Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Arising from a comment in an earlier post - I'm curious about how people view this. Are playing a particular type of music or do you feel you are part of the tradition?
And let's leave Tony McMahon out of the discussion!
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I play trad, I am rad, I smoke fags. But I don't think I'm part of the tradition. But I don't know what the tradition is (if it's not the music you're talking about), so I don't really understand the question.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Can't answer- I wear too many musical hats. At school, I play piano along with the kids in our jazz band and concert band; I play bass in a local symphony orchestra; I play guitar and mandolin in an Italian wedding band; and squeeze out time for our local session one evening a week.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Rev has a point...however I think it might be best to let Rilke address such questions...which, ultimately, although interesting, may be pointless.
"....I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
I think maybe it's a bit presumptuous [although entirely understandable] that one could think one is part of a tradition by merely scraping out some tunes [however badly], but maybe, as Rilke says, it's sort of useless asking the question....when one has lived with the music for a long time and perhaps achieved some competence maybe one day you'll find you feel as if you understand what the tradition is, or might be. Just throwing that out there.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I "play trad". I wasn't brought up in a household where this sort of music was played or schools where it was taught or in a background where it had a high profile.
I just liked it when I heard it, whether in direct form like the odd Jimmy Shand record early in life or through other music that seemed to have trad qualities in its DNA.
(My *real* tradition was the harsh and dreary singing of Hymns Ancient And Modern in school assemblies. I am not yet old enough to romanticise this...)
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I was at a session recently and there was a Bodhran player there, who was a backup drummer for a well known Ceili band and has been playing since "single figure" years old, i.e. he was a very competent player.
After leaving the session, I was of the opinion that there is absolutely no denying, that when it is played well and there's only one played at any one time, the contribution a bodhran makes to the music is definitely a positive one, as apposed to a negative one, as some of the people here portray it as.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
But I think that self-consciously thinking one is 'part of the tradition' smacks of smugness and the self-congratulatory? I think it's better to avoid the question altogether.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I think it's presumptuous of you to think that you're *not* part of the tradition if you merely scrape out some tunes... That's what the tradition is! The tradition is *us*. It's not some thing sitting on a shelf in a museum. If everybody stopped playing Irish traditional music, the tradition would cease to exist.
So like it or not, you are part of the tradition. And then it's up to you how you treat it... For me, personally, I try to treat it with some respect. I do that by learning some of the history of it, listening to what people have taught me, and trying to play it as well as I can within what I consider to be the boundaries of the tradition.
However, some people choose to play the music without regard to how it has sounded traditionally. (Either by choice or by ignorance). But that is every bit as much a part of the tradition as how I treat it!
The tradition is a living, breathing entity that encompasses the people who play the music... (And everybody who played it in the past). I try not to think of it as "preserving the tradition", because if you are doing that, the tradition is dead. I like to think of it as "continuing the tradition"... And as I've said before, I think the push and pull between the purists and the modernists is what keeps it a vibrant, living thing. And it gives the rest of us a place to reside in the middle...
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I was born in a bog and force fed jigs and reels instead of mother's milk. Instead of a rattle, I was given a sleán and sent off to cut peat. Instead of school, fairies abducted me daily and provided my education. When cut, I bleed Guinness. I weep tears of Jameson. The rest of you are all a bunch of fakers.
Seriously though, how DO you play the music without being a part of the musical tradition? Oxymoronic, at best.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
How long does it take for the latest trend to become current/contemporary practice, degenerate into former practice and then be readopted as traditionalal practice?
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I would hope that people can appreciate and understand the simple idea of playing the music and being a part of the musical tradition, simply by playing it, without all sorts of over-blown puffery and poetical nonsense, thus leading to mtodd's warnings of the "...smugness and the self-congratulatory..."
...but I'm a realist, I know they can't. Too bad! It's not that hard.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I'm not saying you're not part of it -- as you point out Rev, maybe we all are for better or worse -- I'm saying it's misguided to ask the question in the first place.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Reverend, I'm not sure that such a person exists, but if you had played trad for say 10 years, regularly playing in pub sessions and:
a) had learnt most of your tunes from recordings or manuscript rather than musicians in the community;
b) knew few, if any, tunes, variations or settings specific to your community;
c) played your tunes "by the book" as you learnt them with no personal stamp;
d) didn't teach tunes, even informally;
e) had never played, whether informally or not, for a stepdancer;
f) had never played for céilí dancers;
g) had never danced at a céilí;
h) were never asked to play at local events and parties;
i) knew nothing of the "big" musicians e.g. Willie Clancy, Seamus Ennis, John Kelly, Joe Cooley, Sonny Brogan, Dennis Murphy, Tommy Potts, Mrs Crotty, beyond a nodding familiarity with their names;
j) had never been to Willie week or the All Ireland;
k) had never listened to, and played, the big Sean Nós songs;
would you be "part of the tradition"? Wouldn't you be a dead branch cut off from the raw nourishment of the live tradition?
Does it matter? As long as there exists a core of musicians doing the above i.e. keeping the tradition alive, then probably not. Certainly not having these experiences doesn't make you any less a musician but it does cut you off from the trad community. It does mean that what you're playing is a dilution, not the raw spirit. Then again, music, any form of music, is a wonderful thing, and at the end of the day it's only Last Night's Fun. But without that core . . .
Oh, and it doesn't matter where the cores live. I know musicians in London, Manchester, Luton, Chicago, Philly, Boston, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Japan who each do most, if not all, of the above.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
..and surely, when you think about it, the BBC's Virtual Session is a perfect example of PJ's "dead branch" -- cut off from all the things he so succinctly lists to illustrate the best case scenario. In fact, it doesn't even have real musicians [at least the CCE website has that]-- it has animated ones. But maybe they are part of the tradition too?
Many of us in North America are 'under resourced'. And that can lead to some distortions.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I try to play trad. But one finger slip and BANG I've played a G6 chord—then we're talking jazz or pop. Or one misplaced D7 chord and WHAM it's cornball Clapton blues.
So trad is a tightrope with no net.
