Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
instances of when it is not annoying:
when you hear or are playing in a great session, listen to great recordings, hear something new.
instances of when it IS annoying:
being in the main hotel at a fleadh, or a fest (ie: belbridge in the willie clancy) and around every corner there is a session and most likely it is pretty bad. or when you see people recording cds that shud not in their right mind record cds. im not giving examples. thatl just open up another debate.
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Rob, you're the sort of person who says "You have to endure the traumatic incident if you wish to vocalise the melancholy ballad," when you mean "You gotta suffer if you wanna sing the blues."
You wouldn't be a New Yorker by any chance ?
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Compared to -
Arabic music at full blast out of a tinny radio,
A class of 50 eight-year-olds singing Gary Glitter hits,
Tiny Tim with speeded-up whale sounds and atonal music,
Etc., etc.,
Irish traditional music *is* essentially annoying.
That is because, unlike the above, it intends to be.
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
benhall
all of the above ...I actually hadn't realized I'd written a ITM koan ;)
as I always say, "He made the good listeners as bad, and sold dog meat under the sign of mutton. And he himself thought it was wonderful. What if all the audience had laughed together? "
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Here in the US music is a bit like humidity....it penetrates everything it comes in contact with.
kids with ipods and headsets. Cars with huge speakers 'playing' rap and vibrating everything within a quarter mile. da-thump-a-thump-da-da-bummmm-bummmmm-bummmm. Yuk
And the whole concept of 'music' is so cheap as a result. Anyone with a sampling keyboard, a computer, and enough time to do music puts together grossly overproduced, over-effected claptrap. (I was going to make another joke 'and that's only the Church music- but I already said that in another thread her this week)
There seems to be no value for the creativity and craft 'real' musicians put into their music.
Even the worst played of ITM is better than that because there is still some craft left in it (if on ignores the overproduced/overeffected Irishesque crapola PBS runs during pledge drives.
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
mtodd ~ Trad is not essentially annoying. Some of the people who attempt to play it can be annoying. I agree whole heartedly with zippydw about the devaluation of so much music here in the US. The wicked old English of by-gone days needn't have outlawed Trad when they could have just as easily worked to trivialize it; sort of the way the old kings trivialized and marginalized free speach by instituting Hyde Park Corner. "See we have free speach. It's just that the speakers have to vie with a bunch of nutters in order to have their say." Pardon the digression.
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
IMHO:
It is music. Just that and nothing else, except who and what we choose to attach to it. (I will confess I held very romantic ideas about it, until having them sorted out largely by this site and others similar to it. I was wrong.)
In large part it seems to be dance music, though now mainly detached from the dancing that spawned much of it, hence the flexibility and variety in new interpretations or in new compositions. Not that anyone has taken up that point when I have brougth it up in the past, but, again, I think that the "roots" of the reels and jigs and what-have-you were the dancing, and to try to apply rules and values of tempo and rhythm from that long-past time to modern musical performance is not necessarily valid.
(i play for dancing, and if I played fiddle for a dance at just the tempo, never mind any other considerations, of much of what i currently hear from sessions, on the airwaves and online, I might find myself out of a job, hanged, or worse.)
I may get misty when i hear "Saints Go Marching In", but that is just me, not the music - it is simply what I invest the tune with. Same thing for "Danny Boy", "Galway Bay", "Pipie On The Hob" and "Silver Spear". It is what you attach to it, not any magic in the tunes themselves.
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
I do adore irish trad. music, but if I have to concentrate for something else, I have to switch it off. It is too disturbing and sometimes even annoying. It just goes on and on and on so happily, without a break and doesn't give me any chance to think about anything else, about the other problem I have to sort out. The head is just full of tapity tapity tapity tapity in a very fast speed Then it can be annoying.
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
If it is played with the attitude of "whoever gets to the end first, wins," then it is more annoying than gang banger rap with the bass at full throttle. But, if it is played with passion, enjoying every ringing note, then it is truly ear ambrosia.
Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
...except in certain instances. Discuss.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by mtodd
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Only to the wrong sort of people
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by RichardB
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
na nay
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Kess
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Surely the inherent perspicacity of the participants is intrinsically conducive to the phenomenological impact of the whole preternatural experience?
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by robharper
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Perhaps only in an ontological sense Rob.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by mtodd
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
"that would be an ecumenical matter" - Father Jack
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by RichardB
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
instances of when it is not annoying:
when you hear or are playing in a great session, listen to great recordings, hear something new.
instances of when it IS annoying:
being in the main hotel at a fleadh, or a fest (ie: belbridge in the willie clancy) and around every corner there is a session and most likely it is pretty bad. or when you see people recording cds that shud not in their right mind record cds. im not giving examples. thatl just open up another debate.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by tradmoosic
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
It's annoying when it's bad because it's bad; and it's annoying when it's good because it's better than you can do yourself.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by LowProfile
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
No. It really *is* annoying. I hate hearing it. That's why I have to join in whenever I do hear it.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Certain instances such as "anytime, anywhere"
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Whiddler
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Too deep for me.
Can we stick to fiddle, banjo or bodhran jokes.
Or go back that pseudo-theometaphysical thread someone started on the confluence of religious participation and spritual fulfillment at Sessions.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by zippydw
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
huh?
:D
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Fishmonger
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Rob, you're the sort of person who says "You have to endure the traumatic incident if you wish to vocalise the melancholy ballad," when you mean "You gotta suffer if you wanna sing the blues."
You wouldn't be a New Yorker by any chance ?
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Oh, no. What a surprise.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
You may very well think that. I could not possibly comment.
