The Session >> Discussions >> Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
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Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
There's a very interesting editorial this month in JMI [journal of music in ireland] by Toner Quinn.
He raises the question about how much of purported "solo" albums actually feature accompaniment (hence aren't really solo) and, how, in fact ITM listeners are now so used to the super group approach and/or high-powered accompanists to the 'solo' artist [Lunny, Paul Brady, Alec Finn et al] that *perhaps* fewer ITM listener's are aware of the pure drop stuff, or, fewer make it there owing to "many others will simply want more of what they like", writes Quinn. [eg., Lunasa etc]
My question: do you prefer your music unaccompanied in the true sense? Do you think accompaniment has made ITM more accessible to listeners on the one hand, but also led them away from an older/traditional way of playing before the advent of ceili bands and the like, on the other?
[some of my favourite cds are strictly solo affairs. James Kelly's solo effort being one. So I was quite interested to read Quinn's piece. I'd never really thought about this before....]
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Being a melody player, I tend to block out the backing stuff anyway, for the most part. To the point that someone will point out something that the guitar did, and I'll think "oh wow, there's a guitar in the mix?"
But a little texture in the recording never hurts (especially in commercial recordings anyway). I'm sure it helps to make them sell better. And as long as the melody is king, I don't mind it.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Well, that's interesting Rev.
You say it "doesn't hurt"....but, with respect, I'd say, well, many times it does. Or at least it doesn't add anything except another layer I have to peel away from the music to hear what I really want.
Given the two solo fiddle cds by James Kelly I prefer him without the guitarist. For my money it's far more engaging.
We've got *so much* texture in our lives wouldn't it be nice to strip all away and get back to the plain, raw instrument itself. Who needs texture?
Just look at the great recordings by Brian MacNamara for example.
I wouldn't want any texture there. There's plenty of texture in his own playing I think. And then some.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Reverend, how many times have I said that melody player's couldn't listen, and that's why you need guitars and bodhrans to keep it together at a session.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But isn't the artistry of the soloist enough? If I'm listening to Mico Russel I wouldn't want a strummer anywhere near him. His wonderful music doesn't need "backing"...it needs nothing.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
>> But isn't the artistry of the soloist enough?
Enough for *what*? Enough for you and me, sure! Enough to make a recording sell well enough to make it a worthy venture, instead of a waste of money? Maybe, but maybe not.
Recordings with "high powered" accompaniment have a broader appeal, especially to people who grew up listening to multi-layered music, like Rock and Roll.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I listen to almost nothing but solo recordings. It annoys me when I buy a "solo" album and then I hear a guitar sneaking in on some tracks.
It's not really that I'm such a hardcore fan of the pure drop, I just plain prefer to hear tunes played solo. I hear more "depth" that way, if that makes sense. There's something magical in a good solo recording that I don't think that a band can capture, and even a single backer can get in the way (hello, Coleman's piano player).
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes mtodd and you are right and i am wrong. I said *I* like it. Just me, not talking for anyone else. I love a good backer and I tell you this - I'd take a good backer in a session any day rather than a lousy or even medicore melody player. Because they are artists too, if you are a really good backer you can bring heaps to the music. What is this obsession with people on this site dissing other peoples opinions on music? Alot of people like backing, alot dont. I dont start threads going on and on about how good backing is and isnt it awful and the magic gets ruined when people play *solo* do I? No, because everyone is entitled to their opinion. And its no less valid than anyone elses.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
personally i think its definately (accompaniment i mean) made the music easier to access for a wider audience, which is certainly a good thing. i do find that people wud find it easier to listen to the music with backing. good backing i mean. personally i wud want a good backer or no backer at all. but i wud also like to listen to completely solo with no backing. i wud class being solo in relation to how many people are playing the melody or the actualy tune, like if someones making a solo cd, i would still presume they have backing, but wud still say it solo just because thats the way recording has gone. but the thing about looking for more of what they like, i like backing, but i dont like lunasa ( i dunno why he made the correlation there).
i think some musicians playing lend more to backing then others. the artistry of the soloist IS enough mtodd., but certainly in some cases backing adds something, if the backer is good and sympathetic of course. there plenty of classic recordings with backing, frankie and alec, mary bergin and alec, and you mentioned james kelly, listen the Capel Street recording if you can find someone who has it, not in shops anymore. a classic cd with arty mcglynn. but there are absolute classics without it, sean keane gustys frolics for example, casey in the cowhouse, tommy potts.
i thought what you said about b mcnamara interesting mtodd, i have a good question though, as regards regulators for the pipes (which any piper wil tell you is basically self backing for the instrument) do you think that the pipe playing NEEDS them in order to get the whole experience of that instrument, seeing as it is what sets them apart from other pipes? my own opinion would be yes, but obviously if they are played well.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
bb
You misunderstand my reply. No where above do I slag your opinion. I'm just debating it. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not saying I'm right. Of course you're entitled to your opinion!. And it's a good one. I'm certainly not slaggying *you* personally either -- just to be clear.
I thought we were having a discussion. Let's not make it personal. ok? thanks.
by the way, I can appreciate good backing as much as anyone, but it's interesting in the article that Quinn raises the very criticism Marklar raises which is how supposed "solo" albums often have backers [in fine print] and how annyoing that can be.
He also touches on a point raised by Rev which is we may now indeed require high powered names to sell cds....
hey, i didn't write the piece...i'm just raising the issue.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Agreed, bb, it's a personal taste, and it doesn't necessarily lead to harmony when we argue about our own personal tastes here...
For me, there's also a distinction to be made between listening to a recording, and playing in a session. I definitely love playing with good backers. It's an energy groove that is self sustaining, and loads of fun! Do I consider it necessary? No.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
so i guess by that marklar you wud find alec finns playing annoying? (n ot trying to start an argument or anything, thats the way it comes across to me). i love unaccompanied music as much as the next person, but i still think that certain backers can add even more depth if they are good enough, mary bergins album for example. its only a whistle, but listen to what she does, its beautiful, couple that with alecs inspirational backing, it transcends backing really. this creates a whole new experience to if the cd was completely solo, i dont find it annoying at all, in fact i find it great that there is more to listen to. every time i listen to that cd i hear something new. thats what decent backing can bring to the genre.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Alec Finn is not a high-powered accompanist. Do you agree mtodd? He should definitely not be classed amongst the other two aforementioned bandits!!!
Marklar, Coleman had about 10 different accompanists. Not all bad. A few were very very good. One, Herbert G. Henry, was terrific. He played on two tracks, Mrs. Kenny's Barndance and on Dr. Gilberts. Check it out.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I wonder how much of the disagreement is to do with the terminology rather than the actual recording. I also wonder if it's the artists themselves or others (promoters, reviewers, general public) who apply this terminology.
I don't believe backing is of detriment to the music - you have to remember that it's the artist themselves who have chosen to have accompaniment there, so who are any of us to critise this, regardless of whither we perceive the music to be good or not.
There are far too many gifted backers out there to make sweeping statements about their role or place in the music. Many of them are also superb melodic players on other instruments, which I would suggest adds to their ability to contribute to the music.
Could you criticise the terminology when applying it to albums without accompaniment? What about the recent release of Bobby Casey's music; The Spirit of West Clare? There's no backing, although it has duets on it with his son Sean and with Tommy McCarthy, but it I were to think of the album, I would still view it as a *solo* recording. These tracks have a different element within them - the interplay between two musicians. Is the same not possible between a melodic player and an accompanist? I would argue it is, and there have been many examples already listed on this board (frankie and alec, and one I would also suggest, The Iron Man with peoples and daithi) that demonstrate it.
Personal taste? I like it with some things and not with others. Think banjo works much better with backing but think it takes away from the pipes. Just personal opinion.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I like to play ITM solo, naked, in the morning, with a cup of tea. But later on in the day, after I get dressed, I like to play with accompaniment because I'm a lot more secure when I'm fully dressed, or maybe just wearing a wife beater and tighty whities!!! Yee haaa.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not really saying that backers are bad for the music or anything like that at all. The fact of the matter is that most melody players (myself included) can really use some backing and don't really have what it takes to carry things solo.
But if I'm going to listen to a high-level professional melody player, I prefer to hear it solo. Of course, part of it is that I bought the recording just to hear that one person, so anyone else gets in the way no matter how good they are.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I love my ice cream straight. I also love it with chocolate syrup, nuts and banana slices.
If I could have only one recording – a single track – it would have to be bare naked fiddle, with no accompaniment. If I could have two, the other would be bare naked pipes. Give me three or more and I’ll start adding the other melody instruments and some zouk or guitar.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Bob - Great analogy! I'd rather a sundae packed to the gills with hot fudge sauce, nuts and cream and all kinds of special stuff than just plain ice cream, same goes for music
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Another one of these threads that gets sucked into the argument of liking solo melody v. backing, as if it were impossible to like both. I love my solo, naked, fiddle and pipes recordings, but I also love the group recordings which encompass everything from Nollaig Casey and Art McGlynn to bands like Old Blind Dogs featuring the old (congo) drum set.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I have only experienced the solo tradition a handful of times live. So to me it is a separate reality.
I did enjoy what I heard on the 1st 'Come West Along the Road' dvd.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i like how skip, grand spy and trad moosic think. they sound like very knowledgeable people. i wud feel like i wud like to have a drink with them sometime. i have a lot of free time now that i've finished my basketweaving course in trinity college. :D
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't think you can really compare the music "solo" to "with accompaniment".
It's not like ice cream compared to ice cream with chocolate syrup, nuts and banana slices. The additions don't change the ice cream, they add to it.
This is not the case with diddling on its own and diddling with a good strummer. The whole music is completely different when you play solo or in ensemble. It's almost different music.
That's not to say you can't prefer one over the other, but you can't really compare.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i like the taste of ice cream in the morning, but I LOVE the smell of napalm in the morning.
fiddleruairi, i'll gladly meet you for a drink, we'll go out and tear up the town. Maybe get real drunk and go beat up some bouncers. Letterkenny should be a good place to go. And I promise I won't tell your mammy!
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
sounds like a plan. maybe we can get some bouncers that like to harrass people by smashing their instruments against walls and stealing their shoes. like the ones at the oireachtas...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I kinda like some well played guitar backing to tunes, but absolutely can't stand the old style thumping piano backing that some recordings have, and would much prefer nothing to that. It's funny how fashions in things like that change over time.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I'm with Skip. Why is everyone saying "solo" as "unaccompanied"? There's no accompaniment on Star Above the Garter but it's a duo CD, Denis and Julia together. There is a crucial difference between one melody player, two or more melody players, and a melody player or players with one or more accompanists.
Personally, I'm a two-melody man, and then solo melody, followed by all other iterations of whatever. Playing with accompaniment legitimately throws off my playing! I was in a session recently, playing a tune for a friend and the zouk came in softly from below...it just put me off to hear it, I lost the tune a couple times. There's something odd about interacting with another melody player and interacting with an accompanist...can't quite get my head around it.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Remember, if you're a soloist (by which I mean no accompaniment whatsoever) there's nowhere to hide"
So true, and unless you're one confident player with nerves of steel it's hard to perform all alone. I went to the Arkansas State Fiddle Championship (old-time contest) this year for the first time, and was surprised by the fact that every contestant (except for one I think) had accompaniment, which was optional under the rules. Some even had an entire old-time ensemble with them, complete with double bass!
I guess my point is, solo playing in public isn't for everyone, including people who are very good melody players. Thank goodness for sessions, where you can saw away under the influence of too much beer and give dirty looks to the box player when you screw up, just to throw everyone off.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Is it just me skimming through this thread too quickly or is it that it seems a lot of snobbery is being displayed here. Not all but a fair few posts. And it's musicians snobbery. Yes, I myself like to hear the pure drop, unaccompanied, or just duetted/trioed, as in just two or three flutes (my favourite sound in the world), melody instrument(s). A slight aside here but I think often what musicians look out for is not the same as what non-musicians look out for. What we want to hear is expertise in ornamentation as well as holding it together with swing, etc. I think what non-musicians hear, and look out for, is the swing, in the first instance, then the beauty of the music, of which may be contributary might be ornamentation at various levels, many subliminal to their non-actively playing ears, but a good non-playing listener will know his/her stuff - and often will have a better grasp than a mediocre player.
So, ok, rambling here, but as much as I love to "get inside a solo players head" by listening to solo recordings (however this will be finally defined) I love also the sound of the top class tight bands, whose names I won't mention lest it inflame a debate as to whether Pady Moloneys gang can beat up Frankie Gavins gang or Jackie Daly/Andy Irvine's..etc....
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Good backing should be subtle.......perhaps even subtle to the point where most wouldn't notice it. No accompaniment should distract the listener from the inner musicality of the tune. The accompaniment should instead augment the impact of a tune on the performer and in turn the listener.
Much has been made of the hyperactive technical styles of certain accompanists. I for one regard the musicality of simplicity itself above all else, for example: Arty McGlynn's ability to sustain one chord for one whole round of a tune without it sounding monotonous!
Backers need to learn the tunes just like the melody players, the unnoticed accompanist has done the job properly!
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But if the backer is virtually unnoticed, then what's the point? If I'm listening to a melody player with a backer, I like the backer to catch my attention and kick in some ooomph once in a while.
I want to hear the musicians interact and shape the music together, rather than just listen to one and tune out the other. I may prefer listening to solo recordings most of the time, but it's not like I hate hearing backers and I appreciate listening to a good one.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Personally, I think listening to a soloist - with certain exceptions - is almost boring. What I really enjoy listening to is a smaller group of musicians that accompany a musician who solos on the melody. I can listen to the same tune over and over, focusing on one specific element each time - that is, the melody one time, then the guitar backup (especially when played finger-picking style), then just a hint (hopefully) of bodhran the next time. On the other hand, I think ceili bands are way too overbearing, which creates a total void of emotion in the music.
For me, group music touches my soul more than a soloist (again, with occasional exceptions). I liken it to a beautifully executed ballet in which interaction between the two dancers can bring so much more emotion to the dance with their interaction. I can also liken it to a very fine meal. Sure, you can eat a perfect cut of filét mignon all by itself, which will certainly be tasty and fill you up. But, that meal will become a sensation for all the senses if that fine cut of mean is enjoyed with colorful, tasty salad, good wine, and the company of someone very special.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The pretension here is amazing. Unless you were born in 1850, when there was no backing at all in Irish Music then you are just jumping on the 'unaccompanied' bandwagon. It's part of what we all grew up listening to. I can think of only a few living exceptions in the whole of Irish music who haven't ever played with backing and who probably never gleaned some joy from it, without being pretentious.
I do believe that like any art form, at the end of the day, it's all about the 1. Like the poet, writer or painter, it's very much about recognizing the expression of 1 person, doing on their own what they do best. If it's impossible for someone to do that or at least learn to do that then they will probably be lost forever.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Good thread, good points made.
What bothers me even more though is, where I can find more solo (literally solo, no backer, no nothing) without all the studio enhancement? I am tired of picking up a CD and finding it has little in common with "acoustic" anything.
Different subject, I suppose.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't get where the either/or come into to it. Most good players do both. Most good players do both on their albums. And if you do both, what's the point of doing an album of exclusivly one or the other?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Plain 'ol vanilla is ok but I much prefer my ice cream with very heavy doses of chocolate, nuts and whipcream. But please don't forget to add strawberries and bananas. Sometimes it's even better when you mix 2 different kinds of ice cream as well.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Being a melody player, I tend to block out the backing stuff anyway, for the most part."
Sometimes I *wish* I could do that, Reverend. There's nothing more off-putting than a backer who doesn't understand where the tune's going, or worse, who just doesn't have a clue what key or time it's in. But I also thoroughly enjoy playing with a good backer.
Chord instruments are very much a part of traditional music nowadays, and while they are not essential to *every* rendition of *every* tune, if all backing were to disappear from traditional music overnight, I think there would be a very conspicuous void left behind. There are many trad musicians around today who habitually play with backing - perhaps one particular backer - and who develop a musical rapport with the backer. They might also enjoy playing alone, or with other melody players and no backing, but that is not the same music - if Frankie Gavin makes a recording with Alec Finn, then what they play is 'the music of Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn', not 'the music of Frankie Gavin with Alec Finn in the background', even though the latter's role in that music may indeed be that of 'backer'.
What is a different matter altogether is when a 'soloist' records with a backer because it is seen as a requirement - that the music would not and could not be complete without some chords (whether or not they are the right ones :.) ) . There are many examples of this, going back, as we know, to some of the very earliest commercial recordings of traditional music. There is at least one example, even, of guitar backing being overdubbed separately onto a fine solo fiddle recording (Its saving grace is that it was recorded with one instrument in each channel, so you can turn down the guitar and just listen to the fiddle).
I think it is true to say that there are fewer musicians around today who habitually play solo. There is a much stronger emphasis on forging musical partnerships than there once was Perhaps this is partly due to a shifting of role models, with *bands* being very much in traditional music consciousness of today. But also, I think it is simply the fact that the primary vehicle for traditional music is the session, so playing together is the norm, and, at best, strong musical partnerships result from that.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I rarely think of musicians playing together as being divided into melody and backing. I've only got one pair of ears, and it all sounds like a joint effort to me. Good musicians complement each other in some way, whatever parts they play.
The quote (though possibly out of context) referred to sounds like another would-be taste dictator bemoaning that "people want more of what they like"
No kidding.
Surely they should be lining up for ashes and sackcloth? Or I suppose he'd insist on pure unaccompanied sackcloth.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The irony, of course, is that most of us play/practice/whatever in isolation. That is, we mostly learn the music and practice it solo. But likely we play "accompanied", ie, mostly in sessions. And as MG says, that's really almost an entirely diff form of the music for various reasons.
I suppose it really raises the question, is irish music really a solo art? Or, rather, WAS it? For I think Quinn is saying [and, no, Bren I didn't quote him out of context]. we are possibly in danger of llosing that along with the appreciation for the solo artist -- why? is it because of the pressure to sell records and the "rise of the accompanist"...[which may have started with that first bit of out-of-time thumping piano on Coleman's early recordings, or Reg Hall in the background on Paddy in the Smoke cd, or whatever.]
As Llig pointed out somewhere above if I can paraphrase, solo is solo. Duo is duo. And then there the "solo" artist[s] who actually isn't solo at all, but may have one or more accompanists because he/ she [perhaps] feels they can't sustain a solo performance. Is that the reason? Or maybe it's just a *commercial* reason.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"I suppose it really raises the question, is irish music really a solo art? Or, rather, WAS it?"
No. Yes. It doesn't matter.
It's a living tradition, just because things were done a certain way long ago doesn't mean it still has to be done that way.
There's room for solo playing, accompaniment, bands, etc. It's just a matter of personal preference as to what you listen to, I don't think that any one approach is more "correct" than another.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"There is at least one example, even, of guitar backing being overdubbed separately onto a fine solo fiddle recording" (ragaman)
Is that Tommy Peoples' "Fiddler's Fancy" CD? If so, that confirms my suspicions when I posted it here a few years ago. See my comments on http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1099.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I agree with Marklar's comment about being able to perceive and hear more "depth" when a tune is played solo with no accompaniment whatsoever.
If a recording is advertised as a "solo" recording, then I think that is what it should be--just one instrument and only one instrument.
Yes, bb, this issue has been done to death on this web site before. Would you like to help me kill it again? That would probably be as much fun as beating a dead horse (he said sarcastically).
Speaking of "high-powered accompanists" Grand Spy, I prefer to think of myself as a low-powered accompanist. I don't know whether or not the other musicians at the local sessions would agree with this opinion of myself. You would have to ask the other musicians what they think of my talents and abilities since I am speaking only for myself and not for anyone else.
I don't have any four-sided triangles or know of any married bachelors, skip canlon, but as an example of a stupid ox, I would like to offer the term "military intelligence".
I like my ice cream with chocolate syrup and whipped cream but you will have to leave the nuts and bananas off because I am allergic to both of them.
Yes, lazyhound, you can play but you can't hide.
When I was younger, I performed by myself on a piano playing ragtime music out-of-doors at a local music festival in front of an audience of hundreds of people. It was scary and exciting and challenging while also being enjoyable for me. Ragtime piano music (especially some of the pieces by Scott Joplin) is somewhat more complicated than the music we are discussing here.
At the monthly meetings of the old-time folk music society where I play acoustic bass, we have a variety of performances. We usually start with all of the musicians playing three tunes together.
