As another year drags towards the past, am I getting slower or is this a figment of my paranoia? Leaving aside the desirability or otherwise of playing the tunes like a runaway train, anyone got any suggestions as to how one can increase speed with no loss of fluidity as one's years continue their inexorable march. (It is odd how this march has appeared to become more akin to a gallop recently but I am not on the hunt of any elixir: the ould music will do just fine.)
I'm not sure if you're really that old, Cojo i.e that it would make a great difference to the speed you play at. You haven't said. It might just be due to the fact that you've played/practised less this year. I can notice the difference after as little as a few days if I've not touched an instrument.
They say that cod liver oil and oily fish e.g sardines can help to make the joints more fluid. I've tried this and it seems to help at the time. However, most of the time my fingers aren't too stiff and I don't stick to such a diet consistently. I find that drink sometimes makes me play faster though rarely better and sometimes much worse. :>))
Physical difficulties notwithstanding, as I've entered (slogged? limped?) into middle age, I've come to appreciate the importance of taking things slowly, and that includes music. In fact, at the moment I'm listening to a recording my band and I made some *ulp* 20 years ago, and I'm thinking, "Why did we play so fast?" Some of it was nervousness about being in a recording studio, to be sure (and maybe also because we couldn't afford to run up too much studio time), but I do think that we probably fell victim to the "speedy is the standard" view.
Is speedy the standard? I thought it was, but I've just been playing ITM for 4 years, and I live off in an area where I don't get to attend many sessions, around here Im the only advice people get on ITM, scary huh? But yes, I did think speedy was the standard.
OK, not entirely serious here, but not entirely un-serious either. I'm sure yoga/meditation provides the benefits you say, including adding power, speed, whatever, to your playing. And I've not tried it beyond some easy stretching classes so I daren't contradict you.
But I'm not sure that one does slow down with age. Eg, it's only in the past half dozen years that I'd considered myself as a half-reasonable flute player, and I ain't a new kid on the block. Same goes for Jack, banjo, in our session (we both can be seen by clicking my name then following the link to our session - there you will note that I am no youthful Adonis, and Jack is even *my* senior) - or rather, I've always thought Jack was a handy player, but in the last few years he has gone from strength to strength, to the point that at times, I (flute) find it hard to keep up with him (banjo) - thus defying the Second Law of Sessionodynamics.
I reckon the trick is to play as many sessions/gigs/rehearsals as you can, as regularly as you can, and yeah, practice on your own of course also, but really just for the sake of technique sharpening, or new tune learning, not the masochistic 4-hours-minimum practice, as was recently suggested here by one hair-shirt wearing member. Since we have been playing solidly for a number of years, we've got pretty tight, as a unit and as individual players (I think?!)
Anyway, that said, I think it may be to do with how long you've been on your chosen yoke, esp. wrt how middle-aged you are. I've been a flute player for mebbe 2 decades, whistle even longer, but the box just half a dozen years. Although my flute playing seems to consolidate with just *some* practice/sessioning, my box playing ability is very sensitive to any lack of practice :~{ ...and I don't think I'll be getting much chance to rectify that for a few years yet...oh well...
Anyhow, these are my personal reflections. I hope they help somewhere.
Heh, Danny, I especially like how, in that photo of your session, all your mates are crowded onto a bench across the table from you--or am I reading too much into that?
Vassar Clements was fiddling away on tv last month, and he's gotta be in his late 70s if not 80s, and he hasn't slowed down a jot or missed a beat.
Also, we have a 100 yearold button box player here in Butte America (Montana) who can still play at dance speed.
Remember: "The older they get, the better they were when they were younger." (attributed to baseball great Jim Bouton)
If that's the case, you're on the wrong website, BowHand. Maybe you'd care to share with us any website evidence of county, or regional fleadhanna where you have gained meritorious status, so that we know what great maestro we're talking about, who can dismiss other musicians as grizzly?
