Helping my dear wife with her after-school arts club I asked her what the objectives were, what did she hope for her children. Her first response was merely "less is more!" ~ for them to understand and appreciate this... She then described how these little ones would pile everything possible onto a project, the 'everything and the kitchen sink approach', quantity having the greater value with a young mind. The example she offered was a project for next week, decorating a flat green foam Christmas tree, as a picture for a wall or as the frontispiece for a Christmas card. They will be gluing the tree onto a red rectangular background and then will have all kinds of spangles, sparkly bits, ribbons and do-dahs to give it a little added interest and bling. She mentioned how she and her helpers had to continually repeat with the work they did in this art club ~ "less is more!" ~ and helping the children to understand... It seems it also applies to the use of glue...
The seed for this philosophical distraction, 'less is more', is not a new subject for us. Here's hoping for stories and examples in the reel and personal world, and especially with regards to 'tradition'...
How can it be "less is more". That's such an inaccurate and blasé statement. Less? how much less? Do you keep going until you have nothing left? It's daft.
You need to compare. To ask "less than what?" Is it "less than too much?" Or "slightly more than not enough?"
The reality is you balance what to put in with what you leave out. I've been playing a lot of slides recently and I love the differences between slides and jigs. Apart from their own distinct feel, the basic difference is that a slide is kind of like a jig, but with bits left out.
1) Metronome marks (the lower the number, the more music).
2) Less money spent on beer - more money to spend on instruments.
3) Less money spent on instruments - more money to spend on beer (corollary).
4) Banjo necks: lesser number of frets - more tone.
5) Lesser number of dancers at ceilidh - more room for dancing.
6) Jigs: less quavers - more crotchets.
7) Session tunes - lesser number of sharps/flats - more musicians joining in.
8) "thesession discussions" - the less it's to do with TM, the more posts you get.
9) Tunes in general: more sharps/flats - less naturals.
10) More bodhrans - less goats.
in architecture, the statement "less is more" is attributed to the late German architect Mies Van der Rohe, summing up the modern movement in art and architecture.
personally, as an architect, i am more of the opinion that "Mies is dead, more is more" especially when asking for more work from my students... maybe off topic a bit
My teacher and I recently had a discussion about this and she compared a tune to a Christmas tree. You start with a beautiful tree, and then you start putting ornaments on it. If you get carried away, you don't see the tree anymore, just a whole bunch of ornaments.
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors cloy the palate.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Too many five-note accordion rolls ruin the tune.
I used to fly-fish a lot. A saying frequently encountered was, "An angler at first wants to catch as many fish as possible; then, the biggest fish; eventually, the most difficult fish." The implication was that he would end up catching fewer and maybe smaller fish than before, but use his skills more keenly.
This does make sense in angling but I can't quite translate it into playing trad. The difficult stuff seems to be best learnt by keen kids - even if they murder it - and not shot-away has-beens like me, who - being too old and lazy - don't really see the point of learning how to play Jean's Reel or The Mason's Apron at warp speed to crown their tally of dubious musical accomplishments.
We've done the xmas tree analogy to death a few times here. I don't like it, for two reasons:
Firstly, a sitcus spruce is not a x-mas tree. For it to be an x-mas tree, you have to decorate it. Except that some people disagree, so that's the end of that.
Secondly, If you're the type of person who thinks a sparsely decorated tree is for any reason better than one where you throw everything you have on it, then bah bloody humbug to you. Don't you just hate it when some poncy git likes to "theme" their tree, or make sure all the baubles etc make use of a "limited palette". Or they only like "natural things" and eschew plastic. etc etc.
A chrismas tree is a traditionless gaudy piece of temporary nonsense, to laugh at and let your kids decide what it should look like. I struggle to think of anything in the world less suitable as an analogy to one of the most sublime things that exist, namely, diddley tunes.
Maybe a cowboy outfit would suit you better... Let's see, would you be highly decorated snakeskin boots and chaps, silver spurs and pearloid buttons on a silk shirt... I don't want to even guess the head gear...
To get back to the original question...........
.........the more different instruments you play, the less well you play any of them...............guilty, m'lud.
I learned to play the tune from the Chulrua album after hearing them play it in a house concert situation, then ran into the other version. I like them both very much, but comparing them, Paddy O'Brien's version is much less ornamented, having more scalewise runs and an entirely different kind of bounce. The Comhaltas site version has a wonderful pulse to it, but is much more ornamented, using those lovely swirls where Paddy simply punches the note three times. So I think in this case less is easily as much, if not more. Is that what you were getting at, Ceolachan?
