I don't doubt that this has been discussed before, but my search skills have only turned up a few tangential discussions. I hope to learn a little more about this forum and maybe give some insight into my own tastes (life story to follow - just kidding!)
ITM is truly addicting for me, and I can listen to it most of the day without becoming bored. It's also what I primarily intend to play as my fiddling gradually improves, though I'm a rank novice now. I'd also like to learn some classical pieces, as I've appreciated that music since I was very young.
But I have to admit that I came to this revelation that I wanted to play fiddle and ITM after many years of playing rock and blues on the electric guitar. It's often a bit awkward in fact, when I go to listen to a session and the musicians suggest I bring my guitar to the next one. Well, you see, I don't know how to accompany tunes very well, and I don't think you want to see my Gibson LP and amplifier invade your session! I guess they assume that when I say I play guitar, I mean within the Irish tradition, and on an acoustic. I don't even own an acoustic guitar.
Despite my new passion, I'm sure I will keep going back to electric guitar and playing rock when I want something different.
In reading older posts, I often see comments that suggest many people here stick exclusively to Irish trad. But I doubt that's universal. What other styles - if any - do you play outside of traditional music?
Hi Scott, sounds like a diversified musical bibliography. Mine is not so different. At the moment i´m sticking fairly exclusively to ITM, but before theat - meaning decades back - I was very intensively into American old time and bluegrass, playing guitar and 5string. I even travelled through the Appalachians to visit musicians, go to fiddlers conventions etc. Perhaps it was not such a big step from old time to ITM - this was the time of the folk revival when you were suddenly exposed to a huge variety of music - from Ewan McColl to Judy Collins to Doc Watson to Bob Dylan to Flatt & Scruggs to the Clancys/Tommy Makem..... In between i had a long stretch (10 years) playing blues harp ina blues band. recently I switched from 5string to tenor banjo and concertina, which I had also played in a band in the early 80s. So here goes. I think having played different types definitely widens your musical horizon, your approach to other types of music. What I´m NOT into is what they call `world music´: mixing all kinds of different styles so you can hear the `voice of mankind´or whatever. When you play blues, you play blues; when you play ITM, this is what you do !!
If we ever meet, there'll be one massive explosion & the universe will implode!
Like you, in my mid 50s. Started off into R & R, then Dylan, Taylor, Mitchell, etc etc & from them I went down the Folk road, Dubliners, Corries etc before getting into ITM & STM.
However, I've recently taken up the C-H Banjo & Blues Harp.
So my ears are always open to good music, but I'm with you on the World Music/Fusion sh*t though.
I'll defend people's right to experiment & have a go, but for me, only about 1% of it works, ........ the rest I'm afraid is pure sh*te, usually just stuffed together by musicians who quite simply just can't cut it, in either sphere of music, so they combine the two, but of course they only succeed in fooling a very small number of people in the process!
Yes, I agree that 'fusion' or 'world music' (maybe not always the same thing I suppose) is rarely as great as the sum of its parts. I think the final straw that made me pick up a fiddle was that I found myself trying to learn and play some reels and jigs (the melodies) on my guitar. They were just too fun to resist, and then I thought to myself, "Shouldn't I be playing these on the instrument for which they were intended?"
You've got a much broader experience than me and it must be nice to have the knowledge in American bluegrass, to which I admit much ignorance on my part. My own repertoire for the 6-string only covers the last few decades really, but it's enough to keep me occupied.
I think I like having these two widely separated styles, because I don't have to worry about one crossing over into the other. In other words, the fiddle won't replace my guitar or vice versa as they are intended for a completely different music, and I like to keep them separate. Although I have heard some amazing renditions of Paganini's caprices on the electric guitar, and some guy on YouTube did a convincing Eruption on his fiddle.
Dick, I must have been typing too slowly but I guess my reply follows your post logically all the same!
There have been many great discussions in the past here regarding musical styles and I hope to learn something from this one as well. Not so much a 'popularity contest' of genres as a survey of the various kinds of music that move traditional players when we're in the mood for something completely different.
I play Tunes and I play Jazz standards. I'm very influenced
by early American music, Stephen Foster, for example all those old Paul Robeson 78's orchestrations, all those piano and marching band voicings and I try to use a lot of that stuff in tunes.I think a lot of that stuff goes great in Irish music, those
"semi classical" type voicings, maj/3 bass ,diminished leading chords, trying to make the guitar sound like a piano basically. I'm also very inspired by Django Reinhardt but wouldn't have a chance in hell of playing like that, but his was a marvelloussly organic approach to Jazz and playing the guitar. So imaginative. So in a nutshell I use all of my knowledge from one world to try and create something of my own in my other world. I don't really care if its true to the tradition or not, I'm not a traditionalist. One day I'll meld it all together and I won't have to think about it.
I like a good tune and - heresy! - I don't have any criteria about where it should come from. I'm deeply interested in the origins of music but do not regard myself as an heir or guardian to a tradition, or anything like it. Nothing I play could be said to be *authentically* Irish, Scottish, Brazilian or whatever, but it's all authentically me. I'm as happy playing Beatles or Steve Earle songs with my son as pipe tunes with local fiddlers, country music with a singer, jigs and marches in a ceilidh band - as long as it's got a pulse and a heart, and fortunately most musicians I know are not too different.
my own background is a mixture of classical music (guitar and piano) and a wee bit of blues on the guitar. I got kinda fed up of playing the classical guitar as its basically a lonely instrument, you practise and play by yourself. I got into ITM (for want of a better term) about 8 yrs ago and over the yrs have become more interested and more motivated in ITM to the extent now its all I play and mostly what I listen to. Just now Im playing Martin Hayes CD " The Lonesome Touch" - wow!
I still love classical music and I often listen to my favourite Van the Man.
My dream is to win the lotto, have a music room, and have a tom of different instruments to play around with!
Hi Scott - I played mostly guitar for decades. Switching to mandolin then fiddle has been a revelation and an addiction, and I wish I'd hung up my guitar earlier. Started (and continued) mostly with Irish, have played Scandinavian tunes with a couple of friends (wonderful stuff), have joined a Scottish group playing entirely from sheet music, and I'm starting to appreciate the wealth of English music - I think I've got the hang of the 3/2 hornpipe! Pete Cooper's collection of English Fiddle tunes is a great buy - I've really enjoyed working through it - see his website for info: http://www.petecooper.com/eftnotes.htm
I also love choro and samba mandolin music - you can browse through loads of tunes here http://www.samba-choro.com.br/partituras/pormusica but you need to get an Encore demo version to view the files (I'm just being over-ambitious - I'd need another lifetime to play this stuff, but one can dream!)
I had no Classical background, and whistle and DG melodeon made me diatonic for a long time. I got a Saltarelle box with semitones when my urge to practise all the time had largely gone. But I've tackled Gilbert and Sullivan and am now having a go at Greek music - I spent a year there teaching English nearly thirty years ago, and have the basics of the language and its rhythms in a song (not that I would try to sing in Greek! - but much or most of the music is around lyrics, and adapted to their rhythm, speed and mood).
A lot of Greek music is in Eastern scales I haven't yet even sussed, and/or with plentiful semitones, but some pleasing and lively songs / tunes are diatonic and quite easy to play. The well-known composer Mikis Theodorakis wrote a number of these.
My Musical history is Strange to say the least,=
Starting off localy with -Orange Bands- moveing to The greatist
rock n' roll band in the world - The Rolling Stones- In which I
had all there L.P.records up to Goats head soup..Sold them all
For Chieftians + -Irish traditional music-In which I was totaly
hooked. While going to fleadhs, I took a slight turn into Jazz.
Got married no more Fleadhs,, Listened alot to Classical music.I was Totaly Obsessed With the composer Gustav
Malher + wagner,,Joined a Ceili band for money , Got back
into -ITM- ,Which brings me up to to-day, Not ,lol - jim,,,,
My first love was Beethoven, when I was about 6. I learned symphonies 6, 7 and 8. By the time I was 7 or 8 I was playing List on the piano, by ear. I was listening to my dads diddley records too and getting into that. At high school I played electric bass in the rebel's rock band (we played the whole of Led Zep III and IV) and double bass in an Oscar Peterson style trio. And diddley music of course. ... I was 13 or 14 by then ....
A reply to BanjoBongo:
I also got the Martin Hayes `Lonesome Touch´- CD a while ago and it´s `wow´indeed - amazing how a tune can change when it´s played slowly. There was, by the way, a thread here not so long ago about `Tunes that sound good played slowly`and Michael Hayes´ renditions are a case in point for many of them. And, quite interestingly, what he writes in the liner notes about the `lonesome touch´ reminds me a lot of what some bluegrass and American old time mountain singers say about what they call the `high lonesome sound´.
I often wonder what other ITM-ers have on their car stereo (for example) if not listening to ITM. I grew up on rock (Lizzy, Led Zep, Deep Purple, etc and still got a fine collection of mint Alice Cooper LPs); I played in a punk band for a while and migrated to CSNY (i.e retrograded) and the like before finding Planxty. We always had Horslips of course!
I always enjoyed classical stuff - but never played it, never had the training to read the dots; and lately Jazz - again I don't have the skills to play more than a melody).
One thing I'd love to get back into is choral singing, which I've not done since leaving college; I just got to find the time.
So a home session for us can include a beatles number, pink floyd or something by oasis as likely as it will have "star of the county down".
I played only classical until mid-30s - clarinet.
I agree with FIDDLE4 about Mahler (and the late
Romantics onwards). But I never got to play him; I have
done Wagner, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Kodaly
and others though
Studied music at uni for 2 yrs and played in the US Army Field
Band all over the USA, touring in buses for 3 years.
