Do you find yourself in the predicament that once you've started a rotten tune you have to see it out even though you detest its outcome? Don't get me wrong there's some cracking tunes out there that i'm always teething with and that i adore learning but there's just that faction of tunes that practicing them spoils my instruments sound . Ok could be my playing but none the less some tunes are a pain to finish and you find yourself speeding up just to get to the end. Am i the only one here?
They say confession is good for the soul, so here goes.
Not exactly the same thing, but similar: A guitarist calls for a certain Carolan tune, as he does every single time he's there, and which he always plays very... very... very......... slowly.
So this time I jumped in at the first beat, and forced the tempo up to a reasonable speed (for a waltz). Yes, to get it over with.
I'm so ashamed--but I just couldn't take it any more. I would have just gone to the loo or something, but I was trapped so it wasn't easy to get out. But the memory of it still haunts me. I won't ever do it again, I don't think.
I don't know if that makes you feel any better, but there it is.
Play a different tune, or if you have to use a metronome to keep yourself from speeding up. You don't want to practice speeding up, or it could become a habit.
Better just to stop at the end of a part with a sonorous long note or chord, prolonged enough to make the message clear to all present that you are beating a retreat from that tune.
Ah, we're all human. Don't knock yourself out over it. Been there, done that.
I'm brutally honest, but nice, or at least I try to be. Have a dear friend who insisted on playing Si Beag Si Mor at this death march pace, less the hill and the mountain and more the bog and the quicksand. I just told him straight up "Dude, you're killing me. Can we waltz this sucker up from now on, please?"
Speeding up people's tunes isn't really cool, that's just common sense politeness. It's akin to hurrying someone up when they're talking because they're boring the crap out of you. They may be, but still, it's just not polite.
I'm always polite to strangers, but after I play with you more than once we're not strangers anymore.
On the nosey, SWFL. It was the underhandedness (is that a word?) of it that got to me. But I think I learned my lesson, and life goes on. So far, anyway. ;>}
Ah mickray, that just shows what good folk you are. If you were a true ass, you wouldn't have cared so much.
Screetch, that's a good point all around.
upmine3, what makes you want to practice the tune, or play it all, if you don't like it? Feel as though you have to, maybe? Session mates know it, play it all the time? One of those ones you have to know?
There are only a very few tunes that grate on me, and I usually just sit them out. But sometimes I play along and use the time to focus on any small aspect of my playing, so I at least get some benefit from it. Or if I'm feeling snarky, I'll improvise a harmony or outlandish variations, or impersonate Jean Luc Ponty, anything to make the experience nauseating for the person whose fetish the tune is....
Who here isn't cursed with knowing more tunes than they care to play?
Yeah, if someone starts a tune I don't like, I'll usually just go out for a smoke, or, as Will says, I'll play a "creative" harmony.
But yes, occasionally, I'll start a tune myself that I don't care for much, by mistake. But as soon as I realise, I'll just stop and apologise. That or twist it into a tune I do like.
You get this kind of fun thing where people recognise a tune, roll their eyes at the tedium of it but get ready to come in on the second time through the first part anyway. But they hear something totally different as you flim flam around deliberately trying to put them off from joining in, then it settles onto something everyone would actually like to play and the relief gives this next tune an extra lift. It's a kind of thing that happens often enough in a session, and I'd love to hear it on a commercial recording.
Joseph reminds me of the musician who always goes "one tune too far" - you've just finished three great reels, everyone's on a high when they add on something a bit obscure and to make matters worse they only half know it ...... drat!!!
" Space...The Final Frontier. These are the variations of
The Session.org. Its 3 hour mission: to explore strange new settings, to seek out new tunes and new people to play among, to boldly go where no man/woman has gone before !"
What if you either have too much space in your head or no space at all in your head?
Of course, if you are a stereotypical "redneck", you have space between your teeth.
You sound like an "Enterprising" person to me, Mariska Hargitay.
Have you ever read Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb? It is a murder mystery set at a science fiction convention. Two Trekkies are planning to get married at the convention and someone accidentally disrupts the wedding ceremony because he doesn't think before he speaks.
I prefer Mary Anne to Ginger.
Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Do you find yourself in the predicament that once you've started a rotten tune you have to see it out even though you detest its outcome? Don't get me wrong there's some cracking tunes out there that i'm always teething with and that i adore learning but there's just that faction of tunes that practicing them spoils my instruments sound . Ok could be my playing but none the less some tunes are a pain to finish and you find yourself speeding up just to get to the end. Am i the only one here?
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by upmine3
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Just ta let you know it's Friday night and i'm half steamed when i wrote this post so there.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by upmine3
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
They say confession is good for the soul, so here goes.
Not exactly the same thing, but similar: A guitarist calls for a certain Carolan tune, as he does every single time he's there, and which he always plays very... very... very......... slowly.
So this time I jumped in at the first beat, and forced the tempo up to a reasonable speed (for a waltz). Yes, to get it over with.
I'm so ashamed--but I just couldn't take it any more. I would have just gone to the loo or something, but I was trapped so it wasn't easy to get out. But the memory of it still haunts me. I won't ever do it again, I don't think.