Then we start our regular program with some people performing solo on an instrument by themselves; some people singing by themselves while accompanying themselves on an instrument such as a guitar or a banjo; some people singing unaccompanied by any instrument or anyone else; some people singing vocal duets unaccompanied by any instruments; and other people performing as a duo or a trio on their respective instruments. At the end of the evening, we have a general jam session for everybody who is still there and wants to participate to finish off the monthly meeting.
We have been using this mixed variety format for forty-something years now and this group of mixed nuts is still going strong.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Ragtime piano music (especially some of the pieces by Scott Joplin) is somewhat more complicated than the music we are discussing here."
Sometime the comments on this site beggers belief.
There are numerous examples and exponents who demonstrate why this music is as beautiful, complex and diverse as ANY other genre of music. Many of their names and recordings are listed on this topic; you should try listening to them sometime.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"For I think Quinn is saying [and, no, Bren I didn't quote him out of context]. we are possibly in danger of llosing that along with the appreciation for the solo artist"
I suppose that is why I have a problem with statements like that. He's not saying that "we" are in danger of losing it, because he clearly doesn't see himself as someone who lacks appreciation, so he's not including himself. It's those horrible masses out there - "you" - who need to have their tastes controlled somehow, lest they just go out and, god forbid, "buy more of what they like" - and that is somehow polluting the legacy of extant solo recordings
As far as I'm aware, the great solo unaccompanied recordings made since the days Edison have not been systematically destroyed and more than enough survive, more than any individual can listen to in a lifetime, are available. It's not like every time you buy a CD with Alec Finn on it, an unaccompanied puppy dies
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ah skip, have you ever tried playing ragtime? Trad is no doubt beautiful and intricate but lets be reasonable here!
Trad has no need of complexity, it stands strong in its simplicity. In many ways it is incredibly simple form music compared to Classical ,jazz ,and ragtime Indian and Arabic Classical music. In fact I would say its all the better for it. That surface simplicity allows for an incredible depth. That I think is one of the mistakes musicians comping to trad make. They look at the simplicity of it and presume that its as simple to play! big mistake! With very complex music its only possible to really get deep within it with an incredible skill and an awful lot of dedication, so most people dont. They just skim the surface yet still 'play' the music. This leads them to presume that a similarly superficial approach to trad will work, it doesn't.
Back to the subject. I listen almost exclusively to unaccompanied trad, solo and duo's. I think the problem with accompaniment is that many accompanists use Equal temperament. This in my view flattens out the music to an extent that bothers me. The depth of harmony and melody can become same-ified. The richness is lost. Now of course there are accompanists who tune specifically to the keys we play in and this can create an immensely powerful sound. The harmonies from all the overtones build up and up. While with EQ they dont 'go' anywhere. Its not the accompanist that is the trouble, its that they are out of tune, especially if they rely on some stupid little gadget that cost them a tenner! I know modern electric pianos give many tuning options, what system do you use Fauxcelt? and if its EQ would you consider or have you, experimented with some of the other options?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Llig Leahcim would like to know who my "certain exceptions" are concering solo music, but I must admit that I'm positively dreadful about name-dropping. I'm a very busy person, and I often listen to ITM somewhat passively, like when at work or at home distracted by chores and such. So, that means that I rarely know or take the time to memorize the name of the musician/s who just played a tune that I particularily enjoyed hearing. And for this admission, I will gracefully accept the thump on the head that all you die-hard music-listeners will want to give me.
I agree totally with ragaman when he said, "...I think it is simply the fact that the primary vehicle for traditional music is the session, so playing together is the norm, and, at best, strong musical partnerships result from that.".
I remember reading somewhere years ago that all this wonderful ITM was pretty much a well-kept secret in Ireland, and that the main mission of the Chieftains was to bring the music to the world. They did that magnificently, making ITM one of the most beloved folk music genres in the world. So, it's not surprising that the world has come to love group music more than solo.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ionannas, yes I have played, and studied ragtime - even performed some as part of a solo recital once. But would still argue that trad is as complex and as beautiful as it or any other genre. The two defining characteristics of it that I would site would be melodic variation and ornamentation, and use of tone and tonality. Are the variations within Potts' playing not as complex and as beautiful as anything ever recorded? Or the sound that Casey got from the fiddle? I'd suggest that if you don't think so, then ITM, and this site, is not for you. That's my main gripe with fauxcelt's comment. We're all entitled to opinions, but if you're going to lessen the music by comparing it unfavourably to other genres, then do it somewhere else. You may argue that it doesn't need to be complex, and that it's great you can sit down with your €50 mandolins and Guinness bodhrans and bang away with some friends in a local pub session and think you get the 'real deal', but the true height of this artform is the likes of Casey, Potts, Coleman, Clancy, Ennis etc. and their music is as complex and beautiful as any other.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Haven't waded through all the verbiage, but regarding the nit-picking about regulators, double-stopping etc, I'd define a one-man-band (drum, squeezebox, knee cymbals, mouthorgan and harmonious farting) as a solo performance.
Well, he'd probably be playing with himself to a non-existent audience at any rate.
Point I'm trying to make - god knows why - is that in my book a solo performance is a piece of music performed by one person.
Apologies if someone else has said the same thing, but life feels all too short (but not so short I can't chuck my 2p in).
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But skip, why do you equate complexity with beauty? I certainly think Bobby's fiddling is beautiful and full of variation and depth, and? what has that to do with complexity? Why do you think Fauxcelt was lessening the music? Perhaps I missed something, he just pointed out a simple fact. That's what it is. We are not comparing the playing of Bobby Casey, but the genre. Simplicity is not bad! simplicity is beautiful. The tunes rule the day IMO.
>>I'd suggest that if you don't think so, then ITM, and this site, is not for you.>?>
Bit late for that skip!
I know full well that the artists you mention were the top of the field so to speak. I was not talking about them, but the genre. If you want to compare individual musicians then thats a different matter.
I listen to the pure drop all the time when I am not playing myself , but perhaps we have a different understanding of complexity?
I'm the last person to denigrate trad, I've spent most of my life playing. But I think you have overreacted in defence of the music . I really dont think he was comparing the music unfavourably, and I certainly wasn't!
Ps I dont play the mandolin and our local pub sessions ARE the real deal!
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
We always do this 'trad isnt as hard as other types of music thingy' - BUT - there are really only a handful of truely amazing trad musicians around.....most people just never get it. It may seem easy but it isnt- otherwise there would be loads more of amazing players instead of the hordes of mediocore players (myself included).
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Maybe one of the reasons it's so wide spread is 'cause it's quite easy to play..
. llig December 8th 2002
I base the assertion that diddley music is easy by relating its physicality to other forms of music.
..llig January 17th 2005
Simple? Easy? They mean more or less the same.
But what I can't understand is why you all have such a problem with easy/simple. Why do you all feel the need to vociferously stress that this diddly stuff is hard. I make passing reference to something I thought was obvious....llig
It's a good thing that diddly music is easy, not a bad thing. I respect it all the more for being easy..
.llig September 24th 2002
I disagree llig. I said that trad is reletively simple, not a particularly complex form of music. I dont think its easy at all! Superficially yes , the melodies are often easy enough to play, but to master!! Thats a different matter. A player can play for 30yrs and not master it at all. . There is much hidden beneath the surface, much depth that can only be approached in a non-intellectual almost spiritual manner. IMO.
But what made you change your mind ? or have you? You now think that to believe the music is simple is a misconception? Hmm...
Were you just not feckin listening?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ouch look at this one
>>;I think I'm taken as a beligerant troublemaker because I remind all of you the truth that you all know in your heart of hearts but won't admit. You all think that what you do is clever. In the grand scheme of things, it's not. Diddly music (and I genuinely mean no respect) is a little clique of hardened enthusiasts going round and round with the same old repertoir of tunes that all sound the same.<< Llig.
get your teeth into that now skip!
but I like these replys;
<<No, Michael -- the reason I think you're a belligerent troublemaker, quite honestly, is that you insist on behaving like a jerk.>> Zina
and ;
<,Sorry to say this Michael, but for all your much vaunted 'love of Irish music', you come across as a complete tosser. Yes Irish music, indeed any music is 'easy', in the same way that oil painting is easy. Of course, anyone can put paint on a brush and smear it on a canvas. So you must be right!>>ottery
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... some of the posters in that thread might still be lurking about it would seem I suspect lonannas ... well Llig certainly is ... lovely thread mtodd but I don't feel qualified to add to it. Beautiful solo fiddle is not what comes to the vast majority of people's minds when it comes to Irish music around these parts ... I guess its just tooooooo far away from what has been widely popularised eg The Chieftains, Riverdance, The Bushwackers ... unfortunately.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes that Michael - and that they cant be F*cked getting shot down all the time if their opinions differ slighty to the people running riot on this board.
Iona - you seem to have it in for Michael - its like you just follow him thread to thread seeking out ways to attack. You are like a funnel web or something. What is it all about?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Heheh. That thread was before my hard times even. All that crude ego and pontificating flying around! The great constant is that Michael is still here, a man whose opinions I have come to respect more and more and above those of most other posters. Adelante, Llig!
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Not at all michael, it took no more than a few seconds, copied 'irish music easy' into the search and voila. sorry...
My motivation? well you said just above that 'Conceiving Irish Music as easy' was a misconception, Which I would agree with. And I knew full well that you go on here about how easy it was. Made me wonder....
That thread though... Incendiary or what?! and here you are 5 yrs later acting in the same manner or worse.
I dont know you from Adam llig, and I have no desire to . I just wanted to confront you with your own words, and see how you react! I dont 'have it in for you' but you say the most outrageous things here.
I then read through the thread, Sorry perhaps I shouldn't have made the second post, but I refrained from quoting Jeremy, who also called you a foul mouthed troublemaker. Why he puts up with it I will never know. Personally I have nothing against llig, honestly, truly, I take issues with what he says and how he says it.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Anyhow, All in jest, I laughed so much I wanted to share it with you lot, especially Skip.
Now back to the subject, so what reasoned argument have you got then llig for your contradictory quotes? where does your opinion lie now?
For the record simple does not mean easy. A pure circle is a very simple shape..... but not an easy one to draw!
I enjoy bands like Lunessa, but somehow its the unaccompanied stuff that revolves in my CD player. Perhaps its that without backing I can really get into the tune as played without distraction?
I just took out Jackie and Kevins eavsdropper, class stuff, and put in the branch line, Jack and Charlie Coen, thats what it is all about for me. My playlist for today includes tin whistles by Paddy Malony and sean potts, Mary Bergins first album, Mary MacNamara , John Doherty,the floating bow. Again! and Bobby casey , the spirit of west Clare, Awesome.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Am I right that people are taking about a music that can be taken to great heights by masters (bb's "amazing players"), who in the past probably had few outlets for expressing what they were capable of, but also bashed out (by bb's "mediocre players") in fairly basic form if people wanted to dance and that was what was available ?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I just mention the CD's as classic examples of the Genre. But I do think that recommendations are a really good thing.
Its not 'just' about what we like. These are artists of the highest calibre. That is what I think keeps the music going, not sessions but the individual often times playing alone, simply for the love of the music. Who explore the depths of the music and really let it shine... unaccompanied.
What about some great group/ backed CD recommendations, I'm out of touch with that side of things.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Christ!
I'm only going to address the point Ionannas made to me
You ask why I equate beauty with complexity. I must admit I do, to an extent. The reason being, the aforementioned musicians (casey, coleman etc.) are musicians I have listened to for a long number of years and can only envision doing the same until I'm dead or deaf. This is because I still hear something new in their music every time I hear it. This to me indicates complexity - to create something that engages a listener in that way is complicated by definition. The likes of all this trazz rubbish - 'August' for instance - is simple to my ears - listen to it once, you hear what they do, and that's it! No depth there, just arrangements and a few trilly bits - simple. Potts playing Dowds or Crowleys or Julie Delany's - that's something completely different.
You also make the point that comparing individual musicians and genres is a different thing, but I would beg the question, how can you compare anything in music without thinking of the finest exponents of that music? If you're looking for characteristics within a genre, so you not think of and listen to the musicians who created/did those characteristics? Someone asks me to discuss gypsy jazz guitar, the first thing that would occur to me is django, and my opinions would be born form that. So I think it is paramount to reference the pinnacle performers of a genre when trying to compare it to anything.
I think part of the issue with 'simple' is when you look at trad thru the defining characteristics of other Western Art music. Yes, in terms of rhythm, harmony, form and arrangement, it is simple in comparison to say Jazz and Classical. But these to me are not the defining aspects of Irish Music. From the point of view of melodic variation, ornamentation, tone, tonality - Irish music is ridiculously complicated! Not to mention immensely diverse; for the geographical size of the land that spawned this music, the number of styles and ways of playing it are immense, Look at our indigenous instrument, the pipes. Is that not complex? even to f ucking pick up! It has a drone, harmonic and rhythmical accompaniment in the form of regs, and a chanter that is capable of producing the most complicated ornamentation on a melody, one of the few instruments that can really replicate the beauty and dexterity of the human voice. Is this not complicated music:
If you don't think so then there's little point continuing this discussion, as our views are so opposed I think we'll never hit a middle ground for debate.
It depends what you get from the music. You said:
"The tunes rule the day IMO. "
Well for me it's what musicians do with these tunes. If you look at these melodies transcribed in basic western notation, they do look very simple. Anyone with a bit of classical music can sight read their way thru O'Neills without breaking sweat. But those are only a framework - the complexity comes from what the musicians do with the tune. Compare how Silver Spear is transcribed in O'Neills, then look at the excellent book of Seamus Ennis' music by Pat Mitchell and see how it is there. Big difference.
My blood does boil when people refer to trad as simple music, particularly on open boards like this for all to see. I think it's a complete misrepresentation of the music, and find that the vast majority of being who think the music is simple are actually simple themselves.
Oh, and I wasn't slaggin yourself or mandolins for that matter - just an open example. If you wanna hear 'complex' music, check this out:
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
That's no probs Ionannas. You are good to debate with, you quickly get to the crux of it and, quite rightly, challenge me.
and your musical tastes are extremely close to mine (which probably means you music is pretty similar also).
Yes, you are quite right that I'm confused with simple and easy.
I reminded me of an analogy I made in that other thread between Joan Miro and the Pre-raphaelites. The amount of technical skill you need to paint like the Pre-raphaelites is mind boggling. An yet it appears that the amount of technical skill Miro had is next to nothing. But it's a different kind of skill, one that relies almost entirely with merely being able to see properly. To be able to weigh what you see and adjust shapes and colour and balance etc. In a way it's complicated, but in another way, it's not. I think one of the things that detractors of "modern art" often come up with, the "I could that", or "a child could do it", gets to the heart of it. Of course a child could do it, but why should that demean it?
The analogy is not quite the same with diddley music, but it's pretty similar. The main difference is that there is a lot of listening and understanding of generations' worth of contributions to assimilate, but basically, there is little technical skill required, just the ability to hear very subtle things such as the exact timing. But yes, I do believe that anyone can play this music to a high standard, and all you really have to do is get a small amount of technique, and then learn to listen really really well.
And the conundrum of, "if it's so easy, why are there not more players who do the music justice?" genuinely escapes me.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
fritz kreisler saw the complexity and beauty in the music of coleman and hughie gillespie, but he's wrong and you're right. ok, just so i understand.....
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
ok, differentiation of terminology - technique and skill ( the utilisation of technique). It may be simple to do, but to do well is something else. I couldn't possibly comment on the technical aspect of the pipes as well as you could paul, but certainly the second example is both complex from a technical and skill point of view.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
When some musicians - often from a classical background (I've met and played with them) - say that trad (Irish or English) is "simple", and by implication not worthy of their attention, you need to do no more than to draw their attention to the piano music of Mozart - simple to look at on the page but among the most difficult of all music to play well. If that doesn't make them think then there's no hope for them.
As has been said in previous posts, they're confusing "simple" with "easy". I think we can go further - there are two types of "easy": technically easy, and interpretively easy. "Twinkle, twinkle little star" on the piano is an example of both types. Several Mozart piano sonatas are relatively technically "easy" (they're served up to learners within two or three years) but takes many years of experience to understand and interpret them well. Beethoven's later piano sonatas are technically difficult, and it is not until you've had the years of experience and training to master the technical problems that you are ready delve into the music itself and begin to understand it on a level even deeper than Mozart.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Difficult and easy are in relation to technical skill. For example i couldn't back stitch to save my life, unless you were talking about sewing! for me, very, very, difficult. I also think acquiring a technical skill can be relatively easy or hard depending on the individual and their capabilities.
But using these skills to create art? Is neither difficult nor hard,Its both, depends on who you are and the 'level' of your art and what you aspire to.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Regardless of your personal level or what you aspire to, do you not think that the level of art that others have reached in their music deserves respect, and that terminology like 'simple' is derogatory?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Paul?
Anyway, please do differentiate between the skill to play an instrument and the complexity of music.
I do believe that relative to some other types of music the technical skills required to play Irish music are all that great. That is not to say it's all a walk in the park.
Understanding Irish music at different levels and with a high degree of detail requires dedication and immersion.
To combine the two, art may ensue.
When I listen to recordings of Bobby Casey from the early sixties (as I often do) I hear a stunning multitude of ideas and a full grasp of the material, grounded in it's own time and place played with consummate skill and the finest detail. There's a whole world of emotions in there. It's all there an it can't be repeated. Same for Seamus Ennis' music, Willie Clancy and many more. It's in each case the sum of personal experiences and a shared heritage.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Haiku is "simple" but it's not easy. Simplicity doesn't mean simple. irish music might be simple/direct in its message and approach, but, I still say it's not "easy". As Oscar Wilde wrote:
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
not much at all.
Kinda ironic that we have spam off from the original topic by quite a degree, yet the exponents we all seem to have sited predominately recorded unaccompanied. Although I love the recordings of Casey on the LP 'Music from West Clare and Galway' with John Roe backing, it's still the *solo* stuff that really floats my boat.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i think we're all getting bogged down in definitions and words, which makes little sense when relating to music. I'm off to smell a painting and lick a poem, I'll see you all later.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Wow, this thread has really exploded.
Simple? Complex? Word games, really. I think you guys are much closer in you opinions than you think.
The music is as simple or as complex as you make it. Complexity comes from the musician, not the tunes. As with any folk music, it's easy to play but hard to play well.
The basic surface of the music is simple enough that an average person can spend a few bucks on a whistle and learn to play well enough to join sessions without too much trouble. But that same person could spend 30 years playing tunes on the whistle and not master it.
It's folk music, so by necessity it's something that a person can get started in without years of formal training and extensive knowledge of music theory. But there is infinite complexity in the details, for those few who master it.
You can call trad simple, or you can call it complex. Both things are true. Arguing over this seems silly to me.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
What a load of pretentious crap.
Skip Canlon and his limited number of "pure" players. Ireland, England, US of A, Australia, Scotland and I suspect a large number of other places are full of "great" musicians, or as the poem put it "some mute Milton".
Every town and village has great unknown musicians, that's one of the beautys of the tradition.
As for litening to solo recordings. Well.....for a few tunes maybe, but I would need the full flow of other instruments bringing out the full flavour of the music.
Never saw Menuhin, Williams or those boys playing purely solo, or the great concert pianists. ITM is the same, the blend of instruments to me adds to it.
Take even songs. I am into singer/songwriters. So take say Sandy denny and "Who knows where the time goes". Yes listening to her on her own is fine, but add in a fiddle/flute whatever, it adds to the whole thing. Think of adding ingredients or sauces to a meal.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Sorry skip I missed your post above. If we were discussing comparing individual musicians and the complexity of music and performance then that would be a different issue really. We were discussing the form rather than how it can be performed. Not that I see any value in comparisons anyhow really, the music i what it is.
you said ;
>>I think part of the issue with 'simple' is when you look at trad thru the defining characteristics of other Western Art music. Yes, in terms of rhythm, harmony, form and arrangement, it is simple in comparison to say Jazz and Classical. But these to me are not the defining aspects of Irish Music. From the point of view of melodic variation, ornamentation, tone, tonality - Irish music is ridiculously complicated! Not to mention immensely diverse; for the geographical size of the land that spawned this music, the number of styles and ways of playing it are immense, Look at our indigenous instrument, the pipes. Is that not complex? even to f ucking pick up! It has a drone, harmonic and rhythmical accompaniment in the form of regs, and a chanter that is capable of producing the most complicated ornamentation on a melody, one of the few instruments that can really replicate the beauty and dexterity of the human voice. Is this not complicated music:>.
Well I dont look at it through those eyes! I look at other forms of music through the lens of trad! and I see some pretty damn complicated stuff!!!