In the early 80s I played in the U. of Chicago orchestra. In my
mid-30s I played tenor and soprano sax in a party band made
of public servants and NGO staff in Wash DC
for a couple of years. I played a little kletzmer in Perth,
Australia in the late 1990s but even though it's "my" trad music,
I didn't like it much.
In Canberra I played a little chamber music, then
discovered I didn't like it any more; you've got to have good
players who work at it to pull it off. I took up the violin and
gradually quit developing the classical technique and
focussed on Irish. That's all I'm doing for now - I want to get
good at it - not be a dilletante (is that how you spell it? All
right, I can spell "tosser" though).
There are only two SORTS of music in the universe; although there are many different classes, genres, styles and types of music.
And of the two sorts I only ever play GOOD music; not BAD.
Good and bad sorts exist in all musical varieties.
Just because it's your favourite tune, type, artist or composer doesn't mean to say it is good.
Good music is good music to matter what the flavour and vice versa.
mhuppert above reminds me of Klezmer. I like it, having first heard it in the form of The Flatbush Waltz on a De Dannan album and then on a tape of The Burning Bush Ensemble.One of my grandfathers was Jewish, and my tenuous link with that world may be rather like that of several-times-removed "Irish-Americans" to Ireland itself. Or rather, it may actually be non-existent, only living in one's own head. But yes, Klezmer can be great - the best session I've been to at all recently was when a fiddler and piano-accordionist specialising in Klezmer turned up, and took it away. The tunes (the Northern-Europe-derived ones) seem midway along the scale between ITM diatonic and Greek chromatic / exotic.
Hi, I'm Jeni, I'm new so don't kill me if I'm posting on something I shouldn't be!!
I'm 18 and have only been playing folk for a year, but I've wanted to all my life. Unfortunately for me I didn't make myself clear to my family when I said I wanted a flute, so I got put in classical lessons.... of which I got very bored. So I dropped the whole music thing for 6 years but then got into Irish and Cornish trad music (I live in Cornwall it's not just some random thing!!) and here I am!!!
Folk is pretty much all I can play at the moment but I really want tolearn the trumpet so that I can play trad jazz!! The drums is something else I've always wanted to have a go at - I really like most good music and I'm a rock lover as much as I'm a folky! - and my friend's going to give me lessons; it's going to be great!!
I know one guy who's a fiddle player now but used to be a death metal guitarist - now that's what I call a change!!
It's so interesting to see what other things people play - folk musicians are truly a multitalented breed!
In my neck of woods, most of Irish music players derive from death metal guitar playing... unfortunately for the audience.
I started off playing classical piano (didn't like my own sound so I quit after 7 yrs and never looked back), classical guitar (didn't like my sound so quit after 8 yrs and never looked back), then moved on to Irish Trad Music on a guitar, trying to find something easy enough to enjoy my playing. After four years of intensive studies and practice I started to be good with a nice sound, and picked up some decent bouzouki cross-picking and melody playing on the way; unfortunately, my intensive immersion in Irish traditional music led me towards love of puredrop trad and development of cold indifference towards backing, towards my own instrument and my own playing.
I'm really fed up with playing, but it's really difficult to quit. Good I'm not a smoker.
At the moment I'm taking a break from Irish Trad (I still listen to it), learning Breton music and some basic jazz. I still play a lot of melody on the guitar, as it's good for the technique and more interesting than Czerny's piano passages.
Swing! I play in a little orchestra/band with a pro guitarist as (paid) leader and teacher. At the moment we are learning to improvise in a pentatonic blues scale. Sounds difficult but can be done. The titles are "Mr. P.C" by John Coltrane or "Don't get around much anymore". I find this very interesting and helpful. You have to listen to each other a lot and make up lots of variations which can't be bad. I don't like listening to Jazz but it's fun to play this stuff.
I have enough trouble just trying to keep up with learning new (to me) Irish trad tunes....plus some Scottish, English and the odd European trad tune that captures my attention. Although I like to listen to diverse musical genres I'm really only interested in learning to *play* those just mentioned.
I 'played' piano from the age of 6. I didn't like doing what my teachers told me to do, so I never attained a very high standard. The piano nevertheless continued to be an important part of my life through my childhood and teens, with ventures into rock, pop, blues and some half-hearted attempts at jazz (which I didn't really underdstand at the time - and still don't very well).
I started taking an interest in the guitar in my mid teens, (having taken it up briefly, aged 9, in protest at being offered free violin lessons at school). It was partly through the guitar that I was led towards traditional music - I discovered the joy of playing individual notes instead of big, lumpy chords. Aged 19, having acquired both a whistle and a mandolin, I realised that it was quite easy to pick up tuned on them. From then on, I just carried on, mandolin mostly taking precedence over the whistle, and got gradually better at it.
I still revisit the guitar and piano from time to time, but extended periods of travel have restricted the number and size of instruments I have access to. I took up the fiddle 4-and-a-bit years ago, aged almost 30 - more with a view to understanding the music better than to becoming a serious fiddler - and that goes most places with me now.
My grandparents tried so hard to get me to play Irish music as a kid. However, the only Irish musician I was interested in emulating was Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy, and spent the next 17 years trying to "make it." as a rock star. Ska, Funk, Metal, even Disco. Then I discovered where the real money was at and worked for several years in country and western bands. However, the seeds planted by my grandparents finally took hold in my early thirties and I stared learning tunes. Pity my grandparents never living long enough to see their crop come in.
I play lots of Scottish and have been Shetland-mad for about the last seven years. That's it. I have no desire to play classical anymore. If I did, I would probably play the Bach Unaccompanieds; they have a Zen magnificence to them. But I find that trad is much more suited to my tastes and practice schedule now. Trad's very forgiving if I can't play for four or five days due to work pressures. As I see it, much of it was written by people who had to put their instruments down for an equivalent amount of time to get in the harvest.
Forgot to mention, on moving to Wales 18 months ago, I joined a Klezmer band - I had little choice in the matter. Despite being Jewish, and having lived in London most of my life, where there is quite an active Klezmer scene, I had never had much to do with Jewish music - not that I didn't like it, just that I didn't have time for it because of all the Irish tunes there were to be played. Where I live now, there is a distinct lack of Irish music, but there happens to be a group of Klezmer enthusiasts (with hardly a drop of Jewish blood between them).
I've also been learning a lot of English repertoire (which tends to dominate in the sessions around here, this being something of an English enclave) and some Welsh tunes (of which not that many get played - I hope to play small a part in changing that).
...In parallel to Irish tradtional music, I have always been interested in related traditions, such as Scottish, Shetland, Galician and Scandinavian. As a spin-off from the Klezmer, I have recently been trying my hand at some SE European tunes.
Though I am basically a Trad whistle player who also plays a bit of fiddle I play rennaisance guitar stuff like Sanz and Dowland (transcribed for guitar) as well as doing a lot of dub based stuff .I liked stuff like Suns of Arqa too and have recently
been doin a lot of instrumental soundtrack type music with African and Asian elements..Interestingly enough I usually avoid mixing trad with other styles..even though its something I CAN it just doesnt seem very original to just play trad tunes and then do a load of midi round it..do 99% of the time I dont like what comes out.. I have done stuff like this but found it became "much of a muchness" Some of Afro Celts is good though... I save the trad for the pub and the kitchen and I think I prefer it that way..however I do think that there are no rules in music and that people should not be iinhibited about playing more than one style or in mixing things together..there are no rules in music.
I got a harmonica at age eight and a minimal guitar at ten. This was in the mid 1950’s in Alabama, so I was being exposed to early rock & roll, early bluegrass, old-time, gospel and eventually everything that passed through the folk revival of the 50’s and 60’s. I tried to play some of all of it, with as much success as you might imagine.
I eventually taught myself to play fingerstyle guitar, gave up the electric, kept playing “Folk”, briefly dabbled in jazz and bossa nova. In the early 70’s, I started learning some Irish tunes and ragtime. For several years, I put a lot of effort into learning classical guitar, took a few months of lessons but got tired of the rigor and discipline…and playing alone.
By the early 80’s, I was playing guitar and fiddle in a band, doing Cajun, old-time, acoustic blues and whatever. Outside of the band context, I spent my music time playing Irish tunes on guitar, fiddle and mandolin, and singing with my wife and friends. Then, injury and neuromuscular issues severely curtailed my music for several years. Today, I stick to guitar, fiddle and clawhammer banjo and play mainly Irish tunes and a bit of old-time and whatever else feels good at the moment. I'd like to sing madrigals, if I could round up a few more voices.
Started out in Church music as a kid...I think the priests were recruiting me. Turned to Rock n Roll- Rolling stones, Cream, Jefferson Airplane. Moved to Folk where I learned six string acoustic and promptly moved to R and B, Chicago with Brass and the like. But, I played high Catholic the whole time...needed the money.
Got Married and stayed in church. Nice second job with kids. and as a licensed professional, no Bride ever sued me for malpractice.
Played 30 years of folk church stuff with a lot that also played Tommy Makem ballad style Irish. Still played high church. (I am playing for the Anglicans on Sunday!)
When we broke up, turned to the Box as a mid-life crisis. Been to Ireland a coupe of times and saw I couldn't keep up with all of you local players who have been playing ITM since the cradle.
Still help out with Herself's choir with a bit of guitar, piano, organ, accordion what ever strikes my fancy.
But my current goal is trying to get my box work up to speed and quality so I can come back to Ireland next year and play in decently.