I don't know if that makes you feel any better, but there it is.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by mickray
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Play a different tune, or if you have to use a metronome to keep yourself from speeding up. You don't want to practice speeding up, or it could become a habit.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Better just to stop at the end of a part with a sonorous long note or chord, prolonged enough to make the message clear to all present that you are beating a retreat from that tune.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
I'd go get a beer and come back when it's over.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Wait, you mean at a session? Why would you start a tune you don't like at a session?
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Ah, we're all human. Don't knock yourself out over it. Been there, done that.
I'm brutally honest, but nice, or at least I try to be. Have a dear friend who insisted on playing Si Beag Si Mor at this death march pace, less the hill and the mountain and more the bog and the quicksand. I just told him straight up "Dude, you're killing me. Can we waltz this sucker up from now on, please?"
Speeding up people's tunes isn't really cool, that's just common sense politeness. It's akin to hurrying someone up when they're talking because they're boring the crap out of you. They may be, but still, it's just not polite.
I'm always polite to strangers, but after I play with you more than once we're not strangers anymore.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
On the nosey, SWFL. It was the underhandedness (is that a word?) of it that got to me. But I think I learned my lesson, and life goes on. So far, anyway. ;>}
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by mickray
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Ah mickray, that just shows what good folk you are. If you were a true ass, you wouldn't have cared so much.
Screetch, that's a good point all around.
upmine3, what makes you want to practice the tune, or play it all, if you don't like it? Feel as though you have to, maybe? Session mates know it, play it all the time? One of those ones you have to know?
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
There are only a very few tunes that grate on me, and I usually just sit them out. But sometimes I play along and use the time to focus on any small aspect of my playing, so I at least get some benefit from it. Or if I'm feeling snarky, I'll improvise a harmony or outlandish variations, or impersonate Jean Luc Ponty, anything to make the experience nauseating for the person whose fetish the tune is....
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by Will CPT
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Who here isn't cursed with knowing more tunes than they care to play?
Yeah, if someone starts a tune I don't like, I'll usually just go out for a smoke, or, as Will says, I'll play a "creative" harmony.
But yes, occasionally, I'll start a tune myself that I don't care for much, by mistake. But as soon as I realise, I'll just stop and apologise. That or twist it into a tune I do like.
You get this kind of fun thing where people recognise a tune, roll their eyes at the tedium of it but get ready to come in on the second time through the first part anyway. But they hear something totally different as you flim flam around deliberately trying to put them off from joining in, then it settles onto something everyone would actually like to play and the relief gives this next tune an extra lift. It's a kind of thing that happens often enough in a session, and I'd love to hear it on a commercial recording.
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Here we tend to have these polka sets that last forever that drive me up the wall
# Posted on July 11th 2008 by JosephofCK
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Joseph, I think it's best to whack the pace of those polka things right up, keep them on the edge.
Conversely, listen to Matt Molloy's Drowsie Maggie on his Heathery Breeze record. A re-invetion of sublime maturity.
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Joseph reminds me of the musician who always goes "one tune too far" - you've just finished three great reels, everyone's on a high when they add on something a bit obscure and to make matters worse they only half know it ...... drat!!!
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by Bannerman
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
OK, having been deservedly chastised on the other thread I'll comment on this one too.
I've seen this happen often and I wonder WHY if the players are so fed up with a tune they bother to play it at all.
However, I reckon it really depends on the time, place, and mood of the session.
Most tunes can "fit in" somewhere..sometime. It's just a question of knowing where and when.
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by Johannes J
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
It's not a case of time, place, or mood of the session. It's a case of finding the space in your own head
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
"It's a case of finding the space in your own head"
Yes, but is that not dependent on the "time, place, or mood of the session" up to a point?
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by Johannes J
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
" Space...The Final Frontier. These are the variations of
The Session.org. Its 3 hour mission: to explore strange new settings, to seek out new tunes and new people to play among, to boldly go where no man/woman has gone before !"
Woo wooooooooooooo wo wo wo wo wowo wooooooooooo
Da da di da da da da-daaa Dum di Dummmmmmmm
;0)
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by Ray Mariani
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
"Da da di da da da da-daaa Dum di Dummmmmmmm"
I think it goes more like:
Da di daaah.... da da da di daaah...... di Dummmmm!!!!
Anyway, I sometimes throw it in at the end of a tune, during the sound of No Hands Clapping.
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by mickray
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Couldn't decide if it should be a "It's 3 hour mission"
or
"It's 3 hour session"
Should the case be made between a mission & a session, or did I indirectly hijack this thread.
Hey, how 'bout a 3 hour tour.
Ginger or MaryAnne?
this is me going away now.
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by Ray Mariani
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
What if you either have too much space in your head or no space at all in your head?
Of course, if you are a stereotypical "redneck", you have space between your teeth.
You sound like an "Enterprising" person to me, Mariska Hargitay.
Have you ever read Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb? It is a murder mystery set at a science fiction convention. Two Trekkies are planning to get married at the convention and someone accidentally disrupts the wedding ceremony because he doesn't think before he speaks.
I prefer Mary Anne to Ginger.
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
Oh, it's Mary Anne for me, too.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23579660/
Girls just want to have fun. ;>}
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by mickray
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
I have not read that book fauxcelt, but I do like humorous subjects.
I will check it out.
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by Ray Mariani
Re: Speeding up a tune you're fed up with
And an appreciation token for my friend the Reverend
http://www.canucarve.com/open.php?picurl=38.jpg&album=3
# Posted on July 12th 2008 by Ray Mariani