hello everyone i have been playing the banjo
since i was 10. im am now 16 i consider my self
a very good banjo player (Self praise is no praise)
but anyway playing the banjo these days i feel my banjo
playing is a bit boring even when i put in ornamentation
it dosn't have that sort of lift that other banjp player's have
in there tunes. From my fleadh experience this year in the
banjo competition the judge said that i need to play in more
groups an sessions a great fiddle player told me the other
night if i could add that jizz to my music i would be fantastic
so all the help is appreciated
Where do you live Alim ?
What players do you try to emulate?
What style either an indevidual or regional can you learn from ?
These are things you should think about .
Just saying jazz things up I feel is not as helpful as it could be ,.
You could try to emulate players that you like, particularly players of instruments that aren't the banjo. If you hear something in John Carty's variations or Martin Hayes' pacing and dynamics or Kevin Burke's backbeat or Tommy Peoples' wild attack, just to name a few fiddlers, see how close you can come to it on your instrument.
Playing with one other person can also get a similar result - trying to get right in step with a whistle player, for example, will give you whole new ways of playing a tune - particularly since the whistler has access to a whole repertoire of ornamentation that you'll never be able to execute, so you've got to translate it to your instrument.
The other thing, and I'm a bit of a stuck record on this, is if you're using any kind of picking patterns, work on forgetting them. They're death to good playing, IMHO.
Listen Niall Vallely on concertina. He does interesting things with
chromatic passing notes out of the key. Throw in a few of those and
you'd have something that makes their ears stand up a little bit.
Listen to players on different instruments, concertina, whistle, fiddle flute etc, and allow these players/ instruments to influence your style .
Have you tried playing with a metronome? Once you nail each note on the head then much more space becomes apparent, then you can play behind or in front of the beat as a choice, laid back stylists like say Martin H play behind the beat, while playing infront of the beat gives a driving feel.
Be warned though here are a number of people here who vociferously oppose playing with a metronome as a training aid. But feel free to experiment, its your life and your music. after all if Kevin Burke recommends it then I for one would be conceited enough to disagree with him. Enjoy your music.
ps in truth though, without listening to you play how can we tell?
How can you consider yourself a very good banjo player at the same time as feeling like your banjo playing is a bit boring? Is it that 1) you think that boring music is good music, or 2) a good banjo player doesn't necessarily play good music? Either way I can't get my head round it.
correction from previous post;
>>after all if Kevin Burke recommends it then I for one would'NT be conceited enough to disagree with him. Enjoy your music.<<
You could try playing along with recordings of the Mulcahy Family or similar during every opportunity over the next couple of weeks. If that doesn't work then the only thing left to try is playing in a wetsuit with flippers while jumping up and down on a trampoline. That would grab peoples attention.
Don't be harsh on yerself anyway chances are yer better than most of the players that will reply to ya six years playin is good to have especially as your young. I know the jizz that fiddle player is refering to i call it skip and everyone has a different name for it. If you've got the techniques down then all you can do i session like mad and it'll happen as you just follow the music being played
Sounds like you need more special sauce! (easy there Krick)
You're on the quest for 'nyah', the search for 'oomph', the hunt for 'lift'. Sounds like, from what you've told us, that people are telling you that though you're technically proficient, your music is a bit flat, needs more pep.
My prescription? SHAKE YOUR BOOTY! Nothing helps musicians play dance music better than trying a bit of dancing themselves. Seems oddly logical, right?
Of course that's just my opnion, your results may vary, offer not valid on odd numbered Wednesdays and under Full Moons, etc.
Very difficult to offer any advice without hearing you play but I suspect Bren has hit on it. Feedback that a competitor needs to play more in sessions or groups, not uncommon in the U-12 and 15 -18 competitions at the county levels, is usually a reference to their rhythm. Certainly I'd be astonished if any adjudicator suggested sessions as a vehicle for improving ornamentation, variations or "lift", though playing in a good céilí band can certainly address the latter (which may be what the "great fiddle player" meant).
As for some reaction to the other suggestions:
Metronome - nope;
Play along to a Mulcahy record - qualified yes (as a supplement to playing with people);
Dancing - absolutely;
I Was like that for the first 30 yrs I played, never had use for a metronome, It was only learning to play a drum kit about 5 yrs ago that got me into them. I then tightened up my bass playing a lot as well!
Of course if you play for dancers then they could well be superfluous. But for those of us who dont I've come to realise that they can be of great help.