Read what you want - my *excuse* is the flute is least noisy instrument so needs a bit of distance away from the bloody racket of the banjo, fiddle & geetar...pity, cos they get to look at the talent coming into the boozer, whereas I only get to look at that lot!
BowHand, why not come on over and we'll have a few tunes down in SE London?
Firstly. I haven't discussed my musical prowess (or lack of).
Secondly. If the likes of Matt Molloy feel compelled to practice six hours per day, should not an aspiring flautist with ambitions of equaling or surpassing Molloy's standards, adopt a similar work ethic, at the very least?
Thirdly. Grizzly Adams (CAPITAL G) is a TV character.
I never had the pleasure of hearing you play so how can I assess your musical talent?
Finally - "Us", "We", "We're". A call to arms, is it?
Have you a sense of humor, BowHand? Using it, at this point, might be advantageous, though I would suppose that would depend upon what you want out of this bb community...but if you *like* coming over as a stuffy and touchy person who hasn't the ability to discover what the group dynamics are before interacting with everyone, feel free...
Musha Zina, you're a shockin' hard woman! I don't advertise my 'services' on this site as I'm content to play with poor/lowly/ worthless musicians in my own impoverished area. *Doffs flat cap to Danny*.
Now put down the hatchet like a good woman and come in for a drop o' tae!
LOL -- all right, then, if you like! I never have to mention wars, BowHand, because I'm generally starting them, as most who post here regularly can tell you! ;)
Yep, Chris, John is still playing, though his stamina is waning so the sets don't go on as long as I'm sure they once did. He celebrated his 100th last year, in part with a session of local players.
Well, I'm not getting slower (yet), but I can't understand why my feet seem to be getting further from my hands, even though i haven't grown any taller
Trevor
I think that if you're keen on playing with people who play fast, then you'll practice ways to be fast, with varied results depending on your abilities. But there's no use getting hung up on it as the be all and end all. It's mostly a social thing. There is plenty of good music to play at a speed which works for your particular temperment and hormonal level, be it slowish - or fastish. So it's up to each of us to decide what we wish to strive for and why; to be accepted within circles that value or enjoy speed, or to follow tone as the ultimate satisfaction. It's all available if one keeps looking. A balanced approach to both speed and tone makes a man - or woman - healthy, wealthy (well, that may be stretching things a bit) and wise.
The troupe at the session I go to play things much too fast, and too often I can't keep up.
*Harrumph*
I blame the fiddlers (because they generally sit further away from me from the others . I also blame all that free guinness. And the cold. And my whistle, and my fodgorsaken flute. I blame 'em all! Because then there's nothing for it but to go home and practice till my fingers bleed, or my housemate comes home with a new case of tequila.
*grin* Not to worry, Q, you just keep plodding along, slow and steady. When I first started out, I couldn't keep up either. My teachers told me, don't *try* to keep up. Just keep playing slowly and well.
So, I did, but chafed at the bit a bit, wanting to play out at the fast sessions. Don't worry about it, they said, just keep playing slow to play fast sooner, you'll see; just keep playing slow. I did, and some months later, people were asking me how I got so good so fast.
Running the slow session, I can tell you some things I've observed about this process. One, don't *try* to play faster, you don't have to. Just try to play the tune so it's the best damned Irish music you can, at just the speed you can manage that great music, no matter how slow that is. It will speed up all on it's own. (Really.)
Two, learn the tune before you pick up your instrument. When you can lilt the tune at speed, THEN pick up your instrument and try getting the tune you already know out of it. (This will tell you exactly how much of your learning process is knowing the tune and how much of it is knowing your instrument. You can mix the process, though, to speed the process -- if not the tune -- up; learn some tunes on your instrument and some tunes by ear before picking the instrument up.)
Three, an Observation (with capitol "O"): half to three-quarters of the joy of playing this stuff is the journey, but unfortunately usually you don't find that out until you've missed part of the journey by wishing you were at some point further down the road. Really, really try to enjoy being a beginner, because you never get to be that again in quite the same way, even if you pick up another instrument, because then you'll know the tunes and the music much better.