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by robharper
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
I think the title of this thread is indeed "deep".
Does it mean "the essence of ITM - its core - is annoying"?
Does it mean that "ITM annoys the hearer at an essential level, that is, the essence, the core of the hearer's being is annoyed"?
Could it mean that "ITM depends for its existence on being annoying. It is essential for it to be so."?
Or even that "ITM is necessary. And that's really annoying."?
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Only when you're sober and it's being played badly!
# Posted on October 23rd 2008 by dlkes
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
It's not the music it's the people. In no other genre reside so many critics.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by chuneboi slim
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Compared to -
Arabic music at full blast out of a tinny radio,
A class of 50 eight-year-olds singing Gary Glitter hits,
Tiny Tim with speeded-up whale sounds and atonal music,
Etc., etc.,
Irish traditional music *is* essentially annoying.
That is because, unlike the above, it intends to be.
Sometimes.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by nicholas
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
My wife finds it completely annoying.
But in her defence she has heard a thousand bum notes for every decent one thats ever come out of my flute.
Can't really blame her.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by Andyras1
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
and heavy-rock played full-blast in an empty pub (for the sole benefit of the barstaff) isn't.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by geoffwright
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
benhall
all of the above
...I actually hadn't realized I'd written a ITM koan ;)
as I always say, "He made the good listeners as bad, and sold dog meat under the sign of mutton. And he himself thought it was wonderful. What if all the audience had laughed together? "
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by mtodd
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
"Tiny Tim with speeded-up whale sounds and atonal music,"
People pay to hear that??? P.T.Barnum had it wrong; there are actually dozens born every minute...
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by pbassnote
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Here in the US music is a bit like humidity....it penetrates everything it comes in contact with.
kids with ipods and headsets. Cars with huge speakers 'playing' rap and vibrating everything within a quarter mile. da-thump-a-thump-da-da-bummmm-bummmmm-bummmm. Yuk
And the whole concept of 'music' is so cheap as a result. Anyone with a sampling keyboard, a computer, and enough time to do music puts together grossly overproduced, over-effected claptrap. (I was going to make another joke 'and that's only the Church music- but I already said that in another thread her this week)
There seems to be no value for the creativity and craft 'real' musicians put into their music.
Even the worst played of ITM is better than that because there is still some craft left in it (if on ignores the overproduced/overeffected Irishesque crapola PBS runs during pledge drives.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by zippydw
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
mtodd ~ Trad is not essentially annoying. Some of the people who attempt to play it can be annoying. I agree whole heartedly with zippydw about the devaluation of so much music here in the US. The wicked old English of by-gone days needn't have outlawed Trad when they could have just as easily worked to trivialize it; sort of the way the old kings trivialized and marginalized free speach by instituting Hyde Park Corner. "See we have free speach. It's just that the speakers have to vie with a bunch of nutters in order to have their say." Pardon the digression.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
AQ...you're pardoned.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by mtodd
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
IMHO:
It is music. Just that and nothing else, except who and what we choose to attach to it. (I will confess I held very romantic ideas about it, until having them sorted out largely by this site and others similar to it. I was wrong.)
In large part it seems to be dance music, though now mainly detached from the dancing that spawned much of it, hence the flexibility and variety in new interpretations or in new compositions. Not that anyone has taken up that point when I have brougth it up in the past, but, again, I think that the "roots" of the reels and jigs and what-have-you were the dancing, and to try to apply rules and values of tempo and rhythm from that long-past time to modern musical performance is not necessarily valid.
(i play for dancing, and if I played fiddle for a dance at just the tempo, never mind any other considerations, of much of what i currently hear from sessions, on the airwaves and online, I might find myself out of a job, hanged, or worse.)
I may get misty when i hear "Saints Go Marching In", but that is just me, not the music - it is simply what I invest the tune with. Same thing for "Danny Boy", "Galway Bay", "Pipie On The Hob" and "Silver Spear". It is what you attach to it, not any magic in the tunes themselves.
IMHO.
# Posted on October 24th 2008 by Rook
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Definitely.... I agree......
Annoyingly Essential!
# Posted on October 25th 2008 by banjoburger
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Found this while looking for Koans. It's from Jack Kerouac. (Not from On the Road, which, incidentally is a brilliant book, isn't it?)
"If you have ice cream, i will give you some
If you have no ice cream, I will take it away from you."
(It's an ice cream Koan)
# Posted on October 25th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Ben, I have it on good authority (Mr. Capote himself) that On the Road isn't writing, it's just typing.....
(Not the first time I've disregarded one writer's opinion of another, as a writer myself.
)
# Posted on October 25th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Yes, I heard that as well, Will. I expect that's why so many writers since have been influenced by it. They wanted to learn to type.
# Posted on October 25th 2008 by benhall.1
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Hahahaha!
I've always like the line about being a writer in a library is like being a eunuch in a harem.....
:-0
# Posted on October 25th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
Er,
# Posted on October 25th 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
I do adore irish trad. music, but if I have to concentrate for something else, I have to switch it off. It is too disturbing and sometimes even annoying. It just goes on and on and on so happily, without a break and doesn't give me any chance to think about anything else, about the other problem I have to sort out. The head is just full of tapity tapity tapity tapity in a very fast speed
Then it can be annoying.
# Posted on October 26th 2008 by luska
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
If it is played with the attitude of "whoever gets to the end first, wins," then it is more annoying than gang banger rap with the bass at full throttle. But, if it is played with passion, enjoying every ringing note, then it is truly ear ambrosia.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by Leendah
Re: Irish traditional music is essentially annoying...
I fully agree with luska's remarks, above.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by nicholas