I'd be lieing if i said that i liked "The Eavesdropper" album the first time the tunes played through. After being raised by the "Pops" of American and European music, exposed to the *perfect* rhythms, and pitches made by machines, it took a bit of patience and reality checking before i was able to enjoy this music.... ....But now i LOVE this stuff. It's real and raw. No reverb, no autotune, no beat detective. Now that i have an aquired taste, i can enjoy a lot more than studio music. 78's, oldie videos, and especially raw live fiddle music. I'm glad you all helped me break my "Celtic/Mystic" mentality. I enjoy the music a lot more because of it.
"what made the music back then so different than what it is now?"
I often wonder the same thing and is an interesting topic to explore. For whatever reason I seem to be especially drawn to music in the 1974 - 1978 timeframe. (Not just talking trad) Maybe it was the spirit of the world at that time, maybe it was the simplicity of the engineering, who knows. But I'll take it over the contemporary stuff from now any day.
Maybe it's got something to do with equal temperament. Given that there are so many acceptable scales, it would seem that the ear expects to hear what it's used to. If you spend twenty years listening to the piano, then hear someone play pipes, it would sound out of tune. After a while you get used to the new scale, and then the piano sounds wrong.
I dare say that in an isolated community, a particular scale would become the norm, and anything else to them would sound 'wrong'. I know I've heard old recordings where at first I've thought, 'that's way out of tune,' but after a while it sounds OK.
In general, people tend to like music that is quite similar to what they're already familiar with, but with a little variation (if it's too similar, they get bored). I think this a hugely important principle that effects everything about music preference, from why individuals tend to like a particular style of music (or a few) to why genres slow change over time.
Revolutionary changes in music are really very rare, both at a individual and cultural level...most people don't start listening to new styles of music very often in their lives...similarly, new genres don't emerge in pop music very often. Plenty of derivative genres emerge from existing ones, and music media loves to come up with new words for them, but they're usually just variations on, or fusions of, styles that already exist. The same thing happens on a very macro level...we categorize western art music into eras like Classical and Romantic now, but there was a transition period between them, with incremental changes from one to the next. What's popular with a generation will be largely determined by what was popular when they were growing up...they'll "imprint" on keys, song structures, expected instrumentation, etc., and prefer relatively minor variations on the same things.
@gam, I'd tend to completely agree. One note to make mention of is the limitations of a specific instrument in the sense of its intonation. For example, it has taken quite some time for me to get my ear adjusted to Trad Instrumentals on guitar. Depending on the tuning the artist chooses i.e. 440 Opens. A tune in C may some off compared to the same tuning in G. This because a distinct note doesnt really exist in multiple keys. That is why we tune close enough, or to the accompaniment. Look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_comma for some interesting reading.
Instruments that have flexibility like the violin compensate for much of these issues.
As a piper first and guitarist second, I would have to re-tune my guitar if I changed to another key. The fiddle is not so bad, thank goodness, but I seem always to have to tune my e down a bit if I'm playing with a piper. Maybe that's why nearly all my whistles and flutes have a bit of tape over the B, something I noticed recently. Or it may just be a coincidence.
yeah I have to retune for different keys all the time. They make fun of us for using capos but that is the only thing way we can change to keys that are not close relatives of the current key without throwing off our intonation too much.
So what actually happens when we learn that we actual like a new genre? I know that some unfamiliar styles of music take no time geting use to, but whats confusing, is some things i've liked that were very unfamiliar. I know one for us on this side of the world, is Middle Eastern(Dersert) music. Some people call one of them "Gypsy" music. Also, i fell in love with a lot of Asian Pop, and Happy Hardcore music when i was first exposed to them. So why did i fall in love with them so fast, but took several months to reall fall for one of my favorite Artists, Enya?
I don't know what it is about unfamiliar things that makes us initially resistant, but it happens with flavors and smells, not just with music. Takes the mind a bit of time to adapt and adjust.
I admire your bravery, fiddlelearner. You have been around this site long enough to know what may people think of Enya, but you still are willing to admit you like her stuff. But never be afraid to say you like what you like (I just had Loreena McKennit on in the car on a long drive, along with Heidi Talbot's newest album, and a great new group with Andre Brunet on fiddle called De Temps Antan).
It is all good, we all like what we like, and the world would be a poorer place if we all liked the same thing!
Al, you're a Christian, so i can express what i'm about to say to you without it being taken the wrong way. I know that criticism(in reference to my playing) is important. I need to be able to accept correction. If i choose to ignore criticism and correction, i'll end up poor and disgraced as Proverbs 13:18 says. Now, about Enya. If i can't stand up for her, an Artist that love dearly, how could i stand up for God? One of the Apostles said that if we can't love people that we can see, how can we love God, whom we can't see? If i can't take a couple of harsh words and a little bit of ridicule over the internet, how could i take the real face to face persecution. The future beatings and tauntings, and constantly being belittled? I should excercise bravery now, maybe it'll prepare me for future persecution.
@Earl Cameron. A lot of times Capo's can help cure the problem but only because it has raised the pitch and therefore shortened the cycle lengths. But the family notes are the exact same as without the capo. The issue is G note in KeyG is actually a different G than playing in KeyC. This is why hard coded instruments such as wind, hammered, fretted, etc.. heavily rely on "Close Enough" tuning. On non-hard note instruments such as the fiddle, all fingered notes have a correction factor that are dependent on the players ear of the scale. One very workable tuning for the open strings is to tune to a Minors. For example, E&A strings can be tuned with an Aminor, A&D, keeping A, with Dminor, etc... Gminor... This is a very fair tuning and is soft... Using this, you can hear high harmonics with your accompaniment and get roars/hums which are quite impressive... Have fun with that. This all requires a similar tuning from the accompaniment first...
There are diatonic flutes, & yes they have limitations which make it difficult (impossible) to play a full chromatic range. However, wind instruments cannot be regarded as fixed pitch instruments. It is almost basic, being able to move the pitch up or down. I simply don't wish to propagate the opinion that wind instruments are fixed pitch. Fiddles are far more versatile, & I'm not saying wind instruments compare to the same degree.
You're correct to a degree, but the bores are fixed. The temperament of the instrument cannot be changed. Once a player is familiar with his/her instrument they learn to place their fingers differently given the key, if it is at all possible given the scale. A necessary basic reading for fixed scale instruments here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_tuning
Cheers, Peter. I think I'll decline on following the Wikipedia link. I have little interest in the academics (I opened it briefly). Basically, flute never ceases to amaze me. I hope you continue exploring some of the possibilities on flute.
Yeah its a great instrument with an amazing haunting sound. I have deep appreciation for it. What I had submitted firmly explains much of this topic, the various genres of music and the instruments they may be played on.
You can shift the pitch of a flute by quite a bit, just by changing your embrochure, celticturntable. (And trust me, I have heard that happen for both the benefit and harm of tunes!) So like Ben is saying, every note in the scale is mutable. It is far from an instrument that is fixed in its pitch. I can even change the pitch of my untunable tin whistle a slight bit, although I am not as sure of the mechanics of how that happens (air flow? shape of mouth?). Now if you want to say that my accordion is a fixed pitch instrument, that I will buy. But a flute? Hardly.
Thanks Al! So QUESTION! One i meant to ask in the OP. What musics have you all developed an "Aquired Taste" for, and what are some "Unfamiliars" that you immediately became attracted to?
I think there is easy music to take to, and hard music to take to. In many cases, what is easy to take to is not the music you grow to love, in the long run, it doesn't challenge you. Dixieland and big band jazz, and Tin Pan Alley stuff, that my father played on the record player--that stuff I was weaned on. The pop music my peers and I listened to, that stuff is a given.
Over the years, I have learned to like some more modern forms of jazz, singer/songwriter folk music, and lots of root music from a number of countries, largely those that fall under that broad category that is 'celtic."
While it took a while to grab me at first (Americans seem to be programmed to think that folk musics are not 'cool'), I have grown to love The Music, because I love a strong melody, I love the dances, I love the community nature of the playing, I love the songs that go with it, I love the raw sounds of acoustic instruments and unamplified playing. And the fact that where I played the drinks were free probably had something to do with it--Pavlov was indeed on to to something in his studies...
@Al. I think you may be missing the point. Temperament is what defines ur scale. The bores are the temperament. The adjustable mouthpiece simply makes a scalar multiplier to ur pitch. Although, finger placement can slightly change pitch. To my point play a G note on a D flute versus G on a G flute. These are not the same note. Temperament explains the differences.
What are you saying by tune your fiddle into a Minors. I don't understand the statement and I think your inconsistent capitalization is making it even more confusing. I tune my fiddle in perfect fifths which are neither Major nor minor. D and A is a fifth, or did you mean to say something else?
or if you tuned your E string down to D the relationship with the A string would be a 4th which is an inverted fifth. It's a perfect fourth; neither Major, nor minor.
Anyway I would say that the flute can be capable in playing in all keys, but my best friend plays a very expensive boehm keyed flute and will still refuse to play tunes that have lots of D sharps in them. So I would say that functionally the keys you can play on a flute is somewhat limited for all but the most talented and dedicated on the instrument. I would say the same thing for the fiddle but not as much so. The only keys that are next to impossible for me on the fiddle at this point are past Ab on one end, and past E major on the other.
That's funny, you read my mind. After my post I started thinking about augmented fourths and diminished fifths, not really applicable to traditional music but I love on a piano to arpeggiate a fully diminished chord all the way from the bottom to the top of the keyboard, and back down. It sends tingles down my spine
while doing this one day I realized that there were only three distinct fully diminished chords since they are all completely symmetrical (4 minor thirds stacked together). Each chord can thus resolve onto 4 different tonics making a great opportunity for modulation using these chords. Sure enough, when I started learning the Bach sonatas and partitas I start seeing this everywhere.
You know i never tried that. I had too much telling people the story about how Augmented 4th's were banned from the church because they thought it summoned evil spirits. Then showing them why the church thought that. It's always funny watching their reactions. It really creeps some folks lol
I was speaking of the violin sonatas and partitas. I started with the third movement of the first sonata, which is by far the easiest although they are all incredibly difficult to someone like me who hasn't spent years playing the stuff. I know it and I feel it, but technically is still out of reach. I can almost play that third movement convincingly after almost a year of practicing it, and it uses a lot of modulating diminished chords. There is something almost modern about it.
Wanna hear a musician that composed "Modern" sound music way back then? Check out Chopin. I'm still baffeled by him. But about the technical problems. I've seen some crazy videos of musicians on the keyboard instruments, and i'll tell you, our fingers can learn to do some amazing things if we take the time to teach them how to. The bright side is, when you learn one manuver*butchered* you can apply that to everything else you play, which is why scales and arpeggios are so important to practice.
Yes your fiddle will still be GDAE. But using minor chords on say a piano, you can tune your fiddle to it. E&A strings to an Aminor chord, A&D to a Dminor chord and finally, D&G to a Gminor chord. This will produce a softer pitch that perfect fifths.
celticturntable, how would it make the sound softer? And honestly, using that method, you could use any chord that uses the open string to tune the note, if you can hear the individual note in the chord, but why would you want to? Also, why would you use minor chords? Why not major chords? Since major and minor chords are based on the 3rd scale degree... What are you even talking about?