Well, enough of my jabbering, go play some tunes. ;)
I promise, if you keep up playing only as fast as you can play really well, other players will be wondering how you got so good so fast as well...
I wonder if anyone else notices a bias for speed among certain instruments. Fiddles get blamed for it a lot, but in my experience it's usually the whistles and flutes that go faster than blazes. It's gotten so I have a running joke when our whistler asks "what tempo" I respond, "*not* whistle speed." This guy plays banjo and mandolin too, and he admits that it's much easier to fly on the whistle.....
Whistles and flutes are generally played faster - partly because they are easy instruments to play (Hell - hope I haven't opened another can of worms with that assertion!), but also because they're no fun to play too slowly. When you're in a slower session, it does your diaphragm in doing phrases, or even just notes, at slow speed. I go blue in the face....or at least, the tip of my nose turns blue, or so I've been told by fellow Glasgow sessioneers.....
Yes, I've noticed this tendency even as I'm in the earliest stages of learning whistle and flute--tempo is directly related to lung capacity. I keep hearing to use the same amount of air as when I talk...must develop a more efficient embouchure.
But my hunch is that the physical motions of wiggling six fingers over little holes are just easier to do at speed than squeezing a bellows in and out or pressing down strings or sawing with a bow or even twitching with a pick....
Precisely, Will, wrt wiggilng 6 fingers on the holes. Conversely, although I can wiggle 4 fingers over buttons on a D/G box, there's the push-pulling action, which is only now becoming something I don't have to think about to achieve the required note. Comprendes?
Capisco, and I'll add that on fiddle it seems the two main impediments to acheiving lightspeed are the (relatively) sizeable motions of the bowhand and bow (significantly more mass to shift up and down than a mere finger or two), and the fact that your fingers are each in a different position on the strings--there is little or no symmetry as there is on a whistle, or even on a flute. In other words, each left hand finger is doing something different than its neighbors, and the resulting load on the neural system just to coordinate these movements means that speed comes only after years and years of repetition. That's my theory anyway. Eventually it becomes easier to play at ridiculous speeds on fiddle, but I still get the feeling I'm working harder than the whistler next to me....
Uffda. If you want to hear somebody playing slowly, that's me right now -- we've been making tons and tons of sushi and drowning it with saki, and now we're going to hit the hot tub...don't think I could get a tune out right now to save my life, and for some reason, I just don't mind that....
Good grief, i forgot the reason I was going to post! LOL -- anyway, I've found recently that if I'm really really tired, I play really really fast, and can't figure out why my fingers aren't working. It's really weird. Anybody else find that happening when they're really tired, or am I just weird?
LOL, you just think you're playing really fast (but yes, you're fingers *aren't* working, and you already knew you were weird .
Hmmm...when I try to play exhausted, I get sooper swingy--like, too swingy. Um, like Muzak does Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys impersonating Frankie Gavin before he could play.... It's not pretty.
Now that I think of it, what concerns me about the aging process isn't slowing down, but simply forgetting everything I once knew. Lately, I crash one bar into the B part of *every* tune, mind a tabla rasa, "what is the sound of one hand fiddling?" and drool leaking from my pie hole. It's gotten so my session mates wince whenever I start something no one else knows, because it presages the coming awkward silence and under-the-breath cursing....
No, no, I really DO play really really fast -- Dirk and Janet and George and Michael all say I do it. It's gotten so that if I start off a set way too fast and keep on going with it without seeming to be aware how fast I'm going, they'll end up the set with me and then one of them will lean over and say, "so, haven't gotten any sleep recently?"
The tuna was REALLY good. We bought it from one of the better fish shops here, and he said it had just come in that morning. Pete said it's the closest to the tuna he'd had in Hawaii that he's ever seen in Colorado...
