I play by ear, note, and "mimicry" and i have learned that all of them have their inconveniences.
First off, ear. It's a great way to learn. When you don't have sheet music, and no one can teach you, you can learn on your own. But the downside is, you can't learn a tune by ear that you've never heard before. So if you can't find a recording, how can you learn a tune? The other downside is, you can only play tunes you remember. Carrying around a list of all the tunes you know is one thing... remembering how they sound is completely different. *Can't sing a song if you don't member the words.*
Next, how can you learn a tune if no one that you know, knows how to play it? Some may say "Learn some more common tunes so you can play with some other folks", but what if you only get to go to two sessions a Month? The majority of the time you spend playing, is by yourself right? I've learned that this music is about Tradition and community and all of that good stuff. But let's be real, i'm playing pretty much for myself cause i have no one to play with. So i don't need to spend the majority of my time learning popular tunes.
Because of resources like this... http://www.celtic-sheet-music.com/dancemusicofireland.html
we're able to find a BUNCH of tunes; some of which we may actually like a little. 1,000 of them. I'm sure there's at least 100 treasures on that list alone, that would be fun to play for a LIFETIME. But all it gives me is a manuscript and a MIDI file. Not a recording, or a video, or an Irish Genie that pops up and plays the tune for me. I've found recordings and videos of some of them, but i not all of them are... helpful
Sheet music isn't evil. I'm very sure that if you put a manuscript in front of any of the great ITM musicians that know how to read, that they would play it with the same heart and soul as something they learned by ear.
So what happens when the dots is all you got? You learn it anyway. You don't have to follow the paper exactly. If you're good, you can improvise right? You can put in all your little twiddly parts and variations, if you're good.
Oh dear....yes and no. Alistair Anderson, a concertina player of note, once said 'I can read music but it helps if I know the tune'.
More, go look up Donald Rumsfeld's famous quote - I think it would cover the ground here quite neatly.
I'm impressed by your enthusiastic approach but sometimes you just have to wait until the 'time is filled' i.e. you can not 'get it overnight' whether by dot, ear or mimicry. Enjoy what you have now, time and perserverence will take care of every thing else. Rome weren't built in a day...
Last friend announced he is an old fogie (how ever you spell it). His daughter told him she was talking to her friend. He wanted to say, "You're not talking. You're texting." But he didn't.
You're right about the dots, Jerone. They are not evil, just not music.
oops, hit the send key too early,
The other thing is to listen out for internet archived broadcast programs and so on, the internet is a bit like the proverbial street corner; wait long enough and the whole world will stroll on by. I maybe get to one or two music sessions a month - I still have way too many tunes I want to learn
Your question is wonderful; it certainly shows you are thinking seriously about your music.
The answers you have received all show the "right" way, and are sure to encourage you.
The analogy about the house is apt. Better to build on solid foundations, which will then support the "structure"...and once you have the house, with time you can make it a home.
Your hunger and thirst for the music is infectious, long may it be so!
Your frustration is understandable. I live somewhere, in the wilds of north Cornwall, where hardly anyone plays this music. The blokes I play with have all enthusiastically taught themselves with precious little input from any rock-solid traditional Irish musicians. Recordings have got us into a lot of the tunes we play. On the whole, a purist coming to our pub would, if he were the narrow-minded type, be perfectly horrified at some of our efforts, but two things - first, we have fun, and second, we are not exactly going to destroy "the tradition" (sorry, a horrid cliché learned from English folkies...) by doing what we do.
What I'd say to you is that you have recognised that printed music is not good enough. Excellent. So, if you really have to, learn some tunes from notation. But I would also say you should listen to recordings (and you have no excuse these days, what with all that stuff on YouTube). Get some grasp of the fact that you have to be incredibly flexible to play this music. Here's two ways you'll know you've got it wrong. First, you're playing with other people and you are not listening and you play "your version" regardless. Second, you hear someone playing a tune you learned from dots and you think, "God, they are just playing it WRONG!" In either case you have not been playing this music long enough to understand that only really accomplished players can learn from dots and emerge unscathed. So learn from dots if you must but any sign of rigidity in your outlook as a result will be immediately pounced on, guaranteed. Spottable a mile off it is. It's a fact of life!
In this age of the internet and YouTube, you never need to resort to sheet music. Here's what to do:
1. Buy yourself a digital recording device and take it to the semi-weekly session, and record all the tunes they play (ask them for permission first---they should be fine with this). Go home and learn every tune. Then go back and do it again, because they'll probably play different tunes the next week.
2. Learn by ear from the best players. There are thousands of clips of people like Tommy Peoples, Martin Hayes, Matt Molloy, Paddy Keenan, Jackie Daly...the list is endless, and you've had recommendations here before---seek them out on YouTube and learn the tunes you like. There are also places to download music, like Casey in the Cowhouse here: http://ceolalainn.blogspot.com/2010/09/bobby-casey-casey-in-cowhouse-1992.html (or buy it if you can find it---I'm pretty sure it's out of print)---you should listen to this until you know every single turn in every melody by heart. Learn the tunes on your fiddle if you can, but even if you can't, you should listen anyway.
These two things should keep you busy for a few years.
Finally, I really think you'll do yourself more harm than good if you just learn from sheet music at this point. It's not like you grew up listening to trad your whole life and know instinctively how it should sound, and you'll probably end up playing it wrong.
It seems like most of the tunes you're hearing are either from the bimonthly session you're attending or what you find online. There are some musician on this site who contribute to YouTube. Perhaps someone here knows how to find the best online video & audio clips. Might be better than constantly treading water & grabbing a handy life preserver (i.e. O'Neill's dance tunes).
Once in a while I shake a scrap of sheet music before my students, asking them what it is.
They all know the answer : A piece of paper with stuff written on it.
All the theory in the world cannot replace the feeling of how your gut sits when the tune you're playing is grooving just right.
Eventually, though, some tools can come in handy, and reading the score can be as helpful as having a hammer when attempting to drive a nail; this said though, foundation comes before carpentry, in any edifice.
Someday, Jerone, you may have a strong craving to hear tunes played by certain musicians rather than simply the desire to try out more tunes for a test drive.
Tough world, eh, fiddlelearner? If you opened this thread expecting compromise you are probably already feeling somewhat disappointed. Get out all your CDs, google any of your favourite Irish players to find 'em on YouTube, take your recorder to your sessions. You weren't born next to the Cobblestone and you don't live within a mile of dozens of great players. Who does though! I think you know the issues and I think you'll be OK. I predict that your appetite for dots will rapidly diminish any time soon. But do your own thing.
When you're listening to various YouTubes notice how some players will play a tune the same each time through as opposed to those who have more variation. You can transcribe it if you like.
It's a living tradition. The variances a decent player puts on a tune each time are different. The phrasing is tinkered with, the ornaments, etc. It's never the same each time.
...which is why you can't really make dots of this music.
You can, you can use them, and you can play all the tunes the same way each time. You can find sessions filled with people playing the same tunes in the same way, time after time after time...
You can also watch paint dry, or insects copulate.
'I can read music but it helps if I know the tune'.
There's nothing like having music in your ears... Completely agreed
"Enjoy what you have now, time and perserverence will take care of every thing else."
I'm still learning this lesson happily and patiently
"They are not evil, just not music."
Not music that you can hear, maybe music that you can see?
"The other thing is to listen out for internet archived broadcast programs and so on, the internet is a bit like the proverbial street corner; wait long enough and the whole world will stroll on by."
Great advice, another lesson in patience i need to learn
"it's not what you've got, but what you do with it."
hmmm, i think i like this one ;)
"Better to build on solid foundations, which will then support the "structure"...and once you have the house, with time you can make it a home."
That's my plan Just checking out the land i'm on ;)
"Here's two ways you'll know you've got it wrong. First, you're playing with other people and you are not listening and you play "your version" regardless. Second, you hear someone playing a tune you learned from dots and you think, "God, they are just playing it WRONG!" In either case you have not been playing this music long enough to understand that only really accomplished players can learn from dots and emerge unscathed."
True, true, true But with classical piano music, it's quite the opposite(I can't tell you how many times i was told i was playing "Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 3" wrong...)
"In this age of the internet and YouTube, you never need to resort to sheet music."
Youtube isn't quite the most reliable resource. But it is helpful.
I read the rest of your posts as well and the website you gave me is on my sources list thanks for the refreshing.
"It's not like you grew up listening to trad your whole life and know instinctively how it should sound, and you'll probably end up playing it wrong."
You're definetly right about that lol. And since i've been going to this session i've learned how wrong i can sound.
"All the theory in the world cannot replace the feeling of how your gut sits when the tune you're playing is grooving just right."
Good stuff, good stuff... manuscript could never replace music in your ears(and your gut
"If you opened this thread expecting compromise you are probably already feeling somewhat disappointed."
Haha, yeah right. I didn't expect compromise, i expected good advice, and good advice i got. No disappointment here
Playing songs and tunes the same way over and over again is no fun. The problem is, i don't know enough about this music to do variations yet. I'm still trying to get at least one tune down pat(The Burnt Old Man from Kevin Burkes' "Eavesdropper" album)
"When you're listening to various YouTubes notice how some players will play a tune the same each time through as opposed to those who have more variation. You can transcribe it if you like."
Very wise words.
Nothing wrong with dots - so long as they are used for just that. A reminder of the "skellington". Transcribing the way a particular player graces a phrase is useful for a reminder.
There are too many "anti-dots" about who would tell you they are evil. You can write down something somebody said in a thick accent - and recite it again at a later date complete with thich accent - so long as you know how to speak in that thick accent.
I wonder how many "modren" players are playing in "session.org ABC/midi style"? It kind of negates adding to what must be the most comprehensive archive of traditional toons on the net if all those tadpoles on wires are evil.
Give up! Or get out more to sessions and play over and over and over again the tunes you either know, think you know, don't know or think is quiet like another tune you know, don't know or think you know.
Has that avoided any confusion (Like Mr Fahey's reels' names)
NOTE TO APOSTRAPHE POLICE: Please check out last paragraph coz' it has complex attempted apostraphe use.
WARNING - often the dots are not "right" - even on this lovely site. Hey we're all human. (Be sure you read all the comments!)
And many printed books will have one particular player's version one time through...or they will try to cram in a number of variations on one pass through. If you've heard the tune before then you will immediately recognize "oh this is another variation I can do" but if you've never heard it, you might just think the B part is meant to be played differently each time (rather than one pass being the usual tune and the second being an outlying variation that is rather optional) or that you have to hit that lower B every time etc.
Or maybe they go the minimalist route and just put basic notes without any indicators of ornamentation - which can be problematic when you have tunes where almost everyone alive will roll a particular note - but if you're bare bones-ing it, you have to substitute 3 notes for the roll - and then what notes get picked? A B A? B C B? BBB?
That being said, you are right that many people do learn from the dots or use it as an aid and there's nothing wrong with it as long as they know how it's supposed to go - and part of that is based on knowing hundreds if not thousands of tunes that are similar. Written tune collections of this music have been made since before the 1900s - not the least of which was O'Neill's valiant effort to preserve as much as he could of what he was worried would be a dying tradition (ha!)....and many traditional teachers in Ireland used private notation systems (not staff music but other kinds of notation) to teach their students and trade tunes....
