The Session >> Discussions >> I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
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I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Does anyone else feel like that? I've played fiddle for 13 years.. started when I was really small- and I absolutely love it.. but I feel like I don't know enough about the backround.. the origins of the tunes... what "makes" a tune sound Irish vs. Scottish.. even though I can hear it, and play it..
where do Scottish airs come from anyways? I know a lot of Irish airs come from sean nos singing and if you play it "correctly" that's what it sounds like, but what about scots airs? the really grand ones? are they from the piping tradition, or were they written directly for the fiddle?
and.. yeah. what are some good resources for learning more? I feel like a prat sometimes, asking other musicians, as I mostly feel like i should know all this stuff, having played for so long..
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Yeah, I'm kinda in the same boat myself. I basically just listen to the music and play it, because it's fun and makes me happy.
I'd like to learn more about the history and broader cultural context of the music, and I'm sure I'll get into that at some point. But for now I'm just having fun with the music.
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
i don't know ANYTHING about that stuff really. but think about this. why do we really play music? not to be good at playing music, or to know the history about what you're playing but for the intertainment of yourself and others. its still cool to know all the other stuff too, but for me, its not why i play. i'd say have fun playing what your playing(and if you've been playing 13 years, you're probably no pushover) and have fun. but thats just me
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
You know, I have this vivid childhood memory of my brother and me riding in the back seat of our mother's car - I was 8 or 9, my brother was 3 or 4, and the radio was playing some cheesy instrumental arrangement of some equally cheesy 80's pop song. My brother commented, "This sounds so pretty - I love classical music!" In his mind, any music without lyrics was "classical". I knew otherwise, but I couldn't explain the distinction to my brother. Today, more than twenty years later and with more music theory under my belt than the layperson and even (I suspect) than the average musician, I don't think I'd be able to do much better in coming up with a way to explain, in words, why Dvorak's Eighth Symphony is a classical piece, but the orchestral arrangement of Billie Jean isn't. And even if I did come up with such an explanation, it would be a laboured, after-the-fact classification, rather than a taxonomy that I, at age eight or nine, was consciously appealing to in deciding (with near 100% accuracy) whether or not a piece I heard was "classical" music. Ditto for you, baby, in recognizing what makes a tune sound Scottish or Irish but not being able to articulate the distinction.
Daniel J. Levitan has a chapter of his book, _This Is Your Brain
on Music_, in which he discusses the complex and ill-understood thought processes that go into classifying music. I attended a talk by him last month, and in it he played a clip of the Nutcracker Suite, performed by a quartet of mandolins. Everyone in the audience recognized the clip at once,
and Levitan
mentioned that we audience members, most of whom were nonmusicians and most of whom were nonexperts, had performed a task that no computer program could do. The mental algorithm for classifying music is extremely complex.
I'm certainly not an expert on music in general or ITM in particular, but I have a knack for theory and good mind for patterns, and I have a broader formal knowledge about the structure of music than a lot of incredible musicians that I've had the privilege of playing with. But I certainly wouldn't say that I "know" more about music, in any relevant sense, than they do. I could probably sit them down for an hour or so and teach them a thing or two about music theory, but I'd rather just share tunes with them - they have far more to teach me than vice versa.
...A few months ago I asked my fiddle teacher to explain a remark he'd made a few weeks earlier about rhythms in E minor reels. He offered some explanation, spent a few minutes singing E minor reels to me, and then had me play one for him. There was something that I was missing, and he struggled to explain what it was. I managed to get it to some extent, but neither of us could articulate precisely what it was that I was aiming to accomplish, and not because either of us is lacking in communication skills . I left the lesson somewhat frustrated, but later I realized that if we could capture everything about music in words, there'd be little reason to be playing it instead of just sitting around talking about it.
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Baby, one way to learn more about this music and the tradition that bears it is from a good mentor or teacher.
