Having many small children I rarely get to play out with other musicians much and when I do it rarely consists of traditional Irish music. My trad fiddle playing is mostly along with recordings. I'm terrible at the dots and the abcs and have spent the last few years trying to strengthen my aural powers with regard to ITM. I've found myself lately running aground on merely skeletal melodies of tunes, unable to grab the middling notes that make the tune the tune. Any tips from others who have come out on the other side? Any recordings that others have found particularly helpful? Solo fiddle recordings with a patient pace about them? Some days I have success with bits of Mr Peoples' WAITING FOR A CALL I suppose that indicates more than anything else that I have high aspirations. God bless the children and their patience with their father. Cheers.
Joe, I know what you're saying. Although I have a long, long way to go on this journey, I think that I'm starting to climb out of the skeleton.
Listening to a lot of different styles of fiddling helps-there is a lot to like out there. And I sit and play a tune to death when I have the time, adding and subtracting this and that each pass through until I find that it is sounding more like I want it to. YouTube, for all of its annoyances, is a gold mine, because you can see the person playing the tune and hear lots of variations.
A friend of mine with children hosts sessions at her home. We can play as long as we want, the kids wander in and out (and see adults enjoying an evening of tunes), and the beer is plentiful. It is hard to progress in this music unless you play with people who have more experience than you do. That is where the flavor comes from.
Good luck with this! It is hard having the music in your head that won't quite come out of your fingers.
Joe, it also helps to understand how to play some of the twiddly bits--cuts, rolls, bowed triplets in particular. If you don't already have these in your fingers, then ask another (good) fiddler to show you how to do them. Then when you hear them in a tune you'll recognize them for what they are and be able to play them "in place."
The CD's produced by Ossian under the title Irish Session Tunes, of which there are at least three, titled by the colour of the book of notation that can accompany them (Sheila Garry Fiddle, Brid Cranitch keyboard) are excellent. Plenty of tunes (80 plus on the blue cd for instance) and played at slow speed so you can catch every note, but at a speed that the tune still sounds as it should.
As that wee buddhist looking kid says in The Matrix, "the trick is not to try to bend the spoon, but to realise there is no spoon."
I've always disliked the bones/flesh analogy. It's just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. If you subscribe to the bones/flesh thing then you subscribe to the idea that you can strip a tune specifically of it's soft fleshy bits and reveal it's hard boney core. But this cannot be done because if you take your knife to it (I don't think there is anything productive it this, but others do and I'm talking to them)
IMO you need to find someone to teach you a few tunes, by ear, nice and easy. To break the tune up into managable sections. we are all different, some can pick up whole phrases others struggle with more than 3 notes at a time. Going through this process trains the mind to understand what is happening in the music. The more you listen, the more you can hear. It takes time. Take it stage by stage. Start at the shallow end and as you get deeper your skills at understanding the patterns will progress naturally. Attempting to leap in at the deep end without developing the understanding required is not a short cut IMO. The more tunes you learn the easier the next tunes get, not just because your hands are trained up, but because your mind is. Enjoy.
If you're playing against MP3s, you might want to invest in the Amazing Slow Downer (www.ronimusic.com) which lets you slow down and loop over sections of a tune. I find it helps me a lot. tradshark's observation about slow and smooth is right too, or so I like to believe, being no speed merchant myself..
getting beyond the skelton
getting beyond the skelton
Having many small children I rarely get to play out with other musicians much and when I do it rarely consists of traditional Irish music. My trad fiddle playing is mostly along with recordings. I'm terrible at the dots and the abcs and have spent the last few years trying to strengthen my aural powers with regard to ITM. I've found myself lately running aground on merely skeletal melodies of tunes, unable to grab the middling notes that make the tune the tune. Any tips from others who have come out on the other side? Any recordings that others have found particularly helpful? Solo fiddle recordings with a patient pace about them? Some days I have success with bits of Mr Peoples' WAITING FOR A CALL I suppose that indicates more than anything else that I have high aspirations. God bless the children and their patience with their father. Cheers.
# Posted on March 25th 2010 by Joe Maine
Re: getting beyond the skelton
Check out this thread. I asked for similar input and got a lot of good suggestions for recordings. Hope it helps.