So, yes, written music is fine. But until you know at least 100 tunes, you might be better off at least finding recordings of the tunes you want to learn - to go along with the dots. In fact, alot of my learning on very notey tunes is by taking a written "score" and marking it up based on what I'm hearing on a recording...helps me get some of the subtle things I hear in there a bit clearer, I can make sure the dots are "right" and I avoid the unfortunate tendency among some ear-only learners to get it "close enough" and make up the rest.....:p
@fiddlelearner "one year to learn 20 seconds of material? i must've missed something." -- Indeed you have. There might be 20 seconds of material in front of you, but the tune is bigger than that. You can memorize a face in twenty seconds from a photograph, and say 'OK, now I know that person, I'll get to know another one". It doesn't work like that.
@yaalhouse Note from the APOSTRAPHE (sic) police -- that should be 'coz :0)
Part of the journey is learning how to be discriminating in your choice of tunes or recordings. Just takes time, like eveything else! I looked up Black Haired Lass on YouTube and one of the videos on the first page was this, which I thought was quite decent playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Htz5ehmzho.
When you think a recording sucks, look up more recordings!
To resort to cliches (can't find the accent)
"Quality not quantity"
I.e. it's not how many tunes you have, but what you do with them.
Or "So many tunes, so little time"
so prioritise the ones you like or the ones at your session.
You can play a tune you've never heard before from the sheet music if you know how to sightread.
But I never take the "dots" literally. There could be errors in the way it was written down, or the player it was notated from could have an idiosyncratic version, or an idiosyncratic style, that doesn't fit how I play. So the "dots" simply give me a basic shape of the tune, and I reshape the tune to suit me.
There's really no point in doing that if your goal is to play with others- far better to record your local session and learn the tunes they play, the way they play them.
Unless your goal is to play by yourself at the session, or hope that everyone else will feel the need to learn YOUR tunes so that they can play with you. Good luck with that!
This is how I began to get some insight into where and how to play variations, having had, at the beginning no other choice but to rely on dots (I now have a teacher). I used dots to get the melody of the tune into my head. When I´d reached the stage that the melody was anchored in my brain I then put away the sheet and played around with the tune in my head. I used to just hum the tune and found that my brain came up with its own variations without me even having to think about them. e.g Take the first four bars of a jig: ´da da da di di di
da da da di di di. I found myself humming for example
da da da diiiiih di da da da diiiiiiiiiii and it was facinating becoming aware of the endless number different possibilities. Through listening to what was going on in my head I also became much more aware of which tone receives accentuation - again my brain did that automatically. All this though would not have been possible had I not listened to ITM for quite anumber of years before beginning to play myself. My brain had absorbed the sound and was reproducing the material that I then fed it to fit the sound it had internalized. It was a huge and exciting revelation for me at the time. Of course its not the whole story but it shows the importance of listening to good music and how that effects your own playing without you necessarily being aware of what´s going on. Good Luck.
The biggest danger comes from using your eyes instead of your ears, or in addition to your ears. Train your ears so you can trust them to know when the dots are crap.
I think everybody has learned a tune that they've had to adjust or relearn to bring it in line with the collectively accepted generic version thats in play. It's all down to the source, and irrespective of dots/abc by ear, in person from a recording etc I think we have to bear this in mind with all our tunes when we air them with others. Adjusting on the fly is something I've come to accept with my playing, even if I kick a tune off I'm still listening to how others are phrasing etc
Listening is key and if you are stuck with dots only or the repertoire of a limited number of players as reference, try as many different ways as you can to hear how others beyond your points of reference are playing those tunes, you tube online radio recordings etc there are loads of ways these days. It's important to realise that seldom can any version be considered definitive, an easy trap to fall into with the dots but also just as easy by ear if the source isn't fully up to speed with the broader interpretation.
Such wealth of wisdom and knowledge here, i can't keep up! I read all of the comments, but i don't reply to them all. Too many get my attention, change my perception, teach me something new... etc. Thanks for your generousity everyone (i will be back momentarilly)
"But until you know at least 100 tunes, you might be better off at least finding recordings of the tunes you want to learn"
I may need more than a 100... ;) What i'm trying to do is find more than one version of a recording so i can see just how many different ways a tune is played. I've had the most luck with "The Boys of Malin" which seems to be a really popular tune
"There might be 20 seconds of material in front of you, but the tune is bigger than that. You can memorize a face in twenty seconds from a photograph, and say 'OK, now I know that person, I'll get to know another one". It doesn't work like that."
Thanks gam, nice analogy. But after a year, would i be able to play my first tune well? I don't see myself getting much better any time soon, when it comes to playing the tunes. But my form, technique, and tone are beginning to sound a little better Oh AND my wrists and fingers are loosening up! Im so excited =D!
"Part of the journey is learning how to be discriminating in your choice of tunes or recordings." Did you mean "discerning" instead of "discriminating"? Thanks for the video by the way
"When you think a recording sucks, look up more recordings!"
Trying so hard, but it's a struggle when tunes aren't so popular. I'm working on it though.
"far better to record your local session and learn the tunes they play, the way they play them."
going to one tonight! I didn't think to take a recorder last time, but i remember this time!
"so prioritise the ones you like or the ones at your session."
got it.
"This is how I began to get some insight into where and how to play variations." Thanks for your input! I've been trying to figure out how variations were made but i figured i would only learn from experience along with some really good listening. Awesome thanks!
"Train your ears so you can trust them to know when the dots are crap."
Haha, yes! I learned from piano that you can't always trust every dot on the page. And also, the way that it was written may not always be the most enjoyable way to play it. Am i right?
"It's important to realize that seldom can any version be considered definitive, an easy trap to fall into with the dots but also just as easy by ear if the source isn't fully up to speed with the broader interpretation."
Hmmmm, interesting. Sounds to me like this music is Free. Freedom in music is a very beautiful thing.
I always find discussions like this very bemusing. Of course I'm glad Jerone is finding it useful, but I find them very frustrating, however useful they *potentially* are. I wonder for how many (silent?) others my experience is typical?
Yet again, much of the advice comes down to 'use your ears' and 'don't ever expect anything definitive'. Well, maybe it's just that my poor brain can't cope with such shifting sands, but I still can't get a handle on it. I need more specific guidance. Saying 'you just do it' doesn't provide many pointers for how... What I am I meant to be looking *for*???
I have been listening to recordings of this music for most of my life, and the general sound of the music is completely second-nature to me; I understand much about how it works as a genre. Most days I listen to at least 90 minutes of it - but I never seem to get close to hearing the subtle levels of definition and variation that are clearly obvious to many of the posters here.
I can pick up a tune easily from my OAIM lessons - quicker than the tutor is teaching it, and after some time, usually play a tune that I have been hearing on a CD without too much difficulty, so my ear can't be too bad. On my 'good' instruments, I can play it out at a good lick, and I've made strides with the nyah. I can also use dots as a start-point and still make a tune come to sound pretty idiomatic with no recourse to a recording, but is that enough? What should I do next? Why do such small distinctions and variations make such a difference? Is this just a case of experts knowing more and more about less and less, or is there more to it than that?
I am in no sense that I understand a beginner with this music, I have a reasonable ear for pitch and melody and a decent sense of rhythm, so what am I still not getting?
Just *how hard* does one have to listen, and what is the best way of going about it, given that , like Jerone, I don't have access to a real-life master whom I can ask to stop and show me? Is the answer to listen to 93 versions of the same tune? If it is, I don't have them. I can sometimes *hear* the differences when I can get two recordings of the same tune, but as for *what* is actualy different, who knows? Maybe the odd bit of articulation or a few notes here and there. Well, so what? Why am I not understanding why this is so important?
So for how long do people here spend on one tune before they are happy with it? (Accepting that is a bit of a length-of-a-piece-of-string type question...) Do you literally stop and take a tune apart bar by bar, phrase by phrase? What is the magic ingredient that you all find that I keep missing?
Neither do I find that people at my session are necessarily doing anything different. Most of them are working the same way that I do; I don't encounter any of the subtlety-talk around the session table, but it doesn't stop us having a great time, and when you go for a p** it still sounds O.K. from outside the circle.
Apologies for a negative and self-indulgent post, Jerone please excuse me; I keep trying to understand this, as I think does he, but feel I am getting nowhere. Technically I am a reasonable player, but every time I read discussions like this, hoping to learn, I just end up feeling rubbish. Maybe I am simply lacking something, musically? Frustrating...
??? wow ian stock, that's... depressing :( i'm sorry that you're going through this but maybe i can actually help
Honestly, i hope this isn't too vague... but i think it's about playing how you feel. I'm not going to talk about fiddle, but i'll use what i've learned from piano, and music in general.
It seems that to really enjoy ANY kindof music, you should play what feels natural, what you enjoy, what comes outof you as an artist.
It seems to me that with the basic *skeleton* of a piece isn't always enough. After awhile it becomes easy and monotonous and when that happens, it lacks actual expression and feeling
Maybe you're missing the part where playing music is about expressing how you actually feel. How this ties into your question i think, is when you have all of those little variations, improvisations, "ornaments" and things, you're putting a little bit of yourself into the music. You're putting a little bit of your own voice into it.
I just listened to one of your clips Ian and I think I can see where you are coming from.
I suppose it depends on how you look at this music. I hear it as a multi layered thing, rhythm, phrases, ornamentation, pitch variation all those things.
"Why do such small distinctions and variations make such a difference?"
A little bit can do a lot. Drop a grain of salt in someones eyes, i'm sure it would still sting. Drop a grain of sugar on someones tonge, its still sweet. But it's still only a grain.
Ok, say you have a C Major chord. CM = C,E,G. If you change that E, to an Eb, it changes the entire dynamic of the chord.
If you take the seventh note in a scale(the leading tone)[B in the key of C]and you make it flat, you change the entire dynamic of the scale. It is no longer a major scale, but a mixolydian scale...
Go gate crash a few tunes Ian, I always feel better after a tune myself. Especially those tunes where your comfort zone is pushed, a regular occurrence for me.
I think the real value in playing with others is that it pushes you in directions you wouldn't necessarily tread uncajoled. You know, the stuff you think you know that the stranger playing the same tune back to you puts where your wrong, or could improve, in sharp relief there and then.
It may be just a few notes or the timing of a phrase or two but I always come away thinking about my playing in ways I hadn't thought of before, ways I wouldn't have considered so readily if I had just been sat on my jack or with the same old not too critical crowd.
Cheers, Peter. I've read the article before, & only skimmed it now. I'll give it a good read, though. I'm realizing I have only learnt a few tunes directly from recordings by a pipers. I'm planning to change that. Mostly I listen to the flute, whistle, or fiddle. As much as I love piping I think my ears have just been doing backflips whenever I hear a good tune on pipes.
On the list below (from the article) it seems a few of those are not so easily emulated on mandolin. But, I think you (& Pat Mitchell) are pointing out more about the rhythmic quality rather than just the technique.
"While Irish traditional dance music may not have reached the level of development of Indian
classical music, when played well it is a multi-layered music full of subtlety and variation. The
scale of Irish traditional dance music is very different to that of western European art music or
other harmony-based music such as jazz. Both of these musics tend to move in broad harmonic
sweeps. By comparison, Irish traditional dance music changes on a microscopic scale with, for
instance, small variations in the timing of a grace note played at or near the end of a note greatly
altering the effect of the graced note for those who can perceive it. My own personal experience
suggests that those brought up only on harmonic music cannot actually hear all that is going on
in good Irish traditional dance music performance unless they spend a great deal of time
educating their ear."
