into contemporary classical harmonic theories.
I'm talking about exploring new ways for traditional musicians to perform where they don't play any existing tunes but play new music that can be a combination of new tunes written in trad forms which don't sound exactly like old tunes or more abstract music which doesn't have particular reference to trad tune forms, instead the sounds of trad instruments are explored in new ways.
Very little has been done in these areas and I think some trad musicians are itching to experiment with such ideas. Iarla clearly doesn't want to be pigeonholed as a 'trad' musician. Pure sean nós is just part of what he does, so why begrudge him for trying new things?
If you listen to recordings of older players they were wild in their experimentation, it remained true enough to the tradition but it wasn't as 'safe' as a lot of the trad that is churned out in recent years.
Like the whole discussion started by Caoimhín O'Raghallaigh I think trad has been playing it very safe for the last while. Most experimentation has been done with world music, soft rock and jazz styles. Very little has been done with Contemporary Classical music which is a shame because a lot of Contemporary Classical Music is modal, based on cyclic repetition and variation, vibrato free, uses notes outside the equal tempered scale etc. just like Irish traditional music does. So there are a lot of common links there and something interesting could be found by exploring them. First and foremost though I think anyone who does this experimenting needs to understand and respect the traditions they are working with.
Perhaps the reason very little has been done so far is because very few people have understood both traditions. Anyway I think that's gonna change in the coming years and some interesting music will be created that won't be trad nor will it be European 'Art' music, it'll be a new form of contemporary Irish music, strongly rooted in the tradition but going along a different path.
So am I mad to think this will happen? Is it heresy? Ah who cares anyway........
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by Bored with thesession.org
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I really miss one project in the discussion here: did ye all miss Tony McMahon's stint with the Kronos Quartet?
I think some of that worked to a degree, as an experiment. It kept the thing itself intact but placed it in a totally different context.
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by kilfarboy
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
No
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by richard white
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I remember the Irish pipes being used very effectively at the beginning of Mike Oldfield's "Ommadawn". (Now, he *was* brilliant. I didn't know till recently he was still in his teens when he wrote "Tubular Bells".)
# Posted on April 3rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
please join me in taking one long, deep and refreshing breath
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by Bodhi
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Maybe the George Harrison shouldn't have introduced Classical Indian music into Lennon's diddley creations.
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by Bodhi
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/2296/comments#comment245483
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by Ottery
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Food for thought, some "fusion" between the O'Carolan legacy and baroque music.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=355896500
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by Tirno
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"some "fusion" between the O'Carolan legacy and baroque music"
Except, isn't O'Carolan's music already a kind of 'fusion'? He aspired to being a composer in the Baroque idiom - the 'contemporary classical' music of his day - but with a background in the Irish harping tradition. This might not have been a deliberate fusion of the kind that Frisbee is talking about (or was it?), but it was a fusion nevertheless, and was enough to make his work difficult to categorise.
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by granama
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
This is an interesting and very worthwhile discussion. I've been a member of the Michael Nyman Band (I think this definitely qualifies as "Contemporary Classical Music") for over 20 years and Michael has "fused" the band with a number of traditional musicians from Sardinia, India, Morocco although, as yet, nothing Celtic (I'm working on it!).
The fusions have worked well through the open-ness of both sides to move towards each other with mutual respect.
On the other hand, I went to Belfast a few years ago specifically to see the Ornette Coleman Trio play with the cream of today's Trad Irish players (including Mike McGoldrick, John McSherry and Jonjo Kelly) as part of Ornette"s ongoing quest to go round the world collaborating with musicians from different cultures. It didn't work at all because, fluid and inventive, as Ornette's trio was, the Irish lads, fine as they are, just seemed to play "a few tunes" and couldn't, or wouldn't, move their music anywhere.
I hope that, with all the talk of "the tradition" that one hears, Celtic music doesn't become a museum piece, allbeit one which seems to be getting faster with every passing day.
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by Chief Wanganui
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Imagine Steve Reich and Liz Carroll (I'm a fiddler) doing something together. Not a bad idea. However, contemporary music is not forced to have 'classic' sonorities....