But I I'll tell you what , I think you are right in a way , when you mention the pipes your point bears more weight! I still think in some ways , compared to stuff that baffles me, like jazz or classic music, that trad is pretty straight forward and simple, but yes it can also be complex as well.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
well obviously jazz is going to baffle you if you are not used to listening to it. the great saxophone player michael buckley lives near me and he was brought up in a musical jazz family much in the same way irish music runs in families. he is able to understand jazz because he is used to the rythms, the structures of classic jazz and the wildness of contemporary. i listen to jazz aswell but im no expert, it would take me a while to figure out the structure of a tune if it is one that has it. the same would go for balkan music, the rythms are different and keys, im not used to listening to it. but michael buckley doesn't listen to irish music much the same way i would periodically listen to jazz. he would be aware of the music but just because he plays jazz doesn;t mean trying to play irish music is necessarily easy for him.he mite be able to knock out a simple tune that doesn't sound quite right but thats it. the same would go the other way, de dananns playing of queen of sheba. all music is the same, it can be as simple or as complex as you like. there are simple pieces in irish music, jazz and classic. you can do what you want with them. then there are complex pieces aswell. it can be both.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Irish traditional music was never meant to be played by virtuosos. It was dance music or song that needed to be available often in areas where amazingly-virtuosic musicians seldom abounded. There isn't too much technical strain on fiddle, whistle or harmonica to play all the notes with a bit of life and good rhythm. To get to be a superstar may be another kettle of fish. That super-alien concept (to me), known as "practice," may have to be involved there. But, as for the rest, it's about socialising and having fun. It's great to socialise and have fun whilst at the same time straining your mental sinews a little bit to make sure the chunes sound good. But the whole thing is self-motivating. When you say it's easy you mean that it's potentially inclusive and accessible to all those of good will who have just a smidgeon of a musical ear and a touch of talent on whatever instrument they happen to play. Brilliant. The wonderful thing is that, on the same day, you can hear life-affirming brilliant stuff, all rough round the edges, from a crass amateur in a pub, then go home and hear anodyne crap on a CD by some superstar or other (but never Matt Molly, Michael ) As for solo or not, there are no rules. Do what you like and be damned, listen to what you like and sod the curmudgeons!
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I wasn't trying to "lessen" or denigrate or be derogatory about this music when I said it was somewhat less complicated than ragtime piano music.
If I didn't like this music and thought it wasn't worth taking the time, effort, and energy to learn how to play it, then I wouldn't still be participating more-or-less irregularly in the local sessions (and other sessions out-of-state) after thirteen years. I would have quit playing and participating in the local sessions many years ago and found some other place or other way to make music.
I didn't become seriously interested in playing Irish music until after I attended a workshop on Folk Keyboard in 1981 which was taught by Triona ni Dhomhnaill of the Bothy Band. This workshop opened both my eyes and my ears to the possibilities of the piano in this particular genre of music.
Then I had to wait until 1995 before some other local musicians started an Irish Session here so I could start exploring the richness and variety of Irish and Scottish music.
After playing ragtime piano music for approximately thirty years, I will tell you that most ragtime music is superficial and shallow with nothing or not much below the surface of the music (unlike the music of Scott Joplin and a few others).
However, I still enjoy playing ragtime just as much as I enjoy playing other types of music such as the music we are supposed to be discussing on this web site.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Irish traditional music was never meant to be played by virtuosos. It was dance music or song that needed to be available often in areas where amazingly-virtuosic musicians seldom abounded."
I'm not sure I agree with that. What are you basing this on? There is evidence of virtuosos in Irish music going back to the very first recordings. Players like Coleman didn't come out of a vacuum, they obviously came from a tradition of virtuoso playing.
Just because the music was played in small rural communities doesn't mean that there were no sophisticated players in those communities. I'm sure that there were plenty of musicians who were dedicated and serious and who played virtually from the cradle to the grave. Virtuoso playing wasn't just recently introduced to Irish music.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Sitting in a cafe listening to SoundLantern on headphones. Solo.
It's my 'new tradition' A few of you are there. Give it a listen.
Bren , thanks for the update.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I wasn't nitpicking. I think the definitions are useful to the discussion:
1.Having obtained worldly experience, and lacking naiveté;
cosmopolitan,
2. elegant, refined.
3.Complicated, especially of complex technology.
4. Appealing to the tastes of an intellectual; cerebral.
In the past you could have someone with the mind of an Einstein trapped in the life of a subsistance farmer with nothing more than a whistle to channel their inspiration through. But it was still "folk" music, and it was not "sophisticated" in most of its senses.
From the above discussion it sounds as if some people want it to be "sophisticated".
(and I am putting "folk" music because I think I hear quotation marks when Seamus Ennis says it in the truckley-how track on 40 Years of Piping)
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Like I said, it was the wrong word. I should have said something along the lines of "highly-developed" or, well, "virtuoso."
But you know what I mean, just because someone lives in an isolated rural environment and has a low level of education does not mean that that person is ignorant or unskilled, especially when it comes to their own musical tradition.
I don't buy the argument that the music was somehow played with less skill back when it was a rural pastime. I don't think that virtuoso trad players are a recent thing; I suspect that there were plenty of players 150 years ago who could match the best of today.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes but I hope it was also "accessible to all those of good will who have just a smidgeon of a musical ear and a touch of talent on whatever instrument they happen to play" (Steve, above).
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes of course, but that's true today as well as in the past.
My point is that virtuoso playing is nothing new; it's been a part of the tradition since at least the earliest days of recording, and most likely long before that.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I agree with you Marklar. The idea that virtuosic playing wasn't always a part of ITM is poorly evidenced. Sure, one might suggest that a classical musical elitist attitude for the attainment of virtuosic status now exists in ITM and is a new thing, but to suggest that there wasn't a prevalence of virtuosic players in the past seems just an assumption.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... the only difference being that before there were recordings you would have had to be there in the kitchens or in the nooks beside the fire to get an ear full of it. That seems highly likely to me ... but what would I know?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... and only a foolhardy few would have been brave enough to subject their playing to the distortion of recording ... why would they want to do that? ... especially in the early days of recording when the sound quality was so woeful. What was recorded would have been only a miniscule part, not necessarily the best, of what was out there to be heard in people's homes and communities.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, notation systems are inadequate for conveying the subtleties of intonation and rhythm in many types of music.
As an interesting experiment and just for fun, I used some of the music theory which I learned as a music major in college to analyze some of the tunes which I was playing at the local sessions.
Doing this increased my appreciation and liking for this music as well as my respect for whoever the original composers were. I was wondering why I enjoy playing this music so much and analyzing it like this answered my question. Analyzing music by taking it apart and then putting it back together has helped increase my appreciation of other types, styles, and genres of music as well.
Perhaps the terms you need are simple complexity or complex simplicity.
Lazyhound mentioned the piano music of Mozart in one of his comments and I agree with what he said. I remember trying to play Mozart's piano sonatas when I was a teenager. I learned the hard way that Mozart's music was much harder to play than it looked on the page. Mozart's piano music looked so simple and so easy but it was so difficult to play it properly.
Like the music of Mozart, this music seems to be deceptively simple but there is more to it than meets the eye or the ear.
Sometimes simplicity is more beautiful and easier on the ear than complexity.
An example for me would be the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms. They all have lovely melodies but his orchestration is so clumsy, heavy-handed, and awkward that it drags down the beautiful melodies and makes them sound heavy and ponderous. When I listen to one of the symphonies of Brahms, the image which comes to my mind is the infamous one of the bull in the china shop who is blundering around and destroying all of the precious and valuable china with his clumsiness.
I have listened to all four of Brahms' symphonies with a copy of the score for each symphony in front of me. I did this because I was trying to figure out why I didn't like Brahms' symphonies.
Since I am a good sight reader, learning how to read an orchestral score was easy for me.
In his other orchestral works I think Brahms was more comfortable because his writing for the orchestra wasn't quite as clumsy and strained as it is in his symphonies. And, last but not least, I do like both listening to and playing his piano music but I think that is normal because Brahms was a pianist.
Just before he died in 1897, Brahms heard some ragtime music and he was planning to compose some ragtime when he died.
I have noticed that Brahms' contemporaries were more comfortable and better at writing for orchestra than Brahms. Probably because they weren't trying to be as complex and complicated as Brahms.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"... this music seems to be deceptively simple but there is more to it than meets the ear."
Ooooh, this one really gets my goat. It shoots a poisoned crossbow bolt straight through the heart of the argument. I'm sorry, but it drives me to the infamous caps lock:
HOW CAN MUSIC BE ANYTHING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EAR?
All of it meets your ear. 100% of it. The problem lies in the listeners' brains' reception of it. Or rather: SIMPLY NOT LISTENING PROPERLY.
(I know that saying louder doesn't help, sorry, but it just really annoyed me)
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"What was recorded would have been only a miniscule part, not necessarily the best, of what was out there to be heard in people's homes and communities."
Interestingly, I've read somewhere that Michael Coleman's older brother was considered by locals to be a better fiddler than Michael himself. But he was never recorded.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
ha ha bliss, but surely, your oft quoted preference for being inclusive with your audience make a truly solo performance not quite possible. Perhaps you could go out and play in the middle of a large field? You arfe outstanding in your own field are you not?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... and surely it's the same today, What IS recorded is only a miniscule part, not necessarily the best, of what is out there to be heard in people's homes and communities.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"SIMPLY NOT LISTENING PROPERLY."
sigh.
Llig, I've noticed something about your use of words, you often use words that are "loaded" as a psychotherapist/psychologist might say. That is, they are actually passive aggressive and aren't really helping out with the points you try to make. Can you think of a better way of expressing the point you keep reiterating?
the problem is the word "properly"...it's very judgemental. and what it DOES is, imply that the listener is a fool/dolt/uneducated/doesn't care/part of the great unwashed/has ears of wood etc....
Do you see what I'm getting at?
All you do is come across as intimidating with your pontifical pronouncements. I'm not saying 90% of what you say isn't emminently sensible. it is.
But also as any psychotherapist or anyone else who studies human behaviour will tell you, it *doesn't matter* if you're right. It's all in how you convey the message to lead people to new insights into their own behaviour. You can be as right as rain, but if you continue to alienate people through loaded language your message and, ultimately, the purpose of this board and these discussions is lost.
You're a smart guy. Think about how you might do this differently.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I think I was wanting to be judgmental. It annoys me when people have this idea that there is more to this music than what you can hear. That simply hearing it is not enough, that there is some mysterious otherness or something that requires more than just listening.
I don't know how else I can say it. I want to stress that it's simple to listen. And "properly" refers to hearing all of it.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Just 'random'-ly grabbing bits & pieces from the dscussion. (selectve reading/listening/lurking?)
The whole thing about virtuosity in trad playing reminds me of my violin playing friend.
She can listen to any great Irish fiddler for hours. But as soon as she is watching any of them playing she is quick to comment. Something like, bowing hands all wrong . . ." It is probably the teacher iin her. She loves to hear it but cannot wrap her mind around the how.
Virtuoso playing requires perfection. Does trad?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ok. It's possible though that people don't have the skills and/or mindset that you do Llig. And would that skill set be do to any prior musical training? Let me ask you for instance, you note in your bio that you play viola...well, that seems to imply you've had musical training from way back? I mean, you didn't just pick up the viola and begin scraping away in the trad music world did you? Just curious....
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Llig...would you agree then with something like this? would this be useful as a template to guide people into how to listen not only to trad musics, but any musics? From WikiHow...thought it was interesting...don't know how useful but seems applicable to what we're discussing:
How to Listen to Music
Listen to music that might be new to you....You are going to try to develop a mental map of the music.
Understand that in musical composition, there are three main technical ideas:
Repetition
Variation
New Melodies
Listen, and try to notice whether what you are hearing is the same as what you have previously heard in the same piece. Identify the elements:
Repetition
Related but Different (Variation)
Seeming unrelated to everything you previously heard (New)
Learn that the introduction, or beginning of a piece is always new. There is very often also something new very near the end. Locate passages that you find especially rewarding. Are these passages repetitions, variations, or new? If they are variations, can you realize what it was that was varied?
Listen once more to the same passage. This time, pay attention to what brings the music to these passages. Listen to as many details as you can.
Colors
Balances
Textures of the different sounds of which music is composed.
Try to isolate specific details:
Rhythms, whether in the foreground or background, that seem to interact
Short melodic figures, either in the principal melody
Accompaniment.
Listen again, narrowing your focus: listen only to the bass, if there is one. Notice things in the bass that seem alive, pregnant with meaning. Notice all the details you previously noticed by switching your attention from one to the other. Notice the kinds of changes that happen at your favourite moment. Does the melody soar into an unfamiliar accent? Does a new rhythm add pungency? Does a buzz suddenly splinter into a fractured collision?
Develop your mental map of the characters, actors and energies that combine to create music. If these steps are correctly followed, the result will be a panoramic expansion of your musical experience, which may be likened to listening in color.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yeah, I did just pick up the viola and start scraping away, but that was 15 years after I'd first began scraping on the fiddle.
Nope, no formal training.
The question is, is it skill, and/or mindset to listen properly? It's certainly something you learn, but is it really a skill? I'd say it's more like you learn the right mindset. It's about being open to everything you hear and not being constrained by what your imagination thinks you should be hearing.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"The question is, is it skill, and/or mindset to listen properly? It's certainly something you learn, but is it really a skill?"
I'd love to hear what WillCpt might have to say about the former. Good question.
"It's about being open to everything you hear and not being constrained by what your imagination thinks you should be hearing."
Interesting last point...can you elaborate a bit? I would say this last bit would apply esp. to beginner or mid-range players....it is hard to separate what you *think* or imagine you're hearing from what is actually going on in your playing [ie, stuff that usually isn't good]
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I think that beginners may well find it hard to separate what they *think* or imagine they're hearing from what is actually going on. But they shouldn't. There is no reason for anyone to be like that, because it's not dificult, sepecially with this music, and especially with this music unacompanied. All you have to do is follow the melody. Free you mind from where you expect it to go, concentrate
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Interesting point ; According to Ross Duffin's 'how EQ ruined harmony...
Helmhotz proposes that through interaction with aural stimuli that the ear was capable of providing sounds that were not specifically generated., Also the theory of resonance,; tiny elements within the ear resonate sympathetically, like miniature piano strings.
Indicates that there really is more to the music than meets the ear.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Listening in color is what you do on windowpane.
mtodd, when you mentioned the viola I thought of 3 viola playing friends who have had no formal musical training. My favourite trad player, whom I have ever played with, has no formal training. She plays cello, fiddle, & viola. No one ~ no one ~ whom I have met has picked up on trad with such ease. All by listening.
Screw the music. Our next session begins with a proposal for my dissertation. "The Anatomy of Harmonic Resonsance in Pub - dwellers ears" or "In one ~ out the other"
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"The question is, is it skill, and/or mindset to listen properly? It's certainly something you learn, but is it really a skill?"
I suggest both. That there are different things. Its must be a mindset that prevents a musician experienced in another genre from hearing that they are carrying into ITM something that makes it sound wrong. Are they, not the beginner, the ones
who "find it hard to separate what they *think* or imagine they're hearing from what is actually going on". I'm not very skilled, I can hear it, why can't they.
But I can still remember sometime in my teens at a "barn dance" for the first time someone counting up to 8 or 16 because they realised I needed to and wasn't doing. And later listening to the Chieftains while driving with a clarinet playing girlfriend, who had no real interest in it, commenting that I had trouble working out where the tunes changed and after the next track having her rattle of the AABB etc structures and mention different endings. The after a few years Morris dancing being pretty good at knowing just where I was with 4 x 32 bars or whatever. Those are skills that people learn (in my case mighty slowly).
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, and just as clever image processing things go on in our retinas before the signal gets to out brain clever signal processing things go on in ours ears.
I think we are both nitpicking - although the "filling in the blank bits" part is probably very relevant, along with pattern matching.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I am thinking of the learning to listen very much in terms of building up a series of patterns to match. Recognising things for what they are without having to think. At a basic level the difference between "that nice, what is it, oh yes, a polka" and "thats a nice polka". The filling in the blank bits seems like the dangerous part.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
It's a big big problem with Irish music. Much bigger than the learning from dots problem, much bigger than the increasing scarcity of solo playing, it''s even bigger that the creep of instruments that can't articulate properly overtaking instruments that can.
People think they are listening, but really they are only listening to small parts of it, and filling in the gaps.
Yes, our brains are clever things, they fill in gaps of perception with all of our five senses. "Didi I really smell that, or did I imagine it?" etc. But with music, you must learn to consciously override this ability. You must make the most utmost of efforts NOT to fill in the gaps.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, I think that now we are getting somewhere. I'd never really thought about it in this way before, but it's relatively straightforward:
The effort comes in learning to consciously differentiate between what you actually hea - the air molecules vibrating your ear drums - and the bits that are gaps that your clever brain fills in.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The other part of this is that music is a social construct that we've been internalizing since birth, just like language. And like language it might take a long time to learn to hear all the nuances of sound that make it relevant/artistic/meaningful.
It's hard to know if we'd recognize something as music at all if we didn't have at least some subconcious knowledge of the structures and "meanings" in the sound. Which is why I think it's so useful to listen to everything as music (well, except vegetables), and listen to Irish music in relation to your own personal soundscape, instead of listening to it in relation to Western Art Music, Pop culture and all the rest.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
That (from Michael) seems a bit negative. It may be the learning to hear that the people who spoil sessions by doing it wrong need. They are presumably musicians with brains full of innaproprate things to fill the gaps with.
But mtodd's long quote from WikiHow is more positive that that. It is about listening for things that will start building up the patterns that become internalised and allow recogntions of chunks of what is heard.
But there is another sort of listening that is about feedback systems: the flute players long tones; playing in tune with others (or a drone); repeating a roll until the rhythm comes right.
And I wonder if listening to unaccompanied melody is tapping into something partially hard-wired. Only need a bird brain for that.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"How can music be anything more than what meets the ear?"
I would say that depends on your background, experience, and training which all affects how your mind works and how you listen to and perceive music.
After reading through the comments on this thread, it is obvious that everyone's brain works differently and everyone perceives and hears this music differently.
We all bring something different to music and shouting at us in print because we perceive, hear, and think about music differently from you isn't a very intelligent or mature response.
Why can't you accept the idea that all of us hear, perceive, and view this music and music in general differently from you?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I can't even remember where i heard it first, but I've always loved the analogy between playing a tune and walking along a road. This analogy could be interpreted in many different ways, but it seems to relate to this discussion quite nicely. I think we might all agree that learning one's way down the road is fairly easily accomplished after a few tries. This learning process involves a capacity or function or skill (whatever) that is no longer required once one knows where one is going. Now one's attention is free to notice other things along the way. Sometimes there is a little treasure that wasn't there the last time... to further relate the analogy to the original topic, if you want to take a walk by yourself or if you want company, it's your business-what difference should it make to anyone else?
just enjoy the walk and may the road rise to your feet!
cheers, pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Why can't you accept the idea that all of us hear, perceive, and view this music and music in general differently from you?"
This is precisely what I'm complaining about. You just can't go around saying you hear it one way and someone else hears it another way. Don't get me wrong about an individual's freedom to interpret any way they wish, it's a free world.
But two people's ears, sitting next to each other, are exposed to the exact same vibrations of molecules in air. Their ears hear the same thing. And it's of tantamount importance that they make the utmost effort to disentangle what their ears actually hear with what their preconceptions percieve they hear.
What I'm asking people to do is to put aside how they percieve and view the music, and concentrate on what comes to them unfiltered by their brains
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
<<But two people's ears, sitting next to each other, are exposed to the exact same vibrations>>
Once again llig, you are casual with your usage of exact. Obstacle in the way will change the sound. The reflections of the walls etc will change the sound etc.
Secondly we all have variying hearing capabilities, some hear better and different frequencies are heard or not. So many variables to take into account. Age means that certain frequencies are not heard, as does a diet of loud Heavy Rock concerts as a teenager etc.
Nothing comes to us unfiltered by our brains, you are asking the impossible. All sound is received by the system and translated into electrical impulses. the system itself varies with everyone. The brain then makes sense of these impulses in reference to its own understanding and capabilities. Some people are tone deaf. Some people are Deaf. etc.Music only makes sense based upon the preconceptions of the individual. ?To us ITM makes sense. to others it doesn't and Classical Arabic Music makes sense.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"casual with your usage of exact". Oh come off it, you know what I mean. As near as damn it exact.