As for tradition, look no further than John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara and their sweet, sweet cottage.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Broadly I'd agree with Reverend's post.
Lots of us dislike the faintly pretentious sound of "being part of the tradition" but that doesn't mean we're not doing it.
Surely we're not guilty of pretending to be ourselves? (I hope not.)
At the dance festivals in England where I play for "my" dancers, I think there's an unacknowledged divide between those who are "part of a tradition," and the actors and reenactors.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Dear PeatCreature,
We regret to inform you that as of today your official membership in The Tradition [hereafter referred to as TT] has been cancelled effective immediately. You are no longer a TT member in good standing. Please refrain from attending sessions or playing any kind of music that might be interpreted as "traditional". Your understanding is appreciated in this matter.
Yours sincerely & etc.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Well, I understand what you're saying, PJ. Although, I don't necessarily think of it as a dead branch. It's just a branch. It's part of what happens in the tradition, and it probably has been for a long time, and will be for a long time to come.
My point was really that the "distortions" are actually part of the tradition. The branch (dead or not) is still part of the tree (unless it has broken off completely, and shares nothing in common with the tradition. But even then, it shares ancestry...)
But it's not a black and white thing - the boundaries of the tradition are blurred, which is fine.
And just because something is part of "the tradition", doesn't mean we have to like it...
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
@SWFL: If your challenge had been in the Irish, it would have had more impact. I might have been cowed -- after working out the translation, of course. No, I have to go with PeatCreature on this one.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Thanks floss, I signed up before but couldn't seem to play the tracks I downloaded! duh! Id found that emusic link from a search following your album submission here which I will also thank you for. Cheers anyway. If anyone can tell me what to do with the files once Ive downloaded them Id be grateful, but please keep it PC!
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
this one's for Pete ;)
Are you looking for a place to rest?
Cold Mountain’s good for many a day.
Wind sings here in the black pines,
Closer you are, the better it sounds.
There’s an old man sitting by a tree,
Muttering about the things of Tao.
Ten years now, it’s been so long
This one’s forgotten his way home.
--Han-shan
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
PJ's comments are well said (re: dead branch and so forth). I think there's a big difference between playing trad and being part of the tradition--I identify with the later.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I find the idea that I might be part of the tradition willy-nilly a rather unnerving one.
It's like being passed a baton that might turn into a snake, or something else unnerving and virulent.
Or maybe fall from my flailing features to take root and grow into a grotesquely mutant branch of the tradition, under whose burgeoning shadow errant seekers after the Real Thing might lie down to rest and wake up incurably insane.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
What a load of bovine feces. The tradition spans the full gamut of casual hacks to accomplished professionals and all points in between. It did long ago, and continues as such today. That means tunes learnt off the BBC website or tunes learnt whilst suckling upon the teet of of some ancient Celtic musical deity have equal value in so much as they are all part of the tradition. You can't just pick the really sophisticated stuff and claim THIS and only THIS is "The Tradition." Absolute crap is also part of the tradition. That is why I fit in so well.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
As a Yank who came to this music in the middle of this life, raised in a solidly American, white bread household, it would be cheeky of me to say I am 'part of the Irish tradition.' Do I play trad, yes. Do I help keep the Irish tradition alive, yes. Am I part of the New England musical tradition, yes. But I am on the fringes of the Irish tradition, as much as I love to play it.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Surely being part of "The Tradidition" starts the first time you hear a tune and are so captivated by it you just HAVE to hear more, and you race out and buy your first D Gen from the local music store and have a go yourself.
From here on it's just a growing process, whether just a fun little hobby or a total obsession. Both of these help pass on interest in ITM. I'm sure many a great ITM player has been introduced to the music by a mate twiddling on a humble whistle or some other instrument.
Re: Are you "the solution" or are you "part of the problem"
I fear with some trepidation, it is only from the lofty heights and upper echelons of trad wher we can expect to find enlightenment.
And turn, in weighted expectation to the Comhaltas Ajudicators Brotherhood. It is here and here alone we will find what we search..
Why I think there is a red telephone and a
Comhaltas patented "Angry metronome" on hand
for just these situations..
"Upon hearing the Hard D, an ancient call to arms, they came out, and looked skyward and were thankfull.
For Playing Trad and being part of the Tradition are and have always been, symbiotic relationship.
And thus the talking of Shlte will forever be in our hearts
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Hmm. I think, base on my own experience that "tradition" is an oxymoron or some such. Whether I "belong" is usually decided by others within the so-called tradition; I can talk to one person who firmly and vehemently describes me as not part of the tradition and I can turn around and talk to another well-respected "member" who will ascribe to me as being part of the tradition. The word itself connotes a certain level of rigidity; however, traditions only "last" through history when they are fluid and evolve. What was the first "druid" lesson? It's been "lost". I think what we consider part of or not part of the tradition will irrevocably influence the lasting quality of the thing itself. It becomes a more philosophical consideration then: uphold a notion of the tradition or uphold the thing itself?
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I must be part of the tradition, because I play three parts to the 'Boyne Hunt', four parts to 'Tell her I am', four parts to 'Jackson's Morning Brush' aand I also know refer to The Harvest Home as The Cork Hornpipe!
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I guess I can only really say I "play trad", because I found this music and play it because I love it a lot, not because I was born into the "tradition". However, one might say that there wouldn't be much of a tradition to be part of if we all weren't out here just "playing trad"...
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
At least one Roman Catholic Irish musician, dancer, singer or at least listener (in the pub) is required to say we are part of the tradition. Just because you are a member of a celtic-rock band in Alabama or Bratislava, you are not part of the tradition. Miki
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Pineapples are the symbol of hospitality. I have found the session scene very hospitable what I don't like are attempts to define it and what it us and is therefore not.
I worry that once you define something like this you begin to dystroy it.
Each session is a unique event never repeated based on multiple dimentions ( time,place, people......er beer, etc) each should be treasured for it's own sake.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I thought you were yanking my chain.
"...It is hardly surprising that this communal symbol of friendship and hospitality also became a favorite motif of architects, artisans and craftsmen throughout the colonies. They announced the hospitality of a mansion with carved wood or molded mortar pineapples on its main gate posts..."