"For me, the consummate performance will incorporate
• a strong rhythmic structure
• rhythmic variation
• legato and staccato playing
• changes in the pitch of certain notes
• slides up to notes
• ornamentation and changes in ornamentation on repeats
• variations in tone on some notes
• both small scale and large scale variations in the melody"
Rhythm & structure in Irish traditional dance music – Part 1.
The double jig as played on the Irish pipes.
Pat Mitchell.
The specific piping techniques aside, I think most things described apply equally to fiddle, flute or whistle. I have yet to find a better treatment of the subject. There's a part 2 as well but that's more piping focussed.
Yes, I can hear what happens when you change a major to a minor, and I can appreciate that a different phrase in a particular place can make a difference, but generally I take a tune as I find it. My emphasis has always been to try to play it accurately.
There are some tunes that I like simply because of one particular phrase within it, that makes the rest of it worth playing. For anyone who knows Joe McGann's Fiddle, those little triplets in the last part make the rest of it all worthwhile!
So I can appreciate the value of appealing sub-plots of a tune. I can also understand that each tune has its own unique character - each of them is like a person, and each of them is an old friend or a new acquaintance, but that's because I play them the way I learned them. What else is there? It's the 'play what you feel' bit that I don't get. Maybe I have spent just too much of my life trying to train my over-emotional self to be intellectually rational?
Prof: thanks for the link - will read it all when there's a little more time available tha right now.
Jerone - thanks for the thoughts - I think you may have hit the point, but not what to do about it...
Crossed posts with the above. I begin to think that my ear is just not sufficiently educated. I don't know why when I have been listening for so long...
I have been listening to this music most of my life, but so far as playing it is concerned I am a beginner. But this "emphasis has always been to try to play it accurately" doesn't mean anything to me.
I go to a beginner-friendly session and hear an experienced player doing something slightly different from what I am used to. I may pick up what it is a manage to do it myself (but usually screw up if I try). More often I try not to let it put me off and try to check that what I am doing isn't clashing. Very, very occassionally I am doing something that I must have picked up from somewhere (probably a recording) and the more experienced player does the same next time round. Where does 'accurate' come into it ?
"Why meddle with something that you like just as it is?" Because other people may like it different and their preference may have merit. On the other hand they may all have downloaded a set of dots from somewhere - it happens when one frequents beginner-friendly sessions.
I would suggest experimenting with the different variations and articulations.
With piano, experimenting helped a lot in terms of "playing how i felt". When you experiment you try things you've never tried before. Just experiment with playing different variations and things in different parts. If you don't like what you're doing, change it, or learn how to use it somewhere else. If you've been mechanically doing the same thing for years(in context of ornaments and variations) and you don't like what you're doing, try something new, or change it. That's the best advice i can give you friend. Sorry. :(
"Why meddle with something that you like just as it is?"
Music is another Art form. The people that wrote these tunes/pieces/songs are human also. Maybe you don't like how they do it lol.(but if you don't like it, try learning about it and your perception may change a bit) But really, some things need no variation. *Chopin's Etude Opus 10. No. 3 is a good example lol.
Hmm, the other possiblity is, of course, that it's possible to look *too* hard. If all we mean here is that we put some feeling/interpretation into our playing, then yes, of course it happens all the time... In which case, why make such a meal out of it?
Too many variables swilling round at the moment... for example, even with my very limited experience, it is rapidly becoming apparent that the fiddle/violin is simply a far more inherently expressive instrument than the mandolin. I wonder to what extent choice of instrument affects the outcome here? Playing a less expressive instrument may have an impact - which isn't to say that the Vivaldi mandolin concerti lack expressiveness, but maybe it doesn't happen so much on this instrument/genre combination?
I am aware that pipers need to look in different places for expression thanks to the nature of the instrument. Not sure where that leaves a mandolin. Perhaps taking up the fiddle has been the right thing to do...
And if it is simply a matter of personal preference, how come playing something straight-as-learned seems to be frowned upon?
What do you mean by 'playing something straight-as-learned'?
When Pat Mitchell mentions educating the ear it may not be equal for all concerned. Perhaps it depends on what you've learnt prior. If you've learned phrases do not cross barlines, music requires a strict downbeat, every tune should resolve, harmonies are implied, etc... it's difficult to simply change up what you've known about listening & playing music.
Ian - I don't know if this is helpful or not...but my understanding is that there are 2 kind of variation available to you - rhythmic and melodic.
I asked Kevin Burke to talk about variations at a workshop and he focused on rhythmic variations - since that is mostly what he does (John Carty would be a good model for you probably with melodic variation on his banjo - fiddle too but banjo is probably more appropriate for your ears). He talked about finding places where you can convert two eighth notes to a quarter note or three eighth notes to a dotted quarter.
Once you have that spot (and this can vary - maybe one time you're doing it on the 1 beat - the next time around it's on the 2 beat etc) you have several choices - play the long note, play a trebble/tripplet/whatever you call it on an mando, short roll or long roll (which you can't really do on your instrument), slides and maybe alternate notes in the same space (a quick run up or something).
You of course are also picking so varying your picking style/rhythm is probably a good thing to try as well (changing the accents etc) Maybe playing with hammer ons and offs on the mando?
Melodic variations are fun but more difficult if you are playing with others who are not clued in as what you play might clash with what they are doing. Easy to do is picking the same note in different octaves - hard is actually replacing an entire melodic chunk. But I would think that on a mandolin, the melodic variation would give you lots of good benefits if you can pull it off. I find that on the fiddle I tend to bend more notes and play a bit with the melody more if I'm playing with a piper - simply so you can hear my fiddle "around" the pipes....
But listening is important to know where the best timing is in the phrases for all of this....and to also get an idea of little rhythmic/melodic variations that can often substitute for one another (like the rolling run down on the fiddle that often is used as an alternative end of phrases).
Also, Kevin pointed out that there are certain parts of reels which are the rhythm part - meant to get the engine going so to speak - and other parts which are carrying the melody. So laying down a particular rhythm and then unexpectedly changing it up the next time it comes around can also add alot to what you're doing (see his version of Wind that Shakes the Barley for a good example of how to play with the basic rhythm of a tune).
Playing something "straight as learned" is fine, but if that's all you can do, you haven't really learned the tune yet. If you know the tune, you'll find that a few things happen. One is, you start to lose the name. I don't know why that is. Another thing is, you start to lose track of the way you learned it originally. This is a good thing, it means you're getting below the surface of the tune, you're starting to play the bones of it, and not so much the skin.
>>play the long note, play a trebble/tripplet/whatever you call it on an mando, short roll or long roll (which you can't really do on your instrument), slides and maybe alternate notes in the same space (a quick run up or something).
>> Maybe playing with hammer ons and offs on the mando?
I actually do use hammers and triplets anyway, much of the time almost without noticing it. Slides work less well where you have frets, though not impossible. Rolls? You bet you can't do them on a mandolin! Insufficient sustain. Learning the fiddle is proving very informative.
Melodic variations are of course a possibility, but I think this is where I vary/fail. My principal reason for learning a tune is that I like the melody as I hear it (that's what I mean as 'straight-as-learned', Ben). In which case, my aim is to to be able to play the bits of the tune that delighted me in the first place in just the same way that caused the initial delight. I rarely find anything that I consider to be an improvement. Yes, playing with the tempo/expression can add interest, notwithstanding, and I think I need to do more of that. Have been trying it on the fiddle this evening - also easier than on the mando.
You start examining so many possiblities at these points - the obvious one being that I have more of a residual classical mentality than I ever realised, and that maybe my fondness for Scottish music, which I think is more formalised in these respects, may be significant. Equally, that is has simply been a matter of too much emphasis on technique and not enough on interpretation.
The sean reid society piping article is very thought-provoking.
I meant to add, when does losing the orginal simply become a matter of cutting corners? That last part of Troy's Wedding is a case in point, or the B section of Lord Ramsay's Reel, both of which I play very differently, simply because I can't play the original properly!!!
Thanks, Ian. I thought you might be referring to the melody. Some may insist the melody cannot be separated out from everything in a tune. Though I'd say yes & no ~ another example of the ambiguity/paradox in this music. Be that as it may, I'm nowhere near as versatile at melodic variation as I am with rhythmic variation. However, I do notice when playing with various people that different people, or different groups of people, don't necessarily play similar melodies; & sometimes the differences are subtle.
One of the first things everyone told me, when I began learning traditional music, was don't learn only one version of a tune.
There's no excuse for not knowing the name of a tune. You can forget all (well, a few hundred) of the names, but you need to be quick enough to come up with a new one. Hopefully not every night.
"I meant to add, when does losing the orginal simply become a matter of cutting corners?"
I don't think it does. They're two very different things in my mind. "Cutting corners" to me suggests trying to play one surface form and failing due to a lack of technique, and retreating to a simpler and less good surface form. You're still living on the surface of the tune, you're still copying some fixed outward form, but you're just not doing it well.
Learning the tune means getting the inner form of the tune, which is something other than the melody, the chord structure, or this or that. Tautologically, what you learn when you learn the tune encompasses all and only the "good" variations*. What that looks like as a representation, I don't want to guess at, but when you get that, "playing the tune" means something different, and part of the difference is that you no longer play the same thing each time. (see the discussion on phrasing)
Then you get really good and you start a band and you have to learn how to play the same thing each time all over again.
"I guess that a lot of traditional music today is ego driven. The focus is on what do you do to a tune, what are the variations you can put in, how cool can you make it. A reversal of that for me is playing a tune, one tune, a very simple tune, that maybe takes 20 seconds to play. I would play it over and over and over for maybe half an hour. For the first ten minutes, my brain churns out all the possible variations and different things it could possibly do – that was very much me doing my thing to the tune. But then it would go through a period, again probably about 10 minutes, of the tune just being completely empty of everything, just the bare notes. And then something happens – things would start to come from nowhere. I think that’s probably pretty common with all sorts of artists, where you are no longer in control. Everyone talks about that, but it happened for me at age 17, and since then that for me is what music is about."
Ian, before you give up entirely on the mandolin, you should come to the Girvan festival in May. It will be crawling with scads of amazing mandolin players. Some of whom also play fiddle, but not all.
Listening to your clips, I'd say there's nothing horribly wrong with your phrasing. What I do hear is you rushing or kind of sloppily flailing through hard bits of the tunes and/or rushing the ends of the phrases. My advice would be the opposite of fiddlelearner's -- work on tightening and sharpening your right hand technique. The great mando players I know can strum and pluck away without mistiming a single note. In a way, that is far simpler than looking for the mysterious emotion and expression. If your technique is good, the phrasing and timing will be there for you. Certainly with the pipes, finding the timing and the rhythm and the phrasing is quite dependent on your technical proficiency. You don't have to be Paddy Keenan, but if you can't play solid rolls, crans, triplets, etc. in time, the whole tune goes a bit off.
That's it David50 -- [ jings but it's hard work reading that white-on-black ((@@)) ] Definitely something happens in the brain. Not exactly trance-like, but some sub- or super-function that kicks in. Or maybe turns off. I often sit and play the same tune for ages, over a hundred times through, before moving on to another. Time just slips by.
jon, I have no list. most of what has been said is repeated often enough that it only looks like I know where to find things. truth be told cataloguing would only muck me up. anything is everywhere.
Spear, I have no intention whatsoever of giving up the mandolin, it's just that as expected, the fiddle is taking a lot of my attention at present. A secondary reason for doing this is to find out what playing a 'first line' trad instrument can also teach me about what next to do on the mandolin. Already, my understanding of articulation has shot up from nearly zero - and I've only just started learning rolls!