...ah, I had to give up sushi on doctor's advice. This iron overload thing means that I'm fatally vulnerable to a certain bacteria common in raw shellfish and other uncooked marine critters. It's not worth the risk, though I used to really enjoy sushi....
that's a crying shame, will. you might want to try making your own sushi rolls. but instead of using raw fish, you could use smoked fish (especially salmon) or of course veggies. i've had varying success with this. in the end, perhaps what i'm really after is getting hopped up on wasabi though...
anyway. i find the propensity in irish music to play "really fast" generally way over rated. in any case, the goal is to play tunes with intensity, grace, control and interest, which the accomplished player should be able to do at tempos ranging from slow to fast. too often fast playing simply amounts to sloppy playing: if you were to record it and put it thru software to slow it down you'd discover the unbelievably flagrant extent to which the timing and rhythm is all but entirely obliterated at crucial parts of the tune. i know because i have done it to myself.
Min you, Brendan, I don't think Zina was bragging about her speed. More like lamenting that it happens at all. I've played a little with her and she's quite capable of blasting along at what passes for typical session speed, but she knows better (except when she's tired .
ah, zina, my apologies if my comments seem directed at you. they weren't. just at the general speed phenomona out there. i am in any case quite sure zina is perfectly capable of handling her tunas, raw or cooked...
Also - just to reply to Zina's query wrt the fingers not working if you're really tired - yes - I've had that! It's bliddy murder! And sometimes my fingers have cramped up mid tune, both on the flute and the box (not contemporaneously!) In my case there are a few reasons:
1. Too many beers the night before - 40%.
2. Too much DIY that weekend - holding onto hammers, drills, skilsaws, routers, etc. - 20%.
3. Running too long a race thus depleting salt reserves - 20%.
4. A weekend rock climbing used to be a factor, but not any more - then: 30%, now, 0%.
5. A combination of 1, 2 & 3 ---usually always involving 1, but sometimes all 3 - 40%.
LOL -- the worst thing about it is that I have NO idea at all that I'm gabbling away on the fiddle faster than I should be -- I simply can't tell when I'm that tired that the speed is too fast, and I don't notice at all unless it's pointed out, except that I feel like my fingers are all thumbs (from going too fast for my abilities). Only happens when I'm tired and when I start the tune or set; if someone else starts the thing, I can follow their speed just dandy, from what everybody says. Weird, huh? The brain is a strange place... ;)
one year slower
one year slower
As another year drags towards the past, am I getting slower or is this a figment of my paranoia? Leaving aside the desirability or otherwise of playing the tunes like a runaway train, anyone got any suggestions as to how one can increase speed with no loss of fluidity as one's years continue their inexorable march. (It is odd how this march has appeared to become more akin to a gallop recently but I am not on the hunt of any elixir: the ould music will do just fine.)
# Posted on December 29th 2003 by r&c
Re: one year slower
I'm not sure if you're really that old, Cojo i.e that it would make a great difference to the speed you play at. You haven't said. It might just be due to the fact that you've played/practised less this year. I can notice the difference after as little as a few days if I've not touched an instrument.
They say that cod liver oil and oily fish e.g sardines can help to make the joints more fluid. I've tried this and it seems to help at the time. However, most of the time my fingers aren't too stiff and I don't stick to such a diet consistently. I find that drink sometimes makes me play faster though rarely better and sometimes much worse. :>))
John
# Posted on December 29th 2003 by Johannes J
Re: one year slower
You could try Tai Chi - its great for the joints and balance etc.
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by MollyB
Re: one year slower
Physical difficulties notwithstanding, as I've entered (slogged? limped?) into middle age, I've come to appreciate the importance of taking things slowly, and that includes music. In fact, at the moment I'm listening to a recording my band and I made some *ulp* 20 years ago, and I'm thinking, "Why did we play so fast?" Some of it was nervousness about being in a recording studio, to be sure (and maybe also because we couldn't afford to run up too much studio time), but I do think that we probably fell victim to the "speedy is the standard" view.
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by sts
Re: one year slower
Is speedy the standard? I thought it was, but I've just been playing ITM for 4 years, and I live off in an area where I don't get to attend many sessions, around here Im the only advice people get on ITM, scary huh? But yes, I did think speedy was the standard.