Grew up playing trombone in jazz and swing bands (Louie Jordan, Fats Waller, et al.). Took up double bass for "hire versatility" and fell in love with strings. Played trombone, bass and guitar in bands that ranged from 1930's-40's American swing to dixieland to R&B to hideous rock and country bands (gotta pay that tuition somehow). Got the trad bug hanging out with bluegrass players and played tons of bluegrass (though never really cared for American old-time). Was introduced to ITM by some crazed Irish lads working in Kentucky, USA where I was playing bluegrass. I still love to drag the bass out for swing and ocassional bluegrass oportunities, but mostly its been ITM the past several years. (Trombone sits lonely in the back of the instrument closet.)
Sunnybear
Yes. I agree Mahler is is a musical sea of sound,,
Altough I dont listen much to classical now., But I watched
Mahlers 7th - On sky TV the other Night....
jim,,,
started off on flute in school. Played bass/guitar with a gordon lightfoot/don maclean style singer in highschool and early 20's.
Grew up playing english/scottish trad also, learned more itm in my 20's and 30's. Also play NSP and trying to stick to the northumbrian repertoire but i get distracted, lots. Have always liked Breton and French trad and playing lots of that on the HurdyGurdy lately. No forays into jazz, blues etc except for a little dixieland and jazz bass in high school
I played a little American folk-type and blues music on guitar for quite awhile, and I like to listen to a variety of musical genres but only play ITM now (and pretty much listen to it all the time as well). I too am a novice, having really only started learning about a year ago on a totally different instrument (one-row melodeon). A big part of the learning process for me has been doing a LOT of listening to ITM featuring all the instruments (not just mine), and not just tunes I'm currently trying to learn, but just "soaking it up" so my playing will hopefully eventually have a somewhat authentic feeling to it (I don't live in an area where ITM or other Celtic trad prevails). I agree that playing different genres of music on the same instrument probably widens one's technical ability, but for now (for me) I don't want some of those influences to creep into my playing when they don't sound "right" for this idiom. Oh, and I agree: ITM is addictive!
Started on classical piano when I was 7, but hated being stuck indoors, and there was no way to sound as good as my brother (9 years older and playing piano all the while). But I grew up listening to Mahler and Beethoven and Bach (my brother ended up being Leonard Bernstein's musical assistant for many years).
Switched to drum kit (my mom was a jazz drummer before she married), and then guitar and 5 string banjo. From 12 onward I played in a rock band (Stones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC). At 17 I joined a full-time touring bluegrass band (once opened for Bill Monroe), but had "found" Irish trad at 14 and was surreptitiously learning tunes (and started on mandolin and fiddle).
Also played a lot of soft rock (Jackson Browne, Dan Fogleberg, Loggins and Messina, etc.) in a trio with a very talented singer who went on to Julliard and a pro studio career.
Now occasionally pick up guitar tunes from my 18 yearold son--Killswitch Engage, Starting Line, A Fire Inside, Green Day, Blink 182, Under Oath, etc. The Green Day "American Idiot" tour was one of the best concerts of any kind I've ever been to. And we enjoy the annual Warped Tour of punk bands.
But for the last 30 years it's been Irish trad 99.9% of my time.
Other than Irish fiddle, I play electronic dance music. Seriously.
I kind of suck at keyboard though, so I rely on sequencers and arpeggiators. Someday I hope to have the equipment to play synth with a fiddle, but the gear to do that right is pretty expensive.
I started on classical piano, but haven't played that in over a decade. On fiddle, in addition to ITM, I can play a bit of the Jewish folk music I grew up with. Which reminds me, the weather's getting nice enough for me to practice on the sun deck on the top of my building before work (so, so much more pleasant than practicing in my current studio, the storage closet), so I should really get around to learning some of the music from Fiddler on the Roof.
Fascinating! I ran from classical music. Was drilled on it ceaselessly as a child and lost all interest. Played punk, hip-hop, ska, reggae, so on. Kept the fiddle in the closet and when my first son was born, out it came, like a switch came on. He was in the high chair, it was St. P's Day, The Chieftains were on the CD player, "Oh the Britches" was playing, and there was a great flash of white light, trumpets sounded, "Huzzahs!" were heard, and then I sobered up. No, seriously though, what happened was I said "Hey, I bet I can play that...you wanna hear your old man play the fiddle there, shorty?"
"gurgle gurgle...slobber..."
"OK!"
He's 8 now. "Daddy, I'm trying to play video games, can you please go fiddle in the other room?"
As for stuff recognisably akin to ITM - from North America or These Islands - I pick up tunes that come in my direction as I can. I still can't play fast and well in the A Major family of keys, so much Scottish music passes me by - I just can't be fashed to practise it, though it's certainly possible on what I play.
I'm learning that Northumbrian isn't the only kid on the block in Northern English trad. I've heard some very exciting tunes in sessions that come from other places north of the Trent, and are altogether more like ITM in their nimbleness and catchiness than the worthy but often stodgy 4/4 stuff played down the decades by melodeon / bass / drumkit combos. English trad may have had a comparatively weak ongoing tradition, but it has a big back catalogue by way of tunebooks, and surprising stuff is coming out of those. Also of course people are writing tunes, some excellent, and here in the North East some lovely Scandinavian tunes are getting heard.
I grew up in the San Francisco bay area and greater west coast listening to everything kids listened to in the 70's and 80's. Started with Robin Trower and Pink Floyd when I pilfered my parents record collection. Then as I became a teenager I switched to Van Halen and other hard rock/metal bands. I've played drums all my life and had a brief stint on trombone in gradeschool. Later I became a HUGE Primus fan. "They SUCK!" LOL
Then I started to get bored with rock-n-roll and discovered ITM through a girlfriend who eventually gave me a bodhran for Christmas. I unintentionally flogged a few sessions and have stayed away from them ever since. The melodies reminded me of the guitar solos I enjoyed as a kid by EVH, Randy Rhoads and the like. The idea that it was for dancing never crossed my mind. This music rocked! That's all I knew.
I took up guitar to learn the tunes and songs I enjoyed to make me a better bodhran player. But now I hardly touch my drum. One thing I can mention is that picking the melodies is relatively easy once I noodle around enough to find the key. Strumming a harmony on the other hand, that is really hard... so far. For whatever reason, I just don't hear or feel where the harmony should be or come from. And moving a capo around to change keys while I play open chords is just weak and not very effective either. So I download the dots or tab or whatever I can find to go along with music I have on cds or videos from YouTube and practice, practice, practice.
I really wish I had a teacher or a mentor to help. Even a musical kindred spirit to practice with would be good. But I don't really have any close friends who listen to this music. They're all still headbangin' to 25+ year old hair-metal songs and wonder what the hell I hear in that "Riverdance music". (insert heavy sigh emoticon)
I picked up the guitar at 14 and throughout the years have learned and played whatever tune or song or style piqued my fancy. Played mostly Rock&Roll and popular Folk music early on. By the late 70s I had almost completely lost interest in Rock, so I dabbled in Jazz and learned a few "easy" Classical pieces. Had a stint with Delta Blues and resonator guitars. Got into an Afro-Cuban thing and started playing congas and bongos (a fun diversion from guitar). "Punk" (in many of its various permutations) kept me energized through the banal Pop/Rock '80s and '90s. I came to ITM by way of the Pogues, but it was slow in coming. Currently, I'm in a band that plays a plethora of styles, or rather tunes and songs that may stylistically relate to, or sound something like, established styles but are actually quite different. We used to describe our music as "Ska Polka Klez Celtica Gitano Surf Rock." I prefer "European Style Americana," but we're really a global fusion band with no roots in any particular genre. At any given time I might be learning an original piece written by my wife (who fronts the band and does all the composing and arranging) or a "cover" tune like "Kalashnikov" or "Rumba Tziganeasca" or "Itzikel" or "Hasapikos" or "Akulvassi,"... (we've snuck a few of the Irish tunes into our live sets, but they are by no means trad renditions.)
I'm still very much in the learning phase of ITM, but it has become an obsession--so much so that the majority of my practice time is devoted to chipping away at the tunes... (I find the tunes to be GREAT finger exercises--and certainly much more enjoyable to play then scales and arpeggios )
Sh*t, I was going to post a discussion on what other music people listen to, e.g. what albums (apart from ITM) do you hold in high regard, maybe I should still post it, what you think? Think of the turmoil deciding if Blood On The Tracks is better than Are You Experienced, I could, and might, go on.....and on.....and on.
Like your smile and your fingertips
Like the way that you move your hips.
I like the cool way you look at me.
Everything about you is bringing me misery...
This is a great thread. Nothing like getting everything out in the
open. Its very interesting to read about people's vast and varied experience, training and their love of music. Its great how all of these musician's have gravitated towards Irish music in particular, not because of it 's perceived simplicity ( in fact to me the opposite is true) , but because it works. . Its erased a preconception I've held that this site was dominated
by " folk conservatism" and even a few of the people I ( perhaps unfairly) labeled as being pre programmed die hard folkies have revealed themselves to be the opposite. Who am I to judge anyway ? Maybe this thread will lead to some interesting discussions on the "nuts and bolts" of Irish music
and what attracts us all to it. To me, it is it's Symmetry. (see
new thread.)
Classical seriously--still can dabble but rarely do.
Jazz fairly seriously--don't play it at all nowadays.
Pop/Beatles/etc, vocals and guitar--do it occassionally but not much.
ITM--99% of all my free time +
I had no interest in music until that famous Sunday evening in February, 1964, when I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was almost 13. Dad brought home a guitar the next day,and soon the band I formed was playing at our school dances.
I am a conservatory trained double bass player, and have played all the major symphonic repertoire.
I really love the balance of classical and trad (both ITM and GHB) in my life.
Thanks to all the replies, this is a fascinating subject for me. I really enjoy reading about the myriad journeys we all take through music.