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I wonder if the struggle to reach a "meeting of minds" on this topic is because for many on this board the tradition and the pub session are almost synonymous, whereas for others, sessions are but one part of the tradition. I don't maintain that one stance is intrinsically better than the other, and it's really only shades of grey rather than black and white (to use the Reverend's motif!) but anyone choosing to step over to the "dark side" is assured a warm welcome.
SWFL, I suspect it was a throwaway remark but it'd be great if you could expand on the "traditionally" (last word) in your Totally Zen question.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Should we start bringing pineapples to sessions?
Are you contributing to or part of the tradition if you are a musical hermit and only ever play in the isolation of your home; never in a session, a band, with a couple friends, etc. It's like the "if the tree falls in a forest and no one sees it" question.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
The other day I was having a few tunes in the kitchen with a neighbour who'd called round to pick up her daughter, while at the table with us, the children were eating pineapple rings. Does that count?
A couple of my elderly neighbours are just like TheSilverSpear's musical hermit but ask them where they got that setting of Pigeon on the Gate from and they'll tell you how they got the sense of it from O'Keefe in Gneevgullia or Denis Murphy in London. Bring a young child who's only learning with you and they be teaching them a polka one note at a time. Stay on after the football and they tell you about getting drunk with Johnny O'Leary. Stay later and with enough liquid encouragement they'll be dancing a step.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Sure PJ!
Playing traditionally - I really need to explain this? Here? You know…I mean, it’s, you know…well, this is what it’s not:
Playing traditional music untraditionally - See Celtic Rock, New Agey Celticism, etc.
I mean how the music is played. We all (on here) know what it's supposed to sound like, in the flesh. Tweety whistles, screechy fiddles, plunky banjos, wheezy boxes, barking pipes, wood flutes mellowly going deedlee deedlee deedlee...
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Out of the mouth of babes! But isn't that the nub of it? Surely the tradition only exists if a good number of those who love it have a baby's mind (though given the recent Zen theme a "beginner's mind" is perhaps a better fit), soaking it all in, trying to make some sense of, without any preconceptions, trying things out, failing, "failing better".
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Sorry SWFL, I wasn't trying to be flip.
Sure it's the sound of the thing but even with that there are subtle graduations. For me, if it's a dance tune but it wouldn't get people on to the floor then it's somehow closer to ersatz trad. Similarly, if down to the last ornament it's the same as a record track. Fine enough for the body but not meat for the soul.
Don't get me wrong, I love a pub session as much as the next person. But I guess for me, playing "traditionally" is about more than the sound. I'm struggling here (it's the Steve Martin/ Miles Davies/ Elvis Costello music, architecture, dancing problem). It's about the chat between the tunes, it's about the story of how the person in front of you came to play that particular tune in that particular way. It's about the music coming to you fresh each time rather than driving through the Tarbolton set in the same way as last time.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Well said, and there's the whole catch.
If it's a dead tradition, then it's fossilized. It will never change, it's dead.
A living tradition tries 'things out" as you noted. It's alive, and like a human, it changes over time. It adapts to its environment.
Now, you can pass it on and let them do with it what they will, or you can kill it, fossilize it, and stick it in a museum under glass with a "DO NOT TOUCH!" sign on it.
However, by its very nature, a tradition MUST be passed on, handed down, kept alive and therefore, is always subject to change.
That being said, if it varies too much from what is considered traditional by the loves and practitioners of it, it is no longer considered traditional.
Now, this long babble from me has been said a million times already on this here mustard board.
However, like an old tune, if you don’t keep playing it, it might get forgotten!
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Don't worry about being flip with me, you ever read my nonsense on here before?
You're correct, it's the presentation too. A pub session that's a gig is not traditional. With breaks, free flowing conversation and music, well, that's what we're talking about.
That's more of the 'how' it's played.
Silly me, I would have assumed the stories and friendship went without saying!
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Unfortunately, this is liable to rub some the wrong way... but I DO see Celtic Rock, etc. as "part of the tradition" is the broad sense. Part of the that evolution I was talking about. I played "trad" tunes before playing Celtic Rock. But because I also play Celtic Rock, I am not "part of the tradition"? I just get so confused with all the semantics. I still don't see the "tradition" as remaining perfectly preserved in time. I think there will always be people who do, and I admire them for it, and thank them for it. But to think everyone who wants to play the music and truly enjoy it should mummify themselves won't move the music forward enough to sustain a boxed notion of what is part of a tradition. Don't get me wrong; preserving the "roots" as best we are able is important. But again, is it about preserving a "notion" or "club mentality" the point, or is keeping the music alive the point? I find, esp. with Celtic Rock that one of two things is likely; one, the members usually already play trad, just not when they are on stage, or, two, someone's exposure to Celtic Rock leads them to the roots.
Tradition is connected with the past, but it is ever in the present.
It is ephemeral. You may play a tune 1 way when you are learning. After it is in your head ~ you are free. You can play it differently each time. You better! Then, & only then is the tune known. It is the process of becoming fluid. Most of the commercial bands don't get that, or simply choose to ignore just how free tradition is. Then again, so do a few *traditionalists'*
Shooglenifty is grand.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Fiddlechick, that's just exactly it. Put aside for a moment the fact that most lovers and players of this music do not consider 'Celtic Rock' traditional in any sense.
What a band does is not traditional, so to speak. It's a formal gig. There's no free flowing music, bubbling forth from the musicians’ heads, instead, there's a set list. There's no random, untimed breaks for conversation. There's no leisurely, friendly pace. It can't be done in a kitchen. Well, I guess you could play your set list in the kitchen with your PA and your fans, but...
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
SO you could put a trad tune to the style of Afro-Caribbean music with the words:
We Got Pineapple N' Guava N' Coconuts too, come and play a tune or too...etc etc etc... ??? Still part of the tradition!!!!
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
SWFL Fiddler said
"I was born in a bog and force fed jigs and reels instead of mother's milk. Instead of a rattle, I was given a sleán and sent off to cut peat. Instead of school, fairies abducted me daily and provided my education. When cut, I bleed Guinness. I weep tears of Jameson. The rest of you are all a bunch of fakers."