Johnathan
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Harper_Lad
Re: one year slower
Huh -- are you in Missouri, Johnathan? If so, there's a lot more very good Irish musicians out there than you may know about...
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: one year slower
Get theeself into a yoga class. Now. Stick with it for six months. Will make you feel ten years younger. Would bet that it'd help your playing too.
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Brendan
Re: one year slower
Or, Brendan, cojo could always try playing the music as a meditation,
:~}
, re my previous discussion on the music and zen:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/2556
OK, not entirely serious here, but not entirely un-serious either. I'm sure yoga/meditation provides the benefits you say, including adding power, speed, whatever, to your playing. And I've not tried it beyond some easy stretching classes so I daren't contradict you.
But I'm not sure that one does slow down with age. Eg, it's only in the past half dozen years that I'd considered myself as a half-reasonable flute player, and I ain't a new kid on the block. Same goes for Jack, banjo, in our session (we both can be seen by clicking my name then following the link to our session - there you will note that I am no youthful Adonis, and Jack is even *my* senior) - or rather, I've always thought Jack was a handy player, but in the last few years he has gone from strength to strength, to the point that at times, I (flute) find it hard to keep up with him (banjo) - thus defying the Second Law of Sessionodynamics.
I reckon the trick is to play as many sessions/gigs/rehearsals as you can, as regularly as you can, and yeah, practice on your own of course also, but really just for the sake of technique sharpening, or new tune learning, not the masochistic 4-hours-minimum practice, as was recently suggested here by one hair-shirt wearing member. Since we have been playing solidly for a number of years, we've got pretty tight, as a unit and as individual players (I think?!)
Anyway, that said, I think it may be to do with how long you've been on your chosen yoke, esp. wrt how middle-aged you are. I've been a flute player for mebbe 2 decades, whistle even longer, but the box just half a dozen years. Although my flute playing seems to consolidate with just *some* practice/sessioning, my box playing ability is very sensitive to any lack of practice :~{ ...and I don't think I'll be getting much chance to rectify that for a few years yet...oh well...
Anyhow, these are my personal reflections. I hope they help somewhere.
Danny.
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: one year slower
Heh, Danny, I especially like how, in that photo of your session, all your mates are crowded onto a bench across the table from you--or am I reading too much into that?
Vassar Clements was fiddling away on tv last month, and he's gotta be in his late 70s if not 80s, and he hasn't slowed down a jot or missed a beat.
Also, we have a 100 yearold button box player here in Butte America (Montana) who can still play at dance speed.
Remember: "The older they get, the better they were when they were younger." (attributed to baseball great Jim Bouton)
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Will CPT
Proud Hair Shirt Wearer
Actually Danny, my opinions were in the context of attaining a virtuoso standard ala Molloy, Egan or Gavin.
Anyway, carry on Grizzly!
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by BowHand
Re: one year slower
Will, you've sussed me!
Trevor
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by lazyhound
Re: one year slower
If that's the case, you're on the wrong website, BowHand. Maybe you'd care to share with us any website evidence of county, or regional fleadhanna where you have gained meritorious status, so that we know what great maestro we're talking about, who can dismiss other musicians as grizzly?
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: one year slower
Ow! Will!
Read what you want - my *excuse* is the flute is least noisy instrument so needs a bit of distance away from the bloody racket of the banjo, fiddle & geetar...pity, cos they get to look at the talent coming into the boozer, whereas I only get to look at that lot!
BowHand, why not come on over and we'll have a few tunes down in SE London?
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: one year slower
Firstly. I haven't discussed my musical prowess (or lack of).
Secondly. If the likes of Matt Molloy feel compelled to practice six hours per day, should not an aspiring flautist with ambitions of equaling or surpassing Molloy's standards, adopt a similar work ethic, at the very least?
Thirdly. Grizzly Adams (CAPITAL G) is a TV character.
I never had the pleasure of hearing you play so how can I assess your musical talent?