Another option is to read up on it. Some good books:
The Companion to Irish Traditional Music by Fintan Vallely
The Northern Fiddler by Allen Feldman and Eamonn O'Doherty
Folk Music and Dances of Ireland by Breanan Breathnach
Traditional Music in Ireland by Tomas O'Canainn
There are also plenty of good books on Irish history and culture, as well as insightful, fun reads like Round Ireland with a Fridge and McCarthy's Pub and The Bodhran Makers.
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Kuntz's "Fiddler's Companion" is a web resource I use to find the history of tunes - I think it has some 30,000 Irish, UK and North American tunes listed, usually with abc's and a potted history under each individual tune history. It can be rather bewildering trying to find the index and the tunes, but keep plugging at the various web entries and you should get it sooner or later...
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Here's the link I use for Fiddler's companion. I really like the site and get a lot of info about my Scottish tunes. But there are thousands of Irish, American, and Canadian tunes listed. Have fun!! http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/index.html
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
I have quit playing sessions as of late. I have developed a narcissistic complex which was compensating for something else in musical acheivments. I was worried I would have the ego of a fiddler with a drinking problem. I have to protect my ego you know.
I have to stop starting my sentences with the word "I"
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
I can sympathize. I like not only Irish, but also Scottish and English music, and it's easy to feel like a dilettante when you encounter someone who is expert, or very experienced, in one particular genre or tradition. Hell, I've encountered teenagers who have far more of a grounding in Irish music history than I do.
What I try to keep reminding myself is, it literally takes all kinds to keep this music stuff alive and well. There is always going to be Someone Who Knows More Than You. But I've found that most people who play the music are grateful for your presence, whether you're a novice or a scholar. Just bring along your enthusiasm for learning, and a goodly dose of humility. Ask questions, especially if you're around older musicians. You won't necessarily turn into a walking encyclopedia of Irish music, but that's OK -- as long as you know a little more than you did the day before, it's progress.
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
You've asked a good and interesting question here.
Some while ago someone posted a comment, which was eventually perceived as a wind-up, but his basic point was that the music could not be taught, could not be appreciated, unless you had suffered in the same way as the people who first performed it; there was stuff about walking the cattle to the meadows, barefoot in the fog across the frozen dewey grass, etc.. Took some people a while to recognize the joke.
But there was a basic truth behind it, in that one of the factors that guided the developement of the music has to be the social context,and the mood of the people playing it. I would suggest that there are at least three other equally dominant factors; one is the actual character and talents of the leading musicians who played it, whose influence dominates and changes the music; and another is the instruments on which the music is played, and how they work together with each other; and the third is the actual purpose the music is for; after all, most of what we play is still the DANCE music of Ireland, even though the session now is some way removed from the dance scene.
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
awesome.. thanks for all the advice.. I mostly brought up this topic as I've somehow found myself signed up and contracted to give a workshop on Scottish/Irish fiddling at a big celtic festival near D.C. this weekend and am feeling a bit.. underqualified... when it comes to my "knowledge" of tha tunes.. but hey! this is how you learn right?
and hey sunnybear! the fleadh went just dandy actually- I won my slow airs..
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Hello There fellow fiddlers!
I answer to the Scots bit of the question:
The bagpipes are fundamental to way Scots perceive and mimick traditional tunes. The reason is that when the GHB was banned in Scotland the tunes were played on other instruments, as the grace notes are fundamental to the melodies of the bagpipe then there was replication of the sound on the fiddle.
Another small point is that there are different styles and traditions in different regions of Scotland.
Hope this helps a wee bit!!
Mafidguit
I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Does anyone else feel like that? I've played fiddle for 13 years.. started when I was really small- and I absolutely love it.. but I feel like I don't know enough about the backround.. the origins of the tunes... what "makes" a tune sound Irish vs. Scottish.. even though I can hear it, and play it..
where do Scottish airs come from anyways? I know a lot of Irish airs come from sean nos singing and if you play it "correctly" that's what it sounds like, but what about scots airs? the really grand ones? are they from the piping tradition, or were they written directly for the fiddle?
and.. yeah. what are some good resources for learning more? I feel like a prat sometimes, asking other musicians, as I mostly feel like i should know all this stuff, having played for so long..
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by baby
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Don't worry about it. Just enjoy the learning process. It never ends (unless you end it).