I've always found that with the less projects I decide to take on board... the more time i've got to work on them... and the more personal satisfaction I get out of them.
I'm currently very happy with what i'm doing/achieving musically. But i would hate to take on anything else right now.
...they both have a Zen garden approach to the Tunes - especially
Mary Mac - and Micho Russell. As my bag of ornamentation gets
bigger, it is getting harder to decide what to do and what not to do.
Liz Carroll said in an interview recently she tried all the available
styles as a kid in Chicago. And obviously ended up with a distinc-
tive one. She's the opposite of 'less is more'. The point though
is the more choices you have the harder it is play in a plain,
instinctive distinctive style.
jack of all trades..master of none. i think some people are delving into things a bit much here. that analogy can only be used for some things clearly. thats it.
regarding the steeplechase---ha, i just fell like a ton of bricks for this tune and had to learn it after hearing the gorgeous setting, very much in the style we are extolling here, from a solo guest set by east coast fiddler willie kelly on mike & mary rafferty's cd "the road from ballinakil." willy lowered "i have no money" to C and starts the set with that....i moved it back up to D & raised steeplechase up to D and have been playing willy's setting of both in D.....also love the chulrua paddy o'brien version...he is my favorite b/c box player.
there is a different setting, brilliant though much busier, e-flat steeplechase on the jackie daly/kevin burke collab "the eavestdropper"....
while we're on "less is more,".....check out dublin box player colm regan's video clip on comhaltas live....that is one of my fave examples of less-is-more aesthetics in box ornamentation...
In jazz there's a syndrome called "white man's disease".
That's when players have a lot of technique and use it all
the time, as much as possible. If you're a technique fan, it's great stuff. If you're a music fan it sounds dead (not deadly).
A prime example - the trombonist Bill Watrous (late 70's).
I'm not up to date on jazz any more so I don't know today's perpetrators. (In rock maybe it's Joe Satriani ??)
But what's the difference between that kind of playing and
what Charlie Parker did? It's not the same but I couldn't say why. In this comparison it's not exactly less is more but
"taste" I guess.
Anyway, with more technique I'm not sure if I'm getting more
"taste" or not Llig, so having the extra twiddly bits, slides, etc.
available Is a bit confusing at the moment.
A technique fan is gonna be a technique fan no matter how much actual technique they have. Over the course of time they'll get more technique because that's their hobby, but they won't get any better at playing.
I think it's very important to be disinterested with technique, or at the very least, sanguine.
yeah, the Diz also had blindingly intricate technical stuff going on.....interesting....to me the "white man's jazz" syndrome (oops, don't let that "racism" thread get wind of this phrase)involves tastelessly intricate technique PLUS something antiseptic and dead in the swing/rhythm/expression department.....the jazz i call the sound of "white dread" would be the opposite, the west-coast cool of chet, etc. of course, that is slower and less intricate, very melody (aka tune)-centered music, like that of miles, whose slower playing and melody (tune)-centered approach for much of his career produced music that still haunts people's dreams....
i think it was monk who said that the spaces or silences between the notes are as or more important than the notes....he also said upon hearing that a young player had gotten into juilliard, "don't let it ruin your music"......
With stout it goes both ways. Sometimes, more drinking is just grand.
Now & again, though, I get a really good stout & I quite like to savour it then. Tunes too!
There can be no hard and fast rule to this; personnel judgements of what is appropriate will differ. What tends to stand out is where the balance is just right.
I originally learnt a version of the Templehouse reel with loads of notes and ornamentation but it never stuck. When I relearnt it years later my teacher placed huge emphasis on the fact that this tune is special, and requires us to stick to the melody and to keep ornamentation to a minimum.
Last night we used the Mason's Apron in one of the Plain Set figures when playing for set dancers. That, for me, was the ideal speed for that tune.
Spaces, silences between notes - see those extraordinary YouTube videos of the cellist Janos Starker playing Kodaly's Sonata Op 8 for solo cello (surely one of the most wonderful examples of folk music for a solo instrument, as well as being a virtuoso work extending over 5 octaves).
The videos are
1st movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MEUIGjfHNw
2nd movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qm7_cI2b30&feature=related
3rd movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvOEwGlwgJo&feature=related
"Less is more!?"
"Less is more!?"