Finally - "Us", "We", "We're". A call to arms, is it?
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by BowHand
Re: one year slower
Have you a sense of humor, BowHand? Using it, at this point, might be advantageous, though I would suppose that would depend upon what you want out of this bb community...but if you *like* coming over as a stuffy and touchy person who hasn't the ability to discover what the group dynamics are before interacting with everyone, feel free...
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: one year slower
Nice and melllooww, BowH, it's Hogmanay, remember? Just take a deep breath and say Ommmmm....
Assessing musical talent? Come on over and assess away...I'd rather just play tunes with people.
Have a Happy New Year.
Danny.
# Posted on December 30th 2003 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: one year slower
Ah good man, Danny. Moving the goal posts *again*.......
Good ole Zina and her robust comedic sensibilities - "don't mention the war".
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by BowHand
Re: one year slower
Ah, so you *do* like coming over as somebody nobody wants to play with? Well, fair play to you.
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by Zina Lee
Well, By The Hokey!
Musha Zina, you're a shockin' hard woman! I don't advertise my 'services' on this site as I'm content to play with poor/lowly/ worthless musicians in my own impoverished area. *Doffs flat cap to Danny*.
Now put down the hatchet like a good woman and come in for a drop o' tae!
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by BowHand
Re: one year slower
LOL -- all right, then, if you like! I never have to mention wars, BowHand, because I'm generally starting them, as most who post here regularly can tell you! ;)
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by Zina Lee
Re: one year slower
"Also, we have a 100 yearold button box player here in Butte America (Montana) who can still play at dance speed"
Will:
My God, is John the Yank still playing?!? That's fantastic!
chris smith
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: one year slower
Yep, Chris, John is still playing, though his stamina is waning so the sets don't go on as long as I'm sure they once did. He celebrated his 100th last year, in part with a session of local players.
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
Good to hear. Gives me hope!
best,
cjs
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by coyotebanjo
Re: one year slower
Cod liver oil is all right, but it's murder cleaning the strings afterwards. As for yoga, have you ever tried playing tenor banjo in the warrior pose?
# Posted on December 31st 2003 by granama
Re: one year slower
Well, I'm not getting slower (yet), but I can't understand why my feet seem to be getting further from my hands, even though i haven't grown any taller
Trevor
# Posted on January 1st 2004 by lazyhound
Re: one year slower
I think that if you're keen on playing with people who play fast, then you'll practice ways to be fast, with varied results depending on your abilities. But there's no use getting hung up on it as the be all and end all. It's mostly a social thing. There is plenty of good music to play at a speed which works for your particular temperment and hormonal level, be it slowish - or fastish. So it's up to each of us to decide what we wish to strive for and why; to be accepted within circles that value or enjoy speed, or to follow tone as the ultimate satisfaction. It's all available if one keeps looking. A balanced approach to both speed and tone makes a man - or woman - healthy, wealthy (well, that may be stretching things a bit) and wise.
# Posted on January 1st 2004 by guitargirl
Re: one year slower
The troupe at the session I go to play things much too fast, and too often I can't keep up.
*Harrumph*
I blame the fiddlers (because they generally sit further away from me from the others
. I also blame all that free guinness. And the cold. And my whistle, and my fodgorsaken flute. I blame 'em all! Because then there's nothing for it but to go home and practice till my fingers bleed, or my housemate comes home with a new case of tequila.
Happy New Year!
# Posted on January 1st 2004 by Q
Heh
*grin* Not to worry, Q, you just keep plodding along, slow and steady. When I first started out, I couldn't keep up either. My teachers told me, don't *try* to keep up. Just keep playing slowly and well.
So, I did, but chafed at the bit a bit, wanting to play out at the fast sessions. Don't worry about it, they said, just keep playing slow to play fast sooner, you'll see; just keep playing slow. I did, and some months later, people were asking me how I got so good so fast.