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by shoe
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I believe that to mix two music styles such as this that the musician/arranger/composer must have a high level of ability/understanding/knowledge of the two styles...
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by riada
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
At this point in the discussion fusion seems like a good idea.
The sense of wonder is gone once I made 2 discoveries.
Something classic can "be" contemporary.
&
Something traditional can be perfect "as is"
I feel jaded.
How about Classical Contemporary Western Art/ Celtic/ Traditional Performance?
/Music?
/Session . . .
Just kidding.
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Chief Wanganui - If Ornette was just doing a one-off gig with the Irish lads, maybe so as to "tick the Celtic box" on their tour, that encounter was hardly a substitute for a longer period of serious collaboration and a maybe gradual business of each party getting to understand and respect each other's music. Ornette's agenda might not have been one of the priorities of McGoldrick and co. at the time; though I wasn't there and may be being unjust to say so, it sounds a bit gimmicky to me.
# Posted on April 4th 2008 by nicholas
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I don't know how long the period of collaboration was, although I did speak to Ornette afterwards (I had performed his string quartet some years before with the Balanescu Quartet) but then went on the lash with McSherry and the lads so memory loss became a factor.
I don't think, however, that a musician of Coleman's seriousness "ticks boxes". On the night his band were taking the Irish ideas and running with them. I guess his brand of jazz is free enough to do that but I just thought the Celtic music seemed rigid and formulaic by comparison, even though each very fine player was ornamenting the tunes like billy-o.
I think some of Coleman's collaborations with other "ethnic" musicians have been more convincing. It may be that when you start to de-construct Celtic music, if you're not carefull, you can end up with a Hollywood film score and I should know about that. Difficult one, isn't it!
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by Chief Wanganui
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I think what you're suggesting is that Celtic music - ITM and others - insist on being treated on their own terms and haven't so far met other musical forms half-way; and if so, that seems to me to be a fair point to make.
But how Celtic trad might be united with contemporary Classical is a question whose answer is bound to be affected by another question: what is contemporary Classical music *for*?
Obviously many Classical composers today are trying many different things. CCM could be trying to:
- Continue the chamber and concert music of the past, trying to please, or transport the hearers into grandiose yet still humanistic reveries (Beethoven, Schubert);
- Accompany drama, again with a sense of past opera if not its past musical forms;
- Exorcise the past by using harrowing musical devices (James MacMillan);
- Hypnotise, affect a change in the hearer's mental processes;
- Wrest a Western hearer's sensibilities into appreciating something radically different or alien (Atonal / twelve-tone music);
- Compose music principally about itself: the texture of the sounds themselves;
- and so on. And as for dance, so important in the inspiration and social place of ITM, modern Classical seems at first sight to have left it very much to the other musical forms, though no doubt CC musicians are composing for ballet.
So: what is contemporary Classical music actually for?
i.e., what are individual CC composers setting out to achieve?
and, which aspects of ITM will help each best effect his aim?
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I think that asking what any form of music is for... is kind of missing the point a bit.
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
I would have liked to hear the Coleman McGoldrick thing. Two superficially similar players. But I fear that is was scuppered by the incompatible forms of the music. Diddley music is so entrenched in the "tune", to expect McGoldrick to break from that is to ask him to deny the very soul of it. And Coleman's music is so entrenched in the freedom, to ask him to bury that in linear melody would be to ask him to deny the very soul of it.
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
two outings that come to mind are tony macmahon's with kronos quartet, and the cd bowhouse quintet, made in ennis by various string players including peoples pere et fille on one track.....not sure what you are asking when you ask "can it work?" sometimes that means, "should it be permitted by the trad police?" sometimes that means, "does it ever sound good?"....can mean a slew of things. in any event, of course all experimentation is open and up for grabs, right? and as for whether it sounds good....my take on fusion stuff, including much that has been cited above, is, most of it isn't horrible (ok, i find mark o'connor appalling), and yet at the same time, most of it is pretty forgettable and unessential. but you don't need permission. go for it if that is what floats your boat.,...listeners and history will decide the rest...