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Confusing--but interesting discussion.
Some of you have mentioned so-called "Celtic Rock". Which bands or groups are you thinking of when you mention "Celtic Rock"? Is it possible for anyone to try to define "Celtic Rock"?
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Come an danse with a spotin druid, the surf is up and so is the blazin sun, we have ze mangos and papaya and junk so why donch let your pineapples down....
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Back to the question:
>Are (you) playing a particular type of music or do you feel you are part of the tradition?<
It depends -
If I'm playing in a trad pub session - I'm a f*ckin' yank tosser who doesn't know his John Thomas from his friggin' Hamilton, who's flute sounds like p*ssin' and walkin at the same time.
If, on the other hand, I'm playing for the 'unwashed', I'm their connection to tradition, the real thing...brilliant, a breath of fresh air, a hidden treasure..........I'm a man of depth, knowledge, and truth........I am the messiah!
Now, I ask you, who would you rather play for? (I tend to get a lot more free pints from the latter....)
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Carving pineapples should be banned from the crafts deemed kosher by trad. They are alien, and far too easy to do. The venerable carvers of ancient crosses would never have stooped to do pineapples.
It is well known that the only fruit that can grow in the morbid climatic conditions of the Trad Zone, in any country or continent, is the raspberry, and then only just.
Bunches of raspberries, with every little knobble and stalk clearly defined, garnished with leaves finely laced by all the bugs, are the only acceptable representations of fruit carved in wood or stone in the Trad Zone.
What's the world been coming to since 1500, eh?!..
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Fauxcelt: I don't want to snag this thread, so you can email me directly if ya want: for "Celtic Rock"... it's a generic term for (generally speaking) trad. Irish, Scottish, Breton, etc., etc. etc. tunes fused with elements of rock (metal, punk, rockabilly, etc., etc., etc.). The label encompasses alot. And Trucks, no sh*te it isn't a country! What a load of crap semantics. That the crap that really riles me... seems some care more about a semantics game than anything else. Anyway, it isn't considered traditional in the sense of purist trad. as on this site at all. They can't be wholly compared. I do find the close-minded concept of "formal" performance strange. Yes, we have a list of tunes we can play. We generally don't use a set list taped to the stage that we follow without speaking to our audience and having some good old fashioned fun. When we enter into the actual tune, though, we do play it the way it's rehearsed. I don't find this a whole lot different than a seasoned session where the core players practice sets beforehand and may put in their own little flavors, but get "eyeballs" at someone who hasn't practiced the set "the way it goes in this session". So, just a bit wierd to me, I guess. But I'm not a purist, nor really traditional by the definiton on most here.....
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Fiddlechick7, I don't think I've ever met anyone who practices sets for sessions, and I've been around the scene a good long time.
As for this site, my sense is it's far more catholic then you might think. Certainly my tradition (if I can use such a term) encompasses the likes of Kila, though it stops short of Black 47, with Moving Hearts perhaps somewhere on a vague and regularly shifting boundary.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I stand corrected, then. I remember reading a post and some threads regarding practicing your session tunes before going to the session, and playing them the way that particular session plays them; anything else if frowned upon. Also I remember reading how some established sessions play their tunes in sets, and often these sets are practiced in kitchens beforehand. I was merely making the connection that practice and is practice.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Practice is practice, but a session is a session, not a performance!
There are tunes that go after. Every local has their own unique 'ones that go after'. "X always goes after Y, and then we always play Z after that 'round these parts..." Sometimes they're quite common, other times they're more obscure combination, but they are always well known by the locals, standards, if you will.
Maybe that's what you were thinking of, fiddlechick?
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Rasberry to you Nic
Are you sure that hops might be more trad ?
Pineapple by virtue of there cost pre victorian times would be worth the equiverlent of hundreds of pounds each a true gift of hospitality
Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Arising from a comment in an earlier post - I'm curious about how people view this. Are playing a particular type of music or do you feel you are part of the tradition?
And let's leave Tony McMahon out of the discussion!
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Cuso
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Being 'part of the tradition' sounds a bit pretentious in my case, I would prefer to say I play trad.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Henk Bos
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I just play at being a musician and I don't portray one on television.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I play trad, I am rad, I smoke fags. But I don't think I'm part of the tradition. But I don't know what the tradition is (if it's not the music you're talking about), so I don't really understand the question.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by fedorastain
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Can't answer- I wear too many musical hats. At school, I play piano along with the kids in our jazz band and concert band; I play bass in a local symphony orchestra; I play guitar and mandolin in an Italian wedding band; and squeeze out time for our local session one evening a week.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Both, of course. But I don't usually think about being part of the tradition. I just like to play tunes. I love the music. I enjoy the comaraderie.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by fidkid
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
How is this a different question from the one we covered a few days ago?
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by showaddydadito
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Which question?
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Henk Bos
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
How can you play trad without being part of the tradition?
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Reverend
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Rev has a point...however I think it might be best to let Rilke address such questions...which, ultimately, although interesting, may be pointless.
"....I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
I think maybe it's a bit presumptuous [although entirely understandable] that one could think one is part of a tradition by merely scraping out some tunes [however badly], but maybe, as Rilke says, it's sort of useless asking the question....when one has lived with the music for a long time and perhaps achieved some competence maybe one day you'll find you feel as if you understand what the tradition is, or might be. Just throwing that out there.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Here's a thought....
If you 'play' bodhran, are you part of the tradition?
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I "play trad". I wasn't brought up in a household where this sort of music was played or schools where it was taught or in a background where it had a high profile.
I just liked it when I heard it, whether in direct form like the odd Jimmy Shand record early in life or through other music that seemed to have trad qualities in its DNA.
(My *real* tradition was the harsh and dreary singing of Hymns Ancient And Modern in school assemblies. I am not yet old enough to romanticise this...)
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I was at a session recently and there was a Bodhran player there, who was a backup drummer for a well known Ceili band and has been playing since "single figure" years old, i.e. he was a very competent player.