Running the slow session, I can tell you some things I've observed about this process. One, don't *try* to play faster, you don't have to. Just try to play the tune so it's the best damned Irish music you can, at just the speed you can manage that great music, no matter how slow that is. It will speed up all on it's own. (Really.)
Two, learn the tune before you pick up your instrument. When you can lilt the tune at speed, THEN pick up your instrument and try getting the tune you already know out of it. (This will tell you exactly how much of your learning process is knowing the tune and how much of it is knowing your instrument. You can mix the process, though, to speed the process -- if not the tune -- up; learn some tunes on your instrument and some tunes by ear before picking the instrument up.)
Three, an Observation (with capitol "O"): half to three-quarters of the joy of playing this stuff is the journey, but unfortunately usually you don't find that out until you've missed part of the journey by wishing you were at some point further down the road. Really, really try to enjoy being a beginner, because you never get to be that again in quite the same way, even if you pick up another instrument, because then you'll know the tunes and the music much better.
Well, enough of my jabbering, go play some tunes. ;)
I promise, if you keep up playing only as fast as you can play really well, other players will be wondering how you got so good so fast as well...
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: one year slower
We had a 1 year-old 100-button box player at our last session - but he had to stop playing after 1 minute because his nappy (diaper) needed changing.
Sorry - couldn't resist that one after all ma wee whiskies!!
Jim
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: one year slower
I wonder if anyone else notices a bias for speed among certain instruments. Fiddles get blamed for it a lot, but in my experience it's usually the whistles and flutes that go faster than blazes. It's gotten so I have a running joke when our whistler asks "what tempo" I respond, "*not* whistle speed." This guy plays banjo and mandolin too, and he admits that it's much easier to fly on the whistle.....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
Oh, and Jim--I once heard a box player who sounded like a 10 year old throwing 10 button boxes down a stairwell...does that count?
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
Whistles and flutes are generally played faster - partly because they are easy instruments to play (Hell - hope I haven't opened another can of worms with that assertion!), but also because they're no fun to play too slowly. When you're in a slower session, it does your diaphragm in doing phrases, or even just notes, at slow speed. I go blue in the face....or at least, the tip of my nose turns blue, or so I've been told by fellow Glasgow sessioneers.....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: one year slower
Yes, I've noticed this tendency even as I'm in the earliest stages of learning whistle and flute--tempo is directly related to lung capacity. I keep hearing to use the same amount of air as when I talk...must develop a more efficient embouchure.
But my hunch is that the physical motions of wiggling six fingers over little holes are just easier to do at speed than squeezing a bellows in and out or pressing down strings or sawing with a bow or even twitching with a pick....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
Precisely, Will, wrt wiggilng 6 fingers on the holes. Conversely, although I can wiggle 4 fingers over buttons on a D/G box, there's the push-pulling action, which is only now becoming something I don't have to think about to achieve the required note. Comprendes?
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: one year slower
Capisco, and I'll add that on fiddle it seems the two main impediments to acheiving lightspeed are the (relatively) sizeable motions of the bowhand and bow (significantly more mass to shift up and down than a mere finger or two), and the fact that your fingers are each in a different position on the strings--there is little or no symmetry as there is on a whistle, or even on a flute. In other words, each left hand finger is doing something different than its neighbors, and the resulting load on the neural system just to coordinate these movements means that speed comes only after years and years of repetition. That's my theory anyway. Eventually it becomes easier to play at ridiculous speeds on fiddle, but I still get the feeling I'm working harder than the whistler next to me....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
Uffda. If you want to hear somebody playing slowly, that's me right now -- we've been making tons and tons of sushi and drowning it with saki, and now we're going to hit the hot tub...don't think I could get a tune out right now to save my life, and for some reason, I just don't mind that....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: one year slower
Good grief, i forgot the reason I was going to post! LOL -- anyway, I've found recently that if I'm really really tired, I play really really fast, and can't figure out why my fingers aren't working. It's really weird. Anybody else find that happening when they're really tired, or am I just weird?
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: one year slower
"...tons and tons of sushi..." visions of the Tokyo fish market, and suddenly I'm not the least bit hungry.