Some added credibility:
"...Gilles Losier, a living legend in the Canadian piano scene; a man of 70 who has studied with Frank Morris, Vladimir Horowitz' outstanding technician, who has worked in Steinway's voicing room, and who has serviced piano masters like Ashkenazy, Zimmerman, Oscar Peterson and many others. Of the Pramberger, Losier told me: "You would put this Pramberger beside many Steinways of the same size, and it would blow them out of the water." Losier has no doubt that he can make a Pramberger sound as good as any Hamburg Steinway...."
Are you saying that you have been playing with a Steinway that isn't tuned to ET? As far as I know, there's only one man in the world mad enough to do this, and even he advocates a tuning system which happens to put the harmonics of the three notes of the minor triad into discord. (Meantone.)
So, what system is this piano tuned to? Because it is physically impossible to tune a piano so that every possible minor triad produces the consonance you're talking about.
Ha... Of course it is generally tuned this way i.e. ET... What Im saying is that temperament can be tweaked slightly to produce specific highlights. A piano isnt just tuned and there you. Every performance has a different temperament. Now that you have that, the human ear tunes a "Tuneable" instrument best to minor chords given what we know about harmonics. All that to say, that temperament is very misunderstood topic.
Temperament can be a quagmire. Since many instruments (strings, winds) allow the player to modify the tuning slightly a skilled player will adjust to harmonize with the other musicians her or she is playing with. The classical practice of not using open strings gives that flexibility to a violinist-- fiddlers often use open strings for the ring they give, a result of resonances in the instrument with the other strings (at least when tuned in perfect fifths).
Fixed pitch instruments (piano, accordion, concertina, organ, bells) have been tuned to equal temperament since about 1860. (That's when the ads for concertinas start denigrating cheap instruments for not using equal temperament). For pianos the tuning is more complicated than straight equal temperament since there are multiple strings on each note, not usually tuned in perfect unison, and there is a deliberate stretching of the higher octave to make harmonics harmonize (and to take into account some of the vagaries of human hearing). Accordions frequently have multiple reeds to mask the failure of equal temperament to give pure harmony. That's why it is hard to tune to a note given by a piano or accordion-- you have to decide which A to use.
Yep, I'd go with that, fiddletina. But the trouble with celticturntable's argument is that it contains its own contradiction. If you're using the "acoustic consonance of the minor triad" to tune, then it had better be in your head, because the one produced by any piano using any tuning system ever used by any keyboard producing all twelve chromatic notes will not only be 'out of tune' with the 'true' note, but will also produce, at the double octave, a dissonance. If you listen reasonably attentively to a well-tuned (not using that term in its technical sense) grand piano playing any chord, you will hear that clash, and it will have a subtle effect not dissimilar to vibrato.
Aside from getting into the technical aspects of all this. Im simply saying that tuning using minors is more effective than using Major chords on a non-fixed pitch instrument. It's basic classical practice. Your pitch wont always be perfect 440. This is what I call "Soft". Also, it has been my experience that when this is done, noticeable acoustic hums/roars occur... It makes for a more enjoyable experience. They usually sound like a low WHOOOOP.
But why tune to a chord? I don't know anybody that does this, of course I've probably done it before, but I prefer to tune with single note harmonics because, it's the method that most quickly gets me in tune with other players. The fiddle I just use open notes. Anyway you are just tuning to one note in the chord, so are you saying that because that note is played with a major 3rd below it that it would sound different when you tuned to it. I guess it could be true, but there are people out there that can pick up each individual note in a chord and tell you exactly how a chord is voiced just by hearing it. I guess if overlapping harmonics where changing the effective pitch value of notes within a chord would this really still be possible?
the only requirement is to hear the root note first. It just makes for clear tuning. Majors make you tune high sometimes. Either way, give it a try you'll find you're more accurate and tuned better with your accompaniment.
I don't own a piano, and last time I had one it was out of tune and had a soundboard cracked in multiple places, so I never tuned to it. But I could play that thing in multiple keys and knew which notes I couldn't use, much like playing a junk concertina with a couple of malfunctioning reeds and buttons, yet still making it work somehow. Someday when I'm rich I will own my own home and have either a piano or a harp, or a harpsichord, or a lute harpsichord even. A man can dream!
Celticturntable-- Harmonies don't confuse me. I'm a Pianist, and even though i'm young i've done extensive research on Consonance and Dissonance. If Minor intervals are Dissonant, how can there be an "acoustic consonance of minor triads"?
Oh ok, i think i understood it after fiddletinas' explaination. If you tune to a minor chord, you'll hear the overtones and your ear will tune with those overtones, instead of the overtones to just one note, or a major interval. I still understand what's Consonant about a minor triad :/
Harmonies are simple, just frequencies playing overtop of one another at the same time. What's confusing about that? Overtones aren't confusing either. Now sound and music? Yes, they can be very confusing. But Harmony, Harmonies? no. They're not confusing.
"Once you put a harmony with a melody ... you can only hear one harmony, at that particular point, where there might have been 4 or 5 possible ones before that."
Originally the consonant intervals were a third and it's inversion the sixth, whether major or minor. 5ths 4ths, and Octaves/unisons) were acceptable but never to be repeated sequentially, seconds and sevenths were dissonant and had to resolve specially.
'Ang on - when the hell is this "originally"? 'Cos it's pretty bloody recent in musical terms. Originally, the only consonants were the octave, the fifth and the fourth. In that order. They are, in fact, the only consonant harmonies.
Ok, i read up on "Acoustic consonance of a minor triad" as suggested, and i was right about the overtones. It turns out that one of the overtones of this chord is tonic, two octaves higher making the fundamental frequency clearly audible. So i guess what makes a "minor triad consonant" is the root, fifth, then another root.
No. The 'consonance' occurs two octaves above the fifth of the triad, not the root. You guys do know this is just arithmetic, right? Nothing to do with pianos, which aren't tuned that way? And never have been? Ever?
That's not why, though Jerone. Oh dear. Look, it doesn't matter, 'cos it's wrong anyway. A minor triad played on a piano does not exhibit the sort of consonance we're talking about in any case. Doesn't now. Never has. Never will.
It's not demeaning, David. It's true. It is what it is. There is no practical musical application you can think of where the "acoustic consonance of the minor triad" is of the least practical use. It's just arithmetic. Theory. Doesn't exist in reality. And as soon as somebody says "well, it does in just intonation" I'm going to say "which just intonation would that be, then?" as well as "which minor triad in a scale tuned to one of the forms of just intonation would that be, then?"
Oh ok. Well if it's not important then i guess i shouldn't be interested. Well at least i got some refreshing about chords. So what kindof consonance are you talking about Ethical. You all have made nme curious
I was meaning in the context of your "The 'consonance' occurs two octaves above the fifth of the triad". That's not just maths, there's the psychoacoustics (e.g. octave equivalence), not to mention the physics of a twanging string and all.
Yes, but the only one that matters is the one that can be proved, and that's just arithmetic. Just theory. The other stuff can't really be pinned down. It depends on absolutely everhything, incluiding the weather. Twanging string? What gauge? What precise thickness? What tension? what materials? What pattern of winding? Then there's whose psychology? Etc etc etc
I think my point and yours are the same, David. The effect that relies on all those other things isn't reliable. It's not real. It's illusory. So why rely on it? Which was my original point.
Well you as the musician should make the notes and intervals sound good to you. It is better to play any note as convincingly as possible, so you have to believe in your intonation even when you slightly disagree with it and even correct it with Jedi mind tricks like holding your pick at a different angle or just tweaking each note slightly. I can tweak notes on my fretted banjo with a few different methods, and the tuning is always going out as I play, so I really have to. It's widely understood that fiddle players can tweak their notes.
Ethical, I don't understand why you say that consonance is not important? Each note has a relationship to the one before it rhythm, pitch and timbre and all are part of what makes the music what it is.
This is the sort of thing I was getting frustrated with last night. We're all talking about different things. I didn't say that consonance isn't important. I wasn't talking about consoncance in general. I was talking about the specific philosophical concept - "the acoustic consonance of the minor triad" - as brought up by celticturntable. This notion only refers to the fact that all three notes of the triad have a harmonic that coincides at a point two octaves above the highest note of the triad, the fifth. But it doesn't so occur on the piano, so it isn't particularly helpful to use a piano triad to tune to (not that I would use a triad to tune to in any case, which I think you agreed with, Earl). That's all I was saying.
Along the way, I got completely thrown by you, Earl, saying that "originally" the only consonances were the thrid and sixth. I know what you mean now, but I still find that troubling, to be honest. Partly because the thirds and sixths that were "originally" used weren't the same intervals that we now use, and partly because, when they were introduced, supplanting the earlier ideas of consonance at the unison, octave, fifth and fourth, I think they would have been thought of as dissonances. However, all of that depends on how far back you define "originally". Like I say, we've been talking about different things.
I understand now, sorry for being confused. I think it's important with this sort of discussion to be more specific about what we are all talking about. So just to be clear, you are talking about consonance of an overtone that is present for all three notes of a minor triad? I can see how that could be next to impossible to achieve because when it comes to tuning, all instruments are compromised in one way or another. And yes I don't think that intervals of a third are that useful for tuning, but sometimes I will check my thirds to make sure they are right after tuning to a 5th or an octave (something where I can listen to the beats in the sound waves until they match).
However the interval of a third is really important for human language. People do subconsciously use Major and minor thirds to convey emotions, though it can't always be simplified into happy or sad. In fast food joints management will want you to speak with a peppy tone in your voice, what they don't know is that this way of speaking contains a lot of Major third intervals. I started listening to the way people spoke after taking an ear training class and the wider the pitch interval, the more peppy you will sound. I haven't read or conducted any studies on this, just observation.
This has been an interesting debate on intervals and how they affect us. Back to fiddlelearner´s original question on which music we´ve aquired a taste in, my observation is that you grow to like what you are exposed to over time.
It certainly helps that you like what you hear, but with some friends pointing you in a directions that you know will be fruitful in the long run, you can make yourself take an interest in listening to and playing music that seems obscure and totally off at first. That happened to me over the last couple of years with Paddy Fahey tunes. At first I thought they were strange and a bit "off", but the more you play his tunes, the more you understands and appreciates his musical universe..
Some inspirations and directions are blind alleys, and in traditional music, over time, the best one will be selected and cherished, which in my mind makes traditional music unique. We´ve had several generations picking out the gems....
Yep, you and I have been (albeit not necessarily realising it) in agreement all along, Earl. Of course you check your thirds. It's really interesting to do so. It fascinates me how much you have to change the pitch of a note depending on context.
I'm not sure that we consistently grow to like what we are exposed to over time though. I mean, it seems that with food it's more common. But then there's that point when some food is just good to you, you know? For example, i'm about as familiar with Chinese food as i am with Mexican food. But i like Chinese food a lot more than Mexican food, even though i'm just as familiar with one as i am with the other. But the food that i grew up with at home, i like most of it period. There`s not a lot of American food that i don't like. So i'm not sure what you would call this case.