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
"And as for dance, so important in the inspiration and social place of ITM, modern Classical seems at first sight to have left it very much to the other musical forms" says nicholas,
I guess you haven't heard the music of Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams and others a lot of which is very much pulse based and based on motoric 'dance' rhythms, in fact Reich and Glass are seen to be partly responsible for techno or house 'dance' music. So to say modern Classical seems to have left dance to other musical forms is way off the mark.
And ceemonster, I'm not asking permission to do what I do, I'm just curious as to what people think of the stuff that's already been done, it seems that most of these 'experiments' haven't worked so I'm interested to know what people think the reasons are that they haven't, I think the person who hit the mark on the reason is 'riada' who said
'I believe that to mix two music styles such as this that the musician/arranger/composer must have a high level of ability/understanding/knowledge of the two styles...'
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by Bored with thesession.org
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
The dance thing is interesting. A lot of old classical music is based on old dances. For example, Bach's suites for solo cello are basically collections of old dances - Allemandes, Sarabandes, Courantes, Minuets, Gigues etc. I think some classical cellists get too far away from the original dance rhythms and try to turn the music into something with huge gravitas. On a more contemporary note, Michael Nyman's String Quartet No. 2, a piece I have performed many times and recorded, was first written for the Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company. Shobana gave Michael the rhythms the dancers feet make in the Bharata Natyam dance tradition that she comes from. He then wrote a piece of "Contemporary Classical" music to which the dancers danced the same steps they would have done to the original South Indian musical accompaniment. It might be an idea if contemporary composers were to take the rhythms of jigs, reels, hornpipes, strathspeys etc and write completely new music to them. Not the diatonic Celtic stuff but something much more wacky.
Perhaps we'll find some aliens doing it on the next Star Wars film.
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by Chief Wanganui
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
What still amazes me is the discussion about the "elevation". Does anybody still feel inferior - or superior - to anybody else?
Beyond that I think it is not fortunate to say that classical music and ITM can mix or work together, since both are just generic terms describing specific musical phenomena. But we are talking about people, human beings with a very individual approach and passion. So everyone who writes a piece has a very personal idea that makes him/her start working, then developing the piece and finally finishing it, which I personally find the hardest thing to do. As a consequence I believe that every example of the aforementioned collaboration should be regarded on its own and placing it into a larger context is ineffective and inappropriately intellectual.
Dave Heath has written such pieces: his concerto "The Celtic" and his solo piece "Lochalsh" are relevant examples - whether you enjoy them or not.
And as much as the writer´s approach is individual, every reception by every listener is, too. So reception should go beyond "fine" and "bad" and be open to change as time and listening go by.
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by Reelin´ man
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
frisbee - I take your point about CCM's connections with 'dance' / techno / house, etc. I've never been a clubber so didn't think of these.
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: John Lord - "Durham Concerto" (ITM / CCM thread)
I mentioned this work above, and now have the album. I find it very pleasant; my understanding of Classical music is very superficial but I'd say much of it sounds like early c20 symphonic stuff, Vaughan Williams and the like. There is a bit of Northumbrian piping for atmosphere in places, and the odd incorporated trad tune or bit of one, but there's little of these overall and this is certainly not a trad / Classical fusion work. But as I've said, a nice piece of music nonetheless.
# Posted on April 5th 2008 by nicholas
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Reelin' - well, if you ask me, yes, there is a sense among some trad players of inferiority wrt classical music and vice versa - a sense of superiority of a certain type of classical player towards trad players. Both are unjustified.
I've seen it with my own eyes with much bemusement.
I remember one Paddy's Day in a packed pub in Greenwich, S E London, we were doing a session, hosted by a very respected fiddle player, who plays mostly Northern style, with many Donegal tunes. On the evening, he got the word that there was a young woman who could play fiddle, could she have a go on his fiddle? He assented, so herself came swanning over, set herself up with straight back, commanding posture, a la Alexander technique, only to play a couple of melodies, such as Danny Boy and She Moved Through the Fair, complete with vibrato and all the dramatic actions of a virtuoso, head thrown back and all that bawlicks. When she finished the local audience gave her a partisan rapturous applause.
