I was just watching some of the Kilfenora Documentary that was on RTE there a few days ago and there was a lovely clip of Kitty Linnane playing with a fiddle player and a flautist. There was such a beautiful "looseness" in the music that Ive only ever really heard from the likes of Coleman and Morrisson.
So, what im asking is, in our self-conscious search for perfection, or preservation if you like, have we lost this 'space' and eradicated this sense of freedom from the music?
(This sounds like a college exam paper.. you'd know it was that time of the year.. must get back to my study.... ;) )
point taken. many of us have much or most of our music from recorded sources, and most often from recordings made by 'professionals', who have honed their music for years and geared it toward a wide audience. this isn't the community music it was generations ago -- or at least not 'community' in the sense of small familiar, often familial groups of people with common horizons, etc. i was lucky enough to get much of my music from people who were willing to teach me the tunes, but even they were coming to the music from outside, and in many cases, were professional musicians in their own right.
but the tunes are still the tunes, and they are still brilliant, even if we have replaced some of their hamely warmth with a sheen of studied rectitude. it's the way of the world -- things get lost in the passage of time. it's a different kind of community now -- you're in galway and i'm in maine. that changes the equation, i think.
So much depends on where the music is played. Some sessions tend to make the players rather selfconscious about their way of playing because the atmosphere has this certain element of competitiveness in it which is the death of all looseness. There are, of course, others, too. the `professionals who have honed their music for years´ often achieve an astounding level of looseness but I get the impression that even with them it depends on where they play. There´s a youtube-video of Kevin Burke playing `Across the Black River´ in what is obviously a livingroom situation - and I doubt if he had been able to achieve this relaxedness when playing in front of a larger audience (he probably would have, because he´s so good, but there´s something else in the livingroom, hard to define: I think it is this `community feeling´ tinamatt is talking about). Or: watch the Transatlantic Sessions - also partly on youtube - where Aly Bain and Jay Ungar play `Bonaparte´s Retreat´ and other tunes: again a small community with a `common horizon´, apparently playing for themselves...maybe these are the places and situations we should be trying to play in, `play´ in contrast to `perform´.
all true, and i enjoyed those sites, thanks, especially the bain. but i meant community in a more old fashioned, constricted sense; where you knew the players by where they lived and who their family was. we all have a community of music, and a community here on the mustard (which i enjoy a lot, btw), but these aren't the same as the community that engendered this music. i won't say one is better than the other, but they encourage different responses, and different approaches to the music. one old hand told me that in the 'old days', a fiddler might know five tunes, but he knew then from childhood -- they were just part of the player, and not so much an achievement. that would make for a more natural sound, i would think. but i'm out of my depth here, just vamping...
Sessions are good for keeping that ease in the playing--as long as the sessions are just the tunes among friends and neighbors, and not a "performance" for an "audience." (Which is why those old threads dragged on for 400 posts and more--some of us are passionate about keeping the looseness, ease, and sometimes wildness--and the sense of community--in the music, and nothing steals it away quicker than feeling like you're putting on a concert.)
In today's world, where most music is relegated to professionals and canned music is the norm, it can be a bit harder to relax into a musical potluck and just play. But it does happen--my own local sessions are like this, and I've sat in on many other sessions that aren't self-conscious and overly precious. And this can happen even where these old tunes aren't the native language. The people who love this music will circle around it and bring their own histories to it, which is all that the people in Doolin or Dingle or Ballydehob have been doing for generations. Is it different when this happens in France or the US or Australia? Sure, but the process is basically the same, and the feel is, too, as long as people don't get too hung up on pretending to be Irish, or copying what they think a session in Ireland has to be. (It may help to bear in mind that pub sessions were invented in London and America and imported to Ireland.) In short, even in small towns 6,000 miles from Doolin, the music can become part of the community's fabric. And then the sessions are loose and easy and fun.
This is amateur music, what Francis O'Neill called "a fascinating hobby". It lives or dies in people's kitchens and living rooms. Professional musicians, albums, concert tours, TV programmes, competitions at feiseanna and academic degrees in ethnomusicodology are grand but they're all disposable, really. The Music got by for years without any of that.
And yet, the clip that started this discussion was of a small version of the Kilfenora: Kitty Linnane, who's livelihood was the band, her son-in-law Tommy Peoples and long standing band member Paddy 'Organ' Mullins.
"Amateur" literally means someone who does something out of love, i.e. not primarily as a means of earning cash (or fame). Unless Kitty and Tommy et al want to say they were only ever in it for the money, they shouldn't see the term "amateur" as in any way derogatory.
And I've nothing against professional musicians, I just think too many people [although maybe not fellow mustard-boarders] are losing sight of the value of playing our own music for our own enjoyment; something that used to be almost universal before radio and gramophones came along. Rock 'n' roll was invented in the era mass communication, number-one hits and stars. Trad evolved in the kitchen céilí. As soon as trad becomes the sole preserve of professionals and academics, it's something else; trad as we know it will have died.
Playing for the love of it, with people you are comfortable with, in a place that is cozy, what could be better.
Although, the day I am content with sloppy, under the pretense of being loose, is the day I stop growing as a musician. And the more I grow as a musician, the more loose I can be without being sloppy. So the more I work at it, the less it seems like work. There is a koan or dialectic in there somewhere....
Maybe it's my imagination, but over the past twenty years or so I've noticed an age gap split within ITM. Older players, of which I am one, may have the respect of their peers,but when it comes to playing with younger people we just can't keep up with the amount of new stuff that they are playing and with the speed at which they are playing it. Have a look around the Fleadh for instance. The groups are generally split into Old Players and Young Players and with the odd exception, ne'er the twain shall meet. So I'm afraid to say we have lost it a bit in that respect.
I haven't been around the scene as long as Free Reed, but I think you can see the same gap if you compare older recordings with the more recent big-name album-makers. The Coen brothers album "The Branch Line" really impresses me every time I listen to it; it's hard to find many young people who have the ambition to play like that, they all want to sound like Lúnasa.
At our local sessions it is understood that the session is not a performance no matter how many people are there listening to us play music. Instead we are merely a group of like-minded friends who are getting together to have fun trying to make the organized noise called music.
Some members of our local sessions are amateurs who play music just for the fun of it and don't want to make any money from playing music.
Some other members of the local session are (like me) members of a band which gets paid to perform regularly. I play music at the local Irish Sessions and other sessions (such as a Blues Jam) on my nights off because I enjoy playing music so much. Also, it helps keep my ensemble playing skills and just my music playing skills sharp to get the extra practice from sitting in at a session. In addition, since it is a session and not a performance, I don't have to worry about trying to be "note-perfect" and playing everything correctly.
Some of the musicians at our local sessions have gone to various workshops and training such as the Frankie Kennedy Winter School in Ireland or "Augusta" in Elkins, West Virginia or Catskills Irish Arts Week in New York or the North Texas Irish Festival in Dallas or Tionol in St. Louis, Missouri and some of the musicians at our local session have never attended any workshops anywhere.
As a result, we have a variety of skill levels and abilities at our local sessions but somehow we still manage to keep it together and enjoy ourselves playing the organized noise called music without taking it too seriously.
Although some members of the local session have sat in and played at sessions in Ireland when they went to the Kennedy School, we aren't trying to run our local sessions as they do in Ireland or pretend to be Irish (as Will CPT commented above).
Have we lost it a bit?
Have we lost it a bit?
I was just watching some of the Kilfenora Documentary that was on RTE there a few days ago and there was a lovely clip of Kitty Linnane playing with a fiddle player and a flautist. There was such a beautiful "looseness" in the music that Ive only ever really heard from the likes of Coleman and Morrisson.
So, what im asking is, in our self-conscious search for perfection, or preservation if you like, have we lost this 'space' and eradicated this sense of freedom from the music?
(This sounds like a college exam paper.. you'd know it was that time of the year.. must get back to my study.... ;) )
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by galway-fiddle
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
point taken. many of us have much or most of our music from recorded sources, and most often from recordings made by 'professionals', who have honed their music for years and geared it toward a wide audience. this isn't the community music it was generations ago -- or at least not 'community' in the sense of small familiar, often familial groups of people with common horizons, etc. i was lucky enough to get much of my music from people who were willing to teach me the tunes, but even they were coming to the music from outside, and in many cases, were professional musicians in their own right.
but the tunes are still the tunes, and they are still brilliant, even if we have replaced some of their hamely warmth with a sheen of studied rectitude. it's the way of the world -- things get lost in the passage of time. it's a different kind of community now -- you're in galway and i'm in maine. that changes the equation, i think.
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by 'tinamatt
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
So much depends on where the music is played. Some sessions tend to make the players rather selfconscious about their way of playing because the atmosphere has this certain element of competitiveness in it which is the death of all looseness. There are, of course, others, too. the `professionals who have honed their music for years´ often achieve an astounding level of looseness but I get the impression that even with them it depends on where they play. There´s a youtube-video of Kevin Burke playing `Across the Black River´ in what is obviously a livingroom situation - and I doubt if he had been able to achieve this relaxedness when playing in front of a larger audience (he probably would have, because he´s so good, but there´s something else in the livingroom, hard to define: I think it is this `community feeling´ tinamatt is talking about). Or: watch the Transatlantic Sessions - also partly on youtube - where Aly Bain and Jay Ungar play `Bonaparte´s Retreat´ and other tunes: again a small community with a `common horizon´, apparently playing for themselves...maybe these are the places and situations we should be trying to play in, `play´ in contrast to `perform´.
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by alexweger
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
all true, and i enjoyed those sites, thanks, especially the bain. but i meant community in a more old fashioned, constricted sense; where you knew the players by where they lived and who their family was. we all have a community of music, and a community here on the mustard (which i enjoy a lot, btw), but these aren't the same as the community that engendered this music. i won't say one is better than the other, but they encourage different responses, and different approaches to the music. one old hand told me that in the 'old days', a fiddler might know five tunes, but he knew then from childhood -- they were just part of the player, and not so much an achievement. that would make for a more natural sound, i would think. but i'm out of my depth here, just vamping...
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by 'tinamatt
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
Sessions are good for keeping that ease in the playing--as long as the sessions are just the tunes among friends and neighbors, and not a "performance" for an "audience." (Which is why those old threads dragged on for 400 posts and more--some of us are passionate about keeping the looseness, ease, and sometimes wildness--and the sense of community--in the music, and nothing steals it away quicker than feeling like you're putting on a concert.)
In today's world, where most music is relegated to professionals and canned music is the norm, it can be a bit harder to relax into a musical potluck and just play. But it does happen--my own local sessions are like this, and I've sat in on many other sessions that aren't self-conscious and overly precious. And this can happen even where these old tunes aren't the native language. The people who love this music will circle around it and bring their own histories to it, which is all that the people in Doolin or Dingle or Ballydehob have been doing for generations. Is it different when this happens in France or the US or Australia? Sure, but the process is basically the same, and the feel is, too, as long as people don't get too hung up on pretending to be Irish, or copying what they think a session in Ireland has to be. (It may help to bear in mind that pub sessions were invented in London and America and imported to Ireland.) In short, even in small towns 6,000 miles from Doolin, the music can become part of the community's fabric. And then the sessions are loose and easy and fun.
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by Will Harmon
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
This is amateur music, what Francis O'Neill called "a fascinating hobby". It lives or dies in people's kitchens and living rooms. Professional musicians, albums, concert tours, TV programmes, competitions at feiseanna and academic degrees in ethnomusicodology are grand but they're all disposable, really. The Music got by for years without any of that.
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by Hammurabi Breathnach
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
And yet, the clip that started this discussion was of a small version of the Kilfenora: Kitty Linnane, who's livelihood was the band, her son-in-law Tommy Peoples and long standing band member Paddy 'Organ' Mullins.
Amateurs?
[I'll go back into exile now.]
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
"Amateur" literally means someone who does something out of love, i.e. not primarily as a means of earning cash (or fame). Unless Kitty and Tommy et al want to say they were only ever in it for the money, they shouldn't see the term "amateur" as in any way derogatory.
And I've nothing against professional musicians, I just think too many people [although maybe not fellow mustard-boarders] are losing sight of the value of playing our own music for our own enjoyment; something that used to be almost universal before radio and gramophones came along. Rock 'n' roll was invented in the era mass communication, number-one hits and stars. Trad evolved in the kitchen céilí. As soon as trad becomes the sole preserve of professionals and academics, it's something else; trad as we know it will have died.
# Posted on April 12th 2009 by Hammurabi Breathnach
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
Playing for the love of it, with people you are comfortable with, in a place that is cozy, what could be better.
Although, the day I am content with sloppy, under the pretense of being loose, is the day I stop growing as a musician. And the more I grow as a musician, the more loose I can be without being sloppy. So the more I work at it, the less it seems like work. There is a koan or dialectic in there somewhere....
# Posted on April 13th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
Maybe it's my imagination, but over the past twenty years or so I've noticed an age gap split within ITM. Older players, of which I am one, may have the respect of their peers,but when it comes to playing with younger people we just can't keep up with the amount of new stuff that they are playing and with the speed at which they are playing it. Have a look around the Fleadh for instance. The groups are generally split into Old Players and Young Players and with the odd exception, ne'er the twain shall meet. So I'm afraid to say we have lost it a bit in that respect.
# Posted on April 13th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
I haven't been around the scene as long as Free Reed, but I think you can see the same gap if you compare older recordings with the more recent big-name album-makers. The Coen brothers album "The Branch Line" really impresses me every time I listen to it; it's hard to find many young people who have the ambition to play like that, they all want to sound like Lúnasa.
# Posted on April 13th 2009 by Hammurabi Breathnach
Re: Have we lost it a bit?
At our local sessions it is understood that the session is not a performance no matter how many people are there listening to us play music. Instead we are merely a group of like-minded friends who are getting together to have fun trying to make the organized noise called music.
Some members of our local sessions are amateurs who play music just for the fun of it and don't want to make any money from playing music.
Some other members of the local session are (like me) members of a band which gets paid to perform regularly. I play music at the local Irish Sessions and other sessions (such as a Blues Jam) on my nights off because I enjoy playing music so much. Also, it helps keep my ensemble playing skills and just my music playing skills sharp to get the extra practice from sitting in at a session. In addition, since it is a session and not a performance, I don't have to worry about trying to be "note-perfect" and playing everything correctly.
Some of the musicians at our local sessions have gone to various workshops and training such as the Frankie Kennedy Winter School in Ireland or "Augusta" in Elkins, West Virginia or Catskills Irish Arts Week in New York or the North Texas Irish Festival in Dallas or Tionol in St. Louis, Missouri and some of the musicians at our local session have never attended any workshops anywhere.
As a result, we have a variety of skill levels and abilities at our local sessions but somehow we still manage to keep it together and enjoy ourselves playing the organized noise called music without taking it too seriously.
Although some members of the local session have sat in and played at sessions in Ireland when they went to the Kennedy School, we aren't trying to run our local sessions as they do in Ireland or pretend to be Irish (as Will CPT commented above).
# Posted on April 14th 2009 by fauxcelt