But now that i think about it further, i've been exposed to many, many different genres of music combining movie soundtracks, video games(the broadest exposure, from Punk and Ska, Screamo, New Age, Technos and Trances, Foreign Pops, Ambients, and of course the genre known only as "video game music") , and 2 decades of Pop radio. Not to mention all the Soul and R&B that my mom listened to, plus oldie music informercials. The tv shows, jingles and themes, commercials... and all the stuff heard in choir and piano classes, and things my friends showed me after iPods were invented. And being a church musician, there's another world there. So i guess there isn`t anything thats really unfamiliar. Just some things i'm more familiar with than others i guess... There are some things that i haven't been exposed to
Jerone, you seem to forget that as a seasoned musician you will a) probably have been exposed to more music than most and b) you probably have more 'open' ears than most.
The biggest problem I encounter with students (and indeed people at large!) is the line of circular reasoning that goes "I won't try it because I know I won't like it". The same is true of food, music or indeed almost anything new, to people who have a regressive mindset. By that I mean one that feels more threatened than energised by new ideas. And there is a whole heap of humanity that functions in that way. Certainly here in the U.K., the whole national psyche is built on that small-c conservatism.
In terms of music, the majority seems so utterly brainwashed by commercial output that anything that doesn't sound like that has lost before it's started, no matter whether it's jazz, classical, trad or what. On the other hand, I occasionally encounter a student whose mind clearly is 'open' - and then there is hardly anything to do - they do it all for themselves. Also seems that open to one thing tends to be open to many.
But how you cross that divide is one of life's great mysteries to me.
The first Irish music I heard was Kevin Burke. Liked it right from the start. For me, piobairechd was acquired. It took a while to get used to chord progressions that never resolve, and to learn the way the tunes ebb and flow.
Equal Temperament is vastly over rated. It makes music theory a lot easier, but in reality, it's pretty uncommon. Violins and other string instruments are tuned perfect and played just (in various forms). Winds and brass are played just. Singers sing just. Yeah, for a brief period in the 80's there were keyboard bands that were probably totally ET when playing without vocals. See how long that lasted?
Not that it really matters, but my cousin tunes his pianos by ear. I don't know if they're just, or perhaps some form of tempered (not ET). No, they won't play in every key, but that's not a problem for him. The keys he does play in are much more in tune than ET. The keys he doesn't pay in are wicked out of tune, but since he doesn't play them, it's not really a problem
Sorry Ben , I really meant commercialised - i.e. mainstream MTV/pop kind of stuff. I find many kids so conditioned by that that they simply can't deal with anything else.
Same when it comes to the relatively small number of kids at our school who play instruments - it's all geared to pop/rock or light entertainment. Lots of drums and keyboards and a bit of brass. Almost no strings other than guitars.
Seasoned? Wow, that's the first time that term has ever been applied to me. Hmm. Lol, anyway what's odd is that all of the ways that i've been exposed to music, are ways that the majority of folks have been. So what makes me different from them? Maybe the way i listen to it? Maybe it's cause i've learned that not all music is made for entertainment so i'm able to experience it in different ways? I don't know, but i think it's sad that so many miss out on what music can really be like, whether it's because of their own closed mind, or just not having the resources :/
Well, I had a discussion not so long ago on this very topic of 'entertainment'. My view was (broadly) that music is primarily an art form, whereas my opponent's was that it is primarily entertainment.
His argument developed along the lines that even if music is art, then art is also a form of entertainment.
I argued that art is about far more than entertainment - it is a reflection on all aspects of the human condition, including the melancholic and the tragic, which are not things you would normally associate with entertainment.
The discussion didn't really resolve itself, but I argued that seeing art as 'mere' entertainment would actually stifle it, partly by restricting its potential subject matter and partly because it creates a different relationship between the 'artist' and the 'audience'.
If it is entertainment, then the artist has an obligation to provide what the audience wants to be entertained by, whereas in art, it is the creative artist who is in charge, and therby is under no real obligation to the audience at all. Many artists have reported how their creativity dries up as soon as they are commissioned to produce art to order.
So the important part of your previous post is the phrase "not all music is made for entertainment". By saying that, you immediately acknowledge a relationship between the music(ian) and the audience that the vast proportion of the populace fails to see, simply prefering to be 'entertained' by that with which they are alreay familiar -and which for the most part therefore lacks any challenge.
In the long run, of course, it is they who are the losers.
I meant to say, the discussion has a direct application because it influences the choice of music for our band - i.e. the balance between giving an audience 'all the old sing-along favourites' or playing stuff they aren't familiar with in the hope that they'll be open-minded enough to accept it anyway.
"In the long run, of course, it is they who are the losers." And that's what makes it sad. But what also interest me, is the idea of "Enjoyment" in context of experienced ears vs. less experienced ears. I use to think that i could enjoy and appreciate music more because i could hear things that not everyone could ear(like tune in to a subtle or background sound that i really like). But then i questioned myself. Maybe they hear and feel everything just like i do? And if they can`t hear it, they can still feel it, cause it`s in the air. But i haven't been interested enough to research the idea.
"My view was (broadly) that music is primarily an art form, whereas my opponent's was that it is primarily entertainment. "
For me, it's more basic than either of those labels. Music is expression. If someone else within earshot thinks it's art or entertainment, that's their choice.
I sometimes play music as entertainment (gigs, charity events), but it's not my main focus by a long shot.
I feel you Will, but our perceptions are slightly different. I agree that Music is an Art Form, *because Music is an Expression, and Art is Expression to me What better way to Express yourself than creating something?
There's a notion going round in fashionable education circles here at present, that says all 'talent' is actualyl learned rather than innate. That means that you can be as good at anything as you want, just so long as you work hard enough. (It also has the downside that says if you didn't make it it's all your own fault). But I just don't believe it. I see enough people pass through my classroom to believe that people *do* have different innate aptitiudes - and for some they may be musical.
But you *can* also educate yourself in many ways. I learned to appreciate different wines largely through perseverance, trying new things and by having a couple of people who guided me through it. Before that, all wine tasted the same.
I think music is probably the same - and if pressed for an explanation, I would suggest it is all down to the neural pathways you give yourself the opportunity to build.
I really don't think everybody *does* hear the same things because they all have different experience. The classic thing for trad, of course, is that all the tunes sound the same - which we of course know not to be the case. It's only with the training that we realise this. I'm sure that's where Llig would say I'm still deficient in the Liz Carroll department
I'm much less certain whether we hear different things innately, though there is this issue of the metabolic impact of different pitches (i.e. I love deep bass but it panics my wife). An experienced musician yesterday told me that I have a 'good ear' for the music - but what is that and where did it come from?
What is more mysterious is why different musics 'speak' to different people in the first place - innate or learned? I think part of it is to learn to escape the tyrranny of 'genre' and just hear music for what it is. Many people reject a lot of music because they (think they) can't relate to the genre.
>>Music is expression. If someone else within earshot thinks it's art or entertainment, that's their choice.
Fair enough, Will - but if I were to labour the point, I would suggest that that may simply be the artist in you speaking. Isn't that what drives artists - the need to express themselves?
I would posit that many artists are equally unconcerned/unconscious of what people really make of what they do (apart perhaps from the celeb artists who have arguably diverted their work for financial gain). The fact that your playing was not being explicitly dictated by the whims of an audience means that you were not providing "Entertainment" (capital E) - even if they did derive entertainment (small 'e') from listening.
Ironically, it seems to me that it is precisely this lack of concern for the audience that confims the good folk here as artists, playing a form of non-highbrow* art music - despite their protests to the contrary. I don't have any agenda for saying it - just a sociological observation. Good art comes from such unconscious, intrinsic motivation. It's ony modern consumer culture that has rendered it self-conscious by means of commodifying it.
*incidentally, we had Messrs Hayes and Cahill playing over dinner, and my wife remarked, "This really is very highbrow isn't it!"
Can we "escape the tyranny" of our past musical experience (all those neural connections) and "just here the music for what it is". Is singing songs together at a funeral art or entertainment ?
The difference is that I'm not aiming or intending to create art when I play this music. (Which should be clear enough to anyone who's ever heard me play! )
Seriously, this music may be art in the ear of the beholder, but as soon as players start trying to create art, the music gets pretentious, overwrought, unduly polished. Meh. I'd rather hear expressive spontaneity any day.
>>Is singing songs together at a funeral art or entertainment
Hmm. Good question. Instinctive reaction is that it is a form of pick-me-up. Not quite sure why but something to do with the feel-good factor involved in bellowing. Endorphins of something? So in that case, neither art nor entertainment.
No, I don't think we can escape our pasts, musical or otherwise, but we can have some more or less conscious influence on where we go next. I still think that a lot of people who are supposedly rejecting music are actually unable to see past the tribal social labels that we attach to different genres.
Having said that, I have dim memories from well before I became consciously aware of this music, of lying in bed just over-hearing the T.V., where my parents were listening to the Cambridge Folk Festival. They weren't folkies, just musically curious - but I remember being captured by it even then, as it floated into my bedroom. I can't have been more than seven or eight.
Maybe some things we learn are innate. I've always wondered why Asians seem to be more skilled than everyone else at everything. My HS Choir Director said because their culture has taught them self-discipline, hard work, and patience for centuries. And something about rice farming...
>>I'm not aiming or intending to create art when I play this music
But that's *precisely* the best way to create art! As soon as you start trying, you fail. I agree with the over-polished bit, but see my previous comment.
>>expressive spontaneity
sounds pretty much like art to me The more people protest on this, the more convinced I am. Just for peace's sake, I am not trying to build any pretentious case here, it simply seems that what is going on in this music very neatly matches my understanding of the nature of art and artists.
I do wish, however, that collectively, we didn't need to react horrified because of the perceived snobberies that surround certain parts of the more formal art world. Art comes in all shapes and sizes...
Well some of us play this music not as artists or entertainers, but because it's just part of daily life, like going for a walk or making a good meal. It's a salve, a joy, a way to grieve or celebrate, a way to pass time. Mostly, for me, it's a voice to otherwise inarticulate feelings, and a connection to other people.
>>their culture has taught them self-discipline, hard work, and patience for centuries
That, then is not innate, by definition. Innate is things that you just come into the world somehow pre-programmed for.
As soon as something is absorbed from/ imposed by others, it becomes cultural assimilation - i.e. nurture rather than nature. You can't (I assume) culturally normalise someone who hasn't yet been born!
Ian, I think you're making too much out of this art label. Sure, a urinal can be art, too. But sometimes it really is just a p*ss pot.
Yes, this music can be both a simple fact of daily life and artful at the same time. But I don't want to go around thinking that I'm an artist or that my music is art. Too many connotations of producing it for others, for an audience, and of having "something to say," making a statement. I guess my point is that I *don't* have something to say, just subtle, non-verbal feelings that come out when I play fiddle. Feels the same whether I'm at a session or sitting alone in a cabin 30 miles from the nearest human being.
Jerone, so far as I understand it, 'innate' means something that you are born with, that is somehow part of your unique make-up - be it a physical or a mental characteristic.