While I like to keep my fiddling separate from my guitar picking, I think the reasons I enjoy both are very similar. When I hear someone playing a difficult melody that is pleasing to the ear, I want to learn how to do it too. There have been many motivating players, but I have no doubt that Randy Rhoads alone contributed to hundreds of hours of practice for me. I always loved trying to figure out his solos by ear, but I often had to resort to tablature when the notes were too fast for me to pick out individually.
Recently I had the same experience watching a Tommy Peoples video on YouTube. "Laird of Drumblaire" - I have already submitted my family to several hours of that tune at about half the tempo, mostly incorrect intonation and scratchy bowing. But fortunately they like the music so no complaints yet. It's too much fun.
I also enjoy singing. That was my first "instrument" and I've spent time in a couple of choirs. That said I prefer singing either Irish songs or rock songs with a good vocal melody. I often put a CD in the car to sing along with when I'm driving.
I will always be thankful to a Donegal musician who let me play in his band in Annapolis and learn some of the old favorite drinking songs, ballads et cetera. That was my first real exposure to playing Irish music, several years ago. I still like those songs, but I enjoy tunes more now.
At the moment I'm debating on whether to stay home tonight or head to the pub and catch a couple hours of Irish trad by some local musicians I admire. Tough choice...hmm, I'll see you all tomorrow!
I played classical music on violin from age 5 through age 18 - first violin section but never "concert master". I didn't like it so much at the end because it became so serious and there was always this guy wagging the stick around in front of us. I also played sousaphone in the marching band at my college. That was big fun. It was more than just playing music. It was dancing around the football field and making different designs and being silly. I loved that. Then I found ITM. Little of both (a little bit serious, but a lot of silly). I also play fiddle for contra dancing, which is always fun. And English dancing, too. I came back to playing tuba in a jazz band where we played arrangements from the Golden Age of Jazz - 1920's and 1930's. We were 15 instruments and 5 vocalists. That was great stuff. These days, its all fiddle for ITM
I play Oi! and Hardcore punk, my intro to Irish music was thanks to Dropkick Murphy's and the like. I am also getting into learning ska, reggae and rockabilly on my guitar, and baroque flute music for my flute.
Tiny Tim...? Oi!...? Those names really *are* a blast from the past, I had long forgotten their existence.
It may be childish, but the words "Conservatory trained" ALWAYS make me think of someone banished to practise in a greenhouse full of mouldering tomatoes covered in bugs!..
Tiny bubbles
In my beer
Makes me feel fine
Makes me wanna cheer!
Good music tonight. I walked into the pub and was greeted to a noisy and crowded Friday night full of pub songs. At first I was a little put off, as these were musicians who I had previously known for their great tune playing. Hell, even I can crank out Finnegan's Wake when necessary. But I kept listening, and they threw in a set of jigs or reels in between each song. Great playing! It was a fiddler, a guitarist, and a bodhran player (who really knew what he was doing - it was terrific accompaniment).
I guess it was a nice experience for me to see that songs can be mixed with tunes in an effective performance.
Bear with me, I've had too much Guinness most likely, but I can definitely appreciate this sort of gig. These were musicians who frequently play sessions as well, but knew how to entertain a crowd. It really made me feel good that people cheered for the reels and jigs as much as the songs. Goes to show that American punters can appreciate traditional tunes as much as the songs.
Baroque flute, eh? I think the first Bach tune I learned on guitar was the minuet and badinerie. Can't recall the name of the work, but it's actually easy to play the flute melody on my LP. I've always wanted to throw that into a public performance if ever given the chance.
In addition to ITM, I play fingerstyle guitar (and sing when pushed) for Beatles/Eagles/James Taylor/Ralph McTell/Richard Thompson/ragtime etc etc type things, as well as my own songs in a generic folkie sort of way, mostly for my own amusement. I'll play electric bass with anyone who'll have me - local musical productions and things.
With voice and acoustic guitar I lead our village church worship band every Sunday - band also has fiddle, flute, electric bass, piano and occasional bodhran.
Also dabble ineptly in a bit of classical guitar.
Just a side note about Randy Rhoads. HIs mother, who was a music teacher, gave him books of fiddle tunes when he was a wee lad to practice with his guitar.
I've also read that Randy was a pretty good guitar teacher himself. I knew his mother had influenced him, but I didn't know that he learned fiddle tunes on the guitar when he was young! Maybe I wasn't so crazy to try that after all... Shame about the plane crash though. He would be a formidable composer and player today - and I'd have a lot more of his material to learn!
There is a japanese zen garden quality to Irish music at
the very top level. Good examples are Mary McNamara or
Martin Hayes playing solo. So simple, but heart-breaking.
In order to keep this post from being too long, I am going to try to mention only my current opportunities to play music instead of talking about my past opportunities to play music.
First of all, I play piano and bass (both acoustic and electric). If I want to, I can play piano at least four times a month at the local Irish Session.
On the first Monday of every month, I take my three-quarter size Englehardt bass fiddle and play it at the monthly meeting of a group of musicians who like to play old time music. By old time music, I mean the type of music which people used to play to amuse and bemuse themselves before we had the modern conveniences called railroads, radio, television, computers, sliced bread, etc.
On the third Monday of each month, I play my bass fiddle at a song circle at a local Baptist church which is hosted by the Minister of Education at the church. The Minister plays guitar, banjo, and fiddle as well as thinking that he can sing. He is one of the people who plays with the old time music group that I mentioned above.
Every Friday, if I want to, I can go to the Senior Citizen's Center in a suburb near here and play bass with some older musicians at the Center. When I sit in with this group, I am usually the youngest person there--unless someone brings one of their grandchildren.
On Sunday evenings, there is an Open Mic night at a local drinking establishment.
On Wednesday evenings, if I want to drive for one hour, I can sit in at a Blues Jam in another town.
Once every other month, I play piano for services at the church I attend.
And, last but not least, I play electric bass with the "praise band" at my sister-in-law's church once a month.
I like to play folk from different european countries... since about 1,5 years ago i'm really into swedish fiddle music and went to summer school too in sweden last summer. I love it the way they manage to make 1 fiddler sound like 3 of them. nobody else here into scandinavian music? it's great!
If I had time, i would really get myself one of those medieval fiddles.
Love all types of music, ceili bands, marching bands of every hue, classical and even a bit of good C/W. Not really into Rap/Hip Hop etc, although I've been known to do a rap version of 'Nell Flaherty's Drake' and 'The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God' Happiest listening to good accordion music and big band stuff especially those bands featuring great drummers such as Buddy Rich etc. There are however some music/songs that I can't stand and at the moment one bloody song that drives me up the wall is 'Galway Girl'
What other music do you play?
What other music do you play?
I don't doubt that this has been discussed before, but my search skills have only turned up a few tangential discussions. I hope to learn a little more about this forum and maybe give some insight into my own tastes (life story to follow - just kidding!)
ITM is truly addicting for me, and I can listen to it most of the day without becoming bored. It's also what I primarily intend to play as my fiddling gradually improves, though I'm a rank novice now. I'd also like to learn some classical pieces, as I've appreciated that music since I was very young.
But I have to admit that I came to this revelation that I wanted to play fiddle and ITM after many years of playing rock and blues on the electric guitar. It's often a bit awkward in fact, when I go to listen to a session and the musicians suggest I bring my guitar to the next one. Well, you see, I don't know how to accompany tunes very well, and I don't think you want to see my Gibson LP and amplifier invade your session! I guess they assume that when I say I play guitar, I mean within the Irish tradition, and on an acoustic. I don't even own an acoustic guitar.
Despite my new passion, I'm sure I will keep going back to electric guitar and playing rock when I want something different.
In reading older posts, I often see comments that suggest many people here stick exclusively to Irish trad. But I doubt that's universal. What other styles - if any - do you play outside of traditional music?
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: What other music do you play?
Hi Scott, sounds like a diversified musical bibliography. Mine is not so different. At the moment i´m sticking fairly exclusively to ITM, but before theat - meaning decades back - I was very intensively into American old time and bluegrass, playing guitar and 5string. I even travelled through the Appalachians to visit musicians, go to fiddlers conventions etc. Perhaps it was not such a big step from old time to ITM - this was the time of the folk revival when you were suddenly exposed to a huge variety of music - from Ewan McColl to Judy Collins to Doc Watson to Bob Dylan to Flatt & Scruggs to the Clancys/Tommy Makem..... In between i had a long stretch (10 years) playing blues harp ina blues band. recently I switched from 5string to tenor banjo and concertina, which I had also played in a band in the early 80s. So here goes. I think having played different types definitely widens your musical horizon, your approach to other types of music. What I´m NOT into is what they call `world music´: mixing all kinds of different styles so you can hear the `voice of mankind´or whatever. When you play blues, you play blues; when you play ITM, this is what you do !!
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by alexweger
Re: What other music do you play?
Hey Alex,
I guess I must be your mirror image!
If we ever meet, there'll be one massive explosion & the universe will implode!
Like you, in my mid 50s. Started off into R & R, then Dylan, Taylor, Mitchell, etc etc & from them I went down the Folk road, Dubliners, Corries etc before getting into ITM & STM.
However, I've recently taken up the C-H Banjo & Blues Harp.
So my ears are always open to good music, but I'm with you on the World Music/Fusion sh*t though.
I'll defend people's right to experiment & have a go, but for me, only about 1% of it works, ........ the rest I'm afraid is pure sh*te, usually just stuffed together by musicians who quite simply just can't cut it, in either sphere of music, so they combine the two, but of course they only succeed in fooling a very small number of people in the process!
Interesting thread Scott ... good luck with it.
Cheers
Dick
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Ptarmigan
Re: What other music do you play?