How does dancing help your playing? Im a big believer in playing for the sets and I certainly enjoy dancing sets, but... do explain...
When I dance I feel the music not on an academic level but on a deeper level and when I am playing well with other musicians and we are 'in the groove ' inside my head I am dancing too.
I feel pity for anyone who cannot feel this ,for me it would be something missing like playing in black and white or in 2 D when colour and 3 D are available
Plus its a good way to meet people
Yes I see what you mean.
I was chatting with a good drummer the other day about the 'knome, and he said that it allowed him to 'dance around the beat'.
My feet go pretty mad sometimes when Im playing! Clearly we are moving in time with the music as in dance, yet making the music or a part of it as well, so in a number of ways I can relate to your point.
Im still not convinced though that just by dancing your playing will get any tighter! unless that is , your are dancing while you are playing...
A metronome is just a mechanical substitute for a rock solid beat that allows me to completely relax and know that the beat goes on , and as yer man says, allows me to 'dance around the beat'... Anyhow, thats my opinion, I wont go on, feel free to take it on board or not. cheers
lonannas--i agree with you about using metronomes. it was james kelly who finally got me to use one, by asking me, "why would you ever exclude a tool from your toolbox if it was available?" he taught me to make the music breathe, and how to play in time. it is important that there is a beat underlying everything your are doing, and that it is rock solid. depending on your style, you will do different things with this beat, but the beat should always be there, underpinning everything, and lifting it up. if you view the click as where your first note should start, you are wrong... it is the basis for the mathematical subdivision of time. your notes can start before the beat or after the beat, or slide right over it, but there MUST be a beat underlying it, framed out with rock solid rhythm. there is just simply no better way to get an unwavering appreciation of rhythm than to become intimately familiar with mathematically precise beats and rhythm. just having it playing while you are practicing will do nothing, but learning to use a metronome to give you the framework above which your music will ebb and flow is essential to musicianship.
bogman--what is your reason for saying not to use a metronome?
Q: "How do I make my playing more exciting"
A: "Play with a metronome"
Incorrect answer.
If the question was to do with a timing problem them metronome for some people may be a solution, though personally I would suggest playing along to recordings for sorting that problem. But to add lift to the playing it's not the answer.
It's music-making so there are few if any absolutes but surely one truth in trad is that in the main it's dance music. If you've played for dancers, outside the artificiality of the feis, you'll have experienced the waves of energy that go back and forth between dancer and musician, the tempo shifts accordingly, fractionally ahead, fractional behind, ever so slightly faster, ever so slightly slower. This organic rhythm is even more obvious in the non-dance element of trad (and for many the heart or bedrock of trad), the sean-nós, whose defining characteristics include a "free, non-metronomic rhythm" (that's from Seán Ó Riada, not a trad musician but a fine commentator and analyst). In both dance and non-dance it's the rhythm of heart beats, of breaths, of waves on the shore, not a clockwork mechanism.
Dancing, as well as playing, just allows for a richer experience of the phenomena.
It's perhaps worth noting that many fine musicians refuse to play for dance competitions because the need to keep strict tempo. It's not that they can't play that way, more that it doesn't seem like music-making as they understand it.
~Its 'an indefinable 'thing' called excitement.. What makes music exciting? IMO part of it is drive and lift. How do we get this drive, this excitement into our music?
IMO its about putting the notes under the dancers feet. Its that simple, anything that facilitates this is ok in my book. The dancers cannot adjust their movements to an erratic beat, it needs to be consistent, which is in fact pretty much the definition of rhythm. So to play with a driving dynamic style which puts the notes under our feet is an essential prerequisite for dance music.
In a band or group this can be done by the drummer or backer or one particular player , other players can be much more erratic and variable, the dancers dance to the beat.
For a solo player, who plays for sets and dancers alone, you can not rely on anyone but yourself, your playing, to be 'authentic' ie danceable requires you to be precise in creating a driving dynamic rhythm..
This is why IMO session and band work is pretty much Irrelevant to an individuals capabilities as regarding dance music. If you cant stand alone, and play music that people can dance a set to, then you need to work on your rhythm.