I can't see how anyone can realistically argue that all people are born equal. I mean equal as in identical, not in terms intrinsic 'value'. People aren't all the same height, hair colour, or complexion, they don't have equally long fingers or equal lung capacity, so why mental capabilities should be any different, I don't know. It's more to do with the social stigmatisation of having less efficient mental capabilities, I think. I also believe that most people probably only use a fraction of what they actually have, and the job of education is to increase that fraction.
But the moment someone is born, they start being inducted into whatever culture they landed in - from the foods they are given to the language they start learning. I don't see why the music that they are or aren't exposed to shouldn't be part of this.
I was brought up in a musically active household, as were most of my musically-active friends. I see a lot of students who tell me that the only music they have at home comes from MTV or UK Radio 1 etc. They grow up thinking of music as a passive form of light entertainment, which they can also expect to be finacially fleeced for. Any suprise their ears aren't open to the alternatives?
The puzzling ones are the relatively few who do grow up in that environment but still find the wherewithall to branch out.
Will, I think this is another case of internet-itis blowing things up. The art label really is no big deal to me – it’s in the background.
I certainly don’t want to go round telling people they’re wrong, nor hyping trad into a pretentious art-form. I wouldn't want the trad scene to turn pretentiously arty. But I think that your reaction is bound up in your perceptions of what art is, or rather has become. The least artistic thing about art is the art establishment, which I generally have little time for either. It’s basically a form of social snobbery that has commodified art for its elitist potential.
I really don’t think art need include any of the things you mentioned – for me, it is simply a means of expressing that for which spoken language is inadequate – and that can apply to anyone anywhere, whether there is an audience or not. The grandstanding of art in galleries, concerts etc. is in some ways a distraction. That’s not to say it’s invalid – some people like expressing themselves to others, but the person quietly talking to themselves in the corner can just as much be an artist in my world. The paintings that artists paint just for themseleves are still art.
I assume you would have no issue with notions of prehistoric art, tribal art etc.? None of which fits into your caricature, except when hijacked by wealthy westerners. It is all made for self-consumption by people who are largely culturally unconscious of what they are doing; they are just expressing themselves. I see trad as a modernised form of western tribal art – simply made by people for themselves. It need not have anything specific to say, just the feeling that it either expresses or evokes is sufficient.
I agree, the moment you start planning it to make external ‘statements’ the lesser art it becomes. That’s the problem with Entertainment – it is all about crowd-pleasing and nothing to do with the self-expression of real art. To consider this music as ‘mere’ entertainment is to debase it in my view; whether you consciously see it as art or not really doesn't matter.
Kevin Burke’s ‘If the Cap Fits’ arrived this morning – the sleeve notes read as follows: “Many of these older musicians used to play by themselves as an expression and a relaxation...at other times it meant relief from more worldly troubles, a therapy...people forget that the musician often plays for his own enjoyment...” Sounds like you’re doing it right Pretty much the same me too, but I don’t have any issue with that being what art is ‘for’.
What is more tricky is how you reconcile playing in a band. Personally, I have never quite been able to resolve this – it is actually a fraught experience for me, but I still feel compelled to do it. But I know it is most definitely not about showing off, nor ‘entertainment’. While an audience is necessary for a performance, somehow I actually don’t really care if it is there or not...
>>somehow I actually don’t really care if it is there or not...
Correction: I'm not unduly concerned about 'entertaining' them. I think the difference between an 'entertainment' audience and an 'art' audience is down to who is seen as the more important - the art audience will generally be prepared to give the performer a much greater degree of latitiude and also be prepared to do more of the work themselves.
>> There's a notion going round in fashionable education circles here at present, that says all 'talent' is actually learned rather than innate. That means that you can be as good at anything as you want, just so long as you work hard enough. <<
If that's actually the notion going around, they've gotten it mixed up. The evidence however, indicates that achievement in music is rather directly tied to hours practiced. That's not to say everyone who puts in the hours can become world class, but that one cannot become world class without putting in the hours. In reality most people seem to be incapable of putting in the hours. Also those who do practice (properly) will almost invariably improve. As long as one continues to improve, one will eventually become competent, then good, and perhaps really good. There seems to be no end to progress -- it's just a question of time.
Invariably, those who are greatest have spent more hours in practice than the rest. To the extent that talent exists, it is probably that which allows one person to practice so much longer than another. Perhaps borderline obsessive compulsive.
How many times have you heard someone start off a conversation with, "Oh, I used to play piano but the practice was so boring." You see -- they can not become great, because they chose to stop practicing.
"If the Cap Fits" is a great album. I can hear it right now, even though it's not playing anywhere but between my ears.
>>If that's actually the notion going around, they've gotten it mixed up
Yep - all part of the view that says standards can go on rising indefinitely and the affluenza notion that even unlimited brilliance is something anyone can have just as long as they want it enough.
I agree about the importance of practice - but I suspect that natural aptitude may be about more than stamina - a combination of manual dexterity, physical attributes such as long fingers or big lungs and the ability to conceptualise music readily. It makes the practice more productive for some people than others.
Can one acquire a taste for a particular kind of music? I'm not so sure this is what happens. One gives one's self an education and therefore an understanding.
The problem with taste is that it's almost always used as an excuse for a lack of understanding.
>>Can one acquire a taste for a particular kind of music
By 'acquire' I was really meaning self-acquisition in the sense you meant, not somehow passively 'getting hold of'...
Where else does it come from? But I'm more sure that you can *stop* yourself liking something by determinedly closing your ears to it. IMO that is more likely to happen because of genre-tribalism than anything else.Sometimes, though, even open ears don't do the trick.
>>One gives one's self an education and therefore an understanding.
Why do some people bother and others not? Where does that initial drive come from? What drew me to trad rather than heavy rock? It was certainly neither up-bringing nor peer-pressure in my case. And why is it so imperative to play this music rather than just listen to it?
So, is taste a process? I looked up the etymology for understanding. It's a slippery term. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=understand
Llig, I would like to understand how you are using the term understand. Do you think it possible to use the term taste so it is not an excuse for a lack of understanding?
To understand a piece of music one has to be clear in one's mind about all the sounds that are going on, from the minutia to the big picture. What are those sounds' functions in relation to rest of the sounds. How the subdivisions (both rhythmically and harmonically) divide. Where the repetitions are and why (both in the minutia and the big picture). etc.
If one eschews any part of it, for what ever reason, then one can never understand it.
So the only way one can really use the word "taste" when it is not an excuse for a lack of understanding is if you've gone through the process of understanding something, but still don't like it.
But this is rarely how it works practically. One hears something about a piece of music one is initially not fond of and usually leaves that piece of music where it is. Why would one bother with a piece of music one is not fond of? It's a perfectly acceptable stand point. It's just that if you do do this, have the decency to actually say that you find it difficult because you don't understand it.
This was Ian's problem in the whole Liz Carroll debacle. And, conversely, I think it's what's driving fiddlelearner exponential rise - a thirst for understanding.
This is sounding a bit like an 'you don't like this posh wine because you don't have an educated palette' sort of explanation. I need convincing that 'acquired tastes' are not mainly a matter of experience rather than understanding.
I see sense in me not being as fond of Liz Carroll's playing as I am of Martin Hayes' because I find it harder to latch on to the structure of a tune when the 'dance-related' features (e.g AABBAABB with a 'question-answer' pattern within A and B including reappearance of parts of phrases) are less overt.
But picking up on that structure without having to think about it is a matter of experience, not understanding. Similarly to appreciate variations one has to recognise without thinking about it that part of a tune is not as before and is 'unexpected' in a pleasing way.
I'm happy that experience has a lot to do with me often getting distracted from what I am doing by going from one youtube clip of Martin Hayes to another but not so often of Liz Carrol. I am not convinced understanding is neccessarily part of it.
I think that in this case, experience and understanding are largely synonymous. Or at least, that experience directly relates to subconscious understanding.
However, I'm not sure that experience in its self is enough. I think that at some stage, you have to actually think about about.
And the rub here, I think, is that a lot of people just don't want to think about it. They prefer to assimilate a subconscious understanding and are therefore left lacking when something a little harder comes their way.
Appreciating a variation is a good example. If you are very familiar with a tune, you have it subconsciously assimilated as it were, then you will be able to pick up on variations without thinking about it. But to appreciate a really good player you are not familiar with play a tune you are not familiar with all you have to do is think about it. Listen and remember the first time through and compare it with the next. It takes a bit of effort, that's all. Simply saying that it's not to your taste is an admission of lazyness
It may not be lazyness if one is in the mood for more of an aesthetic experience than an intellectual one. I had a long drive at the weekend and took along a CD full of Bobby Casey and one of Felix Doran, neither of whom I had heard much of before. I had to stop the Casey half way through (and later come back to it) because it made my head hurt but I let the Doran go round a second time - there was no need for me to think too much to appreciate the wild stuff going on there.
I don't particularly like the songs of Engelbert Humperdinck (I mean Mr Dorsey, not the composer). It's not that I haven't taken the time to 'understand' him. It's just that I don't like his style of music. It's not to my taste, and no amount of analysis is likely to change that.
No, I was listening to the Felix Doran and simply enjoying it without thinking much except for during the couple of tunes I am working on. It may be that since I am learning the flute I found it easier to follow what pipes were doing - but I don't see why that should be lazy if I was after an aesthetic experience.
I've been watching a good programme on the telly about Easy Listening. I had no idea of the enormity of that market. I think Easy Listening is one of the most honest musical genres there are. It basically says, if you are lazy and not interested in music, listen to this. And it sells billions and good luck to it.
If I had a record shop I'd put Martin Hayes in the Easy Listening section. I'd shift hundreds of units.
Does it have to be 'easy listening' to 'soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak'? Does it have to be understood to do the same? I somehow doubt it.
I would be worried if I had to understand a piece of music before I liked it - emphasis on 'had'.
Llig, can you enjoy a dawn chorus without always wanting to know what the birds are ? Or the flowers in a hedgerow in May without needing to know their names ?
No, I don't think you do have to understand a piece of music before you like it. But you should make an effort to understand a piece of music before you say you don't like it. Easy Listening, Engelbert Humperdinck et all, is easy music to understand .. it's made that way deliberately. So to say it is not to your taste is fine.
Yes, I love a dawn chorus. And one of the reasons is that when it's really going at it full pelt, it's so hard to tell apart the individual songs I am otherwise so familiar with, I give up and just let it wash over me.
" Easy Listening, Engelbert Humperdinck et all, is easy music to understand ."
Understand? I haven't analysed the arrangement of 'Last Waltz' or thought much about what Williams, Miller and Yount were trying to express with 'Release Me' (other than a superficial yearning to get out of a relationship). It's not just the words or the orchestration. I just don't like his songs. They do nowt for me. That it is 'easy listening' is probably a by the by.
Michael, I respect your dedication and single-mindedness, but I think you constantly forget two things: not everyone has the time, inclination and maybe talent to take things to the ‘n’th degree like you do. I don’t doubt that your analysis is right for people whose sole aim in life is to become the next Liz Carroll or Kevin Burke - but not everybody does. You also seem to forget what it is like to be less accomplished (you must have been there once) and have someone constantly raining on your parade.