Majella Bartley is an excellent teacher, but it's not just a matter of learning the mechanics - I'm also developing a better appreciation of how the ornamentation functions within the music - something that has never really happened on the mandolin, be it because of the nature of the instrument, or because I was self-taught. All that has to be good. That said, the fiddle is clearly a far more versatile instrument and is definitely weaving its own spell!
The points you made about the recordings I can take on board intellectually, but I don't find it easy to hear what you mean or when I'm doing it – even on the recordings – case of being *too* familiar with my own sound, maybe? The stress button also has its effect Phrasing has never even occurred to me as an issue - I just play what sounds right - but I can understand the points about r/h technique...
Jon, Gam - your comments are where I lose the plot, I'm afraid. Interesting, but I'm not really sure I understand them, unless it is something about 'essence of tune', and if so, I’m not quite sure what you mean, or how it is different from the tune itself.
I just play tunes I like, the way I like them, though that is usually pretty consistent and usually closely related to what I heard in the first place. To me, if you change notes etc. you simply turn it into a different tune... Maybe I am giving away a deep lack of artistry here, but I find it instead by playing around with *combinations* of tunes rather than their internal dynamics. For me, the changes *between* tunes in a set are far more important for imparting expression, character and mood. I tend to see each tune as a whole ‘person’ in its own right; yes, there are internal subtleties within, for example from A to B part, but it’s how they go together into the infinite number of sets that gets interesting and creative for me...
At one level, I am quite happy playing tunes like that because they all have characters, or phrases etc. in them that reward me sufficiently just the way they are... I have played some of them hundreds if not thousands of times, so it's no shortage on that front. But on another level, I feel spooked because it seems that I'm missing out on something vital in the music. I'm just not sure what it is 'inside' that is meant to be coming out (spontaneously?) to direct me to change the tunes themselves.
My reading of your words (and indeed Rallaghaigh's) suggest much difficulty in explaining what you mean. That's not a criticism, but maybe it's something that is just going to elude me, if it's not inherently there by now...different types of creative interpretation/sensibility, perhaps?
Thanks for your helpful comments, clearly a long and introspective journey, this one...
Yeah, I know how it is recording oneself. I always play like crap after I hit the little red button of death.
It's hard to articulate what I heard any more than I have, other than to say I hear an unevenness, or raggedness in your timing which I think has to do with right hand technique. I'm quite sensitive to that, as I used to (still, maybe, sometimes) do it myself. It's such an endemic affliction amongst pipers that I sometimes call it "piperitis," but it appears in players of all instruments. The best thing to do, as I've said before, is find some really good real live players to listen to. It will be worth the hassle of traveling somewhere, I promise.
Variations... I find they just happen as a result of playing a lot and listening even more. I thought I'd never be able to play them and now I can. Feck knows if it has to do with mushy emotional stuff or what is inside you or just having so much of this music in your head or having enough technique on hand to do different things with the same phrase each time through, or most likely all of the above. Sometimes I'll play a completely spontaneous run of notes and depending on how it went, either think, "That was awesome. What did I just do?" Or, "Oops. Variation fail." Other times, I'll be more deliberate about it. "Last time I cranned the D. This time I am going to bounce between the A and the bottom D."
For listening to pretty amazing variations that miraculously never lose sight of the tune, I can't recommend better than John Carty. Go find some recordings of the man and listen.
That's interesting, Emily, thanks. I am going to have to listen hard. Funnily enough I can certainly hear when Frank, our piper is rushing
As for 'having so much music inside you', what I find myself doing all the time is spontaneously composing new 'bitsa' tunes every time my fingers are on the fretboard, if they are not doing anything more necessary. Just wish I could remember the damned things 30 seconds later...
Will have to see about listening to some live players - and John Carty. Will have a look at Girvan but it's a long way for a weekend mid-term...
"I always play like crap after I hit the little red button of death"
When you hit record on Audacity, you'll see a little message at the bottom corner telling you how much recording time you have available. If that number is in days, just start rolling and don't bother to stop the tape. After a while, you forget that it's there.
It's April 29th-May 1st this year. The craic will be mighty, as usual. Life is short. Instead of worrying about what you're not doing right with the music, come to the beautiful, stunning hamlet of Girvan (what?) and hear some fantastic tunes (that part at least is true!).
Jon, I use Garageband, as it came with my Mac. Does it have the same feature?
I don't know, I've never used GarageBand, and I didn't see it when I poked around in there just now. Probably does, though, it's a piece of information you'd likely want while recording.
On the other hand, it's unlikely that you have any worries about running out of disc space while recording. If you do, throw a hundred bucks at a terabyte and devote it to recording. As long as you occasionally go back and find the good bits later, you should be okay for a good long while on that. Or if you just want a few hours, you could probably record to an 8-gig thumb drive.
Audacity's worth a try, though. It's more of a straight recording program, less of a "music construction kit" approach. Free download, what can you lose?
Hmm, long time ago that I last went through there, but that description doesn't stand out in my mind... I do seem to remember some very large pink rhododendrons in the vicinity, though.
Nothing, but when I used it, I pretty quickly found the limiting factor to be the quality of the mic and sound card on my computer - and that's a pretty decent one...
Yeah, there's not a lot that software can do to make up for that. Fortunately, we live in the modern world. You can get a decent mic for almost nothing, and now there seem to be decent mics that'll send digital signal, so you just go straight in by USB.
Brave new world.
"Go gate crash a few tunes Ian, I always feel better after a tune myself. Especially those tunes where your comfort zone is pushed, a regular occurrence for me.
I think the real value in playing with others is that it pushes you in directions you wouldn't necessarily tread uncajoled. You know, the stuff you think you know that the stranger playing the same tune back to you puts where your wrong, or could improve, in sharp relief there and then.
It may be just a few notes or the timing of a phrase or two but I always come away thinking about my playing in ways I hadn't thought of before, ways I wouldn't have considered so readily if I had just been sat on my jack or with the same old not too critical crowd." what i said further up the page.
Plus;
What Emily (TSS) is saying (and recommending) would most definitely send you home with a different mind set regarding your playing. Addressing all the issues you'd identify and wish to remedy would only have to compete for time with all the new tunes you'd learn and want to learn as a result. It's slowly working for me.
Solidmahog, I saw your previous comment, but I wasn't sure I understood it correctly
I don't really have a session where my comfort zone is pushed, and there is only one within easy reach to choose from. To some extent, the band is bringing forward new material, but I wouldn't say it is challenging my thinking (yet?). Maybe, given time.
I think Girvan is probably going to be too far on a weekend (bear in mind I can't control when I take leave, so I simply wouldn't get there and back quickly enough to have any quality time there) but I am spending two weeks in Scotland this summer, and I am hoping to play as much music as possible. Emily is already party to this!
I know I keep saying the same thing here, but I really do think a lot of this comes back to the limitations of not being able to participate in a full-on live music scene. Sometimes personal circumstances just don't allow, and there is an inevitable price to pay...
Geoff, thanks for the suggestion, but been there and done that. I have managed to dispense with the slower-downer too, but it's still only one predictable version you get to play each time...
Still, the monthly session and the new band are at least providing five opportunities a month to play with real human beings, which is progress. I really like the house-session band meetings, actually - character all of their own...
Jon said
>When you hit record on Audacity, you'll see a little message at the bottom corner telling you how much recording time you have available.
TheSilverSpear asked
>Jon, I use Garageband, as it came with my Mac. Does it have the same feature?
no GarageBand doesn't tell you that. it's not a big deal though. 1 minute of full quality (ie freshly recorded) audio is approx 10 MB of disk space. So 1 hour is 600 GB. 3 GB of disk space is 5 hours of recording time. However, it's good to leave a buffer zone and not record all the way up to 'FULL'
So i'd say that 3GB of disk space gives you an hour of recording time plus a decent amount of space for whatever your computer needs the hard drive for. You wouldn't need to be this aware if you're recording to an external HD.
i hope this gives an idea of what you can do with the remaining disk space.
If you learn how to play in the style: How to properly space eighth notes in a jig, appropriate ornamentation, how to make it sound like IrTrad, then learning a new tune by dots is no big deal. You learn it, you apply what you've learned about the style, learn how to play it slow or fast, find out where you prefer the tempo, apply ornamentation where you deem appropriate.
Then you go to the session, find out a note or phrase here or there is changed, maybe because of transcription errors, maybe because of regional differences, it doesn't matter. You make adjustments on the fly, no big deal, and happily play the tune along with everybody else.
The key is to learn the style in the beginning stages, which means lot of listening and imitation. I agree with others that someone learning from the start from the dots with no other resources is probably not going to get it right.
oakuss, I think you have summed that up excellently. And in the process, you made me feel better, as you described pretty closely how I already function...
Llig, your capacity to be cruel to be kind never ceases to amaze me
What happens when the dots is all you got?
What happens when the dots is all you got?
I play by ear, note, and "mimicry" and i have learned that all of them have their inconveniences.
First off, ear. It's a great way to learn. When you don't have sheet music, and no one can teach you, you can learn on your own. But the downside is, you can't learn a tune by ear that you've never heard before. So if you can't find a recording, how can you learn a tune? The other downside is, you can only play tunes you remember. Carrying around a list of all the tunes you know is one thing... remembering how they sound is completely different. *Can't sing a song if you don't member the words.*
Next, how can you learn a tune if no one that you know, knows how to play it? Some may say "Learn some more common tunes so you can play with some other folks", but what if you only get to go to two sessions a Month? The majority of the time you spend playing, is by yourself right? I've learned that this music is about Tradition and community and all of that good stuff. But let's be real, i'm playing pretty much for myself cause i have no one to play with. So i don't need to spend the majority of my time learning popular tunes.
Because of resources like this...
http://www.celtic-sheet-music.com/dancemusicofireland.html
we're able to find a BUNCH of tunes; some of which we may actually like a little. 1,000 of them. I'm sure there's at least 100 treasures on that list alone, that would be fun to play for a LIFETIME. But all it gives me is a manuscript and a MIDI file. Not a recording, or a video, or an Irish Genie that pops up and plays the tune for me. I've found recordings and videos of some of them, but i not all of them are... helpful
*i didn't like this, not one bit* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1aWVl7HNrk
or this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi9CWtNTlLk
Sheet music isn't evil. I'm very sure that if you put a manuscript in front of any of the great ITM musicians that know how to read, that they would play it with the same heart and soul as something they learned by ear.
So what happens when the dots is all you got? You learn it anyway. You don't have to follow the paper exactly. If you're good, you can improvise right? You can put in all your little twiddly parts and variations, if you're good.
Nothing is wrong with manuscript.
# Posted on April 2nd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Oh dear....yes and no. Alistair Anderson, a concertina player of note, once said 'I can read music but it helps if I know the tune'.
More, go look up Donald Rumsfeld's famous quote - I think it would cover the ground here quite neatly.
I'm impressed by your enthusiastic approach but sometimes you just have to wait until the 'time is filled' i.e. you can not 'get it overnight' whether by dot, ear or mimicry. Enjoy what you have now, time and perserverence will take care of every thing else. Rome weren't built in a day...
# Posted on April 2nd 2011 by john knoss
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Last friend announced he is an old fogie (how ever you spell it). His daughter told him she was talking to her friend. He wanted to say, "You're not talking. You're texting." But he didn't.
You're right about the dots, Jerone. They are not evil, just not music.