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/23259
# Posted on March 25th 2010 by Jimmy B
Re: getting beyond the skelton
Joe, I know what you're saying. Although I have a long, long way to go on this journey, I think that I'm starting to climb out of the skeleton.
Listening to a lot of different styles of fiddling helps-there is a lot to like out there. And I sit and play a tune to death when I have the time, adding and subtracting this and that each pass through until I find that it is sounding more like I want it to. YouTube, for all of its annoyances, is a gold mine, because you can see the person playing the tune and hear lots of variations.
A friend of mine with children hosts sessions at her home. We can play as long as we want, the kids wander in and out (and see adults enjoying an evening of tunes), and the beer is plentiful. It is hard to progress in this music unless you play with people who have more experience than you do. That is where the flavor comes from.
Good luck with this! It is hard having the music in your head that won't quite come out of your fingers.
# Posted on March 25th 2010 by Michele Sims
Re: getting beyond the skelton
If a tune you want to play isn't played at a patient enough pace just slow it down to one more amenable to learning.
# Posted on March 25th 2010 by leoj
Re: getting beyond the skelton
Joe, it also helps to understand how to play some of the twiddly bits--cuts, rolls, bowed triplets in particular. If you don't already have these in your fingers, then ask another (good) fiddler to show you how to do them. Then when you hear them in a tune you'll recognize them for what they are and be able to play them "in place."
# Posted on March 25th 2010 by Will Harmon
Re: getting beyond the skelton
The CD's produced by Ossian under the title Irish Session Tunes, of which there are at least three, titled by the colour of the book of notation that can accompany them (Sheila Garry Fiddle, Brid Cranitch keyboard) are excellent. Plenty of tunes (80 plus on the blue cd for instance) and played at slow speed so you can catch every note, but at a speed that the tune still sounds as it should.
# Posted on March 26th 2010 by scb
Re: getting beyond the skelton
That's learning the language and syntax of the music..
# Posted on March 26th 2010 by Trevor Jennings
Re: getting beyond the skelton
As that wee buddhist looking kid says in The Matrix, "the trick is not to try to bend the spoon, but to realise there is no spoon."
I've always disliked the bones/flesh analogy. It's just doesn't hold up to any scrutiny. If you subscribe to the bones/flesh thing then you subscribe to the idea that you can strip a tune specifically of it's soft fleshy bits and reveal it's hard boney core. But this cannot be done because if you take your knife to it (I don't think there is anything productive it this, but others do and I'm talking to them)
# Posted on March 26th 2010 by ...
Re: getting beyond the skelton
did you read the OP?
# Posted on March 26th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: getting beyond the skelton
"the trick is not to try to bend the spoon, but to realise there is no spoon."
I like this idea, but unfortunately, if there's one thing life has taught me, it's that there *is* a spoon. There's always a friggin' spoon.
Joe, you just need to slow it down. Just listen to the recordings for now, learn some tunes and play 'em slow.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Slow it all down for now. The speed will come later.
# Posted on March 26th 2010 by tradshark
Re: getting beyond the skelton
Sure there is a spoon, but once you accept there is no spoon then the bend (articulations) will happen.
# Posted on March 26th 2010 by Ben Steen
Re: getting beyond the skelton
IMO you need to find someone to teach you a few tunes, by ear, nice and easy. To break the tune up into managable sections. we are all different, some can pick up whole phrases others struggle with more than 3 notes at a time. Going through this process trains the mind to understand what is happening in the music. The more you listen, the more you can hear. It takes time. Take it stage by stage. Start at the shallow end and as you get deeper your skills at understanding the patterns will progress naturally. Attempting to leap in at the deep end without developing the understanding required is not a short cut IMO. The more tunes you learn the easier the next tunes get, not just because your hands are trained up, but because your mind is. Enjoy.
# Posted on March 26th 2010 by piobagusfidil
Re: getting beyond the skelton
If you're playing against MP3s, you might want to invest in the Amazing Slow Downer (www.ronimusic.com) which lets you slow down and loop over sections of a tune. I find it helps me a lot. tradshark's observation about slow and smooth is right too, or so I like to believe, being no speed merchant myself..
# Posted on March 29th 2010 by rdi