To be quite so condemnatory of people who choose (or are simply at) a different level is really rather destructive. It is quite possible to play and enjoy this music greatly at a less conmplex level, just as in other genres – I know from experience. It is not a mortal sin. A friend who has taught many, many successful musicians this music over the years agrees with me on this. Yours is not the only 'truth'.
Like David, I appreciate this music more ‘in the round’ and I don’t see that that is wrong. It does not make me a numpty, just looking for different things.
The pasting I have taken on here for simply asking questions and expressing hopefully reasonably considered views has taken a toll. I have tried to take your advice seriously, but part of the result has actually been destructive to my enjoyment, in that I am now frequently dissatisfied with what I am doing. That will hopefully pass, but I think you will agree that it can hardly be a helpful development.
Here's a quick anecdote that I thought perfectly illustrates some of the points being made.
Yesterday I was driving from Torridon to Inverness with a friend who has absolutely no interest whatsoever in Irish or Scottish traditional music. The iPod was whirring away on shuffle and it played one of my many solo uilleann piping recordings. I wasn't looking at it (as I was driving) but it sounded like David Power or Tommy Reck (who I know don't sound that much alike but I was thinking more about pretty scenery going past that the nuances of the tune at that second, so I wasn't paying enough attention to identify the player) or another one of those pipers who plays "dirty," with all the blue notes and playfulness with tuning, rather than one of the "cleaner" players, i.e. McGoldrick.
Anyway, my friend commented, "You know, you're hearing this nice tune and then all of sudden you get these awful, flat notes. It just ruins it."
Because I am that lame, the first thing I thought of was this thread and Ian's other thread about Liz Carroll. Then I said, "Half the fun of the pipes are the flat, whiny notes." And left it there, as I didn't feel like getting into a discussion about the social construction of tuning and how good Irish music, like good whisky, is just not something everyone is going to "get." I suppose if my friend had any interest whatsoever in it, I may have done, but she doesn't. She just has to tolerate it when she rides in my car.
Emily, you choose whisky, I choose wine But there is a difference: AFAIK whisky does not vary according to vintage, only label and age; wine varies according to all three.
There’s a whole range of ‘labels’ within ITM, some of which will appeal to some people more than others. I may not like LC as yet, but that clip Jim posted of Ben Lennon was pure magic, as was the Sheep in the Boat Limerick Uni clip the other day. All red musical wine, but all different, all unique. Who’s to say which is ‘best’, anymore than with wine?
Sometimes it even varies simply with vintage: I love Kevin Burke’s playing in The Bothy Band, but the jury’s out at present on ‘If the Cap Fits’. Generally I prefer a fuller melody and less rhythm, but even that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule; sometimes it’s the instrumentation that makes it, sometimes not. Sometimes those flat pipe notes are excruciating, sometimes they’re wonderful. Does John McSherry's wonderful playing of Doinna count as strong melody or not? Each case totally unique and of itself.
But not liking all equally is surely a reasonable form of discernment? Even liking none of it isn’t a capital offence – I assume your friends are still with us?
I think that "This music is not to my taste because..." is OK. Provided that what follows the "because" is a reasonable and accurate description of the music in question. Ian's, in that other thread, wasn't.
But we a going round in circles. Let me reiterate: I'm not saying that you either have to like something or understand it. There's no rule there. All I'm saying is that if you don't like something, be prepared to say that it could well be because you don't understand it.
I do not forget that not everyone has the time or inclination to dig deeper into more difficult music than "Easy Listening". I rejoice in the fact that there is lots of music in the world for such people.
I like wine as well but I choose it on the basis of whether it costs 5 or 6 pounds or less. I can't tell the difference between a mediocre wine and a great wine but that could well be because I don't really understand wine. Which is fine. I'm quite happy not being a wine snob and enjoying cheap wine. Maybe it's all a bit like that. I'm a beer snob and a traditional music snob, though. I understand the nuances of those things far better.
I was once at a dinner with a bunch of authors (don't ask how little old me got there, it is a long story). And they went around the table, with everyone ordering fancy wine and cocktails. When they finally got to me, I asked "What do you have on tap?" And funny enough, three other guys changed their orders to beer.
Sometimes people are more afraid of what others will think of them than they should be. We like what we like, and don't what we don't. And our tastes change as we learn and experience new things. And what we like, as TSS says, we get to know really well, and it is there that the subtleties become apparent, and get cherished.
Ian, I meant to also say, I think it's ok and normal to start hearing other things in the music, mainly the things you're not doing, and consequently going through periods of, "My God, I really suck at this." That's how improvement happens, in my experience. If you can't hear it, you won't know you don't have it -- in which case you'll not find it and not get better. I've met plenty of people who can't -- or more accurately have never learned how -- hear the "nyah" (for lack of a better word). They'll not get much better. You have to hear it, in yourself and others, to play it.
I know what you mean though about feeling frustrated and not enjoying your playing. I've been there. I still might be there. Anyone on this board who has known me for some time can easily confirm all the times I have threatened to quit the pipes completely.
"UEEEARRRGHHH" reminds me of my first sip of beer. The glass was at eye level. I was standing up. Big laughs "you'll like it one day lad". I am not sureI had drunk it again before I first sneaked into a pub with my mates. I can't remember what it tasted like (it was probably Watney's Red Barrel...) but I wasn't going to ask for a Coke.
Aye, me too. I didn't like beer until I lived in Ireland for a summer. Then I realized the only thing I could vaguely afford to drink was Guinness (at the time, whiskey was still way out of the question). I have fond memories of nursing half pints, forcing myself to drink them although I found it pretty nasty. I supposed I could have been a teetotaller for the summer but in Ireland, that seemed like the worse option! Anyway, after enough forced half pints, I started liking the stuff.
Michael, read my lips – yours is not the only valid check-list. My evaluation of LC might not seem accurate to you - because I wasn’t looking for what you look for. You don’t rate my criteria because you think they are superficial or simplisitic, I think yours are perhaps over-analytical. It doesn’t make either of us inherently Wrong.
I’m no wine connoisseur, but I know a few people who are – and my God you should see them argue! So connoisseurship in itself is no guarantee of consensus – it all depends what you are looking for. LC satisfies your criteria but misses mine – and some situations no doubt do it the other way round - just as with wines or indeed anything else where degrees of insight are possible. There’s no Eleventh Commandment to say who is right. For sure, familiarity brings greater powers of differentiation – but there’s still no guarantee that all people will value the same qualities.
That last paragraph of yours is doing it all again – casting everyone into either True Believers or the Great Unwashed. Life’s not that simple. Music’s not that simple. Especially when you set the bar so high.
Emily, I know that dissatisfaction can be a great driver, but I think there are two sorts: the positive sort that makes you resolve to do better and the negative sort that makes you want to give up in despair.
Yes, I know, and I know the latter kind well. I was in despair about the pipes and sessions for years. For a while, I only didn't quit because I had made playing every day, or most days, such a habit that I would just do it anyway, even though I was completely f*cked off with my playing and sessions and the whole thing. And not in a positive, "I will now do better" sort of way. I wasn't positive about it all. But I'm glad now I plodded on with it anyway. After a few years of being p*ssed off with irish music and how crap I was at it -- I did get better and less frustrated.
"My evaluation of LC might not seem accurate to you"
You might of had something there Ian, if was just me. But everyone on that thread jumped on you for such outrageaous nonsense as "wannabe classical player".
Bite the bullet mate and please be prepared to say that it could well be that you don't like Liz Carroll's playing because you don't understand it. Please be prepared to admit that your evaluation of her playing is indeed not only inaccurate, but superficial and simplistic.
Emily, I suppose I'm lucky that most of the time my dissatisfaction is of the first type, and I think I do verge on OCD in trying to do something about it. Most of the time the reward moments come often enough to make it worthwhile. But there have been times recently when it was tipping over into the other sort, not initally with my own playing, but with all this other stuff. It then started to shift into dissatisfaction with my own efforts.
I have found myself asking the question, "Why bother?" too often for comfort.
Michael, I have never disagreed that I may not fully understand her music, in the sense you mean. I have only ever challenged the view that this makes me a lesser judge, or that the other musical qualities I look for are of lesser importance.
I don’t ‘understand’ it because I haven’t devoted the time to it that you have. But that is partly because I don’t ascribe as much importance to those aspects that you admire about her. I can hear what you are talking about, but that is not what makes me generally value this music so highly. I can think “how clever” to her music but it does not move me in the way I seek, in the way I can find elsewhere. I don’t see what’s so controversial about that. I just don’t agree that that is a numpty’s view.
I don’t doubt that you experience it differently, and good luck to you – but to imply that your way is the only knowledgeable way to appreciate or play the music is just not reasonable.
The word ‘wannabe’ was poorly chosen. It is not a word I habitually use and I had clearly misunderstood its connotations. I unconditionally took the word back, but I think it was that above all else that got me jumped upon. But I still stand by the view that certain tracks *on that album* have overtones of classical music about them, in the tone she coaxes from her instrument – not her choice of music, nor perhaps even her conscious intentions. You may not hear that, but I do - maybe you're just missing the subtleties? It’s no big deal - just a concept that I find intriguing, and it was actually one of the more unexpected but positive aspects of what I heard.
All music, even mine, has micro-variations in it; whether they are intentional or not is another matter. The view that one interpretation is objectively 'better' than another is ultimately futile – not least because you can never hear what *wasn’t* played. Sometimes I deliberately play a tune one way rather than another, more often it just comes out that way; sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t. But ultimately, the response is emotive and singular.
No amount of deconstruction can explain or predict the subjective, emotional impact of music - it is irreducible. I like David’s birdsong analogy – the emotional response is not enhanced (much) by knowing which birds are singing, any more than knowing whose sweaty feet crushed the grapes improves my appreciation of a particular wine. It’s just an in-the-round, singular whole. It just is what it is; you either like it or you don’t, albeit in degrees. I don’t think that explaining the technical niceties to Emily’s friend is likely to do much to improve her taste for the music.
I would put my response down to a complex combination of:
• the inherent sound(s) of the instrument
• the character/nature of the music chosen, both macro and micro scale
• the circumstances in which it is being played
• the interpretive choices made by the player
• my own predictable preferences (which I know pretty well)
• the degree to which the music fits my multiple perceptions of the genre and what I like about it
• the quality of my hearing
• my own mood at the time
Even then, I am sometimes surprised and sometimes disappointed, even by repeat playing of the same piece. It’s so complex and so subjective that I just don’t think it is really gains much from analysing. Just play from the heart - but that needn't imply any particular thing.
For personal reward, I think I’m getting at least as much now from finally being able to play fiddle tunes that sound reasonably ‘right’ (especially after a surprisingly small time) as from anything I expect to get later on. The greatest revelation often comes from the *first* time you hear/do something, with all the unfamiliarity that implies. The quest for ever more refinement can be satisfying, but it's the only place to go once you’ve climbed all the other mountains. I’m not sure it actually increases total reward either as a player or a listener.
llig, the only way to stop Ian is to quit goading him. You know he was off base in his Liz Carroll comments, we all know he was off base, but he seems to think that if he throws enough words at us, we will eventually come around.
Lets just agree to disagree and move on!!!