I know many great players who have not a rhythmic bone in their body!" because they always play with other people. they rely on the rhythm provided as opposed to providing the rhythm. Its grand in its place, but its not dance music till it can be danced too. However ornamented it might be, however brilliant it might be in many ways, and it can be , it lack a simple thing ; rhythm.
daiv, sorry, I cross-posted with you. Interesting that we both used breathing as an analogy. Absolutely agree on the need for an "unwavering appreciation of rhythm", though not, I'm afraid, convinced of the need to "become intimately familiar with mathematically precise beats and rhythm". As for "learning to use a metronome . . . is essential to musicianship" I'm pretty confident that Johnny O'Leary never used a metronome but then it's always dangerous to generalize from the particular.
I was wondering if the attraction, of otherwise, of the metronome was somehow linked to growing up inside or outside the tradition. I was lucky enough to hear the beat of jigs and reels in the womb, but them again so, I imagine, did James Kelly and Kevin Burke (both far finer musicians than myself).
An interesting discussion that's prompting me to reexamine my beliefs. And that from someone who uses a metronome everyday when practicing the piano!
bogman--when you frame it that way, it makes more sense. when a student is having rhythm or timing issues (esp. speeding up), i tell them that a good rule of thumb is to either "play with recordings" or "play with a metronome." usually it is there is little reason not to have a metronome going when not playing with recordings, unless of course you are practicing your ability to play without a metronome--which is an important skill.
however, when someone is having lift problems, i think it is usually a rhythm problem--their music does not breath, or in other words, their sense of timing is not solid enough to allow them to let their music move freely above the solid foundation of the beat and its subdivisions. the more automatic your sense of timing is, the less cognitive resources you have to devote to ensuring you play in time. attention is a limited resource--you only have so much to go around, and it can be exhausted as well (or at least fatigued).
if your sense of rhythm and timing is dead on and completely automatic, then you can spend all of your attention on the musicality and the lift while you play. when your sense of timing is not mathematically precise and not completely automatic, you you must divide your attention, and often times do not have the resources necessary to just "feel the music" or "feel the groove," as that can be very distracting, and you have to have everything just right to get to that point in your music making.
maybe before i would not have thought that a metronome can teach you musicality, but james kelly taught me to use the metronome for precisely that. although nowadays i spend a lot of time playing with recordings and learning from them, i still need to go back and do basic counting and working on my awareness of the beat. just yesterday i played a tune at a session, and asked myself, "why is it the best tune i played all night, even though i hardly practice it?" and i realized that it was the tune james kelly had taught me, and which i had spent weeks and weeks--if not months--counting and subdividing.
i guess the important part is that james kelly taught me that it is essential to give your notes space to breathe. it may sound strange, but he told me my "notes were square" and because of that they were "bumping into eachother," whereas if your "notes are round," they can breathe and "take time or give up time" to the surrounding notes, without losing the sense of rhythm. it was under that framework that he taught me to use a metronome--it is not enough to be on the beat, but to have notes that are in time, well-rounded, and flowing into eachother (regardless of articulation, staccato etc), rather than jumbling all over the place. think of the ebb and flow of a waltz--the swoop of beat one starts before the downbeat and continues afterwards, and without that you are not playing a waltz, but rather just notes.
so, although i think that the original poster would do very well to listen to your advice, i do disagree that someone who has a strong background in irish music cannot learn lift from a metronome. they might NOT--who knows--but i most certainly did.
"IMO session and band work is pretty much Irrelevant to an individuals capabilities as regarding dance music. If you cant stand alone, and play music that people can dance a set to, then you need to work on your rhythm." Truest words I've read today. More than that, to my mind, such a person wouldn't yet be a musician. I'm just not persuaded that a metronome is the way to go, which tells you something about me but not necessarily anything about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of practice with a metronome!
I think that problems with timing, speeding up or slowing down, zero pulse etc., are very different kettle of fish to making your playing exciting. I think that with the worst cases of bad timing, a metronome may well help. I'm not convinced though. I think that timing has to be internalised and I can't see how listing to a machine could do anything other than pass the buck.
The main problem with the metronome, and I've said this lots before, is that if you are having trouble technically with a particular phrase and it makes you slow down a little, all the metronome will do is make you speed up the next phrase, even if you can quite easily play the next phrase perfectly well without the metronome.
So maybe, maybe, the metronome might help on a tiny level where you might repeat one phrase you find hard over and over. But in the long run, how's that going to help you phrasing? Much much better to play the whole tune at a speed matched to the same speed you can manage the hardest bits.
Making your playing exciting is all about phrasing. Phrasing is the the bread and butter of this music. Phrasing is the excitement. It is the very basics of the communication of it.