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Yeah, I'm kinda in the same boat myself. I basically just listen to the music and play it, because it's fun and makes me happy.
I'd like to learn more about the history and broader cultural context of the music, and I'm sure I'll get into that at some point. But for now I'm just having fun with the music.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Marklar
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
i don't know ANYTHING about that stuff really. but think about this. why do we really play music? not to be good at playing music, or to know the history about what you're playing but for the intertainment of yourself and others. its still cool to know all the other stuff too, but for me, its not why i play. i'd say have fun playing what your playing(and if you've been playing 13 years, you're probably no pushover) and have fun. but thats just me
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by sonofodin
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
You know, I have this vivid childhood memory of my brother and me riding in the back seat of our mother's car - I was 8 or 9, my brother was 3 or 4, and the radio was playing some cheesy instrumental arrangement of some equally cheesy 80's pop song. My brother commented, "This sounds so pretty - I love classical music!" In his mind, any music without lyrics was "classical". I knew otherwise, but I couldn't explain the distinction to my brother. Today, more than twenty years later and with more music theory under my belt than the layperson and even (I suspect) than the average musician, I don't think I'd be able to do much better in coming up with a way to explain, in words, why Dvorak's Eighth Symphony is a classical piece, but the orchestral arrangement of Billie Jean isn't. And even if I did come up with such an explanation, it would be a laboured, after-the-fact classification, rather than a taxonomy that I, at age eight or nine, was consciously appealing to in deciding (with near 100% accuracy) whether or not a piece I heard was "classical" music. Ditto for you, baby, in recognizing what makes a tune sound Scottish or Irish but not being able to articulate the distinction.
Daniel J. Levitan has a chapter of his book, _This Is Your Brain
on Music_, in which he discusses the complex and ill-understood thought processes that go into classifying music. I attended a talk by him last month, and in it he played a clip of the Nutcracker Suite, performed by a quartet of mandolins. Everyone in the audience recognized the clip at once,
and Levitan
mentioned that we audience members, most of whom were nonmusicians and most of whom were nonexperts, had performed a task that no computer program could do. The mental algorithm for classifying music is extremely complex.
I'm certainly not an expert on music in general or ITM in particular, but I have a knack for theory and good mind for patterns, and I have a broader formal knowledge about the structure of music than a lot of incredible musicians that I've had the privilege of playing with. But I certainly wouldn't say that I "know" more about music, in any relevant sense, than they do. I could probably sit them down for an hour or so and teach them a thing or two about music theory, but I'd rather just share tunes with them - they have far more to teach me than vice versa.
...A few months ago I asked my fiddle teacher to explain a remark he'd made a few weeks earlier about rhythms in E minor reels. He offered some explanation, spent a few minutes singing E minor reels to me, and then had me play one for him. There was something that I was missing, and he struggled to explain what it was. I managed to get it to some extent, but neither of us could articulate precisely what it was that I was aiming to accomplish, and not because either of us is lacking in communication skills
. I left the lesson somewhat frustrated, but later I realized that if we could capture everything about music in words, there'd be little reason to be playing it instead of just sitting around talking about it.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Baby, one way to learn more about this music and the tradition that bears it is from a good mentor or teacher.
Another option is to read up on it. Some good books:
The Companion to Irish Traditional Music by Fintan Vallely
The Northern Fiddler by Allen Feldman and Eamonn O'Doherty
Folk Music and Dances of Ireland by Breanan Breathnach
Traditional Music in Ireland by Tomas O'Canainn
There are also plenty of good books on Irish history and culture, as well as insightful, fun reads like Round Ireland with a Fridge and McCarthy's Pub and The Bodhran Makers.
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Aside from Will's recommended reading (half of which I still need to get to) online is "Irish Minstrels and Musicians" by Chief Francis P. O'Neill:
http://billhaneman.ie/IMM/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_O'Neill
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Kuntz's "Fiddler's Companion" is a web resource I use to find the history of tunes - I think it has some 30,000 Irish, UK and North American tunes listed, usually with abc's and a potted history under each individual tune history. It can be rather bewildering trying to find the index and the tunes, but keep plugging at the various web entries and you should get it sooner or later...