Yes, I know that the brain then makes sense of impulses in reference to its own understanding and capabilities. But what I'm asking people to do is to put aside how they percieve and view the music, and concentrate on what comes to them unfiltered by their brain.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I kind of know what you mean, I think, you want us to hear what is happening rather than filling in the bits we didn't quite catch with our rough approximation. Am I right?
My point is that we all perceive what is happening in different ways and the more you or I understand ITM the more we can recognise what is happening. So its a cumulative thing, not something that can be done automatically but something based upon prior knowledge. If you doubt me try picking up a classical Arabic melody 'exactly' or an eastern european 7/8 tune, without resorting to slow down software or dots..
The structures, notes, intonation, ornaments are all very different. It takes time and exposure to accustom ourselves to appreciating these 'other' types of music... or not?
The point is that 'Everything' comes to us filtered by our brain.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes of course. I want us to hear what is happening rather than filling in the bits we didn't quite catch with our rough approximation. You are right.
Yes, everything comes to us filtered by our brain. I said that above, everything comes to all our five senses filtered by our brain. But it's our responsibility to the music to make an conscious effort to try to bypass the filter
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But thats simply impossible. What we can do is to train the filter to recognise what is happening more effectively. Perhaps by having a teacher slow down the individual parts of a tune until the brain can recognise what is happening, or using this new fangled software. taking a simple tune stripped down and listening...
If you think anyone can just figure out what is happening without this crucial step I suggest you try it on a recording of Arabic classical music. or something similar from a different culture. In that case you will not have any prior grounding you can take for granted. You will no doubt struggle as many newcomers do when approaching this music. It will sound strange, unsettling, weird , non musical and more, until after years of listening it seeps in and begins to make sense.
Of course maybe you are a musical genius so why not try it. I can upload a track and you can figure it out... right?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I only say this to show that what we listen to shapes our understanding, not as a challenge, though you are welcome to have a listen. If we are used to listening to EQ, then that is what sounds right, if we are used to listening to trad, and playing it, then its much easier to 'listen' accurately than if we are not. http://www.soundlantern.com/UpdatedSoundPage.do?ToId=19616
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Thank you Rick Payman, I intend to "sit back and enjoy" despite llig leahcim's (or Michael Gill's) attempts to interefere with my enjoyment and appreciation of the complexity, richness, and variety of this music by trying to tell me how my brain is supposed to work while I am listening to it.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I enjoyed that clip Ionannas. But I'm not sure it helps your point. Coming to it with a naive ear and the approach set out in mtodd's long quote what strikes me is that it is particularly easy to focus on one instrument or voice. Far easier than, say, on a commerical recording of an irish trad band, or a baroque ensemble. Is that a characteristic of the genre ?
And with a wind instrument with holes in the right places and the capability of bending from one note into the next, would mimicking that melody line be much different than say, mimicking a sean nos singer on a whistle. I'm not saying it would be easy just amenable to a "try it, listen, was that right ?, no, try again" approach.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't agree. You have to have pre-conceptions - or, at any rate, pre-knowledge - or you can't properly appreciate it at all.
Not only that, each era, each location, each individual - including you, Michael - brings their own complete set of preconceptions to the music. That's one of the things that makes it so rich.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
No personal offense intended (it is an emotional response not a rational one) but if there is one thing that really gets up my nose it is people telling me that I have to have, for example, an "educated palate" to appreciate some food or drink. And you are saying the same thing.
Sure, some things are an aquired taste, and appreciation can grow with familiarity and study (for some things it may be *only* familiarity that gives satisfaction). And prior experience can increase appreciation. But don't tell me I have to intellectualise it (even if I do just that).
I this music a kit of parts that we have to recognise *before* we can enjoy it ?
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
You think that art can only be appreciated with prior education in the genre?
I disagree. The very best art is designed to cut through preconception and effect us at the visceral level. And we should be open to this. And this means trying our best to leave our preconceptions at the door.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ionannas- sorry but your soundlantern post of "classical arabic music" didn't fit with my pre-conceptions. This does: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=G1t5fRn5_2A
Maybe I'm just not listening properly...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, David, I really *am* saying you need to have an educated palette to appreciate any art. All this means is that, through living, you will have your own experiences, and those will inevitably have a dramatic impact on how you view a picture, how you hear a piece of music, what impact a book has on you. What I'm saying is blindingly obvious, actually, so I must be failing to communicate it properly.
Take a sex scene in a book, for instance. You're not going to fully appreciate it - or even understand it - unless you've had sex. And, depending on your own sexual experiences, you will read that book radically differently from the next person. It's a different book for every single person, depending on their own experiences and "education".
One example springs - fully fledged, as it were - to mind: one of my favourite books is On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. And I can tell you now that, unless you've gone for days on end without sleep, unless you've been in a drugged stupor, unless you've found yourself wandering aimlessly you know not where ... well, without those bits of "education" you cannot understand that book.
I actually think it's a cop-out to say you can appreciate any art with no knowledge of what it's about. Let's not be afraid of telling things like they are.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"And I don't understand, Ben, when you say that one of the things that make the music so rich is everyone's preconceptions of it."
OK, I'll have a go. When I - or you, or anybody - goes into a session, I'm not just bringing myself, but all the people I've learnt from, and also all my life experiences and outlook on life. That affects me as a player. It also affects you as a listener (and player). You mmust have experienced many occasions when, after the same night of music, different people have experienced the evening totally differently - not just as to whether they 'liked' it or not, but also in *how* they perceived it.
There's no getting away from this. The fact is, that, if you really *were* able to 'just listen to the sounds as they are', they would be completely meaningless. It's exactly like the old chestnut about the chair. You look at a chair , and you see a chair. But it's only a chair because you understand what it does. If you were able to see it *only* as what it is, it wouldn't mean anything at all - it would just be a shaped lump of wood (or material, or whatever).
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"if i loan my friend a book to read, he is definitely reading the same book i loaned him."
In the 70s, when semiotics was all the rage, the academic world would have stongly disagreed with you there, pipewatcher. I don't think i go that far ... but his perception of that book, and the effect it has on him, will be completely different from yours, and there's nothing either you or he can do about it.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i confess i don't know anything about semiotics, i agree that how my friend perceives and reacts to the book book might be different from my experience of reading it, but we read the same words from the same "shaped lump" of paper- I mean book.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Hi david, my point was that to easily recognise what is happening, you need the vocabulary much as in learning a language, That clip was characteristic of the genre in many ways. The approach set out by mtodd is an educated approach, it supports my point, IMO. Its not just the language but ways of listening, knowing what to listen out for. Of course I could be wrong...
But we are not talking about enjoyment surely, we can all enjoy music or art without understanding or intellectualising it. But to identify accurately what is happening and reproduce it, is a different matter. and even that defiers intellectualism . But I think you do need to have a map or understanding of the typical structures, phrases and the like. In this next clip they use scales that contain 1/4 tones The phrases and structure is not clear to me as a trad tune would be. I agree the format leaves a clear solo line over the accompaniment as is typical. But the ' language' is very different.
Of course I dont know how it sounds to you! We are listening to the same piece of music but we process it in our own individual ways. I am used to listening to this type of stuff, but it took me years of listening to more westernised versions to be able to appreciate this. When I first heard it it was completely alien.
Were I to try and play the melody I dont think I could, or it would take an awful long time indeed ! or slow down software. phrase by phrase. and I have spent my life playing music! here's another, hope you enjoy it :
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
That's the thing, see, pipewatcher, you *don't* read the same words. That's literally true, because, apparently, we never actually do read all the words - we just think we do - and different people will skip different bits. Over and above that, each and every word will mean something different to each reader - they're not the same words.
... and some words won't be understood at all by your friend, when you understand them perfectly well, and vice versa. You'll each have different dictionaries to look them up in etc etc etc
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't think the disagreement is about past experiences having an effect on the way art, in its widest sense, is appreciated. But the sex scene in the book is going to have some effect without having to analyse the book the way a literature student would (or sex the way a therapist might).
If I see a landscape painting then experience of landscapes, or maybe that landscape in particular, is going to have an effect on my emotional response. I can say "I know what I like" (and wave two metaphorical fingers at people who tut tut about that in a knowing way.) But I don't need to know about the technique, or the 'school' that the artist belongs to. Sure, I may be aware of how the artist is mixing in a bit more blue for distant parts of the scene. I may appreciate (because I have read about it) how the impressionist's landscape (and Leonardo with Mona Lisa smile) made use of the way our peripheral vision works long before the perceptual psychologists sussed it.
Back to the original question. Solo when I can (if not one of: a drone, unpitched percussion, single note bass line is nice).
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Actually, Ionannas, I had an experience that I think is relevant to what you are talking about. Many years ago a Sikh friend of mine asked me to play the waja (I have no idea how to spell it, but that's what the word sounded like) at the Sikh temple. (It was a sort of small, handheld, hand pumped, harmonium.) Their regular player was sick and couldn't play, so would I please play for the service?
It was both an honour and an enormous responsibility. My frined leant me a tape with all the songs on, and they seemed really simple tunes to me. But, apparently, I wasn't doing them right. It took me ages and ages just to hear the really subtle - but, to my friend, blindingly obvious - differences between what I was playing and what was required. And this was on an instrument with fixed notes. Heaven knows what trouble I would have had if I had been asked to play something with variable pitch.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Well, with some art, an appreciation on the genre can be helpful. But the best of any art transcends this. It's very difficult for a book to do it, much easier an abstract painting, or an abstract diddley tune.
But the very best figurative paintings and books can transcend preconception. Kerouac's stream of consciousness is a wonderful thing in its own right and can be appreciated fully for it's use of language without personal reference to chemical induced hallucination. And does anyone remember that bonkers nun on the telly who enjoyed nothing more than than the painted sensual curves of naked bodies from the renaissance?
I really did like those clips of Arabic music. Thanks.
I remember when I was a kid, my dad knew this bloke who was/is a famous writer and reviewer of classical music. There was nothing he didn't know about it. And he knew nothing of any other genre. Him and my dad used to talk about classical music for hours, I think this bloke like getting perspective from someone who was completely uneducated formally, but still listened to a lot of music. Then one day, my dad put on a Matt Molloy record, and this bloke was gob smacked. I remember smiling at his face, it really did look like he'd been smacked in the gob. He thought it absolutly terrific. This guy uses words for a living, and all he could say about it was "extraordinary". He kept reapeating "extraordinary". From being a complete alien to it, he just got it, straight away.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes Ionannas, I enjoyed that as well and from the original post on this discussion I think we can include enjoyment. When it comes to trying to play music I do have to break it down into parts, and learn to hear those parts. But I suspect that someone who, say, grew up in a household of sean nos singers (or arab vocalists) could develop skills by a combination of mimicry, and experimenation in the same way that we learn language wihout needing to learn grammar.
Not having spent a lifetime playing music the arab music sounds alien to me in a geographic sense. I don't need to be told the second one uses a 1/4 tone scale to enjoy it (though I sure would if I even dreamt of playing that sort of music). But having been told that I am thinking how the vocalist in the first piece spends a long time between the notes of the scale and occasionally lingers there. So I am wondering if, harmonically, they are alien in a similar way.
I am curious about the words of the song towards the end. In most western music a melody being left hanging like that is unusual and often something to do with the story. Or is that typical of the genre.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Dunno, I'm guessing it's some kind of flute. I'd be surprised if it was a whistle, the really high bits would be deafening. And there's only three voices.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Beautiful.
But, unfortunately, for me it illustrates Ben's point, because it does have associations. I have had some of the harmonies explained so was trying to follow the parts.
I wonder the music on the flutey instrument is something that is learnt at the feet of a master, or does a shepherd boy learn it from older shepherd boys.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The difference is that the "master" would probably demonstrate the components (Ennis's "first you must learn the talk, then you learn the grip.." - doesn't seem to be an accurate rendering of it on this board).
A shepherd boy might learn it the way a schoolyard song is passed on - this years six year olds learning it from this years 7 year olds. I am going to take a lot of convincing that it is not possible for folk melodies to be passed on by mimicry. If birds can do it why can't we ?
On the Bulgarian stuff I have been to an afternoon "find out about Bulgarian vocal harmony - all abilities welcome" workshop. From the demonstration we were given I suspect that each of those three voices could probably cut sheet steel. The practical bit was three or four groups with parts that moved towards intervals a semitone or two apart, stayed parallell for a while them moved off. Simplified for us I guess but spine tingling stuff. I don't think it is really meant for male voices though.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Every musician has a natural 'voice', Some of us find our voice early on. Whatever genre they play sounds & feels natural. Other musicians are more restless. We have many 'takes' on what the voice is. This is reflected in the music. Sometimes it is mechanical or contrived. Not like the birds singing in the woods. More like a moth near the flame.
I get how preconceptions are not so much about how the music should sound but how I think my playing should sound.
When I play I am a moth. Love how you birds can soar!
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
hey llig, you must not have seen this: http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=s2TmmCJcc_g
naving
ethnomusicology is a hobby of mine. long been a fan of this haunting vocal music, Strictly speaking much of this music, including the horos recorded by Planxty, is Thracian-Macedonian in origin
cheers, pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i wonder if any of you saw the come west along the road on friday. the last thing was frankie and alec from like 1988 or sumthin playin the donegal pigeon on the gate and maudabawn chapel. brilliant stuff.
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I really liked Llig's comment in above thread about hearing what's really there. It reminded me of this great essay on learning by ear from a recording by coyotebanjo a.k.a. Chris Smith on his website.
Part of what he touches on are those "mystery notes" as he so wonderfully calls them...that is, things you can't quite make out on the first few [or many] listenings but that, I suspect, our brains like to "fill in". In other words, as MG has suggested, "we're not hearing the tune" as it *actually* is but letting our brain's filters "fill in" the tune because we aren't listening accurately enough [either we're filling in or filtering out it seems]...or perhaps we should say "acutely" enough since it's a less loaded, less pejorative, less judgemental word?
Here are a few excerpts from his essay [it's short, but great...have a look at it if you can].
Smith writes:
a) Listen to the tune multiple times without trying to play it. As you begin to get the tune in your ear, start to sing the phrases that seem particularly clear to you. Try as much as possible to be aware of which specific parts of the tune are more or less clear to you, and make mental notes about the foggy parts which will require extra attention.
b) Listen to the tune several more times, playing along lightly and quietly, trying to get the "rough outlines" of the more obvious phrases, as well as starting notes and ending notes of phrases, high or low notes, familiar phrases, and other stuff that seems especially immediate.
c) Stop the disc. Now, having gotten the tune as much as possible in your ear, by listening, singing, and playing along, work one phrase at a time. Start the disc, and, with your finger poised over the "stop" or "pause" button, listen to the first phrase (try to learn complete organic phrases--usually 1- or 2-bars in length in the Irish repertoire). At the INSTANT that the phrase ends, before you hear any subsequent phrases, hit the pause button.
We want to leave the mystery note ringing "in the mind's ear." In other words, you don't have want to try to hear the mystery note while listening through to the end of the complete phrase. Hit "pause" just as the mystery note sounds, so your ear is not confused by the notes that follow it.
This I thought was also good advice:
"Don't cheat on tough notes: if there is/are a note(s) you can't be sure of, make a mental note, and try to get everything else you CAN be sure of. Play the phrase several times, trying to match not only the pitches but also the phrasing you recall from the recording."
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Oh, and I should add this footnote he put at piece's end:
Note: The above is basically the same method that one uses, at a greatly accelerated pace, when trying to learn a tune on the fly in a session. The goal is to just do one thing at a time: JUST listen or JUST listen-and-lilt or JUST play the obvious phrases.
What this basically amounts to is highly intensified and elongated "conscious listening." This method will help prevent the inevitable temptation to shirk the details, out of a natural desire to move forward more quickly. If you really get into it, it becomes kind of meditative, and you stop feeling impatient or frustrated at lack of progress. It also, in my experience, gives one a greatly enhanced respect for the master players when you sit and listen to the minutiae of their approaches.
Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
There's a very interesting editorial this month in JMI [journal of music in ireland] by Toner Quinn.
He raises the question about how much of purported "solo" albums actually feature accompaniment (hence aren't really solo) and, how, in fact ITM listeners are now so used to the super group approach and/or high-powered accompanists to the 'solo' artist [Lunny, Paul Brady, Alec Finn et al] that *perhaps* fewer ITM listener's are aware of the pure drop stuff, or, fewer make it there owing to "many others will simply want more of what they like", writes Quinn. [eg., Lunasa etc]
My question: do you prefer your music unaccompanied in the true sense? Do you think accompaniment has made ITM more accessible to listeners on the one hand, but also led them away from an older/traditional way of playing before the advent of ceili bands and the like, on the other?
[some of my favourite cds are strictly solo affairs. James Kelly's solo effort being one. So I was quite interested to read Quinn's piece. I'd never really thought about this before....]
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Being a melody player, I tend to block out the backing stuff anyway, for the most part. To the point that someone will point out something that the guitar did, and I'll think "oh wow, there's a guitar in the mix?"
But a little texture in the recording never hurts (especially in commercial recordings anyway). I'm sure it helps to make them sell better. And as long as the melody is king, I don't mind it.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Well, that's interesting Rev.
You say it "doesn't hurt"....but, with respect, I'd say, well, many times it does. Or at least it doesn't add anything except another layer I have to peel away from the music to hear what I really want.
Given the two solo fiddle cds by James Kelly I prefer him without the guitarist. For my money it's far more engaging.
We've got *so much* texture in our lives wouldn't it be nice to strip all away and get back to the plain, raw instrument itself. Who needs texture?
Just look at the great recordings by Brian MacNamara for example.
I wouldn't want any texture there. There's plenty of texture in his own playing I think. And then some.
Well, just a thought.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Reverend, how many times have I said that melody player's couldn't listen, and that's why you need guitars and bodhrans to keep it together at a session.
Unless playing solo, obviously.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I prefer the ones with backing. It has to be good backing though - obviously.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
lol bliss
and mtodd, keep in mind that I said a *little* texture. Sure it can hurt, if it's done poorly. My point was that I tend to block it out anyway
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But isn't the artistry of the soloist enough? If I'm listening to Mico Russel I wouldn't want a strummer anywhere near him. His wonderful music doesn't need "backing"...it needs nothing.
That's my point.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
a smidgen of texture. ok Rev.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
>> But isn't the artistry of the soloist enough?
Enough for *what*? Enough for you and me, sure! Enough to make a recording sell well enough to make it a worthy venture, instead of a waste of money? Maybe, but maybe not.
Recordings with "high powered" accompaniment have a broader appeal, especially to people who grew up listening to multi-layered music, like Rock and Roll.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I listen to almost nothing but solo recordings. It annoys me when I buy a "solo" album and then I hear a guitar sneaking in on some tracks.
It's not really that I'm such a hardcore fan of the pure drop, I just plain prefer to hear tunes played solo. I hear more "depth" that way, if that makes sense. There's something magical in a good solo recording that I don't think that a band can capture, and even a single backer can get in the way (hello, Coleman's piano player).
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes mtodd and you are right and i am wrong. I said *I* like it. Just me, not talking for anyone else. I love a good backer and I tell you this - I'd take a good backer in a session any day rather than a lousy or even medicore melody player. Because they are artists too, if you are a really good backer you can bring heaps to the music. What is this obsession with people on this site dissing other peoples opinions on music? Alot of people like backing, alot dont. I dont start threads going on and on about how good backing is and isnt it awful and the magic gets ruined when people play *solo* do I? No, because everyone is entitled to their opinion. And its no less valid than anyone elses.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
personally i think its definately (accompaniment i mean) made the music easier to access for a wider audience, which is certainly a good thing. i do find that people wud find it easier to listen to the music with backing. good backing i mean. personally i wud want a good backer or no backer at all. but i wud also like to listen to completely solo with no backing. i wud class being solo in relation to how many people are playing the melody or the actualy tune, like if someones making a solo cd, i would still presume they have backing, but wud still say it solo just because thats the way recording has gone. but the thing about looking for more of what they like, i like backing, but i dont like lunasa ( i dunno why he made the correlation there).
i think some musicians playing lend more to backing then others. the artistry of the soloist IS enough mtodd., but certainly in some cases backing adds something, if the backer is good and sympathetic of course. there plenty of classic recordings with backing, frankie and alec, mary bergin and alec, and you mentioned james kelly, listen the Capel Street recording if you can find someone who has it, not in shops anymore. a classic cd with arty mcglynn. but there are absolute classics without it, sean keane gustys frolics for example, casey in the cowhouse, tommy potts.
i thought what you said about b mcnamara interesting mtodd, i have a good question though, as regards regulators for the pipes (which any piper wil tell you is basically self backing for the instrument) do you think that the pipe playing NEEDS them in order to get the whole experience of that instrument, seeing as it is what sets them apart from other pipes? my own opinion would be yes, but obviously if they are played well.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by tradmoosic
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
bb
You misunderstand my reply. No where above do I slag your opinion. I'm just debating it. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not saying I'm right. Of course you're entitled to your opinion!. And it's a good one. I'm certainly not slaggying *you* personally either -- just to be clear.
I thought we were having a discussion. Let's not make it personal. ok? thanks.
by the way, I can appreciate good backing as much as anyone, but it's interesting in the article that Quinn raises the very criticism Marklar raises which is how supposed "solo" albums often have backers [in fine print] and how annyoing that can be.
He also touches on a point raised by Rev which is we may now indeed require high powered names to sell cds....
hey, i didn't write the piece...i'm just raising the issue.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Agreed, bb, it's a personal taste, and it doesn't necessarily lead to harmony when we argue about our own personal tastes here...
For me, there's also a distinction to be made between listening to a recording, and playing in a session. I definitely love playing with good backers. It's an energy groove that is self sustaining, and loads of fun! Do I consider it necessary? No.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
And to be clear, I listen to a lot more session and private recordings than I do commercial recordings anymore...
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Reverend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yo sorry - I always get defensive about this issue,because its done to death to the death on this site! Sorry.
I can see why it'd be annoying if they promote their CD as a solo CD but have a sly little backer in there somewhere.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
so i guess by that marklar you wud find alec finns playing annoying? (n ot trying to start an argument or anything, thats the way it comes across to me). i love unaccompanied music as much as the next person, but i still think that certain backers can add even more depth if they are good enough, mary bergins album for example. its only a whistle, but listen to what she does, its beautiful, couple that with alecs inspirational backing, it transcends backing really. this creates a whole new experience to if the cd was completely solo, i dont find it annoying at all, in fact i find it great that there is more to listen to. every time i listen to that cd i hear something new. thats what decent backing can bring to the genre.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by tradmoosic
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Omigod - I cant believe I am in complete agreement with tradmoosic
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
lol. me neither! lol
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by tradmoosic
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Alec Finn is not a high-powered accompanist. Do you agree mtodd? He should definitely not be classed amongst the other two aforementioned bandits!!!
Marklar, Coleman had about 10 different accompanists. Not all bad. A few were very very good. One, Herbert G. Henry, was terrific. He played on two tracks, Mrs. Kenny's Barndance and on Dr. Gilberts. Check it out.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by The Grand Spy
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I wonder how much of the disagreement is to do with the terminology rather than the actual recording. I also wonder if it's the artists themselves or others (promoters, reviewers, general public) who apply this terminology.
I don't believe backing is of detriment to the music - you have to remember that it's the artist themselves who have chosen to have accompaniment there, so who are any of us to critise this, regardless of whither we perceive the music to be good or not.
There are far too many gifted backers out there to make sweeping statements about their role or place in the music. Many of them are also superb melodic players on other instruments, which I would suggest adds to their ability to contribute to the music.
Could you criticise the terminology when applying it to albums without accompaniment? What about the recent release of Bobby Casey's music; The Spirit of West Clare? There's no backing, although it has duets on it with his son Sean and with Tommy McCarthy, but it I were to think of the album, I would still view it as a *solo* recording. These tracks have a different element within them - the interplay between two musicians. Is the same not possible between a melodic player and an accompanist? I would argue it is, and there have been many examples already listed on this board (frankie and alec, and one I would also suggest, The Iron Man with peoples and daithi) that demonstrate it.
Personal taste? I like it with some things and not with others. Think banjo works much better with backing but think it takes away from the pipes. Just personal opinion.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Skip canlon plays the banjo and hates pipers. Lets get him!!
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by The Grand Spy
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't hate pipers, but I think they hate me :(
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The solo tradition is a bygone tradition ~ all but over . You do not hear it in sessions. Only in recordings.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
hey GS, stay black!
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Random notes:
"The solo tradition is a bygone tradition ~ all but over . You do not hear it in sessions. Only in recordings."
You ever tried having a session on your own? Good luck with that - it's an oxymoron!
Hey, wanna help me find some four sided triangles, or some married bachelors?
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I like to play ITM solo, naked, in the morning, with a cup of tea. But later on in the day, after I get dressed, I like to play with accompaniment because I'm a lot more secure when I'm fully dressed, or maybe just wearing a wife beater and tighty whities!!! Yee haaa.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by The Grand Spy
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not really saying that backers are bad for the music or anything like that at all. The fact of the matter is that most melody players (myself included) can really use some backing and don't really have what it takes to carry things solo.
But if I'm going to listen to a high-level professional melody player, I prefer to hear it solo. Of course, part of it is that I bought the recording just to hear that one person, so anyone else gets in the way no matter how good they are.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Wife Beater? tighty whities?
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I love my ice cream straight. I also love it with chocolate syrup, nuts and banana slices.
If I could have only one recording – a single track – it would have to be bare naked fiddle, with no accompaniment. If I could have two, the other would be bare naked pipes. Give me three or more and I’ll start adding the other melody instruments and some zouk or guitar.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Bob himself
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Bob - Great analogy! I'd rather a sundae packed to the gills with hot fudge sauce, nuts and cream and all kinds of special stuff than just plain ice cream, same goes for music
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Another one of these threads that gets sucked into the argument of liking solo melody v. backing, as if it were impossible to like both. I love my solo, naked, fiddle and pipes recordings, but I also love the group recordings which encompass everything from Nollaig Casey and Art McGlynn to bands like Old Blind Dogs featuring the old (congo) drum set.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I have only experienced the solo tradition a handful of times live. So to me it is a separate reality.
I did enjoy what I heard on the 1st 'Come West Along the Road' dvd.
# Posted on November 3rd 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i like how skip, grand spy and trad moosic think. they sound like very knowledgeable people. i wud feel like i wud like to have a drink with them sometime. i have a lot of free time now that i've finished my basketweaving course in trinity college. :D
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by fiddleruairi
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
lol.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by fiddleruairi
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't like ice cream much.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by ethical blend
ITM player
http://www.thejmi.com/article/834
Short-circuiting the Soloist?
Toner Quinn
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't think you can really compare the music "solo" to "with accompaniment".
It's not like ice cream compared to ice cream with chocolate syrup, nuts and banana slices. The additions don't change the ice cream, they add to it.
This is not the case with diddling on its own and diddling with a good strummer. The whole music is completely different when you play solo or in ensemble. It's almost different music.
That's not to say you can't prefer one over the other, but you can't really compare.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i like the taste of ice cream in the morning, but I LOVE the smell of napalm in the morning.
fiddleruairi, i'll gladly meet you for a drink, we'll go out and tear up the town. Maybe get real drunk and go beat up some bouncers. Letterkenny should be a good place to go. And I promise I won't tell your mammy!
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
sounds like a plan. maybe we can get some bouncers that like to harrass people by smashing their instruments against walls and stealing their shoes. like the ones at the oireachtas...
...good times.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by fiddleruairi
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
yup, good times had by all.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I kinda like some well played guitar backing to tunes, but absolutely can't stand the old style thumping piano backing that some recordings have, and would much prefer nothing to that. It's funny how fashions in things like that change over time.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Bredna
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The solos I have heard, during session, have been lovely.
One was a flute solo in a roomful of rambunctious firefighters. They listened.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
played properly, the music is best played solo
if I had an ideal accompanist it would be someone who was also a good solo melody player
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by millionyears_bc
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Remember, if you're a soloist (by which I mean no accompaniment whatsoever) there's nowhere to hide
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I'm with Skip. Why is everyone saying "solo" as "unaccompanied"? There's no accompaniment on Star Above the Garter but it's a duo CD, Denis and Julia together. There is a crucial difference between one melody player, two or more melody players, and a melody player or players with one or more accompanists.
Personally, I'm a two-melody man, and then solo melody, followed by all other iterations of whatever. Playing with accompaniment legitimately throws off my playing! I was in a session recently, playing a tune for a friend and the zouk came in softly from below...it just put me off to hear it, I lost the tune a couple times. There's something odd about interacting with another melody player and interacting with an accompanist...can't quite get my head around it.
--DtM
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Dan the Man
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Remember, if you're a soloist (by which I mean no accompaniment whatsoever) there's nowhere to hide"
So true, and unless you're one confident player with nerves of steel it's hard to perform all alone. I went to the Arkansas State Fiddle Championship (old-time contest) this year for the first time, and was surprised by the fact that every contestant (except for one I think) had accompaniment, which was optional under the rules. Some even had an entire old-time ensemble with them, complete with double bass!
I guess my point is, solo playing in public isn't for everyone, including people who are very good melody players. Thank goodness for sessions, where you can saw away under the influence of too much beer and give dirty looks to the box player when you screw up, just to throw everyone off.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Is it just me skimming through this thread too quickly or is it that it seems a lot of snobbery is being displayed here. Not all but a fair few posts. And it's musicians snobbery. Yes, I myself like to hear the pure drop, unaccompanied, or just duetted/trioed, as in just two or three flutes (my favourite sound in the world), melody instrument(s). A slight aside here but I think often what musicians look out for is not the same as what non-musicians look out for. What we want to hear is expertise in ornamentation as well as holding it together with swing, etc. I think what non-musicians hear, and look out for, is the swing, in the first instance, then the beauty of the music, of which may be contributary might be ornamentation at various levels, many subliminal to their non-actively playing ears, but a good non-playing listener will know his/her stuff - and often will have a better grasp than a mediocre player.
So, ok, rambling here, but as much as I love to "get inside a solo players head" by listening to solo recordings (however this will be finally defined) I love also the sound of the top class tight bands, whose names I won't mention lest it inflame a debate as to whether Pady Moloneys gang can beat up Frankie Gavins gang or Jackie Daly/Andy Irvine's..etc....
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Rudall the time
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Good backing should be subtle.......perhaps even subtle to the point where most wouldn't notice it. No accompaniment should distract the listener from the inner musicality of the tune. The accompaniment should instead augment the impact of a tune on the performer and in turn the listener.
Much has been made of the hyperactive technical styles of certain accompanists. I for one regard the musicality of simplicity itself above all else, for example: Arty McGlynn's ability to sustain one chord for one whole round of a tune without it sounding monotonous!
Backers need to learn the tunes just like the melody players, the unnoticed accompanist has done the job properly!
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by ceolman
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But if the backer is virtually unnoticed, then what's the point? If I'm listening to a melody player with a backer, I like the backer to catch my attention and kick in some ooomph once in a while.
I want to hear the musicians interact and shape the music together, rather than just listen to one and tune out the other. I may prefer listening to solo recordings most of the time, but it's not like I hate hearing backers and I appreciate listening to a good one.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Personally, I think listening to a soloist - with certain exceptions - is almost boring. What I really enjoy listening to is a smaller group of musicians that accompany a musician who solos on the melody. I can listen to the same tune over and over, focusing on one specific element each time - that is, the melody one time, then the guitar backup (especially when played finger-picking style), then just a hint (hopefully) of bodhran the next time. On the other hand, I think ceili bands are way too overbearing, which creates a total void of emotion in the music.
For me, group music touches my soul more than a soloist (again, with occasional exceptions). I liken it to a beautifully executed ballet in which interaction between the two dancers can bring so much more emotion to the dance with their interaction. I can also liken it to a very fine meal. Sure, you can eat a perfect cut of filét mignon all by itself, which will certainly be tasty and fill you up. But, that meal will become a sensation for all the senses if that fine cut of mean is enjoyed with colorful, tasty salad, good wine, and the company of someone very special.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Quarter Irish
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I'd be interested to hear who your "certain exeptions" are?
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The pretension here is amazing. Unless you were born in 1850, when there was no backing at all in Irish Music then you are just jumping on the 'unaccompanied' bandwagon. It's part of what we all grew up listening to. I can think of only a few living exceptions in the whole of Irish music who haven't ever played with backing and who probably never gleaned some joy from it, without being pretentious.
I do believe that like any art form, at the end of the day, it's all about the 1. Like the poet, writer or painter, it's very much about recognizing the expression of 1 person, doing on their own what they do best. If it's impossible for someone to do that or at least learn to do that then they will probably be lost forever.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by The Grand Spy
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Good thread, good points made.
What bothers me even more though is, where I can find more solo (literally solo, no backer, no nothing) without all the studio enhancement? I am tired of picking up a CD and finding it has little in common with "acoustic" anything.
Different subject, I suppose.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Piece
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't get where the either/or come into to it. Most good players do both. Most good players do both on their albums. And if you do both, what's the point of doing an album of exclusivly one or the other?
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Plain 'ol vanilla is ok but I much prefer my ice cream with very heavy doses of chocolate, nuts and whipcream. But please don't forget to add strawberries and bananas. Sometimes it's even better when you mix 2 different kinds of ice cream as well.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Fishmonger
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Being a melody player, I tend to block out the backing stuff anyway, for the most part."
Sometimes I *wish* I could do that, Reverend. There's nothing more off-putting than a backer who doesn't understand where the tune's going, or worse, who just doesn't have a clue what key or time it's in. But I also thoroughly enjoy playing with a good backer.
Chord instruments are very much a part of traditional music nowadays, and while they are not essential to *every* rendition of *every* tune, if all backing were to disappear from traditional music overnight, I think there would be a very conspicuous void left behind. There are many trad musicians around today who habitually play with backing - perhaps one particular backer - and who develop a musical rapport with the backer. They might also enjoy playing alone, or with other melody players and no backing, but that is not the same music - if Frankie Gavin makes a recording with Alec Finn, then what they play is 'the music of Frankie Gavin and Alec Finn', not 'the music of Frankie Gavin with Alec Finn in the background', even though the latter's role in that music may indeed be that of 'backer'.
What is a different matter altogether is when a 'soloist' records with a backer because it is seen as a requirement - that the music would not and could not be complete without some chords (whether or not they are the right ones :.) ) . There are many examples of this, going back, as we know, to some of the very earliest commercial recordings of traditional music. There is at least one example, even, of guitar backing being overdubbed separately onto a fine solo fiddle recording (Its saving grace is that it was recorded with one instrument in each channel, so you can turn down the guitar and just listen to the fiddle).
I think it is true to say that there are fewer musicians around today who habitually play solo. There is a much stronger emphasis on forging musical partnerships than there once was Perhaps this is partly due to a shifting of role models, with *bands* being very much in traditional music consciousness of today. But also, I think it is simply the fact that the primary vehicle for traditional music is the session, so playing together is the norm, and, at best, strong musical partnerships result from that.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I rarely think of musicians playing together as being divided into melody and backing. I've only got one pair of ears, and it all sounds like a joint effort to me. Good musicians complement each other in some way, whatever parts they play.
The quote (though possibly out of context) referred to sounds like another would-be taste dictator bemoaning that "people want more of what they like"
No kidding.
Surely they should be lining up for ashes and sackcloth? Or I suppose he'd insist on pure unaccompanied sackcloth.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Bren
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Hey Grand Spy, I bet Henk Bos likes ice cream with lots of nuts in it. Um, nice mouthful of nuts. Bet that's right up his alley.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The irony, of course, is that most of us play/practice/whatever in isolation. That is, we mostly learn the music and practice it solo. But likely we play "accompanied", ie, mostly in sessions. And as MG says, that's really almost an entirely diff form of the music for various reasons.
I suppose it really raises the question, is irish music really a solo art? Or, rather, WAS it? For I think Quinn is saying [and, no, Bren I didn't quote him out of context]. we are possibly in danger of llosing that along with the appreciation for the solo artist -- why? is it because of the pressure to sell records and the "rise of the accompanist"...[which may have started with that first bit of out-of-time thumping piano on Coleman's early recordings, or Reg Hall in the background on Paddy in the Smoke cd, or whatever.]
As Llig pointed out somewhere above if I can paraphrase, solo is solo. Duo is duo. And then there the "solo" artist[s] who actually isn't solo at all, but may have one or more accompanists because he/ she [perhaps] feels they can't sustain a solo performance. Is that the reason? Or maybe it's just a *commercial* reason.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"I suppose it really raises the question, is irish music really a solo art? Or, rather, WAS it?"
No. Yes. It doesn't matter.
It's a living tradition, just because things were done a certain way long ago doesn't mean it still has to be done that way.
There's room for solo playing, accompaniment, bands, etc. It's just a matter of personal preference as to what you listen to, I don't think that any one approach is more "correct" than another.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"There is at least one example, even, of guitar backing being overdubbed separately onto a fine solo fiddle recording" (ragaman)
Is that Tommy Peoples' "Fiddler's Fancy" CD? If so, that confirms my suspicions when I posted it here a few years ago. See my comments on http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/1099.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Wait wait wait! Are drones accompianment? The reggies on the pipes? Doublestops? Cos' in a way, that's "accompaniment"....
Never don't mind me, I haven't had enough tea yet.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Pádraig
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I agree with Marklar's comment about being able to perceive and hear more "depth" when a tune is played solo with no accompaniment whatsoever.
If a recording is advertised as a "solo" recording, then I think that is what it should be--just one instrument and only one instrument.
Yes, bb, this issue has been done to death on this web site before. Would you like to help me kill it again? That would probably be as much fun as beating a dead horse (he said sarcastically).
Speaking of "high-powered accompanists" Grand Spy, I prefer to think of myself as a low-powered accompanist. I don't know whether or not the other musicians at the local sessions would agree with this opinion of myself. You would have to ask the other musicians what they think of my talents and abilities since I am speaking only for myself and not for anyone else.
I don't have any four-sided triangles or know of any married bachelors, skip canlon, but as an example of a stupid ox, I would like to offer the term "military intelligence".
I like my ice cream with chocolate syrup and whipped cream but you will have to leave the nuts and bananas off because I am allergic to both of them.
Yes, lazyhound, you can play but you can't hide.
When I was younger, I performed by myself on a piano playing ragtime music out-of-doors at a local music festival in front of an audience of hundreds of people. It was scary and exciting and challenging while also being enjoyable for me. Ragtime piano music (especially some of the pieces by Scott Joplin) is somewhat more complicated than the music we are discussing here.
At the monthly meetings of the old-time folk music society where I play acoustic bass, we have a variety of performances. We usually start with all of the musicians playing three tunes together.
Then we start our regular program with some people performing solo on an instrument by themselves; some people singing by themselves while accompanying themselves on an instrument such as a guitar or a banjo; some people singing unaccompanied by any instrument or anyone else; some people singing vocal duets unaccompanied by any instruments; and other people performing as a duo or a trio on their respective instruments. At the end of the evening, we have a general jam session for everybody who is still there and wants to participate to finish off the monthly meeting.
We have been using this mixed variety format for forty-something years now and this group of mixed nuts is still going strong.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Ragtime piano music (especially some of the pieces by Scott Joplin) is somewhat more complicated than the music we are discussing here."
Sometime the comments on this site beggers belief.
There are numerous examples and exponents who demonstrate why this music is as beautiful, complex and diverse as ANY other genre of music. Many of their names and recordings are listed on this topic; you should try listening to them sometime.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"For I think Quinn is saying [and, no, Bren I didn't quote him out of context]. we are possibly in danger of llosing that along with the appreciation for the solo artist"
I suppose that is why I have a problem with statements like that. He's not saying that "we" are in danger of losing it, because he clearly doesn't see himself as someone who lacks appreciation, so he's not including himself. It's those horrible masses out there - "you" - who need to have their tastes controlled somehow, lest they just go out and, god forbid, "buy more of what they like" - and that is somehow polluting the legacy of extant solo recordings
As far as I'm aware, the great solo unaccompanied recordings made since the days Edison have not been systematically destroyed and more than enough survive, more than any individual can listen to in a lifetime, are available. It's not like every time you buy a CD with Alec Finn on it, an unaccompanied puppy dies
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Bren
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ah skip, have you ever tried playing ragtime? Trad is no doubt beautiful and intricate but lets be reasonable here!
Trad has no need of complexity, it stands strong in its simplicity. In many ways it is incredibly simple form music compared to Classical ,jazz ,and ragtime Indian and Arabic Classical music. In fact I would say its all the better for it. That surface simplicity allows for an incredible depth. That I think is one of the mistakes musicians comping to trad make. They look at the simplicity of it and presume that its as simple to play! big mistake! With very complex music its only possible to really get deep within it with an incredible skill and an awful lot of dedication, so most people dont. They just skim the surface yet still 'play' the music. This leads them to presume that a similarly superficial approach to trad will work, it doesn't.
Back to the subject. I listen almost exclusively to unaccompanied trad, solo and duo's. I think the problem with accompaniment is that many accompanists use Equal temperament. This in my view flattens out the music to an extent that bothers me. The depth of harmony and melody can become same-ified. The richness is lost. Now of course there are accompanists who tune specifically to the keys we play in and this can create an immensely powerful sound. The harmonies from all the overtones build up and up. While with EQ they dont 'go' anywhere. Its not the accompanist that is the trouble, its that they are out of tune, especially if they rely on some stupid little gadget that cost them a tenner! I know modern electric pianos give many tuning options, what system do you use Fauxcelt? and if its EQ would you consider or have you, experimented with some of the other options?
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
As I said on the last thread about this, I am currently listening to John Williams plays Bach. There is backing on it.
That says it all for me.
KML is right, musical snobbery.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Llig Leahcim would like to know who my "certain exceptions" are concering solo music, but I must admit that I'm positively dreadful about name-dropping. I'm a very busy person, and I often listen to ITM somewhat passively, like when at work or at home distracted by chores and such. So, that means that I rarely know or take the time to memorize the name of the musician/s who just played a tune that I particularily enjoyed hearing. And for this admission, I will gracefully accept the thump on the head that all you die-hard music-listeners will want to give me.
I agree totally with ragaman when he said, "...I think it is simply the fact that the primary vehicle for traditional music is the session, so playing together is the norm, and, at best, strong musical partnerships result from that.".
I remember reading somewhere years ago that all this wonderful ITM was pretty much a well-kept secret in Ireland, and that the main mission of the Chieftains was to bring the music to the world. They did that magnificently, making ITM one of the most beloved folk music genres in the world. So, it's not surprising that the world has come to love group music more than solo.
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Quarter Irish
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I am not going to read all of this, I know how I feel about the issue anyway.
As someone well versed in this music once said: 'So which guitar player would you like to hear playing on your favourite Seamus Ennis recording?'
Sums it up nicely doesn't it
# Posted on November 4th 2008 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
vry nicely
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ionannas, yes I have played, and studied ragtime - even performed some as part of a solo recital once. But would still argue that trad is as complex and as beautiful as it or any other genre. The two defining characteristics of it that I would site would be melodic variation and ornamentation, and use of tone and tonality. Are the variations within Potts' playing not as complex and as beautiful as anything ever recorded? Or the sound that Casey got from the fiddle? I'd suggest that if you don't think so, then ITM, and this site, is not for you. That's my main gripe with fauxcelt's comment. We're all entitled to opinions, but if you're going to lessen the music by comparing it unfavourably to other genres, then do it somewhere else. You may argue that it doesn't need to be complex, and that it's great you can sit down with your €50 mandolins and Guinness bodhrans and bang away with some friends in a local pub session and think you get the 'real deal', but the true height of this artform is the likes of Casey, Potts, Coleman, Clancy, Ennis etc. and their music is as complex and beautiful as any other.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Haven't waded through all the verbiage, but regarding the nit-picking about regulators, double-stopping etc, I'd define a one-man-band (drum, squeezebox, knee cymbals, mouthorgan and harmonious farting) as a solo performance.
Well, he'd probably be playing with himself to a non-existent audience at any rate.
Point I'm trying to make - god knows why - is that in my book a solo performance is a piece of music performed by one person.
Apologies if someone else has said the same thing, but life feels all too short (but not so short I can't chuck my 2p in).
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by mutatis mutandis
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But skip, why do you equate complexity with beauty? I certainly think Bobby's fiddling is beautiful and full of variation and depth, and? what has that to do with complexity? Why do you think Fauxcelt was lessening the music? Perhaps I missed something, he just pointed out a simple fact. That's what it is. We are not comparing the playing of Bobby Casey, but the genre. Simplicity is not bad! simplicity is beautiful. The tunes rule the day IMO.
and our local pub sessions ARE the real deal! 
>>I'd suggest that if you don't think so, then ITM, and this site, is not for you.>?>
Bit late for that skip!
I know full well that the artists you mention were the top of the field so to speak. I was not talking about them, but the genre. If you want to compare individual musicians then thats a different matter.
I listen to the pure drop all the time when I am not playing myself , but perhaps we have a different understanding of complexity?
I'm the last person to denigrate trad, I've spent most of my life playing. But I think you have overreacted in defence of the music . I really dont think he was comparing the music unfavourably, and I certainly wasn't!
Ps I dont play the mandolin
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
We always do this 'trad isnt as hard as other types of music thingy' - BUT - there are really only a handful of truely amazing trad musicians around.....most people just never get it. It may seem easy but it isnt- otherwise there would be loads more of amazing players instead of the hordes of mediocore players (myself included).
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Just thought I'd say ~ I like the seed of this, interesting, and I've been enjoying lurking...
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by ceolachan
My all time favourite recordings are my field recordings, and 'accompaniment' is rare...
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
There is a great deal of semantic confusion here. Words like complex and sublime, beautiful with depth. etc. Lots of pejorative stuff.
I think the misconception of the simplify of Irish diddley music comes largely from two things:
1. the fact that the world's notation systems commonly used are woefully inadequate, they don't convey at all the subtleties intonation or rhythm.
2. people just don't feckin listen to it.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
doh, "misconception of the simplicity of "
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Maybe one of the reasons it's so wide spread is 'cause it's quite easy to play..
. llig December 8th 2002
I base the assertion that diddley music is easy by relating its physicality to other forms of music.
..llig January 17th 2005
Simple? Easy? They mean more or less the same.
But what I can't understand is why you all have such a problem with easy/simple. Why do you all feel the need to vociferously stress that this diddly stuff is hard. I make passing reference to something I thought was obvious....llig
It's a good thing that diddly music is easy, not a bad thing. I respect it all the more for being easy..
.llig September 24th 2002
I disagree llig. I said that trad is reletively simple, not a particularly complex form of music. I dont think its easy at all! Superficially yes , the melodies are often easy enough to play, but to master!! Thats a different matter. A player can play for 30yrs and not master it at all. . There is much hidden beneath the surface, much depth that can only be approached in a non-intellectual almost spiritual manner. IMO.
But what made you change your mind ? or have you? You now think that to believe the music is simple is a misconception? Hmm...
Were you just not feckin listening?
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ouch look at this one
>>;I think I'm taken as a beligerant troublemaker because I remind all of you the truth that you all know in your heart of hearts but won't admit. You all think that what you do is clever. In the grand scheme of things, it's not. Diddly music (and I genuinely mean no respect) is a little clique of hardened enthusiasts going round and round with the same old repertoir of tunes that all sound the same.<< Llig.
get your teeth into that now skip!
but I like these replys;
<<No, Michael -- the reason I think you're a belligerent troublemaker, quite honestly, is that you insist on behaving like a jerk.>> Zina
and ;
<,Sorry to say this Michael, but for all your much vaunted 'love of Irish music', you come across as a complete tosser. Yes Irish music, indeed any music is 'easy', in the same way that oil painting is easy. Of course, anyone can put paint on a brush and smear it on a canvas. So you must be right!>>ottery
HO Ho Ho SMSWL!
How come these kinds responses dont get posted anymore?
Where have these people gone I wonder? great read,
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/911/comments#comment13785
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Oh, dear, just when discussions seemed to be brimming over with respect, reasoned argument, cameraderie.......*sigh*
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by oldstrings
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, sigh. And to think it was once "folk" music
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... some of the posters in that thread might still be lurking about it would seem I suspect lonannas ... well Llig certainly is ... lovely thread mtodd but I don't feel qualified to add to it. Beautiful solo fiddle is not what comes to the vast majority of people's minds when it comes to Irish music around these parts ... I guess its just tooooooo far away from what has been widely popularised eg The Chieftains, Riverdance, The Bushwackers ... unfortunately.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by Clear Drops
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
crikey, it must take you ages to dig all this stuff up. I wonder at your motivation.
And I suspect the reason many people don't post here any more is because the can't be arsed having the same old conversation over and over and over.
(by the way, Zina is my mate)
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes that Michael - and that they cant be F*cked getting shot down all the time if their opinions differ slighty to the people running riot on this board.
Iona - you seem to have it in for Michael - its like you just follow him thread to thread seeking out ways to attack. You are like a funnel web or something. What is it all about?
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by bb
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Heheh. That thread was before my hard times even. All that crude ego and pontificating flying around! The great constant is that Michael is still here, a man whose opinions I have come to respect more and more and above those of most other posters. Adelante, Llig!
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Not at all michael, it took no more than a few seconds, copied 'irish music easy' into the search and voila. sorry...
My motivation? well you said just above that 'Conceiving Irish Music as easy' was a misconception, Which I would agree with. And I knew full well that you go on here about how easy it was. Made me wonder....
That thread though... Incendiary or what?! and here you are 5 yrs later acting in the same manner or worse.
I dont know you from Adam llig, and I have no desire to . I just wanted to confront you with your own words, and see how you react! I dont 'have it in for you' but you say the most outrageous things here.
I then read through the thread, Sorry perhaps I shouldn't have made the second post, but I refrained from quoting Jeremy, who also called you a foul mouthed troublemaker. Why he puts up with it I will never know. Personally I have nothing against llig, honestly, truly, I take issues with what he says and how he says it.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Anyhow, All in jest
, I laughed so much I wanted to share it with you lot, especially Skip.
Now back to the subject, so what reasoned argument have you got then llig for your contradictory quotes? where does your opinion lie now?
For the record simple does not mean easy. A pure circle is a very simple shape..... but not an easy one to draw!
I enjoy bands like Lunessa, but somehow its the unaccompanied stuff that revolves in my CD player. Perhaps its that without backing I can really get into the tune as played without distraction?
I just took out Jackie and Kevins eavsdropper, class stuff, and put in the branch line, Jack and Charlie Coen, thats what it is all about for me. My playlist for today includes tin whistles by Paddy Malony and sean potts, Mary Bergins first album, Mary MacNamara , John Doherty,the floating bow. Again! and Bobby casey , the spirit of west Clare, Awesome.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Am I right that people are taking about a music that can be taken to great heights by masters (bb's "amazing players"), who in the past probably had few outlets for expressing what they were capable of, but also bashed out (by bb's "mediocre players") in fairly basic form if people wanted to dance and that was what was available ?
Or is it just about what CDs people like ?
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I just mention the CD's as classic examples of the Genre. But I do think that recommendations are a really good thing.
Its not 'just' about what we like. These are artists of the highest calibre. That is what I think keeps the music going, not sessions but the individual often times playing alone, simply for the love of the music. Who explore the depths of the music and really let it shine... unaccompanied.
What about some great group/ backed CD recommendations, I'm out of touch with that side of things.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Christ!
I'm only going to address the point Ionannas made to me
You ask why I equate beauty with complexity. I must admit I do, to an extent. The reason being, the aforementioned musicians (casey, coleman etc.) are musicians I have listened to for a long number of years and can only envision doing the same until I'm dead or deaf. This is because I still hear something new in their music every time I hear it. This to me indicates complexity - to create something that engages a listener in that way is complicated by definition. The likes of all this trazz rubbish - 'August' for instance - is simple to my ears - listen to it once, you hear what they do, and that's it! No depth there, just arrangements and a few trilly bits - simple. Potts playing Dowds or Crowleys or Julie Delany's - that's something completely different.
You also make the point that comparing individual musicians and genres is a different thing, but I would beg the question, how can you compare anything in music without thinking of the finest exponents of that music? If you're looking for characteristics within a genre, so you not think of and listen to the musicians who created/did those characteristics? Someone asks me to discuss gypsy jazz guitar, the first thing that would occur to me is django, and my opinions would be born form that. So I think it is paramount to reference the pinnacle performers of a genre when trying to compare it to anything.
I think part of the issue with 'simple' is when you look at trad thru the defining characteristics of other Western Art music. Yes, in terms of rhythm, harmony, form and arrangement, it is simple in comparison to say Jazz and Classical. But these to me are not the defining aspects of Irish Music. From the point of view of melodic variation, ornamentation, tone, tonality - Irish music is ridiculously complicated! Not to mention immensely diverse; for the geographical size of the land that spawned this music, the number of styles and ways of playing it are immense, Look at our indigenous instrument, the pipes. Is that not complex? even to f ucking pick up! It has a drone, harmonic and rhythmical accompaniment in the form of regs, and a chanter that is capable of producing the most complicated ornamentation on a melody, one of the few instruments that can really replicate the beauty and dexterity of the human voice. Is this not complicated music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF3fW4Nox9U
If you don't think so then there's little point continuing this discussion, as our views are so opposed I think we'll never hit a middle ground for debate.
It depends what you get from the music. You said:
"The tunes rule the day IMO. "
Well for me it's what musicians do with these tunes. If you look at these melodies transcribed in basic western notation, they do look very simple. Anyone with a bit of classical music can sight read their way thru O'Neills without breaking sweat. But those are only a framework - the complexity comes from what the musicians do with the tune. Compare how Silver Spear is transcribed in O'Neills, then look at the excellent book of Seamus Ennis' music by Pat Mitchell and see how it is there. Big difference.
My blood does boil when people refer to trad as simple music, particularly on open boards like this for all to see. I think it's a complete misrepresentation of the music, and find that the vast majority of being who think the music is simple are actually simple themselves.
Oh, and I wasn't slaggin yourself or mandolins for that matter - just an open example. If you wanna hear 'complex' music, check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAQLjzR-424
South Indian Classical music on an electric 5 string mandolin. Nuts!
But our music is better!
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
That's no probs Ionannas. You are good to debate with, you quickly get to the crux of it and, quite rightly, challenge me.
and your musical tastes are extremely close to mine (which probably means you music is pretty similar also).
Yes, you are quite right that I'm confused with simple and easy.
I reminded me of an analogy I made in that other thread between Joan Miro and the Pre-raphaelites. The amount of technical skill you need to paint like the Pre-raphaelites is mind boggling. An yet it appears that the amount of technical skill Miro had is next to nothing. But it's a different kind of skill, one that relies almost entirely with merely being able to see properly. To be able to weigh what you see and adjust shapes and colour and balance etc. In a way it's complicated, but in another way, it's not. I think one of the things that detractors of "modern art" often come up with, the "I could that", or "a child could do it", gets to the heart of it. Of course a child could do it, but why should that demean it?
The analogy is not quite the same with diddley music, but it's pretty similar. The main difference is that there is a lot of listening and understanding of generations' worth of contributions to assimilate, but basically, there is little technical skill required, just the ability to hear very subtle things such as the exact timing. But yes, I do believe that anyone can play this music to a high standard, and all you really have to do is get a small amount of technique, and then learn to listen really really well.
And the conundrum of, "if it's so easy, why are there not more players who do the music justice?" genuinely escapes me.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"there is little technical skill required, just the ability to hear very subtle things such as the exact timing"
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Touhey's back stiching? Coleman's circular bowing? Simple?
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
fritz kreisler saw the complexity and beauty in the music of coleman and hughie gillespie, but he's wrong and you're right. ok, just so i understand.....
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Sorry Skip, backstitching is NOT an extremely difficult technique, it is something easily mastered, using it tastefully, that's another matter
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
ok, differentiation of terminology - technique and skill ( the utilisation of technique). It may be simple to do, but to do well is something else. I couldn't possibly comment on the technical aspect of the pipes as well as you could paul, but certainly the second example is both complex from a technical and skill point of view.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
When some musicians - often from a classical background (I've met and played with them) - say that trad (Irish or English) is "simple", and by implication not worthy of their attention, you need to do no more than to draw their attention to the piano music of Mozart - simple to look at on the page but among the most difficult of all music to play well. If that doesn't make them think then there's no hope for them.
As has been said in previous posts, they're confusing "simple" with "easy". I think we can go further - there are two types of "easy": technically easy, and interpretively easy. "Twinkle, twinkle little star" on the piano is an example of both types. Several Mozart piano sonatas are relatively technically "easy" (they're served up to learners within two or three years) but takes many years of experience to understand and interpret them well. Beethoven's later piano sonatas are technically difficult, and it is not until you've had the years of experience and training to master the technical problems that you are ready delve into the music itself and begin to understand it on a level even deeper than Mozart.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Difficult and easy are in relation to technical skill. For example i couldn't back stitch to save my life, unless you were talking about sewing! for me, very, very, difficult. I also think acquiring a technical skill can be relatively easy or hard depending on the individual and their capabilities.
But using these skills to create art? Is neither difficult nor hard,Its both, depends on who you are and the 'level' of your art and what you aspire to.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Regardless of your personal level or what you aspire to, do you not think that the level of art that others have reached in their music deserves respect, and that terminology like 'simple' is derogatory?
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Paul?
Anyway, please do differentiate between the skill to play an instrument and the complexity of music.
I do believe that relative to some other types of music the technical skills required to play Irish music are all that great. That is not to say it's all a walk in the park.
Understanding Irish music at different levels and with a high degree of detail requires dedication and immersion.
To combine the two, art may ensue.
When I listen to recordings of Bobby Casey from the early sixties (as I often do) I hear a stunning multitude of ideas and a full grasp of the material, grounded in it's own time and place played with consummate skill and the finest detail. There's a whole world of emotions in there. It's all there an it can't be repeated. Same for Seamus Ennis' music, Willie Clancy and many more. It's in each case the sum of personal experiences and a shared heritage.
What more is there to say?
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Haiku is "simple" but it's not easy. Simplicity doesn't mean simple. irish music might be simple/direct in its message and approach, but, I still say it's not "easy". As Oscar Wilde wrote:
"Simplicity is the last refuge of the complex."
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
not much at all.
Kinda ironic that we have spam off from the original topic by quite a degree, yet the exponents we all seem to have sited predominately recorded unaccompanied. Although I love the recordings of Casey on the LP 'Music from West Clare and Galway' with John Roe backing, it's still the *solo* stuff that really floats my boat.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i think we're all getting bogged down in definitions and words, which makes little sense when relating to music. I'm off to smell a painting and lick a poem, I'll see you all later.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skip canlon
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Wow, this thread has really exploded.
Simple? Complex? Word games, really. I think you guys are much closer in you opinions than you think.
The music is as simple or as complex as you make it. Complexity comes from the musician, not the tunes. As with any folk music, it's easy to play but hard to play well.
The basic surface of the music is simple enough that an average person can spend a few bucks on a whistle and learn to play well enough to join sessions without too much trouble. But that same person could spend 30 years playing tunes on the whistle and not master it.
It's folk music, so by necessity it's something that a person can get started in without years of formal training and extensive knowledge of music theory. But there is infinite complexity in the details, for those few who master it.
You can call trad simple, or you can call it complex. Both things are true. Arguing over this seems silly to me.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The way forward and the way back are one and the same.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
There is no spoon.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
noops on si ereth
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
There is no accompaniment either.
Om mane padme tune.
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
what's the difference between a frog?
# Posted on November 5th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
What a load of pretentious crap.
Skip Canlon and his limited number of "pure" players. Ireland, England, US of A, Australia, Scotland and I suspect a large number of other places are full of "great" musicians, or as the poem put it "some mute Milton".
Every town and village has great unknown musicians, that's one of the beautys of the tradition.
As for litening to solo recordings. Well.....for a few tunes maybe, but I would need the full flow of other instruments bringing out the full flavour of the music.
Never saw Menuhin, Williams or those boys playing purely solo, or the great concert pianists. ITM is the same, the blend of instruments to me adds to it.
Take even songs. I am into singer/songwriters. So take say Sandy denny and "Who knows where the time goes". Yes listening to her on her own is fine, but add in a fiddle/flute whatever, it adds to the whole thing. Think of adding ingredients or sauces to a meal.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Sorry skip I missed your post above. If we were discussing comparing individual musicians and the complexity of music and performance then that would be a different issue really. We were discussing the form rather than how it can be performed. Not that I see any value in comparisons anyhow really, the music i what it is.
you said ;
>>I think part of the issue with 'simple' is when you look at trad thru the defining characteristics of other Western Art music. Yes, in terms of rhythm, harmony, form and arrangement, it is simple in comparison to say Jazz and Classical. But these to me are not the defining aspects of Irish Music. From the point of view of melodic variation, ornamentation, tone, tonality - Irish music is ridiculously complicated! Not to mention immensely diverse; for the geographical size of the land that spawned this music, the number of styles and ways of playing it are immense, Look at our indigenous instrument, the pipes. Is that not complex? even to f ucking pick up! It has a drone, harmonic and rhythmical accompaniment in the form of regs, and a chanter that is capable of producing the most complicated ornamentation on a melody, one of the few instruments that can really replicate the beauty and dexterity of the human voice. Is this not complicated music:>.
Well I dont look at it through those eyes! I look at other forms of music through the lens of trad! and I see some pretty damn complicated stuff!!!
But I I'll tell you what , I think you are right in a way , when you mention the pipes your point bears more weight! I still think in some ways , compared to stuff that baffles me, like jazz or classic music, that trad is pretty straight forward and simple, but yes it can also be complex as well.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
well obviously jazz is going to baffle you if you are not used to listening to it. the great saxophone player michael buckley lives near me and he was brought up in a musical jazz family much in the same way irish music runs in families. he is able to understand jazz because he is used to the rythms, the structures of classic jazz and the wildness of contemporary. i listen to jazz aswell but im no expert, it would take me a while to figure out the structure of a tune if it is one that has it. the same would go for balkan music, the rythms are different and keys, im not used to listening to it. but michael buckley doesn't listen to irish music much the same way i would periodically listen to jazz. he would be aware of the music but just because he plays jazz doesn;t mean trying to play irish music is necessarily easy for him.he mite be able to knock out a simple tune that doesn't sound quite right but thats it. the same would go the other way, de dananns playing of queen of sheba. all music is the same, it can be as simple or as complex as you like. there are simple pieces in irish music, jazz and classic. you can do what you want with them. then there are complex pieces aswell. it can be both.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by fiddleruairi
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Irish traditional music was never meant to be played by virtuosos. It was dance music or song that needed to be available often in areas where amazingly-virtuosic musicians seldom abounded. There isn't too much technical strain on fiddle, whistle or harmonica to play all the notes with a bit of life and good rhythm. To get to be a superstar may be another kettle of fish. That super-alien concept (to me), known as "practice," may have to be involved there. But, as for the rest, it's about socialising and having fun. It's great to socialise and have fun whilst at the same time straining your mental sinews a little bit to make sure the chunes sound good. But the whole thing is self-motivating. When you say it's easy you mean that it's potentially inclusive and accessible to all those of good will who have just a smidgeon of a musical ear and a touch of talent on whatever instrument they happen to play. Brilliant. The wonderful thing is that, on the same day, you can hear life-affirming brilliant stuff, all rough round the edges, from a crass amateur in a pub, then go home and hear anodyne crap on a CD by some superstar or other (but never Matt Molly, Michael
) As for solo or not, there are no rules. Do what you like and be damned, listen to what you like and sod the curmudgeons!
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Matt Molly my arse. He of Westport of course.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Is that Molly on the shaw?
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I wasn't trying to "lessen" or denigrate or be derogatory about this music when I said it was somewhat less complicated than ragtime piano music.
If I didn't like this music and thought it wasn't worth taking the time, effort, and energy to learn how to play it, then I wouldn't still be participating more-or-less irregularly in the local sessions (and other sessions out-of-state) after thirteen years. I would have quit playing and participating in the local sessions many years ago and found some other place or other way to make music.
I didn't become seriously interested in playing Irish music until after I attended a workshop on Folk Keyboard in 1981 which was taught by Triona ni Dhomhnaill of the Bothy Band. This workshop opened both my eyes and my ears to the possibilities of the piano in this particular genre of music.
Then I had to wait until 1995 before some other local musicians started an Irish Session here so I could start exploring the richness and variety of Irish and Scottish music.
After playing ragtime piano music for approximately thirty years, I will tell you that most ragtime music is superficial and shallow with nothing or not much below the surface of the music (unlike the music of Scott Joplin and a few others).
However, I still enjoy playing ragtime just as much as I enjoy playing other types of music such as the music we are supposed to be discussing on this web site.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by fauxcelt
You might be a dying breed
I missed the prognosis. How is the patlent?
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Keeps trying to get out of bed..
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Bren
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Irish traditional music was never meant to be played by virtuosos. It was dance music or song that needed to be available often in areas where amazingly-virtuosic musicians seldom abounded."
I'm not sure I agree with that. What are you basing this on? There is evidence of virtuosos in Irish music going back to the very first recordings. Players like Coleman didn't come out of a vacuum, they obviously came from a tradition of virtuoso playing.
Just because the music was played in small rural communities doesn't mean that there were no sophisticated players in those communities. I'm sure that there were plenty of musicians who were dedicated and serious and who played virtually from the cradle to the grave. Virtuoso playing wasn't just recently introduced to Irish music.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Sitting in a cafe listening to SoundLantern on headphones. Solo.
It's my 'new tradition' A few of you are there. Give it a listen.
Bren , thanks for the update.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sophisticated
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Oh whatever, wrong word, I was thinking of it in the mechanical sense. You know what I mean, no need to nit-pick adjectives.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I wasn't nitpicking. I think the definitions are useful to the discussion:
1.Having obtained worldly experience, and lacking naiveté;
cosmopolitan,
2. elegant, refined.
3.Complicated, especially of complex technology.
4. Appealing to the tastes of an intellectual; cerebral.
In the past you could have someone with the mind of an Einstein trapped in the life of a subsistance farmer with nothing more than a whistle to channel their inspiration through. But it was still "folk" music, and it was not "sophisticated" in most of its senses.
From the above discussion it sounds as if some people want it to be "sophisticated".
(and I am putting "folk" music because I think I hear quotation marks when Seamus Ennis says it in the truckley-how track on 40 Years of Piping)
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Like I said, it was the wrong word. I should have said something along the lines of "highly-developed" or, well, "virtuoso."
But you know what I mean, just because someone lives in an isolated rural environment and has a low level of education does not mean that that person is ignorant or unskilled, especially when it comes to their own musical tradition.
I don't buy the argument that the music was somehow played with less skill back when it was a rural pastime. I don't think that virtuoso trad players are a recent thing; I suspect that there were plenty of players 150 years ago who could match the best of today.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes but I hope it was also "accessible to all those of good will who have just a smidgeon of a musical ear and a touch of talent on whatever instrument they happen to play" (Steve, above).
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes of course, but that's true today as well as in the past.
My point is that virtuoso playing is nothing new; it's been a part of the tradition since at least the earliest days of recording, and most likely long before that.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I agree with you Marklar. The idea that virtuosic playing wasn't always a part of ITM is poorly evidenced. Sure, one might suggest that a classical musical elitist attitude for the attainment of virtuosic status now exists in ITM and is a new thing, but to suggest that there wasn't a prevalence of virtuosic players in the past seems just an assumption.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Jamie
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... the only difference being that before there were recordings you would have had to be there in the kitchens or in the nooks beside the fire to get an ear full of it. That seems highly likely to me ... but what would I know?
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Clear Drops
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Whether the playing of players of the past was virtuoso or not will forever remain conjecture.
However, we have (thank christ) screeds and screeds hard evidence that they were virtuoso tune writers.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... and only a foolhardy few would have been brave enough to subject their playing to the distortion of recording ... why would they want to do that? ... especially in the early days of recording when the sound quality was so woeful. What was recorded would have been only a miniscule part, not necessarily the best, of what was out there to be heard in people's homes and communities.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Clear Drops
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, notation systems are inadequate for conveying the subtleties of intonation and rhythm in many types of music.
As an interesting experiment and just for fun, I used some of the music theory which I learned as a music major in college to analyze some of the tunes which I was playing at the local sessions.
Doing this increased my appreciation and liking for this music as well as my respect for whoever the original composers were. I was wondering why I enjoy playing this music so much and analyzing it like this answered my question. Analyzing music by taking it apart and then putting it back together has helped increase my appreciation of other types, styles, and genres of music as well.
Perhaps the terms you need are simple complexity or complex simplicity.
Lazyhound mentioned the piano music of Mozart in one of his comments and I agree with what he said. I remember trying to play Mozart's piano sonatas when I was a teenager. I learned the hard way that Mozart's music was much harder to play than it looked on the page. Mozart's piano music looked so simple and so easy but it was so difficult to play it properly.
Like the music of Mozart, this music seems to be deceptively simple but there is more to it than meets the eye or the ear.
Sometimes simplicity is more beautiful and easier on the ear than complexity.
An example for me would be the four symphonies of Johannes Brahms. They all have lovely melodies but his orchestration is so clumsy, heavy-handed, and awkward that it drags down the beautiful melodies and makes them sound heavy and ponderous. When I listen to one of the symphonies of Brahms, the image which comes to my mind is the infamous one of the bull in the china shop who is blundering around and destroying all of the precious and valuable china with his clumsiness.
I have listened to all four of Brahms' symphonies with a copy of the score for each symphony in front of me. I did this because I was trying to figure out why I didn't like Brahms' symphonies.
Since I am a good sight reader, learning how to read an orchestral score was easy for me.
In his other orchestral works I think Brahms was more comfortable because his writing for the orchestra wasn't quite as clumsy and strained as it is in his symphonies. And, last but not least, I do like both listening to and playing his piano music but I think that is normal because Brahms was a pianist.
Just before he died in 1897, Brahms heard some ragtime music and he was planning to compose some ragtime when he died.
I have noticed that Brahms' contemporaries were more comfortable and better at writing for orchestra than Brahms. Probably because they weren't trying to be as complex and complicated as Brahms.
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
cross post ... as evidenced in a legacy of "screeds and screeds" of beautiful "virtuouso" tunes ... what more evidence could anyone possibly want?
# Posted on November 6th 2008 by Clear Drops
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Right, you have convinced me.
I have started a Friday night session in Milton Malbay. Just me, solo, on the bodhran.
I am sure the intelligentsia will love it, as I am a virtuoso.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"... this music seems to be deceptively simple but there is more to it than meets the ear."
Ooooh, this one really gets my goat. It shoots a poisoned crossbow bolt straight through the heart of the argument. I'm sorry, but it drives me to the infamous caps lock:
HOW CAN MUSIC BE ANYTHING MORE THAN WHAT MEETS THE EAR?
All of it meets your ear. 100% of it. The problem lies in the listeners' brains' reception of it. Or rather: SIMPLY NOT LISTENING PROPERLY.
(I know that saying louder doesn't help, sorry, but it just really annoyed me)
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"What was recorded would have been only a miniscule part, not necessarily the best, of what was out there to be heard in people's homes and communities."
Interestingly, I've read somewhere that Michael Coleman's older brother was considered by locals to be a better fiddler than Michael himself. But he was never recorded.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by Marklar
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
ha ha bliss, but surely, your oft quoted preference for being inclusive with your audience make a truly solo performance not quite possible. Perhaps you could go out and play in the middle of a large field? You arfe outstanding in your own field are you not?
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
... and surely it's the same today, What IS recorded is only a miniscule part, not necessarily the best, of what is out there to be heard in people's homes and communities.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Croke Park for me, Mr Llig.
And as I said earlier many places harbour brilliant unknown musicians, never mind the Coleman's.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"SIMPLY NOT LISTENING PROPERLY."
sigh.
Llig, I've noticed something about your use of words, you often use words that are "loaded" as a psychotherapist/psychologist might say. That is, they are actually passive aggressive and aren't really helping out with the points you try to make. Can you think of a better way of expressing the point you keep reiterating?
the problem is the word "properly"...it's very judgemental. and what it DOES is, imply that the listener is a fool/dolt/uneducated/doesn't care/part of the great unwashed/has ears of wood etc....
Do you see what I'm getting at?
All you do is come across as intimidating with your pontifical pronouncements. I'm not saying 90% of what you say isn't emminently sensible. it is.
But also as any psychotherapist or anyone else who studies human behaviour will tell you, it *doesn't matter* if you're right. It's all in how you convey the message to lead people to new insights into their own behaviour. You can be as right as rain, but if you continue to alienate people through loaded language your message and, ultimately, the purpose of this board and these discussions is lost.
You're a smart guy. Think about how you might do this differently.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Also, "simply" is also such a blow off word.
It really is. Again, judgemental. Implied.
Nothing "simply" about it.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I think I was wanting to be judgmental. It annoys me when people have this idea that there is more to this music than what you can hear. That simply hearing it is not enough, that there is some mysterious otherness or something that requires more than just listening.
I don't know how else I can say it. I want to stress that it's simple to listen. And "properly" refers to hearing all of it.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Just 'random'-ly grabbing bits & pieces from the dscussion. (selectve reading/listening/lurking?)
The whole thing about virtuosity in trad playing reminds me of my violin playing friend.
She can listen to any great Irish fiddler for hours. But as soon as she is watching any of them playing she is quick to comment. Something like, bowing hands all wrong . . ." It is probably the teacher iin her. She loves to hear it but cannot wrap her mind around the how.
Virtuoso playing requires perfection. Does trad?
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ok. It's possible though that people don't have the skills and/or mindset that you do Llig. And would that skill set be do to any prior musical training? Let me ask you for instance, you note in your bio that you play viola...well, that seems to imply you've had musical training from way back? I mean, you didn't just pick up the viola and begin scraping away in the trad music world did you? Just curious....
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Llig...would you agree then with something like this? would this be useful as a template to guide people into how to listen not only to trad musics, but any musics? From WikiHow...thought it was interesting...don't know how useful but seems applicable to what we're discussing:
How to Listen to Music
Listen to music that might be new to you....You are going to try to develop a mental map of the music.
Understand that in musical composition, there are three main technical ideas:
Repetition
Variation
New Melodies
Listen, and try to notice whether what you are hearing is the same as what you have previously heard in the same piece. Identify the elements:
Repetition
Related but Different (Variation)
Seeming unrelated to everything you previously heard (New)
Learn that the introduction, or beginning of a piece is always new. There is very often also something new very near the end. Locate passages that you find especially rewarding. Are these passages repetitions, variations, or new? If they are variations, can you realize what it was that was varied?
Listen once more to the same passage. This time, pay attention to what brings the music to these passages. Listen to as many details as you can.
Colors
Balances
Textures of the different sounds of which music is composed.
Try to isolate specific details:
Rhythms, whether in the foreground or background, that seem to interact
Short melodic figures, either in the principal melody
Accompaniment.
Listen again, narrowing your focus: listen only to the bass, if there is one. Notice things in the bass that seem alive, pregnant with meaning. Notice all the details you previously noticed by switching your attention from one to the other. Notice the kinds of changes that happen at your favourite moment. Does the melody soar into an unfamiliar accent? Does a new rhythm add pungency? Does a buzz suddenly splinter into a fractured collision?
Develop your mental map of the characters, actors and energies that combine to create music. If these steps are correctly followed, the result will be a panoramic expansion of your musical experience, which may be likened to listening in color.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yeah, I did just pick up the viola and start scraping away, but that was 15 years after I'd first began scraping on the fiddle.
Nope, no formal training.
The question is, is it skill, and/or mindset to listen properly? It's certainly something you learn, but is it really a skill? I'd say it's more like you learn the right mindset. It's about being open to everything you hear and not being constrained by what your imagination thinks you should be hearing.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"The question is, is it skill, and/or mindset to listen properly? It's certainly something you learn, but is it really a skill?"
I'd love to hear what WillCpt might have to say about the former. Good question.
"It's about being open to everything you hear and not being constrained by what your imagination thinks you should be hearing."
Interesting last point...can you elaborate a bit? I would say this last bit would apply esp. to beginner or mid-range players....it is hard to separate what you *think* or imagine you're hearing from what is actually going on in your playing [ie, stuff that usually isn't good]
thoughts?
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I think that beginners may well find it hard to separate what they *think* or imagine they're hearing from what is actually going on. But they shouldn't. There is no reason for anyone to be like that, because it's not dificult, sepecially with this music, and especially with this music unacompanied. All you have to do is follow the melody. Free you mind from where you expect it to go, concentrate
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Interesting point ; According to Ross Duffin's 'how EQ ruined harmony...
Helmhotz proposes that through interaction with aural stimuli that the ear was capable of providing sounds that were not specifically generated., Also the theory of resonance,; tiny elements within the ear resonate sympathetically, like miniature piano strings.
Indicates that there really is more to the music than meets the ear.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Listening in color is what you do on windowpane.
mtodd, when you mentioned the viola I thought of 3 viola playing friends who have had no formal musical training. My favourite trad player, whom I have ever played with, has no formal training. She plays cello, fiddle, & viola. No one ~ no one ~ whom I have met has picked up on trad with such ease. All by listening.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by Ben Steen
*
Screw the music. Our next session begins with a proposal for my dissertation. "The Anatomy of Harmonic Resonsance in Pub - dwellers ears" or "In one ~ out the other"
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"The question is, is it skill, and/or mindset to listen properly? It's certainly something you learn, but is it really a skill?"
I suggest both. That there are different things. Its must be a mindset that prevents a musician experienced in another genre from hearing that they are carrying into ITM something that makes it sound wrong. Are they, not the beginner, the ones
who "find it hard to separate what they *think* or imagine they're hearing from what is actually going on". I'm not very skilled, I can hear it, why can't they.
But I can still remember sometime in my teens at a "barn dance" for the first time someone counting up to 8 or 16 because they realised I needed to and wasn't doing. And later listening to the Chieftains while driving with a clarinet playing girlfriend, who had no real interest in it, commenting that I had trouble working out where the tunes changed and after the next track having her rattle of the AABB etc structures and mention different endings. The after a few years Morris dancing being pretty good at knowing just where I was with 4 x 32 bars or whatever. Those are skills that people learn (in my case mighty slowly).
And then there is the listening whilst playing.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Indicates that there really is more to the music than meets the ear" . I think music takes the perception of those into account and uses them.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Is not hearing like sight? we dont actually 'see', our brain receives signals which it interprets, and fills in the blank bits.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, and just as clever image processing things go on in our retinas before the signal gets to out brain clever signal processing things go on in ours ears.
I think we are both nitpicking - although the "filling in the blank bits" part is probably very relevant, along with pattern matching.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Never thought about it that way before, filling in the blanks, using acquired knowledge.... well well, wonder where this might lead us...
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I am thinking of the learning to listen very much in terms of building up a series of patterns to match. Recognising things for what they are without having to think. At a basic level the difference between "that nice, what is it, oh yes, a polka" and "thats a nice polka". The filling in the blank bits seems like the dangerous part.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
It's a big big problem with Irish music. Much bigger than the learning from dots problem, much bigger than the increasing scarcity of solo playing, it''s even bigger that the creep of instruments that can't articulate properly overtaking instruments that can.
People think they are listening, but really they are only listening to small parts of it, and filling in the gaps.
Yes, our brains are clever things, they fill in gaps of perception with all of our five senses. "Didi I really smell that, or did I imagine it?" etc. But with music, you must learn to consciously override this ability. You must make the most utmost of efforts NOT to fill in the gaps.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, I think that now we are getting somewhere. I'd never really thought about it in this way before, but it's relatively straightforward:
The effort comes in learning to consciously differentiate between what you actually hea - the air molecules vibrating your ear drums - and the bits that are gaps that your clever brain fills in.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The other part of this is that music is a social construct that we've been internalizing since birth, just like language. And like language it might take a long time to learn to hear all the nuances of sound that make it relevant/artistic/meaningful.
It's hard to know if we'd recognize something as music at all if we didn't have at least some subconcious knowledge of the structures and "meanings" in the sound. Which is why I think it's so useful to listen to everything as music (well, except vegetables), and listen to Irish music in relation to your own personal soundscape, instead of listening to it in relation to Western Art Music, Pop culture and all the rest.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by Gzeg
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
That (from Michael) seems a bit negative. It may be the learning to hear that the people who spoil sessions by doing it wrong need. They are presumably musicians with brains full of innaproprate things to fill the gaps with.
But mtodd's long quote from WikiHow is more positive that that. It is about listening for things that will start building up the patterns that become internalised and allow recogntions of chunks of what is heard.
But there is another sort of listening that is about feedback systems: the flute players long tones; playing in tune with others (or a drone); repeating a roll until the rhythm comes right.
And I wonder if listening to unaccompanied melody is tapping into something partially hard-wired. Only need a bird brain for that.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Someone in that Chieftains documentary on the TV suggested it was from before birth. The hearbeat in the womb.
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"How can music be anything more than what meets the ear?"
I would say that depends on your background, experience, and training which all affects how your mind works and how you listen to and perceive music.
After reading through the comments on this thread, it is obvious that everyone's brain works differently and everyone perceives and hears this music differently.
We all bring something different to music and shouting at us in print because we perceive, hear, and think about music differently from you isn't a very intelligent or mature response.
Why can't you accept the idea that all of us hear, perceive, and view this music and music in general differently from you?
# Posted on November 7th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I can't even remember where i heard it first, but I've always loved the analogy between playing a tune and walking along a road. This analogy could be interpreted in many different ways, but it seems to relate to this discussion quite nicely. I think we might all agree that learning one's way down the road is fairly easily accomplished after a few tries. This learning process involves a capacity or function or skill (whatever) that is no longer required once one knows where one is going. Now one's attention is free to notice other things along the way. Sometimes there is a little treasure that wasn't there the last time... to further relate the analogy to the original topic, if you want to take a walk by yourself or if you want company, it's your business-what difference should it make to anyone else?
just enjoy the walk and may the road rise to your feet!
cheers, pipewatcher
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"Why can't you accept the idea that all of us hear, perceive, and view this music and music in general differently from you?"
This is precisely what I'm complaining about. You just can't go around saying you hear it one way and someone else hears it another way. Don't get me wrong about an individual's freedom to interpret any way they wish, it's a free world.
But two people's ears, sitting next to each other, are exposed to the exact same vibrations of molecules in air. Their ears hear the same thing. And it's of tantamount importance that they make the utmost effort to disentangle what their ears actually hear with what their preconceptions percieve they hear.
What I'm asking people to do is to put aside how they percieve and view the music, and concentrate on what comes to them unfiltered by their brains
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
<<But two people's ears, sitting next to each other, are exposed to the exact same vibrations>>
Once again llig, you are casual with your usage of exact. Obstacle in the way will change the sound. The reflections of the walls etc will change the sound etc.
Secondly we all have variying hearing capabilities, some hear better and different frequencies are heard or not. So many variables to take into account. Age means that certain frequencies are not heard, as does a diet of loud Heavy Rock concerts as a teenager etc.
Nothing comes to us unfiltered by our brains, you are asking the impossible. All sound is received by the system and translated into electrical impulses. the system itself varies with everyone. The brain then makes sense of these impulses in reference to its own understanding and capabilities. Some people are tone deaf. Some people are Deaf. etc.Music only makes sense based upon the preconceptions of the individual. ?To us ITM makes sense. to others it doesn't and Classical Arabic Music makes sense.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"casual with your usage of exact". Oh come off it, you know what I mean. As near as damn it exact.
Yes, I know that the brain then makes sense of impulses in reference to its own understanding and capabilities. But what I'm asking people to do is to put aside how they percieve and view the music, and concentrate on what comes to them unfiltered by their brain.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I kind of know what you mean, I think, you want us to hear what is happening rather than filling in the bits we didn't quite catch with our rough approximation. Am I right?
My point is that we all perceive what is happening in different ways and the more you or I understand ITM the more we can recognise what is happening. So its a cumulative thing, not something that can be done automatically but something based upon prior knowledge. If you doubt me try picking up a classical Arabic melody 'exactly' or an eastern european 7/8 tune, without resorting to slow down software or dots..
The structures, notes, intonation, ornaments are all very different. It takes time and exposure to accustom ourselves to appreciating these 'other' types of music... or not?
The point is that 'Everything' comes to us filtered by our brain.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes of course. I want us to hear what is happening rather than filling in the bits we didn't quite catch with our rough approximation. You are right.
Yes, everything comes to us filtered by our brain. I said that above, everything comes to all our five senses filtered by our brain. But it's our responsibility to the music to make an conscious effort to try to bypass the filter
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
But thats simply impossible. What we can do is to train the filter to recognise what is happening more effectively. Perhaps by having a teacher slow down the individual parts of a tune until the brain can recognise what is happening, or using this new fangled software. taking a simple tune stripped down and listening...
If you think anyone can just figure out what is happening without this crucial step I suggest you try it on a recording of Arabic classical music. or something similar from a different culture. In that case you will not have any prior grounding you can take for granted. You will no doubt struggle as many newcomers do when approaching this music. It will sound strange, unsettling, weird , non musical and more, until after years of listening it seeps in and begins to make sense.
Of course maybe you are a musical genius so why not try it. I can upload a track and you can figure it out... right?
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I only say this to show that what we listen to shapes our understanding, not as a challenge, though you are welcome to have a listen. If we are used to listening to EQ, then that is what sounds right, if we are used to listening to trad, and playing it, then its much easier to 'listen' accurately than if we are not. http://www.soundlantern.com/UpdatedSoundPage.do?ToId=19616
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Just sit back and enjoy; you know you want to ...
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by Rick Payman
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Thank you Rick Payman, I intend to "sit back and enjoy" despite llig leahcim's (or Michael Gill's) attempts to interefere with my enjoyment and appreciation of the complexity, richness, and variety of this music by trying to tell me how my brain is supposed to work while I am listening to it.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by fauxcelt
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I enjoyed that clip Ionannas. But I'm not sure it helps your point. Coming to it with a naive ear and the approach set out in mtodd's long quote what strikes me is that it is particularly easy to focus on one instrument or voice. Far easier than, say, on a commerical recording of an irish trad band, or a baroque ensemble. Is that a characteristic of the genre ?
And with a wind instrument with holes in the right places and the capability of bending from one note into the next, would mimicking that melody line be much different than say, mimicking a sean nos singer on a whistle. I'm not saying it would be easy just amenable to a "try it, listen, was that right ?, no, try again" approach.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
All I'm saying is that you owe it to any art form to make the effort to appreciate it without preconceptions.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't agree. You have to have pre-conceptions - or, at any rate, pre-knowledge - or you can't properly appreciate it at all.
Not only that, each era, each location, each individual - including you, Michael - brings their own complete set of preconceptions to the music. That's one of the things that makes it so rich.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
No personal offense intended (it is an emotional response not a rational one) but if there is one thing that really gets up my nose it is people telling me that I have to have, for example, an "educated palate" to appreciate some food or drink. And you are saying the same thing.
Sure, some things are an aquired taste, and appreciation can grow with familiarity and study (for some things it may be *only* familiarity that gives satisfaction). And prior experience can increase appreciation. But don't tell me I have to intellectualise it (even if I do just that).
I this music a kit of parts that we have to recognise *before* we can enjoy it ?
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
You think that art can only be appreciated with prior education in the genre?
I disagree. The very best art is designed to cut through preconception and effect us at the visceral level. And we should be open to this. And this means trying our best to leave our preconceptions at the door.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
cross post david, we seem to agree
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
And I don't understand, Ben, when you say that one of the things that make the music so rich is everyone's preconceptions of it.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ionannas- sorry but your soundlantern post of "classical arabic music" didn't fit with my pre-conceptions. This does:
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=G1t5fRn5_2A
Maybe I'm just not listening properly...
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes, David, I really *am* saying you need to have an educated palette to appreciate any art. All this means is that, through living, you will have your own experiences, and those will inevitably have a dramatic impact on how you view a picture, how you hear a piece of music, what impact a book has on you. What I'm saying is blindingly obvious, actually, so I must be failing to communicate it properly.
Take a sex scene in a book, for instance. You're not going to fully appreciate it - or even understand it - unless you've had sex. And, depending on your own sexual experiences, you will read that book radically differently from the next person. It's a different book for every single person, depending on their own experiences and "education".
One example springs - fully fledged, as it were - to mind: one of my favourite books is On the Road, by Jack Kerouac. And I can tell you now that, unless you've gone for days on end without sleep, unless you've been in a drugged stupor, unless you've found yourself wandering aimlessly you know not where ... well, without those bits of "education" you cannot understand that book.
I actually think it's a cop-out to say you can appreciate any art with no knowledge of what it's about. Let's not be afraid of telling things like they are.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"And I don't understand, Ben, when you say that one of the things that make the music so rich is everyone's preconceptions of it."
OK, I'll have a go. When I - or you, or anybody - goes into a session, I'm not just bringing myself, but all the people I've learnt from, and also all my life experiences and outlook on life. That affects me as a player. It also affects you as a listener (and player). You mmust have experienced many occasions when, after the same night of music, different people have experienced the evening totally differently - not just as to whether they 'liked' it or not, but also in *how* they perceived it.
There's no getting away from this. The fact is, that, if you really *were* able to 'just listen to the sounds as they are', they would be completely meaningless. It's exactly like the old chestnut about the chair. You look at a chair , and you see a chair. But it's only a chair because you understand what it does. If you were able to see it *only* as what it is, it wouldn't mean anything at all - it would just be a shaped lump of wood (or material, or whatever).
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
if i loan my friend a book to read, he is definitely reading the same book i loaned him. Also, I don't like eggplant.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
And if i sit on a $15,000 Chippendale, it's basically still just a chair.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
"if i loan my friend a book to read, he is definitely reading the same book i loaned him."
In the 70s, when semiotics was all the rage, the academic world would have stongly disagreed with you there, pipewatcher. I don't think i go that far ... but his perception of that book, and the effect it has on him, will be completely different from yours, and there's nothing either you or he can do about it.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i confess i don't know anything about semiotics, i agree that how my friend perceives and reacts to the book book might be different from my experience of reading it, but we read the same words from the same "shaped lump" of paper- I mean book.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Hi david, my point was that to easily recognise what is happening, you need the vocabulary much as in learning a language, That clip was characteristic of the genre in many ways. The approach set out by mtodd is an educated approach, it supports my point, IMO. Its not just the language but ways of listening, knowing what to listen out for. Of course I could be wrong...
But we are not talking about enjoyment surely, we can all enjoy music or art without understanding or intellectualising it. But to identify accurately what is happening and reproduce it, is a different matter. and even that defiers intellectualism . But I think you do need to have a map or understanding of the typical structures, phrases and the like. In this next clip they use scales that contain 1/4 tones The phrases and structure is not clear to me as a trad tune would be. I agree the format leaves a clear solo line over the accompaniment as is typical. But the ' language' is very different.
Of course I dont know how it sounds to you! We are listening to the same piece of music but we process it in our own individual ways. I am used to listening to this type of stuff, but it took me years of listening to more westernised versions to be able to appreciate this. When I first heard it it was completely alien.
Were I to try and play the melody I dont think I could, or it would take an awful long time indeed ! or slow down software. phrase by phrase. and I have spent my life playing music! here's another, hope you enjoy it :
http://www.soundlantern.com/UpdatedSoundPage.do?ToId=19721
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
That's the thing, see, pipewatcher, you *don't* read the same words. That's literally true, because, apparently, we never actually do read all the words - we just think we do - and different people will skip different bits. Over and above that, each and every word will mean something different to each reader - they're not the same words.
... and some words won't be understood at all by your friend, when you understand them perfectly well, and vice versa. You'll each have different dictionaries to look them up in etc etc etc
I could go on ... as I'm sure you'll appreciate.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I don't think the disagreement is about past experiences having an effect on the way art, in its widest sense, is appreciated. But the sex scene in the book is going to have some effect without having to analyse the book the way a literature student would (or sex the way a therapist might).
If I see a landscape painting then experience of landscapes, or maybe that landscape in particular, is going to have an effect on my emotional response. I can say "I know what I like" (and wave two metaphorical fingers at people who tut tut about that in a knowing way.) But I don't need to know about the technique, or the 'school' that the artist belongs to. Sure, I may be aware of how the artist is mixing in a bit more blue for distant parts of the scene. I may appreciate (because I have read about it) how the impressionist's landscape (and Leonardo with Mona Lisa smile) made use of the way our peripheral vision works long before the perceptual psychologists sussed it.
Back to the original question. Solo when I can (if not one of: a drone, unpitched percussion, single note bass line is nice).
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Actually, Ionannas, I had an experience that I think is relevant to what you are talking about. Many years ago a Sikh friend of mine asked me to play the waja (I have no idea how to spell it, but that's what the word sounded like) at the Sikh temple. (It was a sort of small, handheld, hand pumped, harmonium.) Their regular player was sick and couldn't play, so would I please play for the service?
It was both an honour and an enormous responsibility. My frined leant me a tape with all the songs on, and they seemed really simple tunes to me. But, apparently, I wasn't doing them right. It took me ages and ages just to hear the really subtle - but, to my friend, blindingly obvious - differences between what I was playing and what was required. And this was on an instrument with fixed notes. Heaven knows what trouble I would have had if I had been asked to play something with variable pitch.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Well, with some art, an appreciation on the genre can be helpful. But the best of any art transcends this. It's very difficult for a book to do it, much easier an abstract painting, or an abstract diddley tune.
But the very best figurative paintings and books can transcend preconception. Kerouac's stream of consciousness is a wonderful thing in its own right and can be appreciated fully for it's use of language without personal reference to chemical induced hallucination. And does anyone remember that bonkers nun on the telly who enjoyed nothing more than than the painted sensual curves of naked bodies from the renaissance?
I really did like those clips of Arabic music. Thanks.
I remember when I was a kid, my dad knew this bloke who was/is a famous writer and reviewer of classical music. There was nothing he didn't know about it. And he knew nothing of any other genre. Him and my dad used to talk about classical music for hours, I think this bloke like getting perspective from someone who was completely uneducated formally, but still listened to a lot of music. Then one day, my dad put on a Matt Molloy record, and this bloke was gob smacked. I remember smiling at his face, it really did look like he'd been smacked in the gob. He thought it absolutly terrific. This guy uses words for a living, and all he could say about it was "extraordinary". He kept reapeating "extraordinary". From being a complete alien to it, he just got it, straight away.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Yes Ionannas, I enjoyed that as well and from the original post on this discussion I think we can include enjoyment. When it comes to trying to play music I do have to break it down into parts, and learn to hear those parts. But I suspect that someone who, say, grew up in a household of sean nos singers (or arab vocalists) could develop skills by a combination of mimicry, and experimenation in the same way that we learn language wihout needing to learn grammar.
Not having spent a lifetime playing music the arab music sounds alien to me in a geographic sense. I don't need to be told the second one uses a 1/4 tone scale to enjoy it (though I sure would if I even dreamt of playing that sort of music). But having been told that I am thinking how the vocalist in the first piece spends a long time between the notes of the scale and occasionally lingers there. So I am wondering if, harmonically, they are alien in a similar way.
I am curious about the words of the song towards the end. In most western music a melody being left hanging like that is unusual and often something to do with the story. Or is that typical of the genre.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i think we all must have red the same book! Hehheh
cheers, pipewatcher
(did you notice the missing "a"?
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Anyway, the postman has just delivered "Heathery Breeze" so off to listen to that whilst doing what I am supposed to be doing.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Ok david, but what if you wanted to copy the painting, really 'seeing', not just looking.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by piobagusfidil
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
hot off the tube,back on topic= this ain't too shabby for what it is:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=RoM7VWalu9g enjoy...
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
So, you liked the Arabic music, Michael? Did you like the drums?
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
it was heathery breeze that my dad played for this bloke
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
This is sublime stuff, hairs on the back of the neck, etc.
Listen to it if you can without thinking about it.
http://www.soundlantern.com/UpdatedSoundPage.do?ToId=19732
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Absolutely gorgeous.
Where's it from?
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Bulgaria.
(A lot of us have preconceptions about bulgarian music from Andy Irvine)
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Don't care. It was beautiful. Do you know what that instrument was? It had some unfamiliar sounds to it ...
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Dunno, I'm guessing it's some kind of flute. I'd be surprised if it was a whistle, the really high bits would be deafening. And there's only three voices.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Beautiful.
But, unfortunately, for me it illustrates Ben's point, because it does have associations. I have had some of the harmonies explained so was trying to follow the parts.
I wonder the music on the flutey instrument is something that is learnt at the feet of a master, or does a shepherd boy learn it from older shepherd boys.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
What's the difference, david?
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by ethical blend
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
The difference is that the "master" would probably demonstrate the components (Ennis's "first you must learn the talk, then you learn the grip.." - doesn't seem to be an accurate rendering of it on this board).
A shepherd boy might learn it the way a schoolyard song is passed on - this years six year olds learning it from this years 7 year olds. I am going to take a lot of convincing that it is not possible for folk melodies to be passed on by mimicry. If birds can do it why can't we ?
On the Bulgarian stuff I have been to an afternoon "find out about Bulgarian vocal harmony - all abilities welcome" workshop. From the demonstration we were given I suspect that each of those three voices could probably cut sheet steel. The practical bit was three or four groups with parts that moved towards intervals a semitone or two apart, stayed parallell for a while them moved off. Simplified for us I guess but spine tingling stuff. I don't think it is really meant for male voices though.
# Posted on November 8th 2008 by David50
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Every musician has a natural 'voice', Some of us find our voice early on. Whatever genre they play sounds & feels natural. Other musicians are more restless. We have many 'takes' on what the voice is. This is reflected in the music. Sometimes it is mechanical or contrived. Not like the birds singing in the woods. More like a moth near the flame.
I get how preconceptions are not so much about how the music should sound but how I think my playing should sound.
When I play I am a moth. Love how you birds can soar!
# Posted on November 9th 2008 by Ben Steen
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
hey llig, you must not have seen this:
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=s2TmmCJcc_g
naving
ethnomusicology is a hobby of mine. long been a fan of this haunting vocal music, Strictly speaking much of this music, including the horos recorded by Planxty, is Thracian-Macedonian in origin
cheers, pipewatcher
# Posted on November 9th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
well well, it is a whistle. And of particular pertinence to the title of this thread, six voices is only half as good as three.
# Posted on November 9th 2008 by ...
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
but do you like the whistle better with, or without the voices? Hehheh
# Posted on November 9th 2008 by pipewatcher
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
i wonder if any of you saw the come west along the road on friday. the last thing was frankie and alec from like 1988 or sumthin playin the donegal pigeon on the gate and maudabawn chapel. brilliant stuff.
# Posted on November 9th 2008 by tradmoosic
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
I really liked Llig's comment in above thread about hearing what's really there. It reminded me of this great essay on learning by ear from a recording by coyotebanjo a.k.a. Chris Smith on his website.
you can find it here:
http://coyotebanjo.com/music-35.html
Part of what he touches on are those "mystery notes" as he so wonderfully calls them...that is, things you can't quite make out on the first few [or many] listenings but that, I suspect, our brains like to "fill in". In other words, as MG has suggested, "we're not hearing the tune" as it *actually* is but letting our brain's filters "fill in" the tune because we aren't listening accurately enough [either we're filling in or filtering out it seems]...or perhaps we should say "acutely" enough since it's a less loaded, less pejorative, less judgemental word?
Here are a few excerpts from his essay [it's short, but great...have a look at it if you can].
Smith writes:
a) Listen to the tune multiple times without trying to play it. As you begin to get the tune in your ear, start to sing the phrases that seem particularly clear to you. Try as much as possible to be aware of which specific parts of the tune are more or less clear to you, and make mental notes about the foggy parts which will require extra attention.
b) Listen to the tune several more times, playing along lightly and quietly, trying to get the "rough outlines" of the more obvious phrases, as well as starting notes and ending notes of phrases, high or low notes, familiar phrases, and other stuff that seems especially immediate.
c) Stop the disc. Now, having gotten the tune as much as possible in your ear, by listening, singing, and playing along, work one phrase at a time. Start the disc, and, with your finger poised over the "stop" or "pause" button, listen to the first phrase (try to learn complete organic phrases--usually 1- or 2-bars in length in the Irish repertoire). At the INSTANT that the phrase ends, before you hear any subsequent phrases, hit the pause button.
We want to leave the mystery note ringing "in the mind's ear." In other words, you don't have want to try to hear the mystery note while listening through to the end of the complete phrase. Hit "pause" just as the mystery note sounds, so your ear is not confused by the notes that follow it.
This I thought was also good advice:
"Don't cheat on tough notes: if there is/are a note(s) you can't be sure of, make a mental note, and try to get everything else you CAN be sure of. Play the phrase several times, trying to match not only the pitches but also the phrasing you recall from the recording."
# Posted on November 10th 2008 by skin&bow
Re: Like to hear ITM players solo? You're not alone. (But you might be a dying breed.)
Oh, and I should add this footnote he put at piece's end:
Note: The above is basically the same method that one uses, at a greatly accelerated pace, when trying to learn a tune on the fly in a session. The goal is to just do one thing at a time: JUST listen or JUST listen-and-lilt or JUST play the obvious phrases.
What this basically amounts to is highly intensified and elongated "conscious listening." This method will help prevent the inevitable temptation to shirk the details, out of a natural desire to move forward more quickly. If you really get into it, it becomes kind of meditative, and you stop feeling impatient or frustrated at lack of progress. It also, in my experience, gives one a greatly enhanced respect for the master players when you sit and listen to the minutiae of their approaches.
# Posted on November 10th 2008 by skin&bow