There was a thing earlier about how some people play behind the beat, and some ahead of it. That playing with a metronome will allow you to decide where you want to play in relation to the beat. Complete poppycock. It makes no sense. There's no invisible metronome underneath the music where you make a choice as to which side of it you play. You set the pulse yourself. You push and pull it within itself. You hold back, you anticipate, you swing, you hang etc. and all in the minutiae of lift and drive. The music abhors rigidity. If you think that the art of phrasing is about which side of the rigidity you decide to play on, then you really really have spectacularly missed the point.
Would anyone who recommends the use of playing with a metronome recommend the playing along with the midi files you'll find here? For it's the same thing. I hope not.
So, to sum up. I think that if a good player/teacher is recommending the use of a metronome, they must be telling you that you haven't even anyway near grasped the basics.
A few years back I spent a couple of months learning tunes from MIDIs. My timing became dead on & I was able to hit each note precisely. So, it is possible to learn accuracy from a mechanical device. However, the tunes I learnt from MIDI were soooo mechanical they had no life.
The MIDI did not help with articulation, phrasing, or rhythm (as opposed to strict tempo). Also, as I understand lift & playing across barlines, a MIDI (&/or a metronome) would limit this in my playing.
No more MIDIs for me. Listening to & playing with the best musicians I can find is much better.
How to make my banjo playing more exciting
How to make my banjo playing more exciting
hello everyone i have been playing the banjo
since i was 10. im am now 16 i consider my self
a very good banjo player (Self praise is no praise)
but anyway playing the banjo these days i feel my banjo
playing is a bit boring even when i put in ornamentation
it dosn't have that sort of lift that other banjp player's have
in there tunes. From my fleadh experience this year in the
banjo competition the judge said that i need to play in more
groups an sessions a great fiddle player told me the other
night if i could add that jizz to my music i would be fantastic
so all the help is appreciated
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by alim010
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Where do you live Alim ?
What players do you try to emulate?
What style either an indevidual or regional can you learn from ?
These are things you should think about .
Just saying jazz things up I feel is not as helpful as it could be ,.
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
sounds like you need to find some other musicians to play with, just like the judge said
preferably spend some time with older musicians who are experienced at playing at steady tempo
by your own account, you have the dexterity, but that's only a part of it
# Posted on September 13th 2009 by Bren
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Play the banjo whilst abseiling off a large cliff. That will definitely make it more exciting.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by TheSilverSpear
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
You could try to emulate players that you like, particularly players of instruments that aren't the banjo. If you hear something in John Carty's variations or Martin Hayes' pacing and dynamics or Kevin Burke's backbeat or Tommy Peoples' wild attack, just to name a few fiddlers, see how close you can come to it on your instrument.
Playing with one other person can also get a similar result - trying to get right in step with a whistle player, for example, will give you whole new ways of playing a tune - particularly since the whistler has access to a whole repertoire of ornamentation that you'll never be able to execute, so you've got to translate it to your instrument.
The other thing, and I'm a bit of a stuck record on this, is if you're using any kind of picking patterns, work on forgetting them. They're death to good playing, IMHO.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Listen Niall Vallely on concertina. He does interesting things with
chromatic passing notes out of the key. Throw in a few of those and
you'd have something that makes their ears stand up a little bit.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Hup
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Listen to players on different instruments, concertina, whistle, fiddle flute etc, and allow these players/ instruments to influence your style .
Have you tried playing with a metronome? Once you nail each note on the head then much more space becomes apparent, then you can play behind or in front of the beat as a choice, laid back stylists like say Martin H play behind the beat, while playing infront of the beat gives a driving feel.
Be warned though here are a number of people here who vociferously oppose playing with a metronome as a training aid. But feel free to experiment, its your life and your music. after all if Kevin Burke recommends it then I for one would be conceited enough to disagree with him. Enjoy your music.
ps in truth though, without listening to you play how can we tell?
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by the wicked hacker
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
How can you consider yourself a very good banjo player at the same time as feeling like your banjo playing is a bit boring? Is it that 1) you think that boring music is good music, or 2) a good banjo player doesn't necessarily play good music? Either way I can't get my head round it.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Dow
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
correction from previous post;
>>after all if Kevin Burke recommends it then I for one would'NT be conceited enough to disagree with him. Enjoy your music.<<
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by the wicked hacker
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
You could try playing along with recordings of the Mulcahy Family or similar during every opportunity over the next couple of weeks. If that doesn't work then the only thing left to try is playing in a wetsuit with flippers while jumping up and down on a trampoline. That would grab peoples attention.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by bogman
How to make your banjo playing more jizzy!