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by nicholas
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Here's the link I use for Fiddler's companion. I really like the site and get a lot of info about my Scottish tunes. But there are thousands of Irish, American, and Canadian tunes listed. Have fun!!
http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/index.html
# Posted on June 13th 2008 by crfiddler
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
maybe that;s it, Baby, (hi, by the way ; ) )
you can read about it and try to assimilate what you can ( you definitely have the passion) but unless you "live" it...
well...you get the drift I s'pose
how did the fleadh go?
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by Sunnybear
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
oh and I don't by any means am trying to put this down,,,it is what it is, and I am in the same boat...
I think that Scottish airs are also rooted in the singing voice...they all need to "breath", so to speak
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by Sunnybear
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
I have quit playing sessions as of late. I have developed a narcissistic complex which was compensating for something else in musical acheivments. I was worried I would have the ego of a fiddler with a drinking problem. I have to protect my ego you know.
I have to stop starting my sentences with the word "I"
I wonder if I have gone too far now?
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by Bodhi
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
The only thing to know about it is when
you first heard it and what you remember
doing then
-maybe when you first listened to it those
several first times.
brings back memories. Beyond that it's just
music.
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by dogmageek
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
I can sympathize. I like not only Irish, but also Scottish and English music, and it's easy to feel like a dilettante when you encounter someone who is expert, or very experienced, in one particular genre or tradition. Hell, I've encountered teenagers who have far more of a grounding in Irish music history than I do.
What I try to keep reminding myself is, it literally takes all kinds to keep this music stuff alive and well. There is always going to be Someone Who Knows More Than You. But I've found that most people who play the music are grateful for your presence, whether you're a novice or a scholar. Just bring along your enthusiasm for learning, and a goodly dose of humility. Ask questions, especially if you're around older musicians. You won't necessarily turn into a walking encyclopedia of Irish music, but that's OK -- as long as you know a little more than you did the day before, it's progress.
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by sts
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
You've asked a good and interesting question here.
Some while ago someone posted a comment, which was eventually perceived as a wind-up, but his basic point was that the music could not be taught, could not be appreciated, unless you had suffered in the same way as the people who first performed it; there was stuff about walking the cattle to the meadows, barefoot in the fog across the frozen dewey grass, etc.. Took some people a while to recognize the joke.
But there was a basic truth behind it, in that one of the factors that guided the developement of the music has to be the social context,and the mood of the people playing it. I would suggest that there are at least three other equally dominant factors; one is the actual character and talents of the leading musicians who played it, whose influence dominates and changes the music; and another is the instruments on which the music is played, and how they work together with each other; and the third is the actual purpose the music is for; after all, most of what we play is still the DANCE music of Ireland, even though the session now is some way removed from the dance scene.
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
awesome.. thanks for all the advice..
I mostly brought up this topic as I've somehow found myself signed up and contracted to give a workshop on Scottish/Irish fiddling at a big celtic festival near D.C. this weekend and am feeling a bit.. underqualified... when it comes to my "knowledge" of tha tunes.. but hey! this is how you learn right?
and hey sunnybear! the fleadh went just dandy actually- I won my slow airs..
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by baby
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
here baby...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZcxwbrvWTV8
been trying to get you to come along
# Posted on June 14th 2008 by Sunnybear
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
great tune! I'm too busy this summer though.. :(
# Posted on June 15th 2008 by baby
Re: I play the music.. but feel like i don't know shit about it sometimes
Hello There fellow fiddlers!
I answer to the Scots bit of the question:
The bagpipes are fundamental to way Scots perceive and mimick traditional tunes. The reason is that when the GHB was banned in Scotland the tunes were played on other instruments, as the grace notes are fundamental to the melodies of the bagpipe then there was replication of the sound on the fiddle.
Another small point is that there are different styles and traditions in different regions of Scotland.
Hope this helps a wee bit!!
Mafidguit
# Posted on June 16th 2008 by Mafidguit