Yes, I agree that 'fusion' or 'world music' (maybe not always the same thing I suppose) is rarely as great as the sum of its parts. I think the final straw that made me pick up a fiddle was that I found myself trying to learn and play some reels and jigs (the melodies) on my guitar. They were just too fun to resist, and then I thought to myself, "Shouldn't I be playing these on the instrument for which they were intended?"
You've got a much broader experience than me and it must be nice to have the knowledge in American bluegrass, to which I admit much ignorance on my part. My own repertoire for the 6-string only covers the last few decades really, but it's enough to keep me occupied.
I think I like having these two widely separated styles, because I don't have to worry about one crossing over into the other. In other words, the fiddle won't replace my guitar or vice versa as they are intended for a completely different music, and I like to keep them separate. Although I have heard some amazing renditions of Paganini's caprices on the electric guitar, and some guy on YouTube did a convincing Eruption on his fiddle.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: What other music do you play?
Dick, I must have been typing too slowly but I guess my reply follows your post logically all the same!
There have been many great discussions in the past here regarding musical styles and I hope to learn something from this one as well. Not so much a 'popularity contest' of genres as a survey of the various kinds of music that move traditional players when we're in the mood for something completely different.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: What other music do you play?
I play Tunes and I play Jazz standards. I'm very influenced
by early American music, Stephen Foster, for example all those old Paul Robeson 78's orchestrations, all those piano and marching band voicings and I try to use a lot of that stuff in tunes.I think a lot of that stuff goes great in Irish music, those
"semi classical" type voicings, maj/3 bass ,diminished leading chords, trying to make the guitar sound like a piano basically. I'm also very inspired by Django Reinhardt but wouldn't have a chance in hell of playing like that, but his was a marvelloussly organic approach to Jazz and playing the guitar. So imaginative. So in a nutshell I use all of my knowledge from one world to try and create something of my own in my other world. I don't really care if its true to the tradition or not, I'm not a traditionalist. One day I'll meld it all together and I won't have to think about it.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by chuneboi slim
Re: What other music do you play?
I like a good tune and - heresy! - I don't have any criteria about where it should come from. I'm deeply interested in the origins of music but do not regard myself as an heir or guardian to a tradition, or anything like it. Nothing I play could be said to be *authentically* Irish, Scottish, Brazilian or whatever, but it's all authentically me. I'm as happy playing Beatles or Steve Earle songs with my son as pipe tunes with local fiddlers, country music with a singer, jigs and marches in a ceilidh band - as long as it's got a pulse and a heart, and fortunately most musicians I know are not too different.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Bren
Re: What other music do you play?
my own background is a mixture of classical music (guitar and piano) and a wee bit of blues on the guitar. I got kinda fed up of playing the classical guitar as its basically a lonely instrument, you practise and play by yourself. I got into ITM (for want of a better term) about 8 yrs ago and over the yrs have become more interested and more motivated in ITM to the extent now its all I play and mostly what I listen to. Just now Im playing Martin Hayes CD " The Lonesome Touch" - wow!
I still love classical music and I often listen to my favourite Van the Man.
My dream is to win the lotto, have a music room, and have a tom of different instruments to play around with!
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by BanjoBongo
Re: What other music do you play?
Bach Violin Concertos coz they rock! And a bit of Kreisler as well
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by D.J.F.
Re: What other music do you play?
Hi Scott - I played mostly guitar for decades. Switching to mandolin then fiddle has been a revelation and an addiction, and I wish I'd hung up my guitar earlier. Started (and continued) mostly with Irish, have played Scandinavian tunes with a couple of friends (wonderful stuff), have joined a Scottish group playing entirely from sheet music, and I'm starting to appreciate the wealth of English music - I think I've got the hang of the 3/2 hornpipe! Pete Cooper's collection of English Fiddle tunes is a great buy - I've really enjoyed working through it - see his website for info: http://www.petecooper.com/eftnotes.htm
I also love choro and samba mandolin music - you can browse through loads of tunes here http://www.samba-choro.com.br/partituras/pormusica but you need to get an Encore demo version to view the files (I'm just being over-ambitious - I'd need another lifetime to play this stuff, but one can dream!)
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by RichardB
Re: What other music do you play?
Northumbrian - they have the best hornpipes and rants
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by geoffwright
Re: What other music do you play?
I had no Classical background, and whistle and DG melodeon made me diatonic for a long time. I got a Saltarelle box with semitones when my urge to practise all the time had largely gone. But I've tackled Gilbert and Sullivan and am now having a go at Greek music - I spent a year there teaching English nearly thirty years ago, and have the basics of the language and its rhythms in a song (not that I would try to sing in Greek! - but much or most of the music is around lyrics, and adapted to their rhythm, speed and mood).
A lot of Greek music is in Eastern scales I haven't yet even sussed, and/or with plentiful semitones, but some pleasing and lively songs / tunes are diatonic and quite easy to play. The well-known composer Mikis Theodorakis wrote a number of these.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by nicholas
Re: What other music do you play?
My Musical history is Strange to say the least,=
Starting off localy with -Orange Bands- moveing to The greatist
rock n' roll band in the world - The Rolling Stones- In which I
had all there L.P.records up to Goats head soup..Sold them all
For Chieftians + -Irish traditional music-In which I was totaly
hooked. While going to fleadhs, I took a slight turn into Jazz.
Got married no more Fleadhs,, Listened alot to Classical music.I was Totaly Obsessed With the composer Gustav
Malher + wagner,,Joined a Ceili band for money , Got back
into -ITM- ,Which brings me up to to-day, Not ,lol - jim,,,,
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: What other music do you play?
My first love was Beethoven, when I was about 6. I learned symphonies 6, 7 and 8. By the time I was 7 or 8 I was playing List on the piano, by ear. I was listening to my dads diddley records too and getting into that. At high school I played electric bass in the rebel's rock band (we played the whole of Led Zep III and IV) and double bass in an Oscar Peterson style trio. And diddley music of course. ... I was 13 or 14 by then ....
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: What other music do you play?
A reply to BanjoBongo:
I also got the Martin Hayes `Lonesome Touch´- CD a while ago and it´s `wow´indeed - amazing how a tune can change when it´s played slowly. There was, by the way, a thread here not so long ago about `Tunes that sound good played slowly`and Michael Hayes´ renditions are a case in point for many of them. And, quite interestingly, what he writes in the liner notes about the `lonesome touch´ reminds me a lot of what some bluegrass and American old time mountain singers say about what they call the `high lonesome sound´.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by alexweger
Re: What other music do you play?
Jim, the Mahler #5 w/ Bernstein is what I have been listening to all week!
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Sunnybear
Re: What other music do you play?
I often wonder what other ITM-ers have on their car stereo (for example) if not listening to ITM. I grew up on rock (Lizzy, Led Zep, Deep Purple, etc and still got a fine collection of mint Alice Cooper LPs); I played in a punk band for a while and migrated to CSNY (i.e retrograded) and the like before finding Planxty. We always had Horslips of course!
I always enjoyed classical stuff - but never played it, never had the training to read the dots; and lately Jazz - again I don't have the skills to play more than a melody).
One thing I'd love to get back into is choral singing, which I've not done since leaving college; I just got to find the time.
So a home session for us can include a beatles number, pink floyd or something by oasis as likely as it will have "star of the county down".
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by stripthewillow
Re: What other music do you play?
I played only classical until mid-30s - clarinet.
I agree with FIDDLE4 about Mahler (and the late
Romantics onwards). But I never got to play him; I have
done Wagner, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Kodaly
and others though
Studied music at uni for 2 yrs and played in the US Army Field
Band all over the USA, touring in buses for 3 years.
In the early 80s I played in the U. of Chicago orchestra. In my
mid-30s I played tenor and soprano sax in a party band made
of public servants and NGO staff in Wash DC
for a couple of years. I played a little kletzmer in Perth,
Australia in the late 1990s but even though it's "my" trad music,
I didn't like it much.
In Canberra I played a little chamber music, then
discovered I didn't like it any more; you've got to have good
players who work at it to pull it off. I took up the violin and
gradually quit developing the classical technique and
focussed on Irish. That's all I'm doing for now - I want to get
good at it - not be a dilletante (is that how you spell it? All
right, I can spell "tosser" though).
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Hup
There are only two sorts of music to play...
There are only two SORTS of music in the universe; although there are many different classes, genres, styles and types of music.
And of the two sorts I only ever play GOOD music; not BAD.
Good and bad sorts exist in all musical varieties.
Just because it's your favourite tune, type, artist or composer doesn't mean to say it is good.
Good music is good music to matter what the flavour and vice versa.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by yhaalhouse
Re: What other music do you play?
A little dixieland..... and Irish folk music, i.e songs.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by camwebby
Re: What other music do you play?
stabbin' killin' dyin' songs (Americana)
classic Jazz, the kind with melodies
cover tunes by Pink Floyd, Lyle Lovett, Beatles, Tom Petty, and others
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by wyogal
Re: noblesse oblige
'There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.'
was that not a Duke Ellington quotation?
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by biggus dave
Re: What other music do you play?
mhuppert above reminds me of Klezmer. I like it, having first heard it in the form of The Flatbush Waltz on a De Dannan album and then on a tape of The Burning Bush Ensemble.One of my grandfathers was Jewish, and my tenuous link with that world may be rather like that of several-times-removed "Irish-Americans" to Ireland itself. Or rather, it may actually be non-existent, only living in one's own head. But yes, Klezmer can be great - the best session I've been to at all recently was when a fiddler and piano-accordionist specialising in Klezmer turned up, and took it away. The tunes (the Northern-Europe-derived ones) seem midway along the scale between ITM diatonic and Greek chromatic / exotic.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by nicholas
Re: What other music do you play?