"JIZZ"!?
That's a word you don't hear on this forum a lot!
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Krick Stahlschwanz
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Tee he,
Q: "How do I make my playing more exciting"
A: "Play with a metronome"
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Don't be harsh on yerself anyway chances are yer better than most of the players that will reply to ya six years playin is good to have especially as your young. I know the jizz that fiddle player is refering to i call it skip and everyone has a different name for it. If you've got the techniques down then all you can do i session like mad and it'll happen as you just follow the music being played
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by FergalOH
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Sounds like you need more special sauce! (easy there Krick)
You're on the quest for 'nyah', the search for 'oomph', the hunt for 'lift'. Sounds like, from what you've told us, that people are telling you that though you're technically proficient, your music is a bit flat, needs more pep.
My prescription? SHAKE YOUR BOOTY! Nothing helps musicians play dance music better than trying a bit of dancing themselves. Seems oddly logical, right?
Of course that's just my opnion, your results may vary, offer not valid on odd numbered Wednesdays and under Full Moons, etc.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Very difficult to offer any advice without hearing you play but I suspect Bren has hit on it. Feedback that a competitor needs to play more in sessions or groups, not uncommon in the U-12 and 15 -18 competitions at the county levels, is usually a reference to their rhythm. Certainly I'd be astonished if any adjudicator suggested sessions as a vehicle for improving ornamentation, variations or "lift", though playing in a good céilí band can certainly address the latter (which may be what the "great fiddle player" meant).
As for some reaction to the other suggestions:
Metronome - nope;
Play along to a Mulcahy record - qualified yes (as a supplement to playing with people);
Dancing - absolutely;
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by PJ Doherty
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Do you not endorse the trampoline idea PJ?
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by bogman
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
I Was like that for the first 30 yrs I played, never had use for a metronome, It was only learning to play a drum kit about 5 yrs ago that got me into them. I then tightened up my bass playing a lot as well!
Of course if you play for dancers then they could well be superfluous. But for those of us who dont I've come to realise that they can be of great help.
How does dancing help your playing? Im a big believer in playing for the sets and I certainly enjoy dancing sets, but... do explain...
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by the wicked hacker
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
When I dance I feel the music not on an academic level but on a deeper level and when I am playing well with other musicians and we are 'in the groove ' inside my head I am dancing too.
I feel pity for anyone who cannot feel this ,for me it would be something missing like playing in black and white or in 2 D when colour and 3 D are available
Plus its a good way to meet people
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by bazouki dave
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Yes I see what you mean.
I was chatting with a good drummer the other day about the 'knome, and he said that it allowed him to 'dance around the beat'.
My feet go pretty mad sometimes when Im playing!
Clearly we are moving in time with the music as in dance, yet making the music or a part of it as well, so in a number of ways I can relate to your point.
Im still not convinced though that just by dancing your playing will get any tighter! unless that is , your are dancing while you are playing...
A metronome is just a mechanical substitute for a rock solid beat that allows me to completely relax and know that the beat goes on , and as yer man says, allows me to 'dance around the beat'... Anyhow, thats my opinion, I wont go on, feel free to take it on board or not. cheers
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by the wicked hacker
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
lonannas--i agree with you about using metronomes. it was james kelly who finally got me to use one, by asking me, "why would you ever exclude a tool from your toolbox if it was available?" he taught me to make the music breathe, and how to play in time. it is important that there is a beat underlying everything your are doing, and that it is rock solid. depending on your style, you will do different things with this beat, but the beat should always be there, underpinning everything, and lifting it up. if you view the click as where your first note should start, you are wrong... it is the basis for the mathematical subdivision of time. your notes can start before the beat or after the beat, or slide right over it, but there MUST be a beat underlying it, framed out with rock solid rhythm. there is just simply no better way to get an unwavering appreciation of rhythm than to become intimately familiar with mathematically precise beats and rhythm. just having it playing while you are practicing will do nothing, but learning to use a metronome to give you the framework above which your music will ebb and flow is essential to musicianship.
bogman--what is your reason for saying not to use a metronome?
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by daiv
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Q: "How do I make my playing more exciting"
A: "Play with a metronome"
Incorrect answer.
If the question was to do with a timing problem them metronome for some people may be a solution, though personally I would suggest playing along to recordings for sorting that problem. But to add lift to the playing it's not the answer.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by bogman
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
daiv: I could not agree more with your tribute to the metronome. Well said!
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by will morgan
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
It's music-making so there are few if any absolutes but surely one truth in trad is that in the main it's dance music. If you've played for dancers, outside the artificiality of the feis, you'll have experienced the waves of energy that go back and forth between dancer and musician, the tempo shifts accordingly, fractionally ahead, fractional behind, ever so slightly faster, ever so slightly slower. This organic rhythm is even more obvious in the non-dance element of trad (and for many the heart or bedrock of trad), the sean-nós, whose defining characteristics include a "free, non-metronomic rhythm" (that's from Seán Ó Riada, not a trad musician but a fine commentator and analyst). In both dance and non-dance it's the rhythm of heart beats, of breaths, of waves on the shore, not a clockwork mechanism.
Dancing, as well as playing, just allows for a richer experience of the phenomena.
It's perhaps worth noting that many fine musicians refuse to play for dance competitions because the need to keep strict tempo. It's not that they can't play that way, more that it doesn't seem like music-making as they understand it.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by PJ Doherty
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
~Its 'an indefinable 'thing' called excitement.. What makes music exciting? IMO part of it is drive and lift. How do we get this drive, this excitement into our music?
IMO its about putting the notes under the dancers feet. Its that simple, anything that facilitates this is ok in my book. The dancers cannot adjust their movements to an erratic beat, it needs to be consistent, which is in fact pretty much the definition of rhythm. So to play with a driving dynamic style which puts the notes under our feet is an essential prerequisite for dance music.
In a band or group this can be done by the drummer or backer or one particular player , other players can be much more erratic and variable, the dancers dance to the beat.
For a solo player, who plays for sets and dancers alone, you can not rely on anyone but yourself, your playing, to be 'authentic' ie danceable requires you to be precise in creating a driving dynamic rhythm..
This is why IMO session and band work is pretty much Irrelevant to an individuals capabilities as regarding dance music. If you cant stand alone, and play music that people can dance a set to, then you need to work on your rhythm.
I know many great players who have not a rhythmic bone in their body!" because they always play with other people. they rely on the rhythm provided as opposed to providing the rhythm. Its grand in its place, but its not dance music till it can be danced too. However ornamented it might be, however brilliant it might be in many ways, and it can be , it lack a simple thing ; rhythm.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by the wicked hacker
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
"I know many great players who have not a rhythmic bone in their body!"
- Like who?
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by bogman
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
daiv, sorry, I cross-posted with you. Interesting that we both used breathing as an analogy. Absolutely agree on the need for an "unwavering appreciation of rhythm", though not, I'm afraid, convinced of the need to "become intimately familiar with mathematically precise beats and rhythm". As for "learning to use a metronome . . . is essential to musicianship" I'm pretty confident that Johnny O'Leary never used a metronome but then it's always dangerous to generalize from the particular.
I was wondering if the attraction, of otherwise, of the metronome was somehow linked to growing up inside or outside the tradition. I was lucky enough to hear the beat of jigs and reels in the womb, but them again so, I imagine, did James Kelly and Kevin Burke (both far finer musicians than myself).
An interesting discussion that's prompting me to reexamine my beliefs. And that from someone who uses a metronome everyday when practicing the piano!
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by PJ Doherty
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
bogman--when you frame it that way, it makes more sense. when a student is having rhythm or timing issues (esp. speeding up), i tell them that a good rule of thumb is to either "play with recordings" or "play with a metronome." usually it is there is little reason not to have a metronome going when not playing with recordings, unless of course you are practicing your ability to play without a metronome--which is an important skill.
however, when someone is having lift problems, i think it is usually a rhythm problem--their music does not breath, or in other words, their sense of timing is not solid enough to allow them to let their music move freely above the solid foundation of the beat and its subdivisions. the more automatic your sense of timing is, the less cognitive resources you have to devote to ensuring you play in time. attention is a limited resource--you only have so much to go around, and it can be exhausted as well (or at least fatigued).
if your sense of rhythm and timing is dead on and completely automatic, then you can spend all of your attention on the musicality and the lift while you play. when your sense of timing is not mathematically precise and not completely automatic, you you must divide your attention, and often times do not have the resources necessary to just "feel the music" or "feel the groove," as that can be very distracting, and you have to have everything just right to get to that point in your music making.
maybe before i would not have thought that a metronome can teach you musicality, but james kelly taught me to use the metronome for precisely that. although nowadays i spend a lot of time playing with recordings and learning from them, i still need to go back and do basic counting and working on my awareness of the beat. just yesterday i played a tune at a session, and asked myself, "why is it the best tune i played all night, even though i hardly practice it?" and i realized that it was the tune james kelly had taught me, and which i had spent weeks and weeks--if not months--counting and subdividing.
i guess the important part is that james kelly taught me that it is essential to give your notes space to breathe. it may sound strange, but he told me my "notes were square" and because of that they were "bumping into eachother," whereas if your "notes are round," they can breathe and "take time or give up time" to the surrounding notes, without losing the sense of rhythm. it was under that framework that he taught me to use a metronome--it is not enough to be on the beat, but to have notes that are in time, well-rounded, and flowing into eachother (regardless of articulation, staccato etc), rather than jumbling all over the place. think of the ebb and flow of a waltz--the swoop of beat one starts before the downbeat and continues afterwards, and without that you are not playing a waltz, but rather just notes.
so, although i think that the original poster would do very well to listen to your advice, i do disagree that someone who has a strong background in irish music cannot learn lift from a metronome. they might NOT--who knows--but i most certainly did.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by daiv
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
"IMO session and band work is pretty much Irrelevant to an individuals capabilities as regarding dance music. If you cant stand alone, and play music that people can dance a set to, then you need to work on your rhythm." Truest words I've read today. More than that, to my mind, such a person wouldn't yet be a musician. I'm just not persuaded that a metronome is the way to go, which tells you something about me but not necessarily anything about the effectiveness, or otherwise, of practice with a metronome!
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by PJ Doherty
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
alim010, thought you might enjoy this;
Brona Graham on Banjo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPhe3bDJx1E&feature
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by Random_notes
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
Bogman, I must beg your leave to depart the field, I can't for the life of me think of a witty riposte!
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by PJ Doherty
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
I think that problems with timing, speeding up or slowing down, zero pulse etc., are very different kettle of fish to making your playing exciting. I think that with the worst cases of bad timing, a metronome may well help. I'm not convinced though. I think that timing has to be internalised and I can't see how listing to a machine could do anything other than pass the buck.
The main problem with the metronome, and I've said this lots before, is that if you are having trouble technically with a particular phrase and it makes you slow down a little, all the metronome will do is make you speed up the next phrase, even if you can quite easily play the next phrase perfectly well without the metronome.
So maybe, maybe, the metronome might help on a tiny level where you might repeat one phrase you find hard over and over. But in the long run, how's that going to help you phrasing? Much much better to play the whole tune at a speed matched to the same speed you can manage the hardest bits.
Making your playing exciting is all about phrasing. Phrasing is the the bread and butter of this music. Phrasing is the excitement. It is the very basics of the communication of it.
There was a thing earlier about how some people play behind the beat, and some ahead of it. That playing with a metronome will allow you to decide where you want to play in relation to the beat. Complete poppycock. It makes no sense. There's no invisible metronome underneath the music where you make a choice as to which side of it you play. You set the pulse yourself. You push and pull it within itself. You hold back, you anticipate, you swing, you hang etc. and all in the minutiae of lift and drive. The music abhors rigidity. If you think that the art of phrasing is about which side of the rigidity you decide to play on, then you really really have spectacularly missed the point.
Would anyone who recommends the use of playing with a metronome recommend the playing along with the midi files you'll find here? For it's the same thing. I hope not.
So, to sum up. I think that if a good player/teacher is recommending the use of a metronome, they must be telling you that you haven't even anyway near grasped the basics.
# Posted on September 14th 2009 by llig leahcim
Re: How to make my banjo playing more exciting
A few years back I spent a couple of months learning tunes from MIDIs. My timing became dead on & I was able to hit each note precisely. So, it is possible to learn accuracy from a mechanical device. However, the tunes I learnt from MIDI were soooo mechanical they had no life.
The MIDI did not help with articulation, phrasing, or rhythm (as opposed to strict tempo). Also, as I understand lift & playing across barlines, a MIDI (&/or a metronome) would limit this in my playing.
No more MIDIs for me. Listening to & playing with the best musicians I can find is much better.
# Posted on September 15th 2009 by Random_notes