# Posted on April 2nd 2011 by Ben Steen
Oh Dear!
I hope he's not my last friend. I meant to type, "at our last session my friend announced ..."
# Posted on April 2nd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
oops, hit the send key too early,
The other thing is to listen out for internet archived broadcast programs and so on, the internet is a bit like the proverbial street corner; wait long enough and the whole world will stroll on by. I maybe get to one or two music sessions a month - I still have way too many tunes I want to learn
# Posted on April 2nd 2011 by john knoss
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Don't buy into all the hysteria, it's not what you've got, but what you do with it.
To coin the old phrase.....
# Posted on April 2nd 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"You're right about the dots, Jerone. They are not evil, just not music. "
Agreed.
A pile of bricks and mortar does not make a house.
The WAY you assemble them can matter a little, too.
In other words,
what you said.
I only plagiarize the best.
# Posted on April 2nd 2011 by Piece
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Hi Jerone!
Your question is wonderful; it certainly shows you are thinking seriously about your music.
The answers you have received all show the "right" way, and are sure to encourage you.
The analogy about the house is apt. Better to build on solid foundations, which will then support the "structure"...and once you have the house, with time you can make it a home.
Your hunger and thirst for the music is infectious, long may it be so!
Bless your fingers
All the best
Brian x
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by briantheflute
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Your frustration is understandable. I live somewhere, in the wilds of north Cornwall, where hardly anyone plays this music. The blokes I play with have all enthusiastically taught themselves with precious little input from any rock-solid traditional Irish musicians. Recordings have got us into a lot of the tunes we play. On the whole, a purist coming to our pub would, if he were the narrow-minded type, be perfectly horrified at some of our efforts, but two things - first, we have fun, and second, we are not exactly going to destroy "the tradition" (sorry, a horrid cliché learned from English folkies...) by doing what we do.
What I'd say to you is that you have recognised that printed music is not good enough. Excellent. So, if you really have to, learn some tunes from notation. But I would also say you should listen to recordings (and you have no excuse these days, what with all that stuff on YouTube). Get some grasp of the fact that you have to be incredibly flexible to play this music. Here's two ways you'll know you've got it wrong. First, you're playing with other people and you are not listening and you play "your version" regardless. Second, you hear someone playing a tune you learned from dots and you think, "God, they are just playing it WRONG!" In either case you have not been playing this music long enough to understand that only really accomplished players can learn from dots and emerge unscathed. So learn from dots if you must but any sign of rigidity in your outlook as a result will be immediately pounced on, guaranteed. Spottable a mile off it is. It's a fact of life!
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
In this age of the internet and YouTube, you never need to resort to sheet music. Here's what to do:
1. Buy yourself a digital recording device and take it to the semi-weekly session, and record all the tunes they play (ask them for permission first---they should be fine with this). Go home and learn every tune. Then go back and do it again, because they'll probably play different tunes the next week.
2. Learn by ear from the best players. There are thousands of clips of people like Tommy Peoples, Martin Hayes, Matt Molloy, Paddy Keenan, Jackie Daly...the list is endless, and you've had recommendations here before---seek them out on YouTube and learn the tunes you like. There are also places to download music, like Casey in the Cowhouse here: http://ceolalainn.blogspot.com/2010/09/bobby-casey-casey-in-cowhouse-1992.html (or buy it if you can find it---I'm pretty sure it's out of print)---you should listen to this until you know every single turn in every melody by heart. Learn the tunes on your fiddle if you can, but even if you can't, you should listen anyway.
These two things should keep you busy for a few years.
Finally, I really think you'll do yourself more harm than good if you just learn from sheet music at this point. It's not like you grew up listening to trad your whole life and know instinctively how it should sound, and you'll probably end up playing it wrong.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by kennedy
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
It seems like most of the tunes you're hearing are either from the bimonthly session you're attending or what you find online. There are some musician on this site who contribute to YouTube. Perhaps someone here knows how to find the best online video & audio clips. Might be better than constantly treading water & grabbing a handy life preserver (i.e. O'Neill's dance tunes).
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Once in a while I shake a scrap of sheet music before my students, asking them what it is.
They all know the answer : A piece of paper with stuff written on it.
All the theory in the world cannot replace the feeling of how your gut sits when the tune you're playing is grooving just right.
Eventually, though, some tools can come in handy, and reading the score can be as helpful as having a hammer when attempting to drive a nail; this said though, foundation comes before carpentry, in any edifice.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Fanning
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Someday, Jerone, you may have a strong craving to hear tunes played by certain musicians rather than simply the desire to try out more tunes for a test drive.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Tough world, eh, fiddlelearner? If you opened this thread expecting compromise you are probably already feeling somewhat disappointed. Get out all your CDs, google any of your favourite Irish players to find 'em on YouTube, take your recorder to your sessions. You weren't born next to the Cobblestone and you don't live within a mile of dozens of great players. Who does though! I think you know the issues and I think you'll be OK. I predict that your appetite for dots will rapidly diminish any time soon. But do your own thing.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
When you're listening to various YouTubes notice how some players will play a tune the same each time through as opposed to those who have more variation. You can transcribe it if you like.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
It's a living tradition. The variances a decent player puts on a tune each time are different. The phrasing is tinkered with, the ornaments, etc. It's never the same each time.
...which is why you can't really make dots of this music.
You can, you can use them, and you can play all the tunes the same way each time. You can find sessions filled with people playing the same tunes in the same way, time after time after time...
You can also watch paint dry, or insects copulate.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
...which would certainly be more interesting, I forgot to add.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
'I can read music but it helps if I know the tune'.
happily and patiently 
Just checking out the land i'm on ;)
But with classical piano music, it's quite the opposite(I can't tell you how many times i was told i was playing "Chopin's Etude Op. 10 No. 3" wrong...)
thanks for the refreshing.
There's nothing like having music in your ears... Completely agreed
"Enjoy what you have now, time and perserverence will take care of every thing else."
I'm still learning this lesson
"They are not evil, just not music."
Not music that you can hear, maybe music that you can see?
"The other thing is to listen out for internet archived broadcast programs and so on, the internet is a bit like the proverbial street corner; wait long enough and the whole world will stroll on by."
Great advice, another lesson in patience i need to learn
"it's not what you've got, but what you do with it."
hmmm, i think i like this one ;)
"Better to build on solid foundations, which will then support the "structure"...and once you have the house, with time you can make it a home."
That's my plan
"Here's two ways you'll know you've got it wrong. First, you're playing with other people and you are not listening and you play "your version" regardless. Second, you hear someone playing a tune you learned from dots and you think, "God, they are just playing it WRONG!" In either case you have not been playing this music long enough to understand that only really accomplished players can learn from dots and emerge unscathed."
True, true, true
"In this age of the internet and YouTube, you never need to resort to sheet music."
Youtube isn't quite the most reliable resource. But it is helpful.
I read the rest of your posts as well and the website you gave me is on my sources list
"It's not like you grew up listening to trad your whole life and know instinctively how it should sound, and you'll probably end up playing it wrong."
You're definetly right about that lol. And since i've been going to this session i've learned how wrong i can sound.
"All the theory in the world cannot replace the feeling of how your gut sits when the tune you're playing is grooving just right."
Good stuff, good stuff... manuscript could never replace music in your ears(and your gut
"If you opened this thread expecting compromise you are probably already feeling somewhat disappointed."
Haha, yeah right. I didn't expect compromise, i expected good advice, and good advice i got. No disappointment here
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Playing songs and tunes the same way over and over again is no fun. The problem is, i don't know enough about this music to do variations yet. I'm still trying to get at least one tune down pat(The Burnt Old Man from Kevin Burkes' "Eavesdropper" album)
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"When you're listening to various YouTubes notice how some players will play a tune the same each time through as opposed to those who have more variation. You can transcribe it if you like."
Very wise words.
Nothing wrong with dots - so long as they are used for just that. A reminder of the "skellington". Transcribing the way a particular player graces a phrase is useful for a reminder.
There are too many "anti-dots" about who would tell you they are evil. You can write down something somebody said in a thick accent - and recite it again at a later date complete with thich accent - so long as you know how to speak in that thick accent.
I wonder how many "modren" players are playing in "session.org ABC/midi style"? It kind of negates adding to what must be the most comprehensive archive of traditional toons on the net if all those tadpoles on wires are evil.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Weejie
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
ABC/midi style? whats that?
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
totally devoid of any excitement?
btw Dennis Cahill says it takes a year to learn your first tune, and the next one is a bit quicker. ;)
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by cStu
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
What happens when the dots is all you got?
Give up! Or get out more to sessions and play over and over and over again the tunes you either know, think you know, don't know or think is quiet like another tune you know, don't know or think you know.
Has that avoided any confusion (Like Mr Fahey's reels' names)
NOTE TO APOSTRAPHE POLICE: Please check out last paragraph coz' it has complex attempted apostraphe use.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"ABC/midi style? whats that? "
Open up abc2win, paste one of the tunes from this site into it, play the tune, emulate the sound, lose all your friends.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Weejie
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
one year to learn 20 seconds of material? i must've missed something.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
WARNING - often the dots are not "right" - even on this lovely site. Hey we're all human. (Be sure you read all the comments!)
And many printed books will have one particular player's version one time through...or they will try to cram in a number of variations on one pass through. If you've heard the tune before then you will immediately recognize "oh this is another variation I can do" but if you've never heard it, you might just think the B part is meant to be played differently each time (rather than one pass being the usual tune and the second being an outlying variation that is rather optional) or that you have to hit that lower B every time etc.
Or maybe they go the minimalist route and just put basic notes without any indicators of ornamentation - which can be problematic when you have tunes where almost everyone alive will roll a particular note - but if you're bare bones-ing it, you have to substitute 3 notes for the roll - and then what notes get picked? A B A? B C B? BBB?
That being said, you are right that many people do learn from the dots or use it as an aid and there's nothing wrong with it as long as they know how it's supposed to go - and part of that is based on knowing hundreds if not thousands of tunes that are similar. Written tune collections of this music have been made since before the 1900s - not the least of which was O'Neill's valiant effort to preserve as much as he could of what he was worried would be a dying tradition (ha!)....and many traditional teachers in Ireland used private notation systems (not staff music but other kinds of notation) to teach their students and trade tunes....
So, yes, written music is fine. But until you know at least 100 tunes, you might be better off at least finding recordings of the tunes you want to learn - to go along with the dots. In fact, alot of my learning on very notey tunes is by taking a written "score" and marking it up based on what I'm hearing on a recording...helps me get some of the subtle things I hear in there a bit clearer, I can make sure the dots are "right" and I avoid the unfortunate tendency among some ear-only learners to get it "close enough" and make up the rest.....:p
HTH
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by thejigisup
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
@fiddlelearner "one year to learn 20 seconds of material? i must've missed something." -- Indeed you have. There might be 20 seconds of material in front of you, but the tune is bigger than that. You can memorize a face in twenty seconds from a photograph, and say 'OK, now I know that person, I'll get to know another one". It doesn't work like that.
@yaalhouse Note from the APOSTRAPHE (sic) police -- that should be 'coz :0)
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by gam
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
PS there is a lot of sense in what his man says here:
http://www.brendantaaffe.com/caoimhin_oraghallaigh.html
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by gam
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Part of the journey is learning how to be discriminating in your choice of tunes or recordings. Just takes time, like eveything else! I looked up Black Haired Lass on YouTube and one of the videos on the first page was this, which I thought was quite decent playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Htz5ehmzho.
When you think a recording sucks, look up more recordings!
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
loads of tunes to hear and save on this site
http://irishflute.podbean.com/
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Gromit
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
To resort to cliches (can't find the accent)
"Quality not quantity"
I.e. it's not how many tunes you have, but what you do with them.
Or "So many tunes, so little time"
so prioritise the ones you like or the ones at your session.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by minijackpot
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
ctrl-alt
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by gam
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Bit like cryptic crossword puzzles, familiarity breeds. Propinquity.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by mcknowall
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
thanks Gromit -- I just had a look at that site to see how it was getting on and found this link there:
http://errantelbows.podbean.com/2011/04/
some nice piping and lovely tunes well presented.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by gam
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
You can play a tune you've never heard before from the sheet music if you know how to sightread.
But I never take the "dots" literally. There could be errors in the way it was written down, or the player it was notated from could have an idiosyncratic version, or an idiosyncratic style, that doesn't fit how I play. So the "dots" simply give me a basic shape of the tune, and I reshape the tune to suit me.
There's really no point in doing that if your goal is to play with others- far better to record your local session and learn the tunes they play, the way they play them.
Unless your goal is to play by yourself at the session, or hope that everyone else will feel the need to learn YOUR tunes so that they can play with you. Good luck with that!
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Richard D Cook
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
This is how I began to get some insight into where and how to play variations, having had, at the beginning no other choice but to rely on dots (I now have a teacher). I used dots to get the melody of the tune into my head. When I´d reached the stage that the melody was anchored in my brain I then put away the sheet and played around with the tune in my head. I used to just hum the tune and found that my brain came up with its own variations without me even having to think about them. e.g Take the first four bars of a jig: ´da da da di di di
da da da di di di. I found myself humming for example
da da da diiiiih di da da da diiiiiiiiiii and it was facinating becoming aware of the endless number different possibilities. Through listening to what was going on in my head I also became much more aware of which tone receives accentuation - again my brain did that automatically. All this though would not have been possible had I not listened to ITM for quite anumber of years before beginning to play myself. My brain had absorbed the sound and was reproducing the material that I then fed it to fit the sound it had internalized. It was a huge and exciting revelation for me at the time. Of course its not the whole story but it shows the importance of listening to good music and how that effects your own playing without you necessarily being aware of what´s going on. Good Luck.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by deirjon
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
The biggest danger comes from using your eyes instead of your ears, or in addition to your ears. Train your ears so you can trust them to know when the dots are crap.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I think everybody has learned a tune that they've had to adjust or relearn to bring it in line with the collectively accepted generic version thats in play. It's all down to the source, and irrespective of dots/abc by ear, in person from a recording etc I think we have to bear this in mind with all our tunes when we air them with others. Adjusting on the fly is something I've come to accept with my playing, even if I kick a tune off I'm still listening to how others are phrasing etc
Listening is key and if you are stuck with dots only or the repertoire of a limited number of players as reference, try as many different ways as you can to hear how others beyond your points of reference are playing those tunes, you tube online radio recordings etc there are loads of ways these days. It's important to realise that seldom can any version be considered definitive, an easy trap to fall into with the dots but also just as easy by ear if the source isn't fully up to speed with the broader interpretation.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Such wealth of wisdom and knowledge here, i can't keep up! I read all of the comments, but i don't reply to them all. Too many get my attention, change my perception, teach me something new... etc. Thanks for your generousity everyone
(i will be back momentarilly)
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
This made me lol.
"Not music that you can hear ..." It takes an open mind, a very open mind.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
4' 33"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYFL_vxegEY
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"But until you know at least 100 tunes, you might be better off at least finding recordings of the tunes you want to learn"
Oh AND my wrists and fingers are loosening up! Im so excited =D!
I didn't think to take a recorder last time, but i remember this time! 
I may need more than a 100... ;) What i'm trying to do is find more than one version of a recording so i can see just how many different ways a tune is played. I've had the most luck with "The Boys of Malin" which seems to be a really popular tune
"There might be 20 seconds of material in front of you, but the tune is bigger than that. You can memorize a face in twenty seconds from a photograph, and say 'OK, now I know that person, I'll get to know another one". It doesn't work like that."
Thanks gam, nice analogy. But after a year, would i be able to play my first tune well? I don't see myself getting much better any time soon, when it comes to playing the tunes. But my form, technique, and tone are beginning to sound a little better
"Part of the journey is learning how to be discriminating in your choice of tunes or recordings." Did you mean "discerning" instead of "discriminating"? Thanks for the video by the way
"When you think a recording sucks, look up more recordings!"
Trying so hard, but it's a struggle when tunes aren't so popular. I'm working on it though.
"loads of tunes to hear and save on this site
http://irishflute.podbean.com/";
Thanks!
"far better to record your local session and learn the tunes they play, the way they play them."
going to one tonight!
"so prioritise the ones you like or the ones at your session."
got it.
"This is how I began to get some insight into where and how to play variations." Thanks for your input! I've been trying to figure out how variations were made but i figured i would only learn from experience along with some really good listening. Awesome thanks!
"Train your ears so you can trust them to know when the dots are crap."
Haha, yes! I learned from piano that you can't always trust every dot on the page. And also, the way that it was written may not always be the most enjoyable way to play it. Am i right?
"It's important to realize that seldom can any version be considered definitive, an easy trap to fall into with the dots but also just as easy by ear if the source isn't fully up to speed with the broader interpretation."
Hmmmm, interesting. Sounds to me like this music is Free. Freedom in music is a very beautiful thing.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
lol Ben, a silent composition? lol.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I always find discussions like this very bemusing. Of course I'm glad Jerone is finding it useful, but I find them very frustrating, however useful they *potentially* are. I wonder for how many (silent?) others my experience is typical?
Yet again, much of the advice comes down to 'use your ears' and 'don't ever expect anything definitive'. Well, maybe it's just that my poor brain can't cope with such shifting sands, but I still can't get a handle on it. I need more specific guidance. Saying 'you just do it' doesn't provide many pointers for how... What I am I meant to be looking *for*???
I have been listening to recordings of this music for most of my life, and the general sound of the music is completely second-nature to me; I understand much about how it works as a genre. Most days I listen to at least 90 minutes of it - but I never seem to get close to hearing the subtle levels of definition and variation that are clearly obvious to many of the posters here.
I can pick up a tune easily from my OAIM lessons - quicker than the tutor is teaching it, and after some time, usually play a tune that I have been hearing on a CD without too much difficulty, so my ear can't be too bad. On my 'good' instruments, I can play it out at a good lick, and I've made strides with the nyah. I can also use dots as a start-point and still make a tune come to sound pretty idiomatic with no recourse to a recording, but is that enough? What should I do next? Why do such small distinctions and variations make such a difference? Is this just a case of experts knowing more and more about less and less, or is there more to it than that?
I am in no sense that I understand a beginner with this music, I have a reasonable ear for pitch and melody and a decent sense of rhythm, so what am I still not getting?
Just *how hard* does one have to listen, and what is the best way of going about it, given that , like Jerone, I don't have access to a real-life master whom I can ask to stop and show me? Is the answer to listen to 93 versions of the same tune? If it is, I don't have them. I can sometimes *hear* the differences when I can get two recordings of the same tune, but as for *what* is actualy different, who knows? Maybe the odd bit of articulation or a few notes here and there. Well, so what? Why am I not understanding why this is so important?
So for how long do people here spend on one tune before they are happy with it? (Accepting that is a bit of a length-of-a-piece-of-string type question...) Do you literally stop and take a tune apart bar by bar, phrase by phrase? What is the magic ingredient that you all find that I keep missing?
Neither do I find that people at my session are necessarily doing anything different. Most of them are working the same way that I do; I don't encounter any of the subtlety-talk around the session table, but it doesn't stop us having a great time, and when you go for a p** it still sounds O.K. from outside the circle.
Apologies for a negative and self-indulgent post, Jerone please excuse me; I keep trying to understand this, as I think does he, but feel I am getting nowhere. Technically I am a reasonable player, but every time I read discussions like this, hoping to learn, I just end up feeling rubbish. Maybe I am simply lacking something, musically? Frustrating...
Ian
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Ian, you're not rubbish.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
??? wow ian stock, that's... depressing :( i'm sorry that you're going through this but maybe i can actually help
Honestly, i hope this isn't too vague... but i think it's about playing how you feel. I'm not going to talk about fiddle, but i'll use what i've learned from piano, and music in general.
It seems that to really enjoy ANY kindof music, you should play what feels natural, what you enjoy, what comes outof you as an artist.
It seems to me that with the basic *skeleton* of a piece isn't always enough. After awhile it becomes easy and monotonous and when that happens, it lacks actual expression and feeling
Maybe you're missing the part where playing music is about expressing how you actually feel. How this ties into your question i think, is when you have all of those little variations, improvisations, "ornaments" and things, you're putting a little bit of yourself into the music. You're putting a little bit of your own voice into it.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Yeah, that's fairly vague. Nice intention, though.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I just listened to one of your clips Ian and I think I can see where you are coming from.
I suppose it depends on how you look at this music. I hear it as a multi layered thing, rhythm, phrases, ornamentation, pitch variation all those things.
This could supply some insight:
http://seanreidsociety.org/SRSJ1/Rhythm%20and%20structure%20in%20Irish%20traditional%20dance%20music.PDF
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"Why do such small distinctions and variations make such a difference?"
A little bit can do a lot. Drop a grain of salt in someones eyes, i'm sure it would still sting. Drop a grain of sugar on someones tonge, its still sweet. But it's still only a grain.
Ok, say you have a C Major chord. CM = C,E,G. If you change that E, to an Eb, it changes the entire dynamic of the chord.
If you take the seventh note in a scale(the leading tone)[B in the key of C]and you make it flat, you change the entire dynamic of the scale. It is no longer a major scale, but a mixolydian scale...
Am i close or far off? should i stop or continue?
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Go gate crash a few tunes Ian, I always feel better after a tune myself. Especially those tunes where your comfort zone is pushed, a regular occurrence for me.
I think the real value in playing with others is that it pushes you in directions you wouldn't necessarily tread uncajoled. You know, the stuff you think you know that the stranger playing the same tune back to you puts where your wrong, or could improve, in sharp relief there and then.
It may be just a few notes or the timing of a phrase or two but I always come away thinking about my playing in ways I hadn't thought of before, ways I wouldn't have considered so readily if I had just been sat on my jack or with the same old not too critical crowd.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Cheers, Peter. I've read the article before, & only skimmed it now. I'll give it a good read, though. I'm realizing I have only learnt a few tunes directly from recordings by a pipers. I'm planning to change that. Mostly I listen to the flute, whistle, or fiddle. As much as I love piping I think my ears have just been doing backflips whenever I hear a good tune on pipes.
On the list below (from the article) it seems a few of those are not so easily emulated on mandolin. But, I think you (& Pat Mitchell) are pointing out more about the rhythmic quality rather than just the technique.
"While Irish traditional dance music may not have reached the level of development of Indian
classical music, when played well it is a multi-layered music full of subtlety and variation. The
scale of Irish traditional dance music is very different to that of western European art music or
other harmony-based music such as jazz. Both of these musics tend to move in broad harmonic
sweeps. By comparison, Irish traditional dance music changes on a microscopic scale with, for
instance, small variations in the timing of a grace note played at or near the end of a note greatly
altering the effect of the graced note for those who can perceive it. My own personal experience
suggests that those brought up only on harmonic music cannot actually hear all that is going on
in good Irish traditional dance music performance unless they spend a great deal of time
educating their ear."
"For me, the consummate performance will incorporate
• a strong rhythmic structure
• rhythmic variation
• legato and staccato playing
• changes in the pitch of certain notes
• slides up to notes
• ornamentation and changes in ornamentation on repeats
• variations in tone on some notes
• both small scale and large scale variations in the melody"
Rhythm & structure in Irish traditional dance music – Part 1.
The double jig as played on the Irish pipes.
Pat Mitchell.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
The specific piping techniques aside, I think most things described apply equally to fiddle, flute or whistle. I have yet to find a better treatment of the subject. There's a part 2 as well but that's more piping focussed.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Yes, I can hear what happens when you change a major to a minor, and I can appreciate that a different phrase in a particular place can make a difference, but generally I take a tune as I find it. My emphasis has always been to try to play it accurately.
There are some tunes that I like simply because of one particular phrase within it, that makes the rest of it worth playing. For anyone who knows Joe McGann's Fiddle, those little triplets in the last part make the rest of it all worthwhile!
So I can appreciate the value of appealing sub-plots of a tune. I can also understand that each tune has its own unique character - each of them is like a person, and each of them is an old friend or a new acquaintance, but that's because I play them the way I learned them. What else is there? It's the 'play what you feel' bit that I don't get. Maybe I have spent just too much of my life trying to train my over-emotional self to be intellectually rational?
Prof: thanks for the link - will read it all when there's a little more time available tha right now.
Jerone - thanks for the thoughts - I think you may have hit the point, but not what to do about it...
Ben, thanks for your faith!
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Crossed posts with the above. I begin to think that my ear is just not sufficiently educated. I don't know why when I have been listening for so long...
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I have been listening to this music most of my life, but so far as playing it is concerned I am a beginner. But this "emphasis has always been to try to play it accurately" doesn't mean anything to me.
I go to a beginner-friendly session and hear an experienced player doing something slightly different from what I am used to. I may pick up what it is a manage to do it myself (but usually screw up if I try). More often I try not to let it put me off and try to check that what I am doing isn't clashing. Very, very occassionally I am doing something that I must have picked up from somewhere (probably a recording) and the more experienced player does the same next time round. Where does 'accurate' come into it ?
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Yes, I knew someone would pick me up on that
Accurate to the version that I heard and liked. Why meddle with something that you like just as it is?
Prof.: would you care, please, to comment on what you heard, or didn't hear, in my recording? (Which track?) I can take it
Ian
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"Why meddle with something that you like just as it is?" Because other people may like it different and their preference may have merit. On the other hand they may all have downloaded a set of dots from somewhere - it happens when one frequents beginner-friendly sessions.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I would suggest experimenting with the different variations and articulations.
With piano, experimenting helped a lot in terms of "playing how i felt". When you experiment you try things you've never tried before. Just experiment with playing different variations and things in different parts. If you don't like what you're doing, change it, or learn how to use it somewhere else. If you've been mechanically doing the same thing for years(in context of ornaments and variations) and you don't like what you're doing, try something new, or change it. That's the best advice i can give you friend. Sorry. :(
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"Why meddle with something that you like just as it is?"
Music is another Art form. The people that wrote these tunes/pieces/songs are human also. Maybe you don't like how they do it lol.(but if you don't like it, try learning about it and your perception may change a bit) But really, some things need no variation. *Chopin's Etude Opus 10. No. 3 is a good example lol.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
those meddlers ...
Beethoven 33 Variations Waltz by Anton Diabelli op.120 Var.8
Hiroshi(?) Yokoyama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tnGbQNqXlI
Mozart - Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Fazil Say
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMhYomyVYGs
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Hmm, the other possiblity is, of course, that it's possible to look *too* hard. If all we mean here is that we put some feeling/interpretation into our playing, then yes, of course it happens all the time... In which case, why make such a meal out of it?
Too many variables swilling round at the moment... for example, even with my very limited experience, it is rapidly becoming apparent that the fiddle/violin is simply a far more inherently expressive instrument than the mandolin. I wonder to what extent choice of instrument affects the outcome here? Playing a less expressive instrument may have an impact - which isn't to say that the Vivaldi mandolin concerti lack expressiveness, but maybe it doesn't happen so much on this instrument/genre combination?
I am aware that pipers need to look in different places for expression thanks to the nature of the instrument. Not sure where that leaves a mandolin. Perhaps taking up the fiddle has been the right thing to do...
And if it is simply a matter of personal preference, how come playing something straight-as-learned seems to be frowned upon?
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
i don't know why it's frowned upon, i don't have a problem with it.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
What do you mean by 'playing something straight-as-learned'?
When Pat Mitchell mentions educating the ear it may not be equal for all concerned. Perhaps it depends on what you've learnt prior. If you've learned phrases do not cross barlines, music requires a strict downbeat, every tune should resolve, harmonies are implied, etc... it's difficult to simply change up what you've known about listening & playing music.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Ian - I don't know if this is helpful or not...but my understanding is that there are 2 kind of variation available to you - rhythmic and melodic.
I asked Kevin Burke to talk about variations at a workshop and he focused on rhythmic variations - since that is mostly what he does (John Carty would be a good model for you probably with melodic variation on his banjo - fiddle too but banjo is probably more appropriate for your ears). He talked about finding places where you can convert two eighth notes to a quarter note or three eighth notes to a dotted quarter.
Once you have that spot (and this can vary - maybe one time you're doing it on the 1 beat - the next time around it's on the 2 beat etc) you have several choices - play the long note, play a trebble/tripplet/whatever you call it on an mando, short roll or long roll (which you can't really do on your instrument), slides and maybe alternate notes in the same space (a quick run up or something).
You of course are also picking so varying your picking style/rhythm is probably a good thing to try as well (changing the accents etc) Maybe playing with hammer ons and offs on the mando?
Melodic variations are fun but more difficult if you are playing with others who are not clued in as what you play might clash with what they are doing. Easy to do is picking the same note in different octaves - hard is actually replacing an entire melodic chunk. But I would think that on a mandolin, the melodic variation would give you lots of good benefits if you can pull it off. I find that on the fiddle I tend to bend more notes and play a bit with the melody more if I'm playing with a piper - simply so you can hear my fiddle "around" the pipes....
But listening is important to know where the best timing is in the phrases for all of this....and to also get an idea of little rhythmic/melodic variations that can often substitute for one another (like the rolling run down on the fiddle that often is used as an alternative end of phrases).
Also, Kevin pointed out that there are certain parts of reels which are the rhythm part - meant to get the engine going so to speak - and other parts which are carrying the melody. So laying down a particular rhythm and then unexpectedly changing it up the next time it comes around can also add alot to what you're doing (see his version of Wind that Shakes the Barley for a good example of how to play with the basic rhythm of a tune).
Does that help?
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by thejigisup
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Playing something "straight as learned" is fine, but if that's all you can do, you haven't really learned the tune yet. If you know the tune, you'll find that a few things happen. One is, you start to lose the name. I don't know why that is. Another thing is, you start to lose track of the way you learned it originally. This is a good thing, it means you're getting below the surface of the tune, you're starting to play the bones of it, and not so much the skin.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
thejigisup, yes I think it does, thanks...
>>play the long note, play a trebble/tripplet/whatever you call it on an mando, short roll or long roll (which you can't really do on your instrument), slides and maybe alternate notes in the same space (a quick run up or something).
>> Maybe playing with hammer ons and offs on the mando?
I actually do use hammers and triplets anyway, much of the time almost without noticing it. Slides work less well where you have frets, though not impossible. Rolls? You bet you can't do them on a mandolin! Insufficient sustain. Learning the fiddle is proving very informative.
Melodic variations are of course a possibility, but I think this is where I vary/fail. My principal reason for learning a tune is that I like the melody as I hear it (that's what I mean as 'straight-as-learned', Ben). In which case, my aim is to to be able to play the bits of the tune that delighted me in the first place in just the same way that caused the initial delight. I rarely find anything that I consider to be an improvement. Yes, playing with the tempo/expression can add interest, notwithstanding, and I think I need to do more of that. Have been trying it on the fiddle this evening - also easier than on the mando.
You start examining so many possiblities at these points - the obvious one being that I have more of a residual classical mentality than I ever realised, and that maybe my fondness for Scottish music, which I think is more formalised in these respects, may be significant. Equally, that is has simply been a matter of too much emphasis on technique and not enough on interpretation.
The sean reid society piping article is very thought-provoking.
Ian
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
>>One is, you start to lose the name.
Yes, that happens...
Another thing is, you start to lose track of the way you learned it originally.
That, sometimes, too. But by no means always even with tunes I've known for years...
>>This is a good thing, it means you're getting below the surface of the tune, you're starting to play the bones of it, and not so much the skin.
Fact, or opinion, Jon? What's so good about skeletons?
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I meant to add, when does losing the orginal simply become a matter of cutting corners? That last part of Troy's Wedding is a case in point, or the B section of Lord Ramsay's Reel, both of which I play very differently, simply because I can't play the original properly!!!
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Thanks, Ian. I thought you might be referring to the melody. Some may insist the melody cannot be separated out from everything in a tune. Though I'd say yes & no ~ another example of the ambiguity/paradox in this music. Be that as it may, I'm nowhere near as versatile at melodic variation as I am with rhythmic variation. However, I do notice when playing with various people that different people, or different groups of people, don't necessarily play similar melodies; & sometimes the differences are subtle.
One of the first things everyone told me, when I began learning traditional music, was don't learn only one version of a tune.
There's no excuse for not knowing the name of a tune. You can forget all (well, a few hundred) of the names, but you need to be quick enough to come up with a new one. Hopefully not every night.
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"I meant to add, when does losing the orginal simply become a matter of cutting corners?"
I don't think it does. They're two very different things in my mind. "Cutting corners" to me suggests trying to play one surface form and failing due to a lack of technique, and retreating to a simpler and less good surface form. You're still living on the surface of the tune, you're still copying some fixed outward form, but you're just not doing it well.
Learning the tune means getting the inner form of the tune, which is something other than the melody, the chord structure, or this or that. Tautologically, what you learn when you learn the tune encompasses all and only the "good" variations*. What that looks like as a representation, I don't want to guess at, but when you get that, "playing the tune" means something different, and part of the difference is that you no longer play the same thing each time. (see the discussion on phrasing)
Then you get really good and you start a band and you have to learn how to play the same thing each time all over again.
* subjective, yes, is there a problem with that?
# Posted on April 3rd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"(see the discussion on phrasing)"
pretty soon we'll need a table of contents, annotations, & documentation. In other words ~ more dots.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I thought you'd already assembled all that, Ben. That's how you always come up with the references, isn't it?
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
@Ian Stock: you may be interested in this, from Caoimhin O'Rallaghaigh:-
http://journalofmusic.com/article/661
"I guess that a lot of traditional music today is ego driven. The focus is on what do you do to a tune, what are the variations you can put in, how cool can you make it. A reversal of that for me is playing a tune, one tune, a very simple tune, that maybe takes 20 seconds to play. I would play it over and over and over for maybe half an hour. For the first ten minutes, my brain churns out all the possible variations and different things it could possibly do – that was very much me doing my thing to the tune. But then it would go through a period, again probably about 10 minutes, of the tune just being completely empty of everything, just the bare notes. And then something happens – things would start to come from nowhere. I think that’s probably pretty common with all sorts of artists, where you are no longer in control. Everyone talks about that, but it happened for me at age 17, and since then that for me is what music is about."
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by gam
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
That quote reminded me of things said about variation and repetition in this "http://www.johnkirkpatrick.co.uk/wr_MedleyMania.asp
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by David50
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Ian, before you give up entirely on the mandolin, you should come to the Girvan festival in May. It will be crawling with scads of amazing mandolin players.
Some of whom also play fiddle, but not all.
In a way, that is far simpler than looking for the mysterious emotion and expression. If your technique is good, the phrasing and timing will be there for you. Certainly with the pipes, finding the timing and the rhythm and the phrasing is quite dependent on your technical proficiency. You don't have to be Paddy Keenan, but if you can't play solid rolls, crans, triplets, etc. in time, the whole tune goes a bit off.
Listening to your clips, I'd say there's nothing horribly wrong with your phrasing. What I do hear is you rushing or kind of sloppily flailing through hard bits of the tunes and/or rushing the ends of the phrases. My advice would be the opposite of fiddlelearner's -- work on tightening and sharpening your right hand technique. The great mando players I know can strum and pluck away without mistiming a single note.
But yeah, Girvan!
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
That's it David50 -- [ jings but it's hard work reading that white-on-black ((@@)) ] Definitely something happens in the brain. Not exactly trance-like, but some sub- or super-function that kicks in. Or maybe turns off. I often sit and play the same tune for ages, over a hundred times through, before moving on to another. Time just slips by.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by gam
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
jon, I have no list. most of what has been said is repeated often enough that it only looks like I know where to find things. truth be told cataloguing would only muck me up. anything is everywhere.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Spear, I have no intention whatsoever of giving up the mandolin, it's just that as expected, the fiddle is taking a lot of my attention at present. A secondary reason for doing this is to find out what playing a 'first line' trad instrument can also teach me about what next to do on the mandolin. Already, my understanding of articulation has shot up from nearly zero - and I've only just started learning rolls!
Phrasing has never even occurred to me as an issue - I just play what sounds right - but I can understand the points about r/h technique...
Majella Bartley is an excellent teacher, but it's not just a matter of learning the mechanics - I'm also developing a better appreciation of how the ornamentation functions within the music - something that has never really happened on the mandolin, be it because of the nature of the instrument, or because I was self-taught. All that has to be good. That said, the fiddle is clearly a far more versatile instrument and is definitely weaving its own spell!
The points you made about the recordings I can take on board intellectually, but I don't find it easy to hear what you mean or when I'm doing it – even on the recordings – case of being *too* familiar with my own sound, maybe? The stress button also has its effect
Jon, Gam - your comments are where I lose the plot, I'm afraid. Interesting, but I'm not really sure I understand them, unless it is something about 'essence of tune', and if so, I’m not quite sure what you mean, or how it is different from the tune itself.
I just play tunes I like, the way I like them, though that is usually pretty consistent and usually closely related to what I heard in the first place. To me, if you change notes etc. you simply turn it into a different tune... Maybe I am giving away a deep lack of artistry here, but I find it instead by playing around with *combinations* of tunes rather than their internal dynamics. For me, the changes *between* tunes in a set are far more important for imparting expression, character and mood. I tend to see each tune as a whole ‘person’ in its own right; yes, there are internal subtleties within, for example from A to B part, but it’s how they go together into the infinite number of sets that gets interesting and creative for me...
At one level, I am quite happy playing tunes like that because they all have characters, or phrases etc. in them that reward me sufficiently just the way they are... I have played some of them hundreds if not thousands of times, so it's no shortage on that front. But on another level, I feel spooked because it seems that I'm missing out on something vital in the music. I'm just not sure what it is 'inside' that is meant to be coming out (spontaneously?) to direct me to change the tunes themselves.
My reading of your words (and indeed Rallaghaigh's) suggest much difficulty in explaining what you mean. That's not a criticism, but maybe it's something that is just going to elude me, if it's not inherently there by now...different types of creative interpretation/sensibility, perhaps?
Thanks for your helpful comments, clearly a long and introspective journey, this one...
Ian
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Yeah, I know how it is recording oneself. I always play like crap after I hit the little red button of death.
It's hard to articulate what I heard any more than I have, other than to say I hear an unevenness, or raggedness in your timing which I think has to do with right hand technique. I'm quite sensitive to that, as I used to (still, maybe, sometimes) do it myself. It's such an endemic affliction amongst pipers that I sometimes call it "piperitis," but it appears in players of all instruments. The best thing to do, as I've said before, is find some really good real live players to listen to. It will be worth the hassle of traveling somewhere, I promise.
Variations... I find they just happen as a result of playing a lot and listening even more. I thought I'd never be able to play them and now I can. Feck knows if it has to do with mushy emotional stuff or what is inside you or just having so much of this music in your head or having enough technique on hand to do different things with the same phrase each time through, or most likely all of the above. Sometimes I'll play a completely spontaneous run of notes and depending on how it went, either think, "That was awesome. What did I just do?" Or, "Oops. Variation fail." Other times, I'll be more deliberate about it. "Last time I cranned the D. This time I am going to bounce between the A and the bottom D."
For listening to pretty amazing variations that miraculously never lose sight of the tune, I can't recommend better than John Carty. Go find some recordings of the man and listen.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
That's interesting, Emily, thanks. I am going to have to listen hard. Funnily enough I can certainly hear when Frank, our piper is rushing
As for 'having so much music inside you', what I find myself doing all the time is spontaneously composing new 'bitsa' tunes every time my fingers are on the fretboard, if they are not doing anything more necessary. Just wish I could remember the damned things 30 seconds later...
Will have to see about listening to some live players - and John Carty. Will have a look at Girvan but it's a long way for a weekend mid-term...
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
"I always play like crap after I hit the little red button of death"
When you hit record on Audacity, you'll see a little message at the bottom corner telling you how much recording time you have available. If that number is in days, just start rolling and don't bother to stop the tape. After a while, you forget that it's there.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
It's April 29th-May 1st this year. The craic will be mighty, as usual. Life is short. Instead of worrying about what you're not doing right with the music, come to the beautiful, stunning hamlet of Girvan (what?) and hear some fantastic tunes (that part at least is true!).
Jon, I use Garageband, as it came with my Mac. Does it have the same feature?
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
I don't know, I've never used GarageBand, and I didn't see it when I poked around in there just now. Probably does, though, it's a piece of information you'd likely want while recording.
On the other hand, it's unlikely that you have any worries about running out of disc space while recording. If you do, throw a hundred bucks at a terabyte and devote it to recording. As long as you occasionally go back and find the good bits later, you should be okay for a good long while on that. Or if you just want a few hours, you could probably record to an 8-gig thumb drive.
Audacity's worth a try, though. It's more of a straight recording program, less of a "music construction kit" approach. Free download, what can you lose?
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
>>beautiful, stunning hamlet of Girvan
I do seem to remember some very large pink rhododendrons in the vicinity, though.
Hmm, long time ago that I last went through there, but that description doesn't stand out in my mind...
I'll see what the 'boss' thinks...
Ian.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
>> Free download, what can you lose
Nothing, but when I used it, I pretty quickly found the limiting factor to be the quality of the mic and sound card on my computer - and that's a pretty decent one...
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Yeah, there's not a lot that software can do to make up for that. Fortunately, we live in the modern world. You can get a decent mic for almost nothing, and now there seem to be decent mics that'll send digital signal, so you just go straight in by USB.
Brave new world.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Ian,
"Go gate crash a few tunes Ian, I always feel better after a tune myself. Especially those tunes where your comfort zone is pushed, a regular occurrence for me.
I think the real value in playing with others is that it pushes you in directions you wouldn't necessarily tread uncajoled. You know, the stuff you think you know that the stranger playing the same tune back to you puts where your wrong, or could improve, in sharp relief there and then.
It may be just a few notes or the timing of a phrase or two but I always come away thinking about my playing in ways I hadn't thought of before, ways I wouldn't have considered so readily if I had just been sat on my jack or with the same old not too critical crowd." what i said further up the page.
Plus;
What Emily (TSS) is saying (and recommending) would most definitely send you home with a different mind set regarding your playing. Addressing all the issues you'd identify and wish to remedy would only have to compete for time with all the new tunes you'd learn and want to learn as a result. It's slowly working for me.
# Posted on April 4th 2011 by Solidmahog
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
get a slower-down package on your computer and play along to all your cds.
# Posted on April 5th 2011 by geoffwright
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Solidmahog, I saw your previous comment, but I wasn't sure I understood it correctly
I don't really have a session where my comfort zone is pushed, and there is only one within easy reach to choose from. To some extent, the band is bringing forward new material, but I wouldn't say it is challenging my thinking (yet?). Maybe, given time.
I think Girvan is probably going to be too far on a weekend (bear in mind I can't control when I take leave, so I simply wouldn't get there and back quickly enough to have any quality time there) but I am spending two weeks in Scotland this summer, and I am hoping to play as much music as possible. Emily is already party to this!
I know I keep saying the same thing here, but I really do think a lot of this comes back to the limitations of not being able to participate in a full-on live music scene. Sometimes personal circumstances just don't allow, and there is an inevitable price to pay...
Geoff, thanks for the suggestion, but been there and done that. I have managed to dispense with the slower-downer too, but it's still only one predictable version you get to play each time...
Still, the monthly session and the new band are at least providing five opportunities a month to play with real human beings, which is progress. I really like the house-session band meetings, actually - character all of their own...
# Posted on April 5th 2011 by ian stock
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Jon said
>When you hit record on Audacity, you'll see a little message at the bottom corner telling you how much recording time you have available.
TheSilverSpear asked
>Jon, I use Garageband, as it came with my Mac. Does it have the same feature?
no GarageBand doesn't tell you that. it's not a big deal though. 1 minute of full quality (ie freshly recorded) audio is approx 10 MB of disk space. So 1 hour is 600 GB. 3 GB of disk space is 5 hours of recording time. However, it's good to leave a buffer zone and not record all the way up to 'FULL'
So i'd say that 3GB of disk space gives you an hour of recording time plus a decent amount of space for whatever your computer needs the hard drive for. You wouldn't need to be this aware if you're recording to an external HD.
i hope this gives an idea of what you can do with the remaining disk space.
# Posted on April 6th 2011 by cStu
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
If you learn how to play in the style: How to properly space eighth notes in a jig, appropriate ornamentation, how to make it sound like IrTrad, then learning a new tune by dots is no big deal. You learn it, you apply what you've learned about the style, learn how to play it slow or fast, find out where you prefer the tempo, apply ornamentation where you deem appropriate.
Then you go to the session, find out a note or phrase here or there is changed, maybe because of transcription errors, maybe because of regional differences, it doesn't matter. You make adjustments on the fly, no big deal, and happily play the tune along with everybody else.
The key is to learn the style in the beginning stages, which means lot of listening and imitation. I agree with others that someone learning from the start from the dots with no other resources is probably not going to get it right.
# Posted on April 6th 2011 by oakuss
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
Pobably? You mean certainly. And this is why one shouldn't share transcriptions of tunes with strangers,
# Posted on April 6th 2011 by ...
Re: What happens when the dots is all you got?
oakuss, I think you have summed that up excellently. And in the process, you made me feel better, as you described pretty closely how I already function...
Llig, your capacity to be cruel to be kind never ceases to amaze me
# Posted on April 6th 2011 by ian stock