Dark Chocolate! Not that extra sweet 60% cocoa stuff, i'm talkin' about that Intense Dark 90% Cocoa stuff. My goodness! When i first tried it, i couldn't eat a whole piece of it... It was soooooo bitter and NASTY! I put the bar in my cabinet and i think threw it away a couple weeks later. I began eating 60% and 75% chocolate. I developed a taste for 75% though, and now it taste really sweet, but also rich because of high cocoa percentage. A friend gave me a bar of 90% Cocoa Lindt Chocolate. Over the last couple of months i`ve been steadily trying it. I finished it yesterday. The last piece i didn`t have to force down my throat like the first one. It was actually pretty good.
Now when i eat milk chocolate, it taste like caramel with extra sugar. It's so sweet, i can't even eat a whole *piece of a Hershey bar. I have to eat it a bite at a time. But that's ok. The more i learned about the Darker Chocolates, the more motivated i was to try them. I learned that they were a lot more healthy than the sweeter, lighter chocolates. Not only that, but chocolate makes us feel good. Something about endorphines and biological chemicals or something. So now i can enjoy Dark Chocolate and the Lighter chocolates. If i want something really really sweet, i'll go for the white or caramel chocolate bars. If i want to be more healthy, and also enjoy the richness of Cocoa, then i'll go for the darker chocolates.
So my point? If i had not tried the dark chocolates, and learned more about them, i would be missing out on something really, really good. Too good to say. It basically opened up my *mouth so i could enjoy more that God had to offer. But with music, i guess we could say the same thing. The reality is, music is subjective. We could learn and understand a *style* all we want, but that could very well lead to us not likeing it, just as much as it could lead to us adoring it. There's musics that i have listened to since i was a kid, and just recently stopped listening to them. There's some that are fairly new that i'm falling in love with. There are some that i don't like the majority of, but find something to like about them(like the sweetness of some County/Western lyrics)
Hopefully this won't distract everyone from my real-life chocolate analogy, Ian. But one thing i've learned here, is the less i say, the less everyone else has to argue with me about. You know why? Because the more i say, the more my own knowledge and opinion comes out, and both of them could be either wrong, or different than someone elses view. Unless you like the attention and for people to argue with you, i suggest you learn how to trim down your posts by a couple paragraphs. Or maybe just know who to answer and what to reply and what not to reply to. We're not always right, other people have opinions to. And other people know and understand things that we don't. Sometimes arguing isn't the best choice. And sometimes its fun to sit back and watch others ;)
Does one get to like something merely through exposure to it?
I think it's possibly true with food stuffs. But I also think there is a world of difference between educating one's taste buds to an unfamiliar concoction of chemicals and educating one's mind to a new form of sounds.
The main difference being the level of creativity in music. "Forms" of sounds are "formed/created" by the delicate balance of peoples' personal reactions to conventions that surround them and their own creativity. Get this balance wrong and it's either regurgitated facsimile or self indulgent nonsense. And the rub is, that in order to tell the difference, one has to have studied the conventions first.
However, it seems to me, through discussions on this topic over the years, that there is a significant proportion of people who profess interest in music who are either happy to listen to and produce regurgitated facsimile, or cannot tell the difference.
'If i had not tried the dark chocolates, and learned more about them, i would be missing out on something really, really good. Too good to say. It basically opened up my *mouth so i could enjoy more that God had to offer.'
I guess i ccould understand that llig. Prof. No, God is cooler than Willie Wonka ANY day. But C/S Have you checked my progress videos? I posted them a little while ago. I didn't receive any feedback from you with criticism and advice, though i was looking forward to. I would like for you to do that since everyone else who's opinion i care about has already posted.
Wow, from tuning to chocolate to God, with a visit to the continuing discussion of Ian's Liz Carroll comments. What a wild and varied thread this is.
Sorry you think I am intolerant, Ian, I just think the more and more and more you keep getting drawn into discussing the Liz Carroll comments, and the more and more and more you say, the more you define yourself by that issue. Time to move on and talk about other things is my advice. And if someone brings it up, feel free to ignore them.
Oh! I remember one thing i really, harshly disliked about this music, and that is how some of the tunes would end, ESPECIALLY those Dorian ones. Ugh! But when i learned that that is how a lot of tunes were connected, i began to appreciate them. And after getting use to the lack of resolution, and learning how to resolve them myself, i liked to listen to them too.
An Aquired Taste.
An Aquired Taste.
I'd be lieing if i said that i liked "The Eavesdropper" album the first time the tunes played through. After being raised by the "Pops" of American and European music, exposed to the *perfect* rhythms, and pitches made by machines, it took a bit of patience and reality checking before i was able to enjoy this music.... ....But now i LOVE this stuff. It's real and raw. No reverb, no autotune, no beat detective. Now that i have an aquired taste, i can enjoy a lot more than studio music. 78's, oldie videos, and especially raw live fiddle music. I'm glad you all helped me break my "Celtic/Mystic" mentality. I enjoy the music a lot more because of it.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
In the immortal words of the great Joe Cooley, "There is nothing like Irish music to bring all men to their senses."
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by David Levine
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Haha nice
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I guess one thing i wanted to talk about, is what made the music back then so different than what it is now?
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"what made the music back then so different than what it is now?"
I often wonder the same thing and is an interesting topic to explore. For whatever reason I seem to be especially drawn to music in the 1974 - 1978 timeframe. (Not just talking trad) Maybe it was the spirit of the world at that time, maybe it was the simplicity of the engineering, who knows. But I'll take it over the contemporary stuff from now any day.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by frauschmittle
Re: An Aquired Taste.
The music is the same. The people are the same. But how and what we are influenced by has drastically changed.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by FiddleTramp
Re: An Aquired Taste.
What a neat observation
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Maybe it's got something to do with equal temperament. Given that there are so many acceptable scales, it would seem that the ear expects to hear what it's used to. If you spend twenty years listening to the piano, then hear someone play pipes, it would sound out of tune. After a while you get used to the new scale, and then the piano sounds wrong.
I dare say that in an isolated community, a particular scale would become the norm, and anything else to them would sound 'wrong'. I know I've heard old recordings where at first I've thought, 'that's way out of tune,' but after a while it sounds OK.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by gam
Re: An Aquired Taste.
In general, people tend to like music that is quite similar to what they're already familiar with, but with a little variation (if it's too similar, they get bored). I think this a hugely important principle that effects everything about music preference, from why individuals tend to like a particular style of music (or a few) to why genres slow change over time.
Revolutionary changes in music are really very rare, both at a individual and cultural level...most people don't start listening to new styles of music very often in their lives...similarly, new genres don't emerge in pop music very often. Plenty of derivative genres emerge from existing ones, and music media loves to come up with new words for them, but they're usually just variations on, or fusions of, styles that already exist. The same thing happens on a very macro level...we categorize western art music into eras like Classical and Romantic now, but there was a transition period between them, with incremental changes from one to the next. What's popular with a generation will be largely determined by what was popular when they were growing up...they'll "imprint" on keys, song structures, expected instrumentation, etc., and prefer relatively minor variations on the same things.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by dereksmootz
Re: An Aquired Taste.
gam: Interesting and logical speculation there. Makes intuitive sense to me.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by eisdear
Re: An Aquired Taste.
@gam, I'd tend to completely agree. One note to make mention of is the limitations of a specific instrument in the sense of its intonation. For example, it has taken quite some time for me to get my ear adjusted to Trad Instrumentals on guitar. Depending on the tuning the artist chooses i.e. 440 Opens. A tune in C may some off compared to the same tuning in G. This because a distinct note doesnt really exist in multiple keys. That is why we tune close enough, or to the accompaniment. Look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_comma for some interesting reading.
Instruments that have flexibility like the violin compensate for much of these issues.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
As a piper first and guitarist second, I would have to re-tune my guitar if I changed to another key. The fiddle is not so bad, thank goodness, but I seem always to have to tune my e down a bit if I'm playing with a piper. Maybe that's why nearly all my whistles and flutes have a bit of tape over the B, something I noticed recently. Or it may just be a coincidence.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by gam
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Sounds like a guitarist I could do business with
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: An Aquired Taste.
yeah I have to retune for different keys all the time. They make fun of us for using capos but that is the only thing way we can change to keys that are not close relatives of the current key without throwing off our intonation too much.
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
So what actually happens when we learn that we actual like a new genre? I know that some unfamiliar styles of music take no time geting use to, but whats confusing, is some things i've liked that were very unfamiliar. I know one for us on this side of the world, is Middle Eastern(Dersert) music. Some people call one of them "Gypsy" music. Also, i fell in love with a lot of Asian Pop, and Happy Hardcore music when i was first exposed to them. So why did i fall in love with them so fast, but took several months to reall fall for one of my favorite Artists, Enya?
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I don't know what it is about unfamiliar things that makes us initially resistant, but it happens with flavors and smells, not just with music. Takes the mind a bit of time to adapt and adjust.
I admire your bravery, fiddlelearner. You have been around this site long enough to know what may people think of Enya, but you still are willing to admit you like her stuff. But never be afraid to say you like what you like (I just had Loreena McKennit on in the car on a long drive, along with Heidi Talbot's newest album, and a great new group with Andre Brunet on fiddle called De Temps Antan).
It is all good, we all like what we like, and the world would be a poorer place if we all liked the same thing!
# Posted on May 29th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Al, you're a Christian, so i can express what i'm about to say to you without it being taken the wrong way. I know that criticism(in reference to my playing) is important. I need to be able to accept correction. If i choose to ignore criticism and correction, i'll end up poor and disgraced as Proverbs 13:18 says. Now, about Enya. If i can't stand up for her, an Artist that love dearly, how could i stand up for God? One of the Apostles said that if we can't love people that we can see, how can we love God, whom we can't see? If i can't take a couple of harsh words and a little bit of ridicule over the internet, how could i take the real face to face persecution. The future beatings and tauntings, and constantly being belittled? I should excercise bravery now, maybe it'll prepare me for future persecution.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Well, I guess now I admire your passion as well as your bravery!
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: An Aquired Taste.
@Earl Cameron. A lot of times Capo's can help cure the problem but only because it has raised the pitch and therefore shortened the cycle lengths. But the family notes are the exact same as without the capo. The issue is G note in KeyG is actually a different G than playing in KeyC. This is why hard coded instruments such as wind, hammered, fretted, etc.. heavily rely on "Close Enough" tuning. On non-hard note instruments such as the fiddle, all fingered notes have a correction factor that are dependent on the players ear of the scale. One very workable tuning for the open strings is to tune to a Minors. For example, E&A strings can be tuned with an Aminor, A&D, keeping A, with Dminor, etc... Gminor... This is a very fair tuning and is soft... Using this, you can hear high harmonics with your accompaniment and get roars/hums which are quite impressive... Have fun with that. This all requires a similar tuning from the accompaniment first...
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
@Al Brown, Andre's CD is top notch... Once you adapt to his Quebecois snap and cross string bows, its amazing music...
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"hard coded instruments such as wind"
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
sorry thats programming language for ya... Notes that arent dynamic, i.e. static
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Huh?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
The actual scale of the instrument cannot be changed. Possibly with the adjustment but that is just a scalar move.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Have you played wind instruments, Peter?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I have made flutes yes. Cant play well though... Please explain your concern..
