Asking this as a spin-off to the 'is it traditional' thread...
Irish traditional music is my great love, and that's what I'm immersing myself in and trying to learn to the best of my ability. Perhaps as a result, within the genre, my tastes are rather conservative.
But I'm not a purist across the board: if I listen to traditional music, say, from Brittany, which I enjoy but don't play and don't know as much about, I'm more open to modern and new-fangled arrangements, tunes, etc.
For example, I love listening to Kornog and their Breton-Scottish stew, but I'm usually not very keen on Irish groups that mix it up. I'm trying to figure out why this is--is it a function of where I am on the learning curve, or taste, or knowledge of a given tradition, or what?
I think what you are describing is quite common. You're after learning to play a certain type of music in a very specific style. Yet that mindset has nothing to do with your ability to enjoy music from other genres in a more flexible setting. You're not after the "root" of those other styles, so you can enjoy them for what they are.
I can't speak for all, but for many of us, learning Irish music means getting to the roots of the tree and moving quickly past its many leaves on the periphery.
Maybe Breton music is actually more amenable to some forms of modern experimentation, because in it there is a lot of interplay between instruments - bombarde alternating with biniou, accordions and other things joining in or dropping out, and so on. To me, that *makes* Breton music - such as I've heard of it - all this going on on a big scale, in a 'wall of sound' or surround. It is a plural thing, in a way Irish or British trad very largely isn't or hasn't been except in fife-and-drum, pipe-and-drum marching bands.
I'd say English trad is an exception to that. It often works very well with big, loud and complex groups - the sort of thing the Old Swan Band got people doing in recent decades. And it doesn't sound particularly experimental done that way.
I've tried to like fife and drum music, but it often sounds like an exercise in getting as many players as possible to produce the weediest and most ineffectual texture they can manage.
I think all musics are amenable to experimentation - if done by someone who knows what they're doing (Hamon/Martin and Darhaou spring to mind in Breton, Niall Keegan in Irish - of course there are people who will vehemently disagree with me on this). But it will never be the core of the music (if it does become the core, it will be very slowly and in some kind of "mutated" form).
In my experience, having grown to be quite conservative about several musical genres in a quite short amount of time, it is practically impossible to play in a style which both appeals to neophytes and is close to the core.
The reverse of this is that, to a neophyte in a genre, however familiar he may be with another genre, his first appreciation will be a) on gut instinct - in very rare cases, a music will just speak to you in its best stylistic expression b) that you like the "modern" stuff.
Deeper exploration will reveal either that the music doesn't actually appeal to you, or that the modern stuff is, by and large, crap/not part of the tradition - case in point, Kornog, not very Breton at all, just as flook is not very Irish (neither of them complete crap though - maybe a tad self indulgent).
My take on the amenability to experimentation is how close the link between a given music and dancing is (dansability acts as a gatekeeper). That said, often its the dancers who don't know what they are doing, who enjoy experimentation by musicians who don't know what they're doing.
conventional wisdom would have it that the Irish tradtiion has been an unbroken one whereas much of the Breton music payed to day is the result of a 'mid 20th century revival. Maybe we know (or think we know) more about how Irish music has been played for centuries and so are less accepting of 'fusion' ?
open ears/closed ears
open ears/closed ears
Asking this as a spin-off to the 'is it traditional' thread...
Irish traditional music is my great love, and that's what I'm immersing myself in and trying to learn to the best of my ability. Perhaps as a result, within the genre, my tastes are rather conservative.
But I'm not a purist across the board: if I listen to traditional music, say, from Brittany, which I enjoy but don't play and don't know as much about, I'm more open to modern and new-fangled arrangements, tunes, etc.
For example, I love listening to Kornog and their Breton-Scottish stew, but I'm usually not very keen on Irish groups that mix it up. I'm trying to figure out why this is--is it a function of where I am on the learning curve, or taste, or knowledge of a given tradition, or what?
Does anyone else have this experience?
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by mcswiss
Re: open ears/closed ears
I think what you are describing is quite common. You're after learning to play a certain type of music in a very specific style. Yet that mindset has nothing to do with your ability to enjoy music from other genres in a more flexible setting. You're not after the "root" of those other styles, so you can enjoy them for what they are.
I can't speak for all, but for many of us, learning Irish music means getting to the roots of the tree and moving quickly past its many leaves on the periphery.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: open ears/closed ears
Maybe Breton music is actually more amenable to some forms of modern experimentation, because in it there is a lot of interplay between instruments - bombarde alternating with biniou, accordions and other things joining in or dropping out, and so on. To me, that *makes* Breton music - such as I've heard of it - all this going on on a big scale, in a 'wall of sound' or surround. It is a plural thing, in a way Irish or British trad very largely isn't or hasn't been except in fife-and-drum, pipe-and-drum marching bands.
# Posted on October 6th 2010 by nicholas
Re: open ears/closed ears
I'd say English trad is an exception to that. It often works very well with big, loud and complex groups - the sort of thing the Old Swan Band got people doing in recent decades. And it doesn't sound particularly experimental done that way.
I've tried to like fife and drum music, but it often sounds like an exercise in getting as many players as possible to produce the weediest and most ineffectual texture they can manage.
# Posted on October 7th 2010 by Jack Campin
Re: open ears/closed ears
I think all musics are amenable to experimentation - if done by someone who knows what they're doing (Hamon/Martin and Darhaou spring to mind in Breton, Niall Keegan in Irish - of course there are people who will vehemently disagree with me on this). But it will never be the core of the music (if it does become the core, it will be very slowly and in some kind of "mutated" form).
In my experience, having grown to be quite conservative about several musical genres in a quite short amount of time, it is practically impossible to play in a style which both appeals to neophytes and is close to the core.
The reverse of this is that, to a neophyte in a genre, however familiar he may be with another genre, his first appreciation will be a) on gut instinct - in very rare cases, a music will just speak to you in its best stylistic expression b) that you like the "modern" stuff.
Deeper exploration will reveal either that the music doesn't actually appeal to you, or that the modern stuff is, by and large, crap/not part of the tradition - case in point, Kornog, not very Breton at all, just as flook is not very Irish (neither of them complete crap though - maybe a tad self indulgent).
My take on the amenability to experimentation is how close the link between a given music and dancing is (dansability acts as a gatekeeper). That said, often its the dancers who don't know what they are doing, who enjoy experimentation by musicians who don't know what they're doing.
# Posted on October 8th 2010 by Tirno
Re: open ears/closed ears
conventional wisdom would have it that the Irish tradtiion has been an unbroken one whereas much of the Breton music payed to day is the result of a 'mid 20th century revival. Maybe we know (or think we know) more about how Irish music has been played for centuries and so are less accepting of 'fusion' ?
# Posted on October 11th 2010 by harmonic miner