Hi, I'm Jeni, I'm new so don't kill me if I'm posting on something I shouldn't be!!
I'm 18 and have only been playing folk for a year, but I've wanted to all my life. Unfortunately for me I didn't make myself clear to my family when I said I wanted a flute, so I got put in classical lessons.... of which I got very bored. So I dropped the whole music thing for 6 years but then got into Irish and Cornish trad music (I live in Cornwall it's not just some random thing!!) and here I am!!!
Folk is pretty much all I can play at the moment but I really want tolearn the trumpet so that I can play trad jazz!! The drums is something else I've always wanted to have a go at - I really like most good music and I'm a rock lover as much as I'm a folky! - and my friend's going to give me lessons; it's going to be great!!
I know one guy who's a fiddle player now but used to be a death metal guitarist - now that's what I call a change!!
It's so interesting to see what other things people play - folk musicians are truly a multitalented breed!
Golow ha Lowena,
Jeni xx
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by An Kammneves
Re: What other music do you play?
Hi Jeni, welcome to Mustard Board!
In my neck of woods, most of Irish music players derive from death metal guitar playing... unfortunately for the audience.
I started off playing classical piano (didn't like my own sound so I quit after 7 yrs and never looked back), classical guitar (didn't like my sound so quit after 8 yrs and never looked back), then moved on to Irish Trad Music on a guitar, trying to find something easy enough to enjoy my playing. After four years of intensive studies and practice I started to be good with a nice sound, and picked up some decent bouzouki cross-picking and melody playing on the way; unfortunately, my intensive immersion in Irish traditional music led me towards love of puredrop trad and development of cold indifference towards backing, towards my own instrument and my own playing.
I'm really fed up with playing, but it's really difficult to quit. Good I'm not a smoker.
At the moment I'm taking a break from Irish Trad (I still listen to it), learning Breton music and some basic jazz. I still play a lot of melody on the guitar, as it's good for the technique and more interesting than Czerny's piano passages.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by EastPole
Re: What other music do you play?
Swing! I play in a little orchestra/band with a pro guitarist as (paid) leader and teacher. At the moment we are learning to improvise in a pentatonic blues scale. Sounds difficult but can be done. The titles are "Mr. P.C" by John Coltrane or "Don't get around much anymore". I find this very interesting and helpful. You have to listen to each other a lot and make up lots of variations which can't be bad. I don't like listening to Jazz but it's fun to play this stuff.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by kuec
Re: What other music do you play?
I have enough trouble just trying to keep up with learning new (to me) Irish trad tunes....plus some Scottish, English and the odd European trad tune that captures my attention. Although I like to listen to diverse musical genres I'm really only interested in learning to *play* those just mentioned.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: What other music do you play?
I grew up listening to & playing Jean Michelle Jarre's music on the organ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_michelle_jarre)
Then went to classical/jazz on the keyboards/piano for a few years.
Had a dabble with Heavy (Death) Metal on the guitar and am now playing celtic on Guitar, Octave Mando & Fiddle.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by davydd
Re: What other music do you play?
Slayer are the electric Planxty.
Exchanging riffs, and counter melodies.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Hugo Chavez
Re: What other music do you play?
Thank you Biggus Dave:
Duke Ellington, good one!
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by yhaalhouse
Re: What other music do you play?
I 'played' piano from the age of 6. I didn't like doing what my teachers told me to do, so I never attained a very high standard. The piano nevertheless continued to be an important part of my life through my childhood and teens, with ventures into rock, pop, blues and some half-hearted attempts at jazz (which I didn't really underdstand at the time - and still don't very well).
I started taking an interest in the guitar in my mid teens, (having taken it up briefly, aged 9, in protest at being offered free violin lessons at school). It was partly through the guitar that I was led towards traditional music - I discovered the joy of playing individual notes instead of big, lumpy chords. Aged 19, having acquired both a whistle and a mandolin, I realised that it was quite easy to pick up tuned on them. From then on, I just carried on, mandolin mostly taking precedence over the whistle, and got gradually better at it.
I still revisit the guitar and piano from time to time, but extended periods of travel have restricted the number and size of instruments I have access to. I took up the fiddle 4-and-a-bit years ago, aged almost 30 - more with a view to understanding the music better than to becoming a serious fiddler - and that goes most places with me now.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by granama
Re: What other music do you play?
"Slayer are the electric Planxty" LOL - brilliant
My grandparents tried so hard to get me to play Irish music as a kid. However, the only Irish musician I was interested in emulating was Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy, and spent the next 17 years trying to "make it." as a rock star. Ska, Funk, Metal, even Disco. Then I discovered where the real money was at and worked for several years in country and western bands. However, the seeds planted by my grandparents finally took hold in my early thirties and I stared learning tunes. Pity my grandparents never living long enough to see their crop come in.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: What other music do you play?
I play lots of Scottish and have been Shetland-mad for about the last seven years. That's it. I have no desire to play classical anymore. If I did, I would probably play the Bach Unaccompanieds; they have a Zen magnificence to them. But I find that trad is much more suited to my tastes and practice schedule now. Trad's very forgiving if I can't play for four or five days due to work pressures. As I see it, much of it was written by people who had to put their instruments down for an equivalent amount of time to get in the harvest.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by cathrynb
Re: What other music do you play?
Forgot to mention, on moving to Wales 18 months ago, I joined a Klezmer band - I had little choice in the matter. Despite being Jewish, and having lived in London most of my life, where there is quite an active Klezmer scene, I had never had much to do with Jewish music - not that I didn't like it, just that I didn't have time for it because of all the Irish tunes there were to be played. Where I live now, there is a distinct lack of Irish music, but there happens to be a group of Klezmer enthusiasts (with hardly a drop of Jewish blood between them).
I've also been learning a lot of English repertoire (which tends to dominate in the sessions around here, this being something of an English enclave) and some Welsh tunes (of which not that many get played - I hope to play small a part in changing that).
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by granama
Re: What other music do you play?
...In parallel to Irish tradtional music, I have always been interested in related traditions, such as Scottish, Shetland, Galician and Scandinavian. As a spin-off from the Klezmer, I have recently been trying my hand at some SE European tunes.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by granama
Re: What other music do you play?
Though I am basically a Trad whistle player who also plays a bit of fiddle I play rennaisance guitar stuff like Sanz and Dowland (transcribed for guitar) as well as doing a lot of dub based stuff .I liked stuff like Suns of Arqa too and have recently
been doin a lot of instrumental soundtrack type music with African and Asian elements..Interestingly enough I usually avoid mixing trad with other styles..even though its something I CAN it just doesnt seem very original to just play trad tunes and then do a load of midi round it..do 99% of the time I dont like what comes out.. I have done stuff like this but found it became "much of a muchness" Some of Afro Celts is good though... I save the trad for the pub and the kitchen and I think I prefer it that way..however I do think that there are no rules in music and that people should not be iinhibited about playing more than one style or in mixing things together..there are no rules in music.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by peter wsll
Re: What other music do you play?
I got a harmonica at age eight and a minimal guitar at ten. This was in the mid 1950’s in Alabama, so I was being exposed to early rock & roll, early bluegrass, old-time, gospel and eventually everything that passed through the folk revival of the 50’s and 60’s. I tried to play some of all of it, with as much success as you might imagine.
I eventually taught myself to play fingerstyle guitar, gave up the electric, kept playing “Folk”, briefly dabbled in jazz and bossa nova. In the early 70’s, I started learning some Irish tunes and ragtime. For several years, I put a lot of effort into learning classical guitar, took a few months of lessons but got tired of the rigor and discipline…and playing alone.
By the early 80’s, I was playing guitar and fiddle in a band, doing Cajun, old-time, acoustic blues and whatever. Outside of the band context, I spent my music time playing Irish tunes on guitar, fiddle and mandolin, and singing with my wife and friends. Then, injury and neuromuscular issues severely curtailed my music for several years. Today, I stick to guitar, fiddle and clawhammer banjo and play mainly Irish tunes and a bit of old-time and whatever else feels good at the moment. I'd like to sing madrigals, if I could round up a few more voices.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: What other music do you play?
sorry should have said "CAN do " and "inhibited.".....P
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by peter wsll
Re: What other music do you play?
Started out in Church music as a kid...I think the priests were recruiting me. Turned to Rock n Roll- Rolling stones, Cream, Jefferson Airplane. Moved to Folk where I learned six string acoustic and promptly moved to R and B, Chicago with Brass and the like. But, I played high Catholic the whole time...needed the money.
Got Married and stayed in church. Nice second job with kids. and as a licensed professional, no Bride ever sued me for malpractice.
Played 30 years of folk church stuff with a lot that also played Tommy Makem ballad style Irish. Still played high church. (I am playing for the Anglicans on Sunday!)
When we broke up, turned to the Box as a mid-life crisis. Been to Ireland a coupe of times and saw I couldn't keep up with all of you local players who have been playing ITM since the cradle.
Still help out with Herself's choir with a bit of guitar, piano, organ, accordion what ever strikes my fancy.
But my current goal is trying to get my box work up to speed and quality so I can come back to Ireland next year and play in decently.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by zippydw
Re: What other music do you play?
Grew up playing trombone in jazz and swing bands (Louie Jordan, Fats Waller, et al.). Took up double bass for "hire versatility" and fell in love with strings. Played trombone, bass and guitar in bands that ranged from 1930's-40's American swing to dixieland to R&B to hideous rock and country bands (gotta pay that tuition somehow). Got the trad bug hanging out with bluegrass players and played tons of bluegrass (though never really cared for American old-time). Was introduced to ITM by some crazed Irish lads working in Kentucky, USA where I was playing bluegrass. I still love to drag the bass out for swing and ocassional bluegrass oportunities, but mostly its been ITM the past several years. (Trombone sits lonely in the back of the instrument closet.)
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by daddae
Re: What other music do you play?
Sunnybear
Yes. I agree Mahler is is a musical sea of sound,,
Altough I dont listen much to classical now., But I watched
Mahlers 7th - On sky TV the other Night....
jim,,,
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by FIDDLE4
Re: more useless info brought to yr attention by biggus dave
a bit of the 'night music' from Mahler 7th got more exposure when it was used in the old 'liquid engineering' advert for castrol.
to answer the original question though,i play classical but on viola.
mainly ballet,god help me...
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by biggus dave
Re: What other music do you play?
started off on flute in school. Played bass/guitar with a gordon lightfoot/don maclean style singer in highschool and early 20's.
Grew up playing english/scottish trad also, learned more itm in my 20's and 30's. Also play NSP and trying to stick to the northumbrian repertoire but i get distracted, lots. Have always liked Breton and French trad and playing lots of that on the HurdyGurdy lately. No forays into jazz, blues etc except for a little dixieland and jazz bass in high school
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by thorsdog
Re: What other music do you play?
I played a little American folk-type and blues music on guitar for quite awhile, and I like to listen to a variety of musical genres but only play ITM now (and pretty much listen to it all the time as well). I too am a novice, having really only started learning about a year ago on a totally different instrument (one-row melodeon). A big part of the learning process for me has been doing a LOT of listening to ITM featuring all the instruments (not just mine), and not just tunes I'm currently trying to learn, but just "soaking it up" so my playing will hopefully eventually have a somewhat authentic feeling to it (I don't live in an area where ITM or other Celtic trad prevails). I agree that playing different genres of music on the same instrument probably widens one's technical ability, but for now (for me) I don't want some of those influences to creep into my playing when they don't sound "right" for this idiom. Oh, and I agree: ITM is addictive!
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by PatrickJWK
Re: What other music do you play?
Started on classical piano when I was 7, but hated being stuck indoors, and there was no way to sound as good as my brother (9 years older and playing piano all the while). But I grew up listening to Mahler and Beethoven and Bach (my brother ended up being Leonard Bernstein's musical assistant for many years).
Switched to drum kit (my mom was a jazz drummer before she married), and then guitar and 5 string banjo. From 12 onward I played in a rock band (Stones, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC). At 17 I joined a full-time touring bluegrass band (once opened for Bill Monroe), but had "found" Irish trad at 14 and was surreptitiously learning tunes (and started on mandolin and fiddle).
Also played a lot of soft rock (Jackson Browne, Dan Fogleberg, Loggins and Messina, etc.) in a trio with a very talented singer who went on to Julliard and a pro studio career.
Now occasionally pick up guitar tunes from my 18 yearold son--Killswitch Engage, Starting Line, A Fire Inside, Green Day, Blink 182, Under Oath, etc. The Green Day "American Idiot" tour was one of the best concerts of any kind I've ever been to. And we enjoy the annual Warped Tour of punk bands.
But for the last 30 years it's been Irish trad 99.9% of my time.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: What other music do you play?
Other than Irish fiddle, I play electronic dance music. Seriously.
I kind of suck at keyboard though, so I rely on sequencers and arpeggiators. Someday I hope to have the equipment to play synth with a fiddle, but the gear to do that right is pretty expensive.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Marklar
Re: What other music do you play?
What do they say..."One legged ducks swim in Big Circles"
Alot of roundabout routes to ITM. Really interesting
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by zippydw
Re: What other music do you play?
I play both kinds of music, West and East Clare! : P
Honestly I don't have time for anything else. Up the Banner!
Hup!
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Seosamh Ui Sinan
Re: What other music do you play?
ITM players gravitating to Bach isn't a surprise, but Mahler's name popping up so often here does surprise me.
What do I imagine there is to learn from this?: ITM players really, really dig complexity.
Does this imply superior intelligence? Heck no, sorry. Except in some cases. You know who you are.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: What other music do you play?
I started on classical piano, but haven't played that in over a decade. On fiddle, in addition to ITM, I can play a bit of the Jewish folk music I grew up with. Which reminds me, the weather's getting nice enough for me to practice on the sun deck on the top of my building before work (so, so much more pleasant than practicing in my current studio, the storage closet), so I should really get around to learning some of the music from Fiddler on the Roof.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: What other music do you play?
Fascinating! I ran from classical music. Was drilled on it ceaselessly as a child and lost all interest. Played punk, hip-hop, ska, reggae, so on. Kept the fiddle in the closet and when my first son was born, out it came, like a switch came on. He was in the high chair, it was St. P's Day, The Chieftains were on the CD player, "Oh the Britches" was playing, and there was a great flash of white light, trumpets sounded, "Huzzahs!" were heard, and then I sobered up. No, seriously though, what happened was I said "Hey, I bet I can play that...you wanna hear your old man play the fiddle there, shorty?"
"gurgle gurgle...slobber..."
"OK!"
He's 8 now. "Daddy, I'm trying to play video games, can you please go fiddle in the other room?"
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: What other music do you play?
As for stuff recognisably akin to ITM - from North America or These Islands - I pick up tunes that come in my direction as I can. I still can't play fast and well in the A Major family of keys, so much Scottish music passes me by - I just can't be fashed to practise it, though it's certainly possible on what I play.
I'm learning that Northumbrian isn't the only kid on the block in Northern English trad. I've heard some very exciting tunes in sessions that come from other places north of the Trent, and are altogether more like ITM in their nimbleness and catchiness than the worthy but often stodgy 4/4 stuff played down the decades by melodeon / bass / drumkit combos. English trad may have had a comparatively weak ongoing tradition, but it has a big back catalogue by way of tunebooks, and surprising stuff is coming out of those. Also of course people are writing tunes, some excellent, and here in the North East some lovely Scandinavian tunes are getting heard.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by nicholas
Re: What other music do you play?
Rock/jazz drumming and classical (mostly) piano.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Whiddler
Re: What other music do you play?
I grew up in the San Francisco bay area and greater west coast listening to everything kids listened to in the 70's and 80's. Started with Robin Trower and Pink Floyd when I pilfered my parents record collection. Then as I became a teenager I switched to Van Halen and other hard rock/metal bands. I've played drums all my life and had a brief stint on trombone in gradeschool. Later I became a HUGE Primus fan. "They SUCK!" LOL
Then I started to get bored with rock-n-roll and discovered ITM through a girlfriend who eventually gave me a bodhran for Christmas. I unintentionally flogged a few sessions and have stayed away from them ever since. The melodies reminded me of the guitar solos I enjoyed as a kid by EVH, Randy Rhoads and the like. The idea that it was for dancing never crossed my mind. This music rocked! That's all I knew.
I took up guitar to learn the tunes and songs I enjoyed to make me a better bodhran player. But now I hardly touch my drum. One thing I can mention is that picking the melodies is relatively easy once I noodle around enough to find the key. Strumming a harmony on the other hand, that is really hard... so far. For whatever reason, I just don't hear or feel where the harmony should be or come from. And moving a capo around to change keys while I play open chords is just weak and not very effective either. So I download the dots or tab or whatever I can find to go along with music I have on cds or videos from YouTube and practice, practice, practice.
I really wish I had a teacher or a mentor to help. Even a musical kindred spirit to practice with would be good. But I don't really have any close friends who listen to this music. They're all still headbangin' to 25+ year old hair-metal songs and wonder what the hell I hear in that "Riverdance music". (insert heavy sigh emoticon)
See you at the pub someday.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by Fishmonger
Re: What other music do you play?
I play everything (bar rnb and hip hop)
literally
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by alexthomas
Re: What other music do you play?
I'm genre challenged
I picked up the guitar at 14 and throughout the years have learned and played whatever tune or song or style piqued my fancy. Played mostly Rock&Roll and popular Folk music early on. By the late 70s I had almost completely lost interest in Rock, so I dabbled in Jazz and learned a few "easy" Classical pieces. Had a stint with Delta Blues and resonator guitars. Got into an Afro-Cuban thing and started playing congas and bongos (a fun diversion from guitar). "Punk" (in many of its various permutations) kept me energized through the banal Pop/Rock '80s and '90s. I came to ITM by way of the Pogues, but it was slow in coming. Currently, I'm in a band that plays a plethora of styles, or rather tunes and songs that may stylistically relate to, or sound something like, established styles but are actually quite different. We used to describe our music as "Ska Polka Klez Celtica Gitano Surf Rock." I prefer "European Style Americana," but we're really a global fusion band with no roots in any particular genre. At any given time I might be learning an original piece written by my wife (who fronts the band and does all the composing and arranging) or a "cover" tune like "Kalashnikov" or "Rumba Tziganeasca" or "Itzikel" or "Hasapikos" or "Akulvassi,"... (we've snuck a few of the Irish tunes into our live sets, but they are by no means trad renditions.)
I'm still very much in the learning phase of ITM, but it has become an obsession--so much so that the majority of my practice time is devoted to chipping away at the tunes... (I find the tunes to be GREAT finger exercises--and certainly much more enjoyable to play then scales and arpeggios
)
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by gw
Re: What other music do you play?
whoops! That's "Akuvalssi."
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by gw
Re: What other music do you play?
Sh*t, I was going to post a discussion on what other music people listen to, e.g. what albums (apart from ITM) do you hold in high regard, maybe I should still post it, what you think? Think of the turmoil deciding if Blood On The Tracks is better than Are You Experienced, I could, and might, go on.....and on.....and on.
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by strayaway
Re: What other music do you play?
Like your smile and your fingertips
Like the way that you move your hips.
I like the cool way you look at me.
Everything about you is bringing me misery...
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by gw
Re: What other music do you play?
This is a great thread. Nothing like getting everything out in the
open. Its very interesting to read about people's vast and varied experience, training and their love of music. Its great how all of these musician's have gravitated towards Irish music in particular, not because of it 's perceived simplicity ( in fact to me the opposite is true) , but because it works. . Its erased a preconception I've held that this site was dominated
by " folk conservatism" and even a few of the people I ( perhaps unfairly) labeled as being pre programmed die hard folkies have revealed themselves to be the opposite. Who am I to judge anyway ? Maybe this thread will lead to some interesting discussions on the "nuts and bolts" of Irish music
and what attracts us all to it. To me, it is it's Symmetry. (see
new thread.)
# Posted on April 18th 2008 by chuneboi slim
Re: What other music do you play?
guitar & drums in punk/indie bands.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by triplet upstairs
Re: What other music do you play?
Classical seriously--still can dabble but rarely do.
Jazz fairly seriously--don't play it at all nowadays.
Pop/Beatles/etc, vocals and guitar--do it occassionally but not much.
ITM--99% of all my free time +
Cheers!
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by InSearchofCraic
Re: What other music do you play?
Actually, I did gravitate to it it nbecause of it 's simplicity
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: What other music do you play?
I had no interest in music until that famous Sunday evening in February, 1964, when I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I was almost 13. Dad brought home a guitar the next day,and soon the band I formed was playing at our school dances.
I am a conservatory trained double bass player, and have played all the major symphonic repertoire.
I really love the balance of classical and trad (both ITM and GHB) in my life.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: What other music do you play?
Thanks to all the replies, this is a fascinating subject for me. I really enjoy reading about the myriad journeys we all take through music.
While I like to keep my fiddling separate from my guitar picking, I think the reasons I enjoy both are very similar. When I hear someone playing a difficult melody that is pleasing to the ear, I want to learn how to do it too. There have been many motivating players, but I have no doubt that Randy Rhoads alone contributed to hundreds of hours of practice for me. I always loved trying to figure out his solos by ear, but I often had to resort to tablature when the notes were too fast for me to pick out individually.
Recently I had the same experience watching a Tommy Peoples video on YouTube. "Laird of Drumblaire" - I have already submitted my family to several hours of that tune at about half the tempo, mostly incorrect intonation and scratchy bowing. But fortunately they like the music so no complaints yet. It's too much fun.
I also enjoy singing. That was my first "instrument" and I've spent time in a couple of choirs. That said I prefer singing either Irish songs or rock songs with a good vocal melody. I often put a CD in the car to sing along with when I'm driving.
I will always be thankful to a Donegal musician who let me play in his band in Annapolis and learn some of the old favorite drinking songs, ballads et cetera. That was my first real exposure to playing Irish music, several years ago. I still like those songs, but I enjoy tunes more now.
At the moment I'm debating on whether to stay home tonight or head to the pub and catch a couple hours of Irish trad by some local musicians I admire. Tough choice...hmm, I'll see you all tomorrow!
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: What other music do you play?
I played classical music on violin from age 5 through age 18 - first violin section but never "concert master". I didn't like it so much at the end because it became so serious and there was always this guy wagging the stick around in front of us. I also played sousaphone in the marching band at my college. That was big fun. It was more than just playing music. It was dancing around the football field and making different designs and being silly. I loved that. Then I found ITM. Little of both (a little bit serious, but a lot of silly). I also play fiddle for contra dancing, which is always fun. And English dancing, too. I came back to playing tuba in a jazz band where we played arrangements from the Golden Age of Jazz - 1920's and 1930's. We were 15 instruments and 5 vocalists. That was great stuff. These days, its all fiddle for ITM
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by John Culhane
Re: What other music do you play?
tiny tim & don ho tunes for me. Couldn't go a day with out 'em.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by Bodhi
Re: What other music do you play?
I wouldn't gravitate towards something because of its simplicity. In my opinion the speed of most Irish Dance music
makes it complex.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by chuneboi slim
Re: What other music do you play?
I play Oi! and Hardcore punk, my intro to Irish music was thanks to Dropkick Murphy's and the like. I am also getting into learning ska, reggae and rockabilly on my guitar, and baroque flute music for my flute.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by Boody
Re: What other music do you play?
Tiny Tim...? Oi!...? Those names really *are* a blast from the past, I had long forgotten their existence.
It may be childish, but the words "Conservatory trained" ALWAYS make me think of someone banished to practise in a greenhouse full of mouldering tomatoes covered in bugs!..
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by nicholas
Re: What other music do you play?
tiny bubbles...
in the wine...
makes me happy...
makes me feel fine...
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by airport
Re: What other music do you play?
Tiny bubbles
In my beer
Makes me feel fine
Makes me wanna cheer!
Good music tonight. I walked into the pub and was greeted to a noisy and crowded Friday night full of pub songs. At first I was a little put off, as these were musicians who I had previously known for their great tune playing. Hell, even I can crank out Finnegan's Wake when necessary. But I kept listening, and they threw in a set of jigs or reels in between each song. Great playing! It was a fiddler, a guitarist, and a bodhran player (who really knew what he was doing - it was terrific accompaniment).
I guess it was a nice experience for me to see that songs can be mixed with tunes in an effective performance.
Bear with me, I've had too much Guinness most likely, but I can definitely appreciate this sort of gig. These were musicians who frequently play sessions as well, but knew how to entertain a crowd. It really made me feel good that people cheered for the reels and jigs as much as the songs. Goes to show that American punters can appreciate traditional tunes as much as the songs.
Baroque flute, eh? I think the first Bach tune I learned on guitar was the minuet and badinerie. Can't recall the name of the work, but it's actually easy to play the flute melody on my LP. I've always wanted to throw that into a public performance if ever given the chance.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: What other music do you play?
In addition to ITM, I play fingerstyle guitar (and sing when pushed) for Beatles/Eagles/James Taylor/Ralph McTell/Richard Thompson/ragtime etc etc type things, as well as my own songs in a generic folkie sort of way, mostly for my own amusement. I'll play electric bass with anyone who'll have me - local musical productions and things.
With voice and acoustic guitar I lead our village church worship band every Sunday - band also has fiddle, flute, electric bass, piano and occasional bodhran.
Also dabble ineptly in a bit of classical guitar.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by ocarolan
Re: What other music do you play?
Just a side note about Randy Rhoads. HIs mother, who was a music teacher, gave him books of fiddle tunes when he was a wee lad to practice with his guitar.
Must be why I hear him when I listen to ITM.
# Posted on April 19th 2008 by Fishmonger
Re: What other music do you play?
speed doesn't make something complicated. How could it?
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: What other music do you play?
I've also read that Randy was a pretty good guitar teacher himself. I knew his mother had influenced him, but I didn't know that he learned fiddle tunes on the guitar when he was young! Maybe I wasn't so crazy to try that after all... Shame about the plane crash though. He would be a formidable composer and player today - and I'd have a lot more of his material to learn!
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by Scott Esch
Re: What other music do you play?
It's great to see Randy Rhoads mentioned here!
I'm a metal guitarist aswell as well as being a ITM banjoist...
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by riada
Re: What other music do you play?
There is a japanese zen garden quality to Irish music at
the very top level. Good examples are Mary McNamara or
Martin Hayes playing solo. So simple, but heart-breaking.
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by Hup
Re: What other music do you play?
In order to keep this post from being too long, I am going to try to mention only my current opportunities to play music instead of talking about my past opportunities to play music.
First of all, I play piano and bass (both acoustic and electric). If I want to, I can play piano at least four times a month at the local Irish Session.
On the first Monday of every month, I take my three-quarter size Englehardt bass fiddle and play it at the monthly meeting of a group of musicians who like to play old time music. By old time music, I mean the type of music which people used to play to amuse and bemuse themselves before we had the modern conveniences called railroads, radio, television, computers, sliced bread, etc.
On the third Monday of each month, I play my bass fiddle at a song circle at a local Baptist church which is hosted by the Minister of Education at the church. The Minister plays guitar, banjo, and fiddle as well as thinking that he can sing. He is one of the people who plays with the old time music group that I mentioned above.
Every Friday, if I want to, I can go to the Senior Citizen's Center in a suburb near here and play bass with some older musicians at the Center. When I sit in with this group, I am usually the youngest person there--unless someone brings one of their grandchildren.
On Sunday evenings, there is an Open Mic night at a local drinking establishment.
On Wednesday evenings, if I want to drive for one hour, I can sit in at a Blues Jam in another town.
Once every other month, I play piano for services at the church I attend.
And, last but not least, I play electric bass with the "praise band" at my sister-in-law's church once a month.
# Posted on April 20th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: What other music do you play?
I like to play folk from different european countries... since about 1,5 years ago i'm really into swedish fiddle music and went to summer school too in sweden last summer. I love it the way they manage to make 1 fiddler sound like 3 of them. nobody else here into scandinavian music? it's great!
If I had time, i would really get myself one of those medieval fiddles.
# Posted on April 21st 2008 by Mina the Fiddler
Re: What other music do you play?
Love all types of music, ceili bands, marching bands of every hue, classical and even a bit of good C/W. Not really into Rap/Hip Hop etc, although I've been known to do a rap version of 'Nell Flaherty's Drake' and 'The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God' Happiest listening to good accordion music and big band stuff especially those bands featuring great drummers such as Buddy Rich etc. There are however some music/songs that I can't stand and at the moment one bloody song that drives me up the wall is 'Galway Girl'
# Posted on April 21st 2008 by Free Reed