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
There are diatonic flutes, & yes they have limitations which make it difficult (impossible) to play a full chromatic range. However, wind instruments cannot be regarded as fixed pitch instruments. It is almost basic, being able to move the pitch up or down. I simply don't wish to propagate the opinion that wind instruments are fixed pitch. Fiddles are far more versatile, & I'm not saying wind instruments compare to the same degree.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
You're correct to a degree, but the bores are fixed. The temperament of the instrument cannot be changed. Once a player is familiar with his/her instrument they learn to place their fingers differently given the key, if it is at all possible given the scale. A necessary basic reading for fixed scale instruments here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_tuning
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Cheers, Peter. I think I'll decline on following the Wikipedia link. I have little interest in the academics (I opened it briefly). Basically, flute never ceases to amaze me. I hope you continue exploring some of the possibilities on flute.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Yeah its a great instrument with an amazing haunting sound. I have deep appreciation for it. What I had submitted firmly explains much of this topic, the various genres of music and the instruments they may be played on.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
You can shift the pitch of a flute by quite a bit, just by changing your embrochure, celticturntable. (And trust me, I have heard that happen for both the benefit and harm of tunes!) So like Ben is saying, every note in the scale is mutable. It is far from an instrument that is fixed in its pitch. I can even change the pitch of my untunable tin whistle a slight bit, although I am not as sure of the mechanics of how that happens (air flow? shape of mouth?). Now if you want to say that my accordion is a fixed pitch instrument, that I will buy. But a flute? Hardly.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Thanks Al! So QUESTION! One i meant to ask in the OP. What musics have you all developed an "Aquired Taste" for, and what are some "Unfamiliars" that you immediately became attracted to?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I think there is easy music to take to, and hard music to take to. In many cases, what is easy to take to is not the music you grow to love, in the long run, it doesn't challenge you. Dixieland and big band jazz, and Tin Pan Alley stuff, that my father played on the record player--that stuff I was weaned on. The pop music my peers and I listened to, that stuff is a given.
Over the years, I have learned to like some more modern forms of jazz, singer/songwriter folk music, and lots of root music from a number of countries, largely those that fall under that broad category that is 'celtic."
While it took a while to grab me at first (Americans seem to be programmed to think that folk musics are not 'cool'), I have grown to love The Music, because I love a strong melody, I love the dances, I love the community nature of the playing, I love the songs that go with it, I love the raw sounds of acoustic instruments and unamplified playing. And the fact that where I played the drinks were free probably had something to do with it--Pavlov was indeed on to to something in his studies...
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: An Aquired Taste.
@Al. I think you may be missing the point. Temperament is what defines ur scale. The bores are the temperament. The adjustable mouthpiece simply makes a scalar multiplier to ur pitch. Although, finger placement can slightly change pitch. To my point play a G note on a D flute versus G on a G flute. These are not the same note. Temperament explains the differences.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
@celticturntable
What are you saying by tune your fiddle into a Minors. I don't understand the statement and I think your inconsistent capitalization is making it even more confusing. I tune my fiddle in perfect fifths which are neither Major nor minor. D and A is a fifth, or did you mean to say something else?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
or if you tuned your E string down to D the relationship with the A string would be a 4th which is an inverted fifth. It's a perfect fourth; neither Major, nor minor.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Anyway I would say that the flute can be capable in playing in all keys, but my best friend plays a very expensive boehm keyed flute and will still refuse to play tunes that have lots of D sharps in them. So I would say that functionally the keys you can play on a flute is somewhat limited for all but the most talented and dedicated on the instrument. I would say the same thing for the fiddle but not as much so. The only keys that are next to impossible for me on the fiddle at this point are past Ab on one end, and past E major on the other.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Speaking of fourths, how bout' that Augmented fourth aye? It's disgusting on it's own but is great once you get to know it. Really fun to use also
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
That's funny, you read my mind. After my post I started thinking about augmented fourths and diminished fifths, not really applicable to traditional music but I love on a piano to arpeggiate a fully diminished chord all the way from the bottom to the top of the keyboard, and back down. It sends tingles down my spine
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
while doing this one day I realized that there were only three distinct fully diminished chords since they are all completely symmetrical (4 minor thirds stacked together). Each chord can thus resolve onto 4 different tonics making a great opportunity for modulation using these chords. Sure enough, when I started learning the Bach sonatas and partitas I start seeing this everywhere.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
You know i never tried that. I had too much telling people the story about how Augmented 4th's were banned from the church because they thought it summoned evil spirits. Then showing them why the church thought that. It's always funny watching their reactions. It really creeps some folks lol
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Fascinating! He will definetly be in my studies when i pick up classical piano!
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I was speaking of the violin sonatas and partitas. I started with the third movement of the first sonata, which is by far the easiest although they are all incredibly difficult to someone like me who hasn't spent years playing the stuff. I know it and I feel it, but technically is still out of reach. I can almost play that third movement convincingly after almost a year of practicing it, and it uses a lot of modulating diminished chords. There is something almost modern about it.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Wanna hear a musician that composed "Modern" sound music way back then? Check out Chopin. I'm still baffeled by him. But about the technical problems. I've seen some crazy videos of musicians on the keyboard instruments, and i'll tell you, our fingers can learn to do some amazing things if we take the time to teach them how to. The bright side is, when you learn one manuver*butchered* you can apply that to everything else you play, which is why scales and arpeggios are so important to practice.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
@Earl Cameron.
Yes your fiddle will still be GDAE. But using minor chords on say a piano, you can tune your fiddle to it. E&A strings to an Aminor chord, A&D to a Dminor chord and finally, D&G to a Gminor chord. This will produce a softer pitch that perfect fifths.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
celticturntable, how would it make the sound softer? And honestly, using that method, you could use any chord that uses the open string to tune the note, if you can hear the individual note in the chord, but why would you want to? Also, why would you use minor chords? Why not major chords? Since major and minor chords are based on the 3rd scale degree... What are you even talking about?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
@fiddlelearner. Continue using a tuner... This will get complicated. Its a human ear harmonics and semi tones thing...
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Please read up on "Acoustic consonance of minors".
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Er ... right ... but that doesn't work on a piano, because it's in ET. So the three separate harmonics are not consonant.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Unless you've tuned it that way... I have the benefit of playing music with a Steinway Tech. Guitars can easily be tuned this way on the fly...
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Some added credibility:
"...Gilles Losier, a living legend in the Canadian piano scene; a man of 70 who has studied with Frank Morris, Vladimir Horowitz' outstanding technician, who has worked in Steinway's voicing room, and who has serviced piano masters like Ashkenazy, Zimmerman, Oscar Peterson and many others. Of the Pramberger, Losier told me: "You would put this Pramberger beside many Steinways of the same size, and it would blow them out of the water." Losier has no doubt that he can make a Pramberger sound as good as any Hamburg Steinway...."
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Are you saying that you have been playing with a Steinway that isn't tuned to ET? As far as I know, there's only one man in the world mad enough to do this, and even he advocates a tuning system which happens to put the harmonics of the three notes of the minor triad into discord. (Meantone.)
So, what system is this piano tuned to? Because it is physically impossible to tune a piano so that every possible minor triad produces the consonance you're talking about.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Ha... Of course it is generally tuned this way i.e. ET... What Im saying is that temperament can be tweaked slightly to produce specific highlights. A piano isnt just tuned and there you. Every performance has a different temperament. Now that you have that, the human ear tunes a "Tuneable" instrument best to minor chords given what we know about harmonics. All that to say, that temperament is very misunderstood topic.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Temperament can be a quagmire. Since many instruments (strings, winds) allow the player to modify the tuning slightly a skilled player will adjust to harmonize with the other musicians her or she is playing with. The classical practice of not using open strings gives that flexibility to a violinist-- fiddlers often use open strings for the ring they give, a result of resonances in the instrument with the other strings (at least when tuned in perfect fifths).
Fixed pitch instruments (piano, accordion, concertina, organ, bells) have been tuned to equal temperament since about 1860. (That's when the ads for concertinas start denigrating cheap instruments for not using equal temperament). For pianos the tuning is more complicated than straight equal temperament since there are multiple strings on each note, not usually tuned in perfect unison, and there is a deliberate stretching of the higher octave to make harmonics harmonize (and to take into account some of the vagaries of human hearing). Accordions frequently have multiple reeds to mask the failure of equal temperament to give pure harmony. That's why it is hard to tune to a note given by a piano or accordion-- you have to decide which A to use.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlentina
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Yep, I'd go with that, fiddletina. But the trouble with celticturntable's argument is that it contains its own contradiction. If you're using the "acoustic consonance of the minor triad" to tune, then it had better be in your head, because the one produced by any piano using any tuning system ever used by any keyboard producing all twelve chromatic notes will not only be 'out of tune' with the 'true' note, but will also produce, at the double octave, a dissonance. If you listen reasonably attentively to a well-tuned (not using that term in its technical sense) grand piano playing any chord, you will hear that clash, and it will have a subtle effect not dissimilar to vibrato.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Aside from getting into the technical aspects of all this. Im simply saying that tuning using minors is more effective than using Major chords on a non-fixed pitch instrument. It's basic classical practice. Your pitch wont always be perfect 440. This is what I call "Soft". Also, it has been my experience that when this is done, noticeable acoustic hums/roars occur... It makes for a more enjoyable experience. They usually sound like a low WHOOOOP.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"That's why it is hard to tune to a note given by a piano or accordion-- you have to decide which A to use."
It used to be a crack at the sessions. "Give us an A". The box player would press on the A. "Just one of them, please".
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Weejie
Re: An Aquired Taste.
But why tune to a chord? I don't know anybody that does this, of course I've probably done it before, but I prefer to tune with single note harmonics because, it's the method that most quickly gets me in tune with other players. The fiddle I just use open notes. Anyway you are just tuning to one note in the chord, so are you saying that because that note is played with a major 3rd below it that it would sound different when you tuned to it. I guess it could be true, but there are people out there that can pick up each individual note in a chord and tell you exactly how a chord is voiced just by hearing it. I guess if overlapping harmonics where changing the effective pitch value of notes within a chord would this really still be possible?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
the only requirement is to hear the root note first. It just makes for clear tuning. Majors make you tune high sometimes. Either way, give it a try you'll find you're more accurate and tuned better with your accompaniment.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by celticturntable
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I don't own a piano, and last time I had one it was out of tune and had a soundboard cracked in multiple places, so I never tuned to it. But I could play that thing in multiple keys and knew which notes I couldn't use, much like playing a junk concertina with a couple of malfunctioning reeds and buttons, yet still making it work somehow. Someday when I'm rich I will own my own home and have either a piano or a harp, or a harpsichord, or a lute harpsichord even. A man can dream!