Zina, you should take this opportunity to learn the Japanese Hornpipe.....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
LOL, you just think you're playing really fast (but yes, you're fingers *aren't* working, and you already knew you were weird
.
Hmmm...when I try to play exhausted, I get sooper swingy--like, too swingy. Um, like Muzak does Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys impersonating Frankie Gavin before he could play.... It's not pretty.
Now that I think of it, what concerns me about the aging process isn't slowing down, but simply forgetting everything I once knew. Lately, I crash one bar into the B part of *every* tune, mind a tabla rasa, "what is the sound of one hand fiddling?" and drool leaking from my pie hole. It's gotten so my session mates wince whenever I start something no one else knows, because it presages the coming awkward silence and under-the-breath cursing....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
No, no, I really DO play really really fast -- Dirk and Janet and George and Michael all say I do it. It's gotten so that if I start off a set way too fast and keep on going with it without seeming to be aware how fast I'm going, they'll end up the set with me and then one of them will lean over and say, "so, haven't gotten any sleep recently?"
The tuna was REALLY good. We bought it from one of the better fish shops here, and he said it had just come in that morning. Pete said it's the closest to the tuna he'd had in Hawaii that he's ever seen in Colorado...
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: one year slower
...ah, I had to give up sushi on doctor's advice. This iron overload thing means that I'm fatally vulnerable to a certain bacteria common in raw shellfish and other uncooked marine critters. It's not worth the risk, though I used to really enjoy sushi....
# Posted on January 2nd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
that's a crying shame, will. you might want to try making your own sushi rolls. but instead of using raw fish, you could use smoked fish (especially salmon) or of course veggies. i've had varying success with this. in the end, perhaps what i'm really after is getting hopped up on wasabi though...
anyway. i find the propensity in irish music to play "really fast" generally way over rated. in any case, the goal is to play tunes with intensity, grace, control and interest, which the accomplished player should be able to do at tempos ranging from slow to fast. too often fast playing simply amounts to sloppy playing: if you were to record it and put it thru software to slow it down you'd discover the unbelievably flagrant extent to which the timing and rhythm is all but entirely obliterated at crucial parts of the tune. i know because i have done it to myself.
# Posted on January 3rd 2004 by Brendan
Re: one year slower
Min you, Brendan, I don't think Zina was bragging about her speed. More like lamenting that it happens at all. I've played a little with her and she's quite capable of blasting along at what passes for typical session speed, but she knows better (except when she's tired
.
# Posted on January 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: one year slower
ah, zina, my apologies if my comments seem directed at you. they weren't. just at the general speed phenomona out there. i am in any case quite sure zina is perfectly capable of handling her tunas, raw or cooked...
# Posted on January 3rd 2004 by Brendan
Re: one year slower
Also - just to reply to Zina's query wrt the fingers not working if you're really tired - yes - I've had that! It's bliddy murder! And sometimes my fingers have cramped up mid tune, both on the flute and the box (not contemporaneously!) In my case there are a few reasons:
1. Too many beers the night before - 40%.
2. Too much DIY that weekend - holding onto hammers, drills, skilsaws, routers, etc. - 20%.
3. Running too long a race thus depleting salt reserves - 20%.
4. A weekend rock climbing used to be a factor, but not any more - then: 30%, now, 0%.
5. A combination of 1, 2 & 3 ---usually always involving 1, but sometimes all 3 - 40%.
Danny.
# Posted on January 3rd 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: one year slower
LOL -- the worst thing about it is that I have NO idea at all that I'm gabbling away on the fiddle faster than I should be -- I simply can't tell when I'm that tired that the speed is too fast, and I don't notice at all unless it's pointed out, except that I feel like my fingers are all thumbs (from going too fast for my abilities). Only happens when I'm tired and when I start the tune or set; if someone else starts the thing, I can follow their speed just dandy, from what everybody says. Weird, huh? The brain is a strange place... ;)
# Posted on January 3rd 2004 by Zina Lee