After leaving the session, I was of the opinion that there is absolutely no denying, that when it is played well and there's only one played at any one time, the contribution a bodhran makes to the music is definitely a positive one, as apposed to a negative one, as some of the people here portray it as.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Ciarán.
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
But I think that self-consciously thinking one is 'part of the tradition' smacks of smugness and the self-congratulatory? I think it's better to avoid the question altogether.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I think it's presumptuous of you to think that you're *not* part of the tradition if you merely scrape out some tunes... That's what the tradition is! The tradition is *us*. It's not some thing sitting on a shelf in a museum. If everybody stopped playing Irish traditional music, the tradition would cease to exist.
So like it or not, you are part of the tradition. And then it's up to you how you treat it... For me, personally, I try to treat it with some respect. I do that by learning some of the history of it, listening to what people have taught me, and trying to play it as well as I can within what I consider to be the boundaries of the tradition.
However, some people choose to play the music without regard to how it has sounded traditionally. (Either by choice or by ignorance). But that is every bit as much a part of the tradition as how I treat it!
The tradition is a living, breathing entity that encompasses the people who play the music... (And everybody who played it in the past). I try not to think of it as "preserving the tradition", because if you are doing that, the tradition is dead. I like to think of it as "continuing the tradition"... And as I've said before, I think the push and pull between the purists and the modernists is what keeps it a vibrant, living thing. And it gives the rest of us a place to reside in the middle...
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Reverend
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I was born in a bog and force fed jigs and reels instead of mother's milk. Instead of a rattle, I was given a sleán and sent off to cut peat. Instead of school, fairies abducted me daily and provided my education. When cut, I bleed Guinness. I weep tears of Jameson. The rest of you are all a bunch of fakers.
Seriously though, how DO you play the music without being a part of the musical tradition? Oxymoronic, at best.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
How long does it take for the latest trend to become current/contemporary practice, degenerate into former practice and then be readopted as traditionalal practice?
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by greg sheils
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I would hope that people can appreciate and understand the simple idea of playing the music and being a part of the musical tradition, simply by playing it, without all sorts of over-blown puffery and poetical nonsense, thus leading to mtodd's warnings of the "...smugness and the self-congratulatory..."
...but I'm a realist, I know they can't. Too bad! It's not that hard.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I'm not saying you're not part of it -- as you point out Rev, maybe we all are for better or worse -- I'm saying it's misguided to ask the question in the first place.
Hubris?
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Reverend, I'm not sure that such a person exists, but if you had played trad for say 10 years, regularly playing in pub sessions and:
a) had learnt most of your tunes from recordings or manuscript rather than musicians in the community;
b) knew few, if any, tunes, variations or settings specific to your community;
c) played your tunes "by the book" as you learnt them with no personal stamp;
d) didn't teach tunes, even informally;
e) had never played, whether informally or not, for a stepdancer;
f) had never played for céilí dancers;
g) had never danced at a céilí;
h) were never asked to play at local events and parties;
i) knew nothing of the "big" musicians e.g. Willie Clancy, Seamus Ennis, John Kelly, Joe Cooley, Sonny Brogan, Dennis Murphy, Tommy Potts, Mrs Crotty, beyond a nodding familiarity with their names;
j) had never been to Willie week or the All Ireland;
k) had never listened to, and played, the big Sean Nós songs;
would you be "part of the tradition"? Wouldn't you be a dead branch cut off from the raw nourishment of the live tradition?
Does it matter? As long as there exists a core of musicians doing the above i.e. keeping the tradition alive, then probably not. Certainly not having these experiences doesn't make you any less a musician but it does cut you off from the trad community. It does mean that what you're playing is a dilution, not the raw spirit. Then again, music, any form of music, is a wonderful thing, and at the end of the day it's only Last Night's Fun. But without that core . . .
Oh, and it doesn't matter where the cores live. I know musicians in London, Manchester, Luton, Chicago, Philly, Boston, Italy, Sweden, Germany, Japan who each do most, if not all, of the above.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
..and surely, when you think about it, the BBC's Virtual Session is a perfect example of PJ's "dead branch" -- cut off from all the things he so succinctly lists to illustrate the best case scenario. In fact, it doesn't even have real musicians [at least the CCE website has that]-- it has animated ones. But maybe they are part of the tradition too?
Many of us in North America are 'under resourced'. And that can lead to some distortions.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
If I am part of the tradition, I apologize. I only ever wanted to play tunes.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Nice take on it, SWFL Fiddler!
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I try to play trad. But one finger slip and BANG I've played a G6 chord—then we're talking jazz or pop. Or one misplaced D7 chord and WHAM it's cornball Clapton blues.
So trad is a tightrope with no net.
As for tradition, look no further than John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara and their sweet, sweet cottage.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Broadly I'd agree with Reverend's post.
Lots of us dislike the faintly pretentious sound of "being part of the tradition" but that doesn't mean we're not doing it.
Surely we're not guilty of pretending to be ourselves? (I hope not.)
At the dance festivals in England where I play for "my" dancers, I think there's an unacknowledged divide between those who are "part of a tradition," and the actors and reenactors.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by TomB-R
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Dear PeatCreature,
We regret to inform you that as of today your official membership in The Tradition [hereafter referred to as TT] has been cancelled effective immediately. You are no longer a TT member in good standing. Please refrain from attending sessions or playing any kind of music that might be interpreted as "traditional". Your understanding is appreciated in this matter.
Yours sincerely & etc.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Well, I understand what you're saying, PJ. Although, I don't necessarily think of it as a dead branch. It's just a branch. It's part of what happens in the tradition, and it probably has been for a long time, and will be for a long time to come.
My point was really that the "distortions" are actually part of the tradition. The branch (dead or not) is still part of the tree (unless it has broken off completely, and shares nothing in common with the tradition. But even then, it shares ancestry...)
But it's not a black and white thing - the boundaries of the tradition are blurred, which is fine.
And just because something is part of "the tradition", doesn't mean we have to like it...
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Reverend
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Sonny Brogan, now where would I find recordings of him or with the loch Gill Quartet? Ideas?
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
@SWFL: If your challenge had been in the Irish, it would have had more impact. I might have been cowed -- after working out the translation, of course. No, I have to go with PeatCreature on this one.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
One side of a Lough Gill Quartet's 78 appears on Reg Hall's Topic compilation 'Irish Dance Music' - http://www.emusic.com/album/Various-Artists-Irish-Dance-Music-MP3-Download/10986323.html.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Thanks floss, I signed up before but couldn't seem to play the tracks I downloaded! duh! Id found that emusic link from a search following your album submission here which I will also thank you for. Cheers anyway. If anyone can tell me what to do with the files once Ive downloaded them Id be grateful, but please keep it PC!
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by piobagusfidil
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I love these 'zen ' questions .
The answer is ,as is self evident ... pineapple
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
this one's for Pete ;)
Are you looking for a place to rest?
Cold Mountain’s good for many a day.
Wind sings here in the black pines,
Closer you are, the better it sounds.
There’s an old man sitting by a tree,
Muttering about the things of Tao.
Ten years now, it’s been so long
This one’s forgotten his way home.
--Han-shan
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by skin&bow
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
PJ's comments are well said (re: dead branch and so forth). I think there's a big difference between playing trad and being part of the tradition--I identify with the later.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by ClareAnnette
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I find the idea that I might be part of the tradition willy-nilly a rather unnerving one.
It's like being passed a baton that might turn into a snake, or something else unnerving and virulent.
Or maybe fall from my flailing features to take root and grow into a grotesquely mutant branch of the tradition, under whose burgeoning shadow errant seekers after the Real Thing might lie down to rest and wake up incurably insane.
Do I need help?...
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
What a load of bovine feces. The tradition spans the full gamut of casual hacks to accomplished professionals and all points in between. It did long ago, and continues as such today. That means tunes learnt off the BBC website or tunes learnt whilst suckling upon the teet of of some ancient Celtic musical deity have equal value in so much as they are all part of the tradition. You can't just pick the really sophisticated stuff and claim THIS and only THIS is "The Tradition." Absolute crap is also part of the tradition. That is why I fit in so well.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
(features? I meant fingers...)
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Tradition, long conditioned thinking, can bring about a fixation, a concept that one readily accepts, perhaps not with a great deal of thought.
~ Jiddu Krishnamurti
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Japhy—Ah yes, Krishmamurti was indeed Socratic.
But as Kerouac asked the Chinatown busboy, "Why did the Buddha come from the West?"
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Kris McMurtry, I meant.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by NEW Pure Drop® Ear Canal Oil
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
As a Yank who came to this music in the middle of this life, raised in a solidly American, white bread household, it would be cheeky of me to say I am 'part of the Irish tradition.' Do I play trad, yes. Do I help keep the Irish tradition alive, yes. Am I part of the New England musical tradition, yes. But I am on the fringes of the Irish tradition, as much as I love to play it.
# Posted on September 9th 2009 by AlBrown
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Surely being part of "The Tradidition" starts the first time you hear a tune and are so captivated by it you just HAVE to hear more, and you race out and buy your first D Gen from the local music store and have a go yourself.
From here on it's just a growing process, whether just a fun little hobby or a total obsession. Both of these help pass on interest in ITM. I'm sure many a great ITM player has been introduced to the music by a mate twiddling on a humble whistle or some other instrument.
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by Taminka
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
The session.org is part of the Tradition now, for better or worse.
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by Hup
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
What tradition?
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by mcknowall
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I play tunes.
Some of them are trad
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by Bren
Re: Are you "the solution" or are you "part of the problem"
I fear with some trepidation, it is only from the lofty heights and upper echelons of trad wher we can expect to find enlightenment.
And turn, in weighted expectation to the Comhaltas Ajudicators Brotherhood. It is here and here alone we will find what we search..
Why I think there is a red telephone and a
Comhaltas patented "Angry metronome" on hand
for just these situations..
"Upon hearing the Hard D, an ancient call to arms, they came out, and looked skyward and were thankfull.
For Playing Trad and being part of the Tradition are and have always been, symbiotic relationship.
And thus the talking of Shlte will forever be in our hearts
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by Miss Mulligan
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Amen! [gag]
You ever had an auld one wander over to you in a session, put their hand on your shoulder, lean down, and say "go raibh maith agat"?
It's a fine thing we ALL have done, and are doing.
Totally Zen question. "Can you not be traditional, by gathering together with family and friends, and playing traditional music, traditionally?"
Neo, there ain't no spoon man, no spoon at all...
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Hmm. I think, base on my own experience that "tradition" is an oxymoron or some such. Whether I "belong" is usually decided by others within the so-called tradition; I can talk to one person who firmly and vehemently describes me as not part of the tradition and I can turn around and talk to another well-respected "member" who will ascribe to me as being part of the tradition. The word itself connotes a certain level of rigidity; however, traditions only "last" through history when they are fluid and evolve. What was the first "druid" lesson? It's been "lost". I think what we consider part of or not part of the tradition will irrevocably influence the lasting quality of the thing itself. It becomes a more philosophical consideration then: uphold a notion of the tradition or uphold the thing itself?
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I must be part of the tradition, because I play three parts to the 'Boyne Hunt', four parts to 'Tell her I am', four parts to 'Jackson's Morning Brush' aand I also know refer to The Harvest Home as The Cork Hornpipe!
# Posted on September 10th 2009 by Free Reed
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Pineapples are not..... part....of ....the.... woah....trippin....out....
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by fedorastain
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I guess I can only really say I "play trad", because I found this music and play it because I love it a lot, not because I was born into the "tradition". However, one might say that there wouldn't be much of a tradition to be part of if we all weren't out here just "playing trad"...
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by a gecko
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
At least one Roman Catholic Irish musician, dancer, singer or at least listener (in the pub) is required to say we are part of the tradition. Just because you are a member of a celtic-rock band in Alabama or Bratislava, you are not part of the tradition.
Miki
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by nemethmik
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Pineapples are the symbol of hospitality. I have found the session scene very hospitable what I don't like are attempts to define it and what it us and is therefore not.
I worry that once you define something like this you begin to dystroy it.
Each session is a unique event never repeated based on multiple dimentions ( time,place, people......er beer, etc) each should be treasured for it's own sake.
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by bazouki dave
Ps thank god it's Friday
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I thought you were yanking my chain.
"...It is hardly surprising that this communal symbol of friendship and hospitality also became a favorite motif of architects, artisans and craftsmen throughout the colonies. They announced the hospitality of a mansion with carved wood or molded mortar pineapples on its main gate posts..."
http://www.levins.com/pineapple.html
Failte! Pineapples for everyone!
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Who me?
I am the sole of rectitude and sobriety
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I wonder if the struggle to reach a "meeting of minds" on this topic is because for many on this board the tradition and the pub session are almost synonymous, whereas for others, sessions are but one part of the tradition. I don't maintain that one stance is intrinsically better than the other, and it's really only shades of grey rather than black and white (to use the Reverend's motif!) but anyone choosing to step over to the "dark side" is assured a warm welcome.
SWFL, I suspect it was a throwaway remark but it'd be great if you could expand on the "traditionally" (last word) in your Totally Zen question.
Insightful post Fiddlechick7, thanks.
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Should we start bringing pineapples to sessions?
Are you contributing to or part of the tradition if you are a musical hermit and only ever play in the isolation of your home; never in a session, a band, with a couple friends, etc. It's like the "if the tree falls in a forest and no one sees it" question.
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
The other day I was having a few tunes in the kitchen with a neighbour who'd called round to pick up her daughter, while at the table with us, the children were eating pineapple rings. Does that count?
A couple of my elderly neighbours are just like TheSilverSpear's musical hermit but ask them where they got that setting of Pigeon on the Gate from and they'll tell you how they got the sense of it from O'Keefe in Gneevgullia or Denis Murphy in London. Bring a young child who's only learning with you and they be teaching them a polka one note at a time. Stay on after the football and they tell you about getting drunk with Johnny O'Leary. Stay later and with enough liquid encouragement they'll be dancing a step.
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I play because I am still a baby. Not chronologically, but in the tradition. If ever I become "a part" I will continue to play. ;)
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Sure PJ!
Playing traditionally - I really need to explain this? Here? You know…I mean, it’s, you know…well, this is what it’s not:
Playing traditional music untraditionally - See Celtic Rock, New Agey Celticism, etc.
I mean how the music is played. We all (on here) know what it's supposed to sound like, in the flesh. Tweety whistles, screechy fiddles, plunky banjos, wheezy boxes, barking pipes, wood flutes mellowly going deedlee deedlee deedlee...
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
...and yes, PASS IT ON!
That's really what we're talking about here. Love the tunes with the neighbor and the kiddos eating pineapple!
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Out of the mouth of babes! But isn't that the nub of it? Surely the tradition only exists if a good number of those who love it have a baby's mind (though given the recent Zen theme a "beginner's mind" is perhaps a better fit), soaking it all in, trying to make some sense of, without any preconceptions, trying things out, failing, "failing better".
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Sorry SWFL, I wasn't trying to be flip.
Sure it's the sound of the thing but even with that there are subtle graduations. For me, if it's a dance tune but it wouldn't get people on to the floor then it's somehow closer to ersatz trad. Similarly, if down to the last ornament it's the same as a record track. Fine enough for the body but not meat for the soul.
Don't get me wrong, I love a pub session as much as the next person. But I guess for me, playing "traditionally" is about more than the sound. I'm struggling here (it's the Steve Martin/ Miles Davies/ Elvis Costello music, architecture, dancing problem). It's about the chat between the tunes, it's about the story of how the person in front of you came to play that particular tune in that particular way. It's about the music coming to you fresh each time rather than driving through the Tarbolton set in the same way as last time.
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Well said, and there's the whole catch.
If it's a dead tradition, then it's fossilized. It will never change, it's dead.
A living tradition tries 'things out" as you noted. It's alive, and like a human, it changes over time. It adapts to its environment.
Now, you can pass it on and let them do with it what they will, or you can kill it, fossilize it, and stick it in a museum under glass with a "DO NOT TOUCH!" sign on it.
However, by its very nature, a tradition MUST be passed on, handed down, kept alive and therefore, is always subject to change.
That being said, if it varies too much from what is considered traditional by the loves and practitioners of it, it is no longer considered traditional.
Now, this long babble from me has been said a million times already on this here mustard board.
However, like an old tune, if you don’t keep playing it, it might get forgotten!
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Don't worry about being flip with me, you ever read my nonsense on here before?
You're correct, it's the presentation too. A pub session that's a gig is not traditional. With breaks, free flowing conversation and music, well, that's what we're talking about.
That's more of the 'how' it's played.
Silly me, I would have assumed the stories and friendship went without saying!
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Silver spear
You bring the pineapple and a sharp knife and I will bring cream spoons and some bowls
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Unfortunately, this is liable to rub some the wrong way... but I DO see Celtic Rock, etc. as "part of the tradition" is the broad sense. Part of the that evolution I was talking about. I played "trad" tunes before playing Celtic Rock. But because I also play Celtic Rock, I am not "part of the tradition"? I just get so confused with all the semantics. I still don't see the "tradition" as remaining perfectly preserved in time. I think there will always be people who do, and I admire them for it, and thank them for it. But to think everyone who wants to play the music and truly enjoy it should mummify themselves won't move the music forward enough to sustain a boxed notion of what is part of a tradition. Don't get me wrong; preserving the "roots" as best we are able is important. But again, is it about preserving a "notion" or "club mentality" the point, or is keeping the music alive the point? I find, esp. with Celtic Rock that one of two things is likely; one, the members usually already play trad, just not when they are on stage, or, two, someone's exposure to Celtic Rock leads them to the roots.
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
No such thing as Celtic music.. Same as Africa's not a country
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Miss Mulligan
Get plenty of fluid
Tradition is connected with the past, but it is ever in the present.
It is ephemeral. You may play a tune 1 way when you are learning. After it is in your head ~ you are free. You can play it differently each time. You better! Then, & only then is the tune known. It is the process of becoming fluid. Most of the commercial bands don't get that, or simply choose to ignore just how free tradition is. Then again, so do a few *traditionalists'*
Shooglenifty is grand.
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Fiddlechick, that's just exactly it. Put aside for a moment the fact that most lovers and players of this music do not consider 'Celtic Rock' traditional in any sense.
What a band does is not traditional, so to speak. It's a formal gig. There's no free flowing music, bubbling forth from the musicians’ heads, instead, there's a set list. There's no random, untimed breaks for conversation. There's no leisurely, friendly pace. It can't be done in a kitchen. Well, I guess you could play your set list in the kitchen with your PA and your fans, but...
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
SO you could put a trad tune to the style of Afro-Caribbean music with the words:
We Got Pineapple N' Guava N' Coconuts too, come and play a tune or too...etc etc etc... ??? Still part of the tradition!!!!
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by fedorastain
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Jaysus.. that sporting paddys a great tune isnt it ..
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Miss Mulligan
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
that and rathlin island make a grand set altogether..
I apologise. for a minute there nearly started talking about actual choons
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by Miss Mulligan
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
SWFL Fiddler said
"I was born in a bog and force fed jigs and reels instead of mother's milk. Instead of a rattle, I was given a sleán and sent off to cut peat. Instead of school, fairies abducted me daily and provided my education. When cut, I bleed Guinness. I weep tears of Jameson. The rest of you are all a bunch of fakers."
Reverend would this fit on a tee shirt?
# Posted on September 11th 2009 by deeor
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Confusing--but interesting discussion.
Some of you have mentioned so-called "Celtic Rock". Which bands or groups are you thinking of when you mention "Celtic Rock"? Is it possible for anyone to try to define "Celtic Rock"?
# Posted on September 12th 2009 by fauxcelt
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Horselips... ? The heavy metal guys from brittany? Fluid Druid? Tempest?
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by fedorastain
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Come an danse with a spotin druid, the surf is up and so is the blazin sun, we have ze mangos and papaya and junk so why donch let your pineapples down....
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by fedorastain
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Back to the question:
>Are (you) playing a particular type of music or do you feel you are part of the tradition?<
It depends -
If I'm playing in a trad pub session - I'm a f*ckin' yank tosser who doesn't know his John Thomas from his friggin' Hamilton, who's flute sounds like p*ssin' and walkin at the same time.
If, on the other hand, I'm playing for the 'unwashed', I'm their connection to tradition, the real thing...brilliant, a breath of fresh air, a hidden treasure..........I'm a man of depth, knowledge, and truth........I am the messiah!
Now, I ask you, who would you rather play for? (I tend to get a lot more free pints from the latter....)
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by Toppish
neither?
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by Ben Steen
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
The tradition is part of me and it plays me.
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by Rudall the time
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Carving pineapples should be banned from the crafts deemed kosher by trad. They are alien, and far too easy to do. The venerable carvers of ancient crosses would never have stooped to do pineapples.
It is well known that the only fruit that can grow in the morbid climatic conditions of the Trad Zone, in any country or continent, is the raspberry, and then only just.
Bunches of raspberries, with every little knobble and stalk clearly defined, garnished with leaves finely laced by all the bugs, are the only acceptable representations of fruit carved in wood or stone in the Trad Zone.
What's the world been coming to since 1500, eh?!..
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by nicholas
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Fauxcelt: I don't want to snag this thread, so you can email me directly if ya want: for "Celtic Rock"... it's a generic term for (generally speaking) trad. Irish, Scottish, Breton, etc., etc. etc. tunes fused with elements of rock (metal, punk, rockabilly, etc., etc., etc.). The label encompasses alot. And Trucks, no sh*te it isn't a country! What a load of crap semantics. That the crap that really riles me... seems some care more about a semantics game than anything else. Anyway, it isn't considered traditional in the sense of purist trad. as on this site at all. They can't be wholly compared. I do find the close-minded concept of "formal" performance strange. Yes, we have a list of tunes we can play. We generally don't use a set list taped to the stage that we follow without speaking to our audience and having some good old fashioned fun. When we enter into the actual tune, though, we do play it the way it's rehearsed. I don't find this a whole lot different than a seasoned session where the core players practice sets beforehand and may put in their own little flavors, but get "eyeballs" at someone who hasn't practiced the set "the way it goes in this session". So, just a bit wierd to me, I guess. But I'm not a purist, nor really traditional by the definiton on most here.....
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Fiddlechick7, I don't think I've ever met anyone who practices sets for sessions, and I've been around the scene a good long time.
As for this site, my sense is it's far more catholic then you might think. Certainly my tradition (if I can use such a term) encompasses the likes of Kila, though it stops short of Black 47, with Moving Hearts perhaps somewhere on a vague and regularly shifting boundary.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Sweeney Astray
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I know someone who practices sets for the evening's session. Everybody hates them.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by ...
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
I stand corrected, then. I remember reading a post and some threads regarding practicing your session tunes before going to the session, and playing them the way that particular session plays them; anything else if frowned upon. Also I remember reading how some established sessions play their tunes in sets, and often these sets are practiced in kitchens beforehand. I was merely making the connection that practice and is practice.
# Posted on September 15th 2009 by Fiddlechick7
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Practice is practice, but a session is a session, not a performance!
There are tunes that go after. Every local has their own unique 'ones that go after'. "X always goes after Y, and then we always play Z after that 'round these parts..." Sometimes they're quite common, other times they're more obscure combination, but they are always well known by the locals, standards, if you will.
Maybe that's what you were thinking of, fiddlechick?
# Posted on September 15th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
Rasberry to you Nic
Are you sure that hops might be more trad ?
Pineapple by virtue of there cost pre victorian times would be worth the equiverlent of hundreds of pounds each a true gift of hospitality
# Posted on September 15th 2009 by bazouki dave
Aren't you sure I should have said
# Posted on September 15th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: Do you "play trad" or are you "part of the tradition"?
i simply 'play of the tradition part trad' and see if any one else notices
# Posted on September 17th 2009 by lisaniska