In truth, she did nothing special, except dependably hit the right note, plus she could do vibrato on the long notes; but looking at her performance from a traditional musician's viewpoint her performance was sterile and contrived, and there was no guts or feeling to it. Yet she received whoops of applause, much to the consternation of said Northern player, who has an ego which demands continuous affirmation. Quite an amusing episode to remember, and to record here for posterity, if it weren't for the fact that the rest of the evening was utter sh!te - and the type of thing that makes me think twice nowadays about committing myself to paddy's do's... but I digress.
What came out of it is to me the perception that the general public has more respect for classical music than traditional music. They, for no other reason other than that someone (ie the Meedjia) told them it's better, and that's cos those employed in the meedjia don't know any better.
So, yes, "Classical" music is held in higher regard than the various forms of traditional music, and even maybe arguably rightly so - it is widely regarded as the tip of the arrow of the evolution of Western musical thinking.. but then, if one pursues some of the other less narcissistic, less "musically" oriented threads on this site, eg the recent anarchist music thread, it may behove us all to consider in totality the mindset which spawns the analytically-oriented "Westernised" notion of the pursuance of "perfection", rather than, as survives as a zeitgheist in most worthwhile sessions, the most direct delivery of interpretations of .....the music.
As far as I am concerned, that is sufficient stretch of the intellect....within this idiom, anyway. Why does one require to "go beyond" other than to feed some narcissistic hunger? A narcissism created several thousand years of inculcation of reductionism. OK, frissers, fair enough, do it, it tosss your intellectual willy, but please bear in mind that for most of us "hacks", what you might consider as a boring run of the mill little session is a session amongst good people ---NOT psychopaths or morons, but good, caring, concerned, enlightened (in varying degrees) , and even - some talented - people.
And some of them wait all week for those three hours of fun.
# Posted on April 6th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Jesus Danny, you're some funny fish. You're missing the point entirely as usual.
Anyway I'm not even gonna dignify you with a response anymore, I'm off to toss my non-intellectual willy instead......
# Posted on April 6th 2008 by Bored with thesession.org
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
This taken from Key Maniac Lads profile
"Nor do I Iike it when the thankfully few ignoramuses come on here and trumpet out ill-formed opinions and half-truths, using ill-formed punctuation, syntax and grammar, with unreadable English - or they belittle or patronise a younger, or older, member."
Anyone see the irony in him saying that?!!!!!!
# Posted on April 6th 2008 by Bored with thesession.org
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Ok Dave, I apologise. Sometimes when I wind someone up it comes over as offensive, which it did this time. There was no need for the last comment. Sorry.
# Posted on April 6th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: ITM and Contemporary Classical Music - Can it work together?
Last year we played Scott McMillan's "Celtic Mass for the Sea", which I suppose is CCM with the Celtic parts written into the score. As Classical music it's different enough to be interesting - it's got the grand sweeping themes, Stravinsky-like wackiness, and it uses the Irish parts well (Ships are Sailing, an original jig, and a couple of highlands from Altan). It's written for orchestra, choir and "Celtic ensemble" (Uilleann pipes, fiddle, whistle, harp), and sounds kind of Cape Breton-ey rather than Irish.
I'm not all that enthusiastic about Classical music, but that was good fun. It's a challenge for both groups of musicians to make room for the other, and the whole thing is complicated enough to require some serious rehearsal, so we get to spend a some time together. I enjoyed that part as much as the music itself. And I never fail to be impressed by watching a bunch of trained professionals read through acres of little dots.
But to the audience I think it's just another flavour of Classical music, with all the formality that people expect from that kind of performance. If you're not interested in Classical, maybe the best thing it offers is a chance to play for that audience. Who are, it must be said, appreciative and very well dressed.
# Posted on April 6th 2008 by Gzeg