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Celticturntable-- Harmonies don't confuse me. I'm a Pianist, and even though i'm young i've done extensive research on Consonance and Dissonance. If Minor intervals are Dissonant, how can there be an "acoustic consonance of minor triads"?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Oh ok, i think i understood it after fiddletinas' explaination. If you tune to a minor chord, you'll hear the overtones and your ear will tune with those overtones, instead of the overtones to just one note, or a major interval. I still understand what's Consonant about a minor triad :/
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"Harmonies don't confuse me." To paraphrase ... well, somebody or other ... if harmonies don't confuse you, you haven't been paying attention.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Harmonies are simple, just frequencies playing overtop of one another at the same time. What's confusing about that? Overtones aren't confusing either. Now sound and music? Yes, they can be very confusing. But Harmony, Harmonies? no. They're not confusing.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Now Psychoacoustics... THAT'S confusing!
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
oh, and a typo, "i still *don't* understand what could be Consant about a dissonant traid, other than the 5th interval from tonic."
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"Once you put a harmony with a melody ... you can only hear one harmony, at that particular point, where there might have been 4 or 5 possible ones before that."
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Blimey Jerone! You have GOT to sack that proofreader!
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Originally the consonant intervals were a third and it's inversion the sixth, whether major or minor. 5ths 4ths, and Octaves/unisons) were acceptable but never to be repeated sequentially, seconds and sevenths were dissonant and had to resolve specially.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
'Ang on - when the hell is this "originally"? 'Cos it's pretty bloody recent in musical terms. Originally, the only consonants were the octave, the fifth and the fourth. In that order. They are, in fact, the only consonant harmonies.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Ok, i read up on "Acoustic consonance of a minor triad" as suggested, and i was right about the overtones. It turns out that one of the overtones of this chord is tonic, two octaves higher making the fundamental frequency clearly audible. So i guess what makes a "minor triad consonant" is the root, fifth, then another root.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
No. The 'consonance' occurs two octaves above the fifth of the triad, not the root. You guys do know this is just arithmetic, right? Nothing to do with pianos, which aren't tuned that way? And never have been? Ever?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Sorry, my phone doesn't have a proofreader...
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Sorry, the fifth then. Still has a consonant aspect about it, since minor chords are half major half minor...
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
That's not why, though Jerone. Oh dear. Look, it doesn't matter, 'cos it's wrong anyway. A minor triad played on a piano does not exhibit the sort of consonance we're talking about in any case. Doesn't now. Never has. Never will.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"Just arithmetic" seems rather demeaning - or is there a second meaning ?
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
It's not demeaning, David. It's true. It is what it is. There is no practical musical application you can think of where the "acoustic consonance of the minor triad" is of the least practical use. It's just arithmetic. Theory. Doesn't exist in reality. And as soon as somebody says "well, it does in just intonation" I'm going to say "which just intonation would that be, then?" as well as "which minor triad in a scale tuned to one of the forms of just intonation would that be, then?"
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Oh ok. Well if it's not important then i guess i shouldn't be interested. Well at least i got some refreshing about chords. So what kindof consonance are you talking about Ethical. You all have made nme curious
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
As I say, it's arithmetical. No more. I'm tired now.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I was meaning in the context of your "The 'consonance' occurs two octaves above the fifth of the triad". That's not just maths, there's the psychoacoustics (e.g. octave equivalence), not to mention the physics of a twanging string and all.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Yes, but the only one that matters is the one that can be proved, and that's just arithmetic. Just theory. The other stuff can't really be pinned down. It depends on absolutely everhything, incluiding the weather.
Twanging string? What gauge? What precise thickness? What tension? what materials? What pattern of winding? Then there's whose psychology? Etc etc etc
I think my point and yours are the same, David. The effect that relies on all those other things isn't reliable. It's not real. It's illusory. So why rely on it? Which was my original point.
# Posted on May 30th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
ethical, in the common practice period
Jerone, yes but Major chords are also have Major, half minor
# Posted on May 31st 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Well you as the musician should make the notes and intervals sound good to you. It is better to play any note as convincingly as possible, so you have to believe in your intonation even when you slightly disagree with it and even correct it with Jedi mind tricks like holding your pick at a different angle or just tweaking each note slightly. I can tweak notes on my fretted banjo with a few different methods, and the tuning is always going out as I play, so I really have to. It's widely understood that fiddle players can tweak their notes.
Ethical, I don't understand why you say that consonance is not important? Each note has a relationship to the one before it rhythm, pitch and timbre and all are part of what makes the music what it is.
# Posted on May 31st 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
This is the sort of thing I was getting frustrated with last night. We're all talking about different things. I didn't say that consonance isn't important. I wasn't talking about consoncance in general. I was talking about the specific philosophical concept - "the acoustic consonance of the minor triad" - as brought up by celticturntable. This notion only refers to the fact that all three notes of the triad have a harmonic that coincides at a point two octaves above the highest note of the triad, the fifth. But it doesn't so occur on the piano, so it isn't particularly helpful to use a piano triad to tune to (not that I would use a triad to tune to in any case, which I think you agreed with, Earl). That's all I was saying.
Along the way, I got completely thrown by you, Earl, saying that "originally" the only consonances were the thrid and sixth. I know what you mean now, but I still find that troubling, to be honest. Partly because the thirds and sixths that were "originally" used weren't the same intervals that we now use, and partly because, when they were introduced, supplanting the earlier ideas of consonance at the unison, octave, fifth and fourth, I think they would have been thought of as dissonances. However, all of that depends on how far back you define "originally". Like I say, we've been talking about different things.
# Posted on May 31st 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I understand now, sorry for being confused. I think it's important with this sort of discussion to be more specific about what we are all talking about. So just to be clear, you are talking about consonance of an overtone that is present for all three notes of a minor triad? I can see how that could be next to impossible to achieve because when it comes to tuning, all instruments are compromised in one way or another. And yes I don't think that intervals of a third are that useful for tuning, but sometimes I will check my thirds to make sure they are right after tuning to a 5th or an octave (something where I can listen to the beats in the sound waves until they match).
However the interval of a third is really important for human language. People do subconsciously use Major and minor thirds to convey emotions, though it can't always be simplified into happy or sad. In fast food joints management will want you to speak with a peppy tone in your voice, what they don't know is that this way of speaking contains a lot of Major third intervals. I started listening to the way people spoke after taking an ear training class and the wider the pitch interval, the more peppy you will sound. I haven't read or conducted any studies on this, just observation.
# Posted on May 31st 2011 by Earl Cameron
Re: An Aquired Taste.
This has been an interesting debate on intervals and how they affect us. Back to fiddlelearner´s original question on which music we´ve aquired a taste in, my observation is that you grow to like what you are exposed to over time.
It certainly helps that you like what you hear, but with some friends pointing you in a directions that you know will be fruitful in the long run, you can make yourself take an interest in listening to and playing music that seems obscure and totally off at first. That happened to me over the last couple of years with Paddy Fahey tunes. At first I thought they were strange and a bit "off", but the more you play his tunes, the more you understands and appreciates his musical universe..
Some inspirations and directions are blind alleys, and in traditional music, over time, the best one will be selected and cherished, which in my mind makes traditional music unique. We´ve had several generations picking out the gems....
# Posted on May 31st 2011 by FiddleTramp
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Yep, you and I have been (albeit not necessarily realising it) in agreement all along, Earl. Of course you check your thirds. It's really interesting to do so. It fascinates me how much you have to change the pitch of a note depending on context.
# Posted on May 31st 2011 by ethical blend
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I'm not sure that we consistently grow to like what we are exposed to over time though. I mean, it seems that with food it's more common. But then there's that point when some food is just good to you, you know? For example, i'm about as familiar with Chinese food as i am with Mexican food. But i like Chinese food a lot more than Mexican food, even though i'm just as familiar with one as i am with the other. But the food that i grew up with at home, i like most of it period. There`s not a lot of American food that i don't like. So i'm not sure what you would call this case.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
But now that i think about it further, i've been exposed to many, many different genres of music combining movie soundtracks, video games(the broadest exposure, from Punk and Ska, Screamo, New Age, Technos and Trances, Foreign Pops, Ambients, and of course the genre known only as "video game music") , and 2 decades of Pop radio. Not to mention all the Soul and R&B that my mom listened to, plus oldie music informercials. The tv shows, jingles and themes, commercials... and all the stuff heard in choir and piano classes, and things my friends showed me after iPods were invented. And being a church musician, there's another world there. So i guess there isn`t anything thats really unfamiliar. Just some things i'm more familiar with than others i guess... There are some things that i haven't been exposed to
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Jerone, you seem to forget that as a seasoned musician you will a) probably have been exposed to more music than most and b) you probably have more 'open' ears than most.
The biggest problem I encounter with students (and indeed people at large!) is the line of circular reasoning that goes "I won't try it because I know I won't like it". The same is true of food, music or indeed almost anything new, to people who have a regressive mindset. By that I mean one that feels more threatened than energised by new ideas. And there is a whole heap of humanity that functions in that way. Certainly here in the U.K., the whole national psyche is built on that small-c conservatism.
In terms of music, the majority seems so utterly brainwashed by commercial output that anything that doesn't sound like that has lost before it's started, no matter whether it's jazz, classical, trad or what. On the other hand, I occasionally encounter a student whose mind clearly is 'open' - and then there is hardly anything to do - they do it all for themselves. Also seems that open to one thing tends to be open to many.
But how you cross that divide is one of life's great mysteries to me.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
The first Irish music I heard was Kevin Burke. Liked it right from the start. For me, piobairechd was acquired. It took a while to get used to chord progressions that never resolve, and to learn the way the tunes ebb and flow.
Equal Temperament is vastly over rated. It makes music theory a lot easier, but in reality, it's pretty uncommon. Violins and other string instruments are tuned perfect and played just (in various forms). Winds and brass are played just. Singers sing just. Yeah, for a brief period in the 80's there were keyboard bands that were probably totally ET when playing without vocals. See how long that lasted?
Not that it really matters, but my cousin tunes his pianos by ear. I don't know if they're just, or perhaps some form of tempered (not ET). No, they won't play in every key, but that's not a problem for him. The keys he does play in are much more in tune than ET. The keys he doesn't pay in are wicked out of tune, but since he doesn't play them, it's not really a problem
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by green whistler
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Ian, not sure what you're specifically referring to as commercial output. There's quite a bit recorded music which includes an exchange of money.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Sorry Ben , I really meant commercialised - i.e. mainstream MTV/pop kind of stuff. I find many kids so conditioned by that that they simply can't deal with anything else.
Same when it comes to the relatively small number of kids at our school who play instruments - it's all geared to pop/rock or light entertainment. Lots of drums and keyboards and a bit of brass. Almost no strings other than guitars.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Seasoned? Wow, that's the first time that term has ever been applied to me. Hmm. Lol, anyway what's odd is that all of the ways that i've been exposed to music, are ways that the majority of folks have been. So what makes me different from them? Maybe the way i listen to it? Maybe it's cause i've learned that not all music is made for entertainment so i'm able to experience it in different ways? I don't know, but i think it's sad that so many miss out on what music can really be like, whether it's because of their own closed mind, or just not having the resources :/
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Well, I had a discussion not so long ago on this very topic of 'entertainment'. My view was (broadly) that music is primarily an art form, whereas my opponent's was that it is primarily entertainment.
His argument developed along the lines that even if music is art, then art is also a form of entertainment.
I argued that art is about far more than entertainment - it is a reflection on all aspects of the human condition, including the melancholic and the tragic, which are not things you would normally associate with entