I've been wondering about this question of genre and definitions since reading the post http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/2105 - 'when did the music become traditional'. In my mind 'traditional' is something from the past that has been around a good while - how the tunes were played back in the old days for example.
So I'm interested to find out where modern tunes fit in. By modern tunes I am refering to tunes written recently for example by accomplished trad players such as Micheal McGoldrick, Anthony Sullivan etc. I find many of their tunes are available on this site, on the virtual session and in numerous other places. But where do they fit into 'tradition' and do people think it is acceptable to play these tunes at sessions and in sets which don't distinguish them from older - what I am starting to consider to be 'traditonal' tunes? I guess they could be 'modern traditional' !!!? yet I feel this to be a very confusing a contradictory term!
My personal opinion is that many of them are cracking tunes, which are there to be played, but I am interested to know what other people think:
a) about how 'traditional' tunes are defined
b) where modern/recently written tunes fit into this definition
c) how appropriate is it to play these tunes at sessions etc. etc.
Then to really top it all off - where do the likes of Afro-Celt and Kila fit in terms of genre - are they considered trad or is it another genre - if so what is it?!
Even although they are "new", these tunes are written in a traditional manner for playing in "traditional" sessions, on so-called traditional instruments...at least accoustic instruments (mostly). The dance forms of jigs, reels, hornpipes have been around for a very long time.
To me it shows that the music is very much a living art form and not just a museum of sound abstractions.
Hope this helps you reconcile your dilemma.
Danny
PS - Don't know about Kila but the afro-celt crowd make an interesting noise, but you could hardly play their stuff at sessions.
The ACSS cds have been fun to me for a while, but meanwhile vanished in the stream of past (although I think it might be great to see them performing live).
Modern trad is some kind of contradiction but nevertheless gets the point: there are new tunes composed and played under influences of contemporary music from all corners of the global village but nevertheless based in the "humours" of irish music...
mimi and the new generation polkas and all that stuff are ok, but it is a walk along the edge and musicians who try that might balance it well or fall. If they fall it might not really be harmful to them. The important question is: is it harmful to the music? I think no. But I donīt really give trad con fusion stuff that much importance.
I'm with Danny. If a new tune is written to hang on traditional bones (one of the usual tune types, works well on trad instruments, etc.), then it can be accepted into the tradition. Whether it actually gets picked up and played at sessions, and whether it lives on for more than a few months, depends on it's basic quality and what it adds to the repertoire, but this is true of older tunes as well. Do trad players play it in a trad style? Does it get passed from one player to the next? Then it becomes part of the tradition.
The music isn't some dead animal stuffed and mounted in a museum. It's alive and moving forward, albeit gradually, in part through new tunes being added--some from composers within the tradition, some borrowed from other countries/genres. Again, that's where the "old" tunes came from as well.
Take Gian Marco's new tune, The Sand in the Whistle (posted here today). It was created on a trad instrument, by a player immersed in the tradition, and it's clearly a trad form (a reel, with obvious trad phrasing and places for trad ornamentation). But it has a two-bar passage that climbs from F nat, through F sharp to G nat to G sharp. I'm not aware of any "old" tunes that do that. Also, it was composed by an Italian (gasp . Does this make the tune non-trad? I don't think so. I think it fits just fine within the music we play. Will it become a widely played session tune and so take root in the tradition? Who knows.
The sooner we accept that traditional Irish (and maybe some Scots, Shetland, Certain Parts of Canada and a Few Other Places) dance music, ie The Music, The Stuff We Play at Most Normal Sessions, is near enough a living type of world music, the better for all concerned. Not World Music like Latin, African, Inner Mongolian. But a music shared in being played by people from shores far distant from those of Paddy's Green Shamrock ones. I've seen a shift in attitudes among Irish people over 15 or more years, from that of "How dare the Sassenachs and Jocks and Yanks and god knows what other foreigners play our music!!" to one where they accept the thanks (and patronage - and why not?)of foreigners for the art form they had somehow managed to preserve for the world. A generalisation, of course, there will always be begrudgers, and there have always been good people of a generous nature prepared to share with all what is theirs - even their defining culture.
I don't know if this is germaine to the discussion, but I hope it is of at least passing interest.
Don't forget Liz Carroll. She writes so well and people play hwr tunes in sessions that you wouldn't know it was written by a American fiddler in Chicago. Helps if you win All Ireland
Modern trad?
Modern trad?
I've been wondering about this question of genre and definitions since reading the post http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/2105 - 'when did the music become traditional'. In my mind 'traditional' is something from the past that has been around a good while - how the tunes were played back in the old days for example.
So I'm interested to find out where modern tunes fit in. By modern tunes I am refering to tunes written recently for example by accomplished trad players such as Micheal McGoldrick, Anthony Sullivan etc. I find many of their tunes are available on this site, on the virtual session and in numerous other places. But where do they fit into 'tradition' and do people think it is acceptable to play these tunes at sessions and in sets which don't distinguish them from older - what I am starting to consider to be 'traditonal' tunes? I guess they could be 'modern traditional' !!!? yet I feel this to be a very confusing a contradictory term!
My personal opinion is that many of them are cracking tunes, which are there to be played, but I am interested to know what other people think:
a) about how 'traditional' tunes are defined
b) where modern/recently written tunes fit into this definition
c) how appropriate is it to play these tunes at sessions etc. etc.
Then to really top it all off - where do the likes of Afro-Celt and Kila fit in terms of genre - are they considered trad or is it another genre - if so what is it?!
# Posted on September 29th 2003 by jkneale
Re: Modern trad?
Even although they are "new", these tunes are written in a traditional manner for playing in "traditional" sessions, on so-called traditional instruments...at least accoustic instruments (mostly). The dance forms of jigs, reels, hornpipes have been around for a very long time.
To me it shows that the music is very much a living art form and not just a museum of sound abstractions.
Hope this helps you reconcile your dilemma.
Danny
PS - Don't know about Kila but the afro-celt crowd make an interesting noise, but you could hardly play their stuff at sessions.
# Posted on September 29th 2003 by Key Maniac Lad
Trad con Fusion
The ACSS cds have been fun to me for a while, but meanwhile vanished in the stream of past (although I think it might be great to see them performing live).
Modern trad is some kind of contradiction but nevertheless gets the point: there are new tunes composed and played under influences of contemporary music from all corners of the global village but nevertheless based in the "humours" of irish music...
mimi and the new generation polkas and all that stuff are ok, but it is a walk along the edge and musicians who try that might balance it well or fall. If they fall it might not really be harmful to them. The important question is: is it harmful to the music? I think no. But I donīt really give trad con fusion stuff that much importance.
# Posted on September 29th 2003 by crannog
Re: Modern trad?
I'm with Danny. If a new tune is written to hang on traditional bones (one of the usual tune types, works well on trad instruments, etc.), then it can be accepted into the tradition. Whether it actually gets picked up and played at sessions, and whether it lives on for more than a few months, depends on it's basic quality and what it adds to the repertoire, but this is true of older tunes as well. Do trad players play it in a trad style? Does it get passed from one player to the next? Then it becomes part of the tradition.
The music isn't some dead animal stuffed and mounted in a museum. It's alive and moving forward, albeit gradually, in part through new tunes being added--some from composers within the tradition, some borrowed from other countries/genres. Again, that's where the "old" tunes came from as well.
Take Gian Marco's new tune, The Sand in the Whistle (posted here today). It was created on a trad instrument, by a player immersed in the tradition, and it's clearly a trad form (a reel, with obvious trad phrasing and places for trad ornamentation). But it has a two-bar passage that climbs from F nat, through F sharp to G nat to G sharp. I'm not aware of any "old" tunes that do that. Also, it was composed by an Italian (gasp
. Does this make the tune non-trad? I don't think so. I think it fits just fine within the music we play. Will it become a widely played session tune and so take root in the tradition? Who knows.
# Posted on September 29th 2003 by Will CPT
Re: Modern trad?
The sooner we accept that traditional Irish (and maybe some Scots, Shetland, Certain Parts of Canada and a Few Other Places) dance music, ie The Music, The Stuff We Play at Most Normal Sessions, is near enough a living type of world music, the better for all concerned. Not World Music like Latin, African, Inner Mongolian. But a music shared in being played by people from shores far distant from those of Paddy's Green Shamrock ones. I've seen a shift in attitudes among Irish people over 15 or more years, from that of "How dare the Sassenachs and Jocks and Yanks and god knows what other foreigners play our music!!" to one where they accept the thanks (and patronage - and why not?)of foreigners for the art form they had somehow managed to preserve for the world. A generalisation, of course, there will always be begrudgers, and there have always been good people of a generous nature prepared to share with all what is theirs - even their defining culture.
I don't know if this is germaine to the discussion, but I hope it is of at least passing interest.
Danny.
# Posted on September 29th 2003 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: Modern trad?
Don't forget Liz Carroll. She writes so well and people play hwr tunes in sessions that you wouldn't know it was written by a American fiddler in Chicago. Helps if you win All Ireland
# Posted on October 5th 2003 by I_Fel