Helping my dear wife with her after-school arts club I asked her what the objectives were, what did she hope for her children. Her first response was merely "less is more!" ~ for them to understand and appreciate this... She then described how these little ones would pile everything possible onto a project, the 'everything and the kitchen sink approach', quantity having the greater value with a young mind. The example she offered was a project for next week, decorating a flat green foam Christmas tree, as a picture for a wall or as the frontispiece for a Christmas card. They will be gluing the tree onto a red rectangular background and then will have all kinds of spangles, sparkly bits, ribbons and do-dahs to give it a little added interest and bling. She mentioned how she and her helpers had to continually repeat with the work they did in this art club ~ "less is more!" ~ and helping the children to understand... It seems it also applies to the use of glue...
The seed for this philosophical distraction, 'less is more', is not a new subject for us. Here's hoping for stories and examples in the reel and personal world, and especially with regards to 'tradition'...
The topic is 'open' for discussion...
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "Less is more!?"
"The topic is 'open' for discussion..."
Erm, more or less.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: "Less is more!?"
I think the whole less is more thing can be too much of a cliche. More is not necessarily less either.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Eldarion
Re: "Less is more!?"
It's more than the sum of the parts though, surely...on the whole.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Duijera Dubh
Re: "Less is more!?"
How can it be "less is more". That's such an inaccurate and blasé statement. Less? how much less? Do you keep going until you have nothing left? It's daft.
You need to compare. To ask "less than what?" Is it "less than too much?" Or "slightly more than not enough?"
The reality is you balance what to put in with what you leave out. I've been playing a lot of slides recently and I love the differences between slides and jigs. Apart from their own distinct feel, the basic difference is that a slide is kind of like a jig, but with bits left out.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: "Less is more!?"
Examples to support "Ceolachan's Hypothesis":
1) Metronome marks (the lower the number, the more music).
2) Less money spent on beer - more money to spend on instruments.
3) Less money spent on instruments - more money to spend on beer (corollary).
4) Banjo necks: lesser number of frets - more tone.
5) Lesser number of dancers at ceilidh - more room for dancing.
6) Jigs: less quavers - more crotchets.
7) Session tunes - lesser number of sharps/flats - more musicians joining in.
8) "thesession discussions" - the less it's to do with TM, the more posts you get.
9) Tunes in general: more sharps/flats - less naturals.
10) More bodhrans - less goats.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: "Less is more!?"
... its all to do with Newton's 3rd Law, I think - no need for a new hypothesis....
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: "Less is more!?"
"Do you keep going until you have nothing left?
No - Nothing would be too much.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by OrganicPeatCreature
Re: "Less is more!?"
in architecture, the statement "less is more" is attributed to the late German architect Mies Van der Rohe, summing up the modern movement in art and architecture.
personally, as an architect, i am more of the opinion that "Mies is dead, more is more" especially when asking for more work from my students... maybe off topic a bit
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by maze
Re: "Less is more!?"
Epitaph at Boot Hill Cemetery:
"Here lies the body of Lester Moore
Who caught three slugs from a .44
No less, no Moore."
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Miss Lonelyhearts
Re: "Less is more!?"
.. not to mention the epitaph of his cousin, Owen ...
Owen Moore has gone away
Owing more than he can pay .
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: "Less is more!?"
Brilliant! I did say 'open'...
~ less is more: "Towards a Poor Theatre" Jerzy Grotowski
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by ceolachan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Grotowski
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "Less is more!?"
My teacher and I recently had a discussion about this and she compared a tune to a Christmas tree. You start with a beautiful tree, and then you start putting ornaments on it. If you get carried away, you don't see the tree anymore, just a whole bunch of ornaments.
I think ceolachan is spot on.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by ElaineP
Re: "Less is more!?"
But if you don't put very many ornaments on, you've got a lot of ruddy tree .....
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Pádraig
Re: "Less is more!?"
but its the tree thats the whole point of it....
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by Narrowdog
Re: "Less is more!?"
The five colors blind the eye.
The five tones deafen the ear.
The five flavors cloy the palate.
Racing and hunting madden the mind.
Too many five-note accordion rolls ruin the tune.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by polkageist
Re: "Less is more!?"
I used to fly-fish a lot. A saying frequently encountered was, "An angler at first wants to catch as many fish as possible; then, the biggest fish; eventually, the most difficult fish." The implication was that he would end up catching fewer and maybe smaller fish than before, but use his skills more keenly.
This does make sense in angling but I can't quite translate it into playing trad. The difficult stuff seems to be best learnt by keen kids - even if they murder it - and not shot-away has-beens like me, who - being too old and lazy - don't really see the point of learning how to play Jean's Reel or The Mason's Apron at warp speed to crown their tally of dubious musical accomplishments.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by nicholas
Re: "Less is more!?"
We've done the xmas tree analogy to death a few times here. I don't like it, for two reasons:
Firstly, a sitcus spruce is not a x-mas tree. For it to be an x-mas tree, you have to decorate it. Except that some people disagree, so that's the end of that.
Secondly, If you're the type of person who thinks a sparsely decorated tree is for any reason better than one where you throw everything you have on it, then bah bloody humbug to you. Don't you just hate it when some poncy git likes to "theme" their tree, or make sure all the baubles etc make use of a "limited palette". Or they only like "natural things" and eschew plastic. etc etc.
A chrismas tree is a traditionless gaudy piece of temporary nonsense, to laugh at and let your kids decide what it should look like. I struggle to think of anything in the world less suitable as an analogy to one of the most sublime things that exist, namely, diddley tunes.
# Posted on November 23rd 2008 by llig leahcim
"Less is more!?"
Don't struggle too hard.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: "Less is more!?"
Maybe a cowboy outfit would suit you better... Let's see, would you be highly decorated snakeskin boots and chaps, silver spurs and pearloid buttons on a silk shirt... I don't want to even guess the head gear...
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by ceolachan
Re: "Less is more!?"
To get back to the original question...........
.........the more different instruments you play, the less well you play any of them...............guilty, m'lud.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by Guernsey Pete
Re: "Less is more!?"
"Enough is too much."
-Popeye
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: "Less is more!?"
I love a tune where less is played more, so long as when you get to the end, you have exactly the right amount - erm, more or less.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: "Less is more!?"
I had just been thinking about this as related to a couple of clips. Both are The Steeplechase, one performed by Chulrua
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-MMd6lfv9g
and the other by Darren Mcgee and Rosie Ferguson.
http://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/comhaltaslive_280_1_darren_mcgee_and_rosie_ferguson/
I learned to play the tune from the Chulrua album after hearing them play it in a house concert situation, then ran into the other version. I like them both very much, but comparing them, Paddy O'Brien's version is much less ornamented, having more scalewise runs and an entirely different kind of bounce. The Comhaltas site version has a wonderful pulse to it, but is much more ornamented, using those lovely swirls where Paddy simply punches the note three times. So I think in this case less is easily as much, if not more. Is that what you were getting at, Ceolachan?
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by justjim
Re: "Less is more!?"
I've always found that with the less projects I decide to take on board... the more time i've got to work on them... and the more personal satisfaction I get out of them.
I'm currently very happy with what i'm doing/achieving musically. But i would hate to take on anything else right now.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by davydd
Re: "Less is more!?"
Mary McNamara and Martin Hayes
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by Hup
Re: "Less is more!?"
...they both have a Zen garden approach to the Tunes - especially
Mary Mac - and Micho Russell. As my bag of ornamentation gets
bigger, it is getting harder to decide what to do and what not to do.
Liz Carroll said in an interview recently she tried all the available
styles as a kid in Chicago. And obviously ended up with a distinc-
tive one. She's the opposite of 'less is more'. The point though
is the more choices you have the harder it is play in a plain,
instinctive distinctive style.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by Hup
Re: "Less is more!?"
I disagree, the more choices you have, the better informed you are with what you are leaving out.
But again, I have a problem with the blanket statement.
Take bowing for example, the two extremes are slurring everything and single bowing every note.
Do you take single bowing every note to be the extreme of more, and make it less by slurring?
Or do you take slurring everything as the extreme of more, and make it less by punctuating with a change of direction?
See what I mean? It's all about context. The blanket statement doesn't help, it just throws a blanket over it, making it harder to differentiate.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: "Less is more!?"
"I disagree, the more choices you have, the better informed you are with what you are leaving out."
Does this also apply to the number of tunes in your repertoire or, indeed, the "too many tunes already" ?
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by Back for a while
Re: "Less is more!?"
jack of all trades..master of none. i think some people are delving into things a bit much here. that analogy can only be used for some things clearly. thats it.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by fiddleruairi
Re: "Less is more!?"
"I disagree, ......"
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by llig leahcim
Wow, imagine that.
# Posted on November 24th 2008 by polkageist
Re: "Less is more!?"
less ornamental whing-whang, more melody (aka tune), more swing, and more emotion.....and thank you, mary macnamara & martin hayes!
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: "Less is more!?"
Oh for christ sake ... "more swing, and more emotion"
What ever happened to less swing and less emotion? Come on now, get on board this thread.
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: "Less is more!?"
regarding the steeplechase---ha, i just fell like a ton of bricks for this tune and had to learn it after hearing the gorgeous setting, very much in the style we are extolling here, from a solo guest set by east coast fiddler willie kelly on mike & mary rafferty's cd "the road from ballinakil." willy lowered "i have no money" to C and starts the set with that....i moved it back up to D & raised steeplechase up to D and have been playing willy's setting of both in D.....also love the chulrua paddy o'brien version...he is my favorite b/c box player.
there is a different setting, brilliant though much busier, e-flat steeplechase on the jackie daly/kevin burke collab "the eavestdropper"....
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: "Less is more!?"
while we're on "less is more,".....check out dublin box player colm regan's video clip on comhaltas live....that is one of my fave examples of less-is-more aesthetics in box ornamentation...
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: "Less is more!?"
Less is.....
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: "Less is more!?"
In jazz there's a syndrome called "white man's disease".
That's when players have a lot of technique and use it all
the time, as much as possible. If you're a technique fan, it's great stuff. If you're a music fan it sounds dead (not deadly).
A prime example - the trombonist Bill Watrous (late 70's).
I'm not up to date on jazz any more so I don't know today's perpetrators. (In rock maybe it's Joe Satriani ??)
But what's the difference between that kind of playing and
what Charlie Parker did? It's not the same but I couldn't say why. In this comparison it's not exactly less is more but
"taste" I guess.
Anyway, with more technique I'm not sure if I'm getting more
"taste" or not Llig, so having the extra twiddly bits, slides, etc.
available Is a bit confusing at the moment.
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by Hup
Re: "Less is more!?"
A technique fan is gonna be a technique fan no matter how much actual technique they have. Over the course of time they'll get more technique because that's their hobby, but they won't get any better at playing.
I think it's very important to be disinterested with technique, or at the very least, sanguine.
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: "Less is more!?"
Don't sweat the technique. It's all about soul, baby. I know you got it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBrzluhBLzc
# Posted on November 25th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: "Less is more!?"
yeah, the Diz also had blindingly intricate technical stuff going on.....interesting....to me the "white man's jazz" syndrome (oops, don't let that "racism" thread get wind of this phrase)involves tastelessly intricate technique PLUS something antiseptic and dead in the swing/rhythm/expression department.....the jazz i call the sound of "white dread" would be the opposite, the west-coast cool of chet, etc. of course, that is slower and less intricate, very melody (aka tune)-centered music, like that of miles, whose slower playing and melody (tune)-centered approach for much of his career produced music that still haunts people's dreams....
i think it was monk who said that the spaces or silences between the notes are as or more important than the notes....he also said upon hearing that a young player had gotten into juilliard, "don't let it ruin your music"......
# Posted on November 26th 2008 by ceemonster
Re: "Less is more!?"
"I think it's very important to be disinterested with technique, or at the very least, sanguine."
But if you actively dis-associating ... are you exsanguinating?
# Posted on November 26th 2008 by Pádraig
Re: "Less is more!?"
eeww!
# Posted on November 26th 2008 by Hup
Re: "Less is more!?"
When playing bluegrass tunes, not true. When playing waltzes, true. When drinking stout, not true. I'll have another.
# Posted on November 29th 2008 by Leendah
Re: "Less is more!?"
With stout it goes both ways. Sometimes, more drinking is just grand.
Now & again, though, I get a really good stout & I quite like to savour it then. Tunes too!
# Posted on November 29th 2008 by Random_notes
Re: "Less is more!?"
less is more always
. . . but beware of what's more
'In measure is treasure' John Skelton (1923-1999) Irish artist
# Posted on December 31st 2008 by hungry grass
Re: "Less is more!?"
There can be no hard and fast rule to this; personnel judgements of what is appropriate will differ. What tends to stand out is where the balance is just right.
I originally learnt a version of the Templehouse reel with loads of notes and ornamentation but it never stuck. When I relearnt it years later my teacher placed huge emphasis on the fact that this tune is special, and requires us to stick to the melody and to keep ornamentation to a minimum.
# Posted on February 8th 2009 by MarkM
Re: "Less is more!?"
Last night we used the Mason's Apron in one of the Plain Set figures when playing for set dancers. That, for me, was the ideal speed for that tune.
Spaces, silences between notes - see those extraordinary YouTube videos of the cellist Janos Starker playing Kodaly's Sonata Op 8 for solo cello (surely one of the most wonderful examples of folk music for a solo instrument, as well as being a virtuoso work extending over 5 octaves).
The videos are
1st movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MEUIGjfHNw
2nd movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qm7_cI2b30&feature=related
3rd movement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvOEwGlwgJo&feature=related
# Posted on February 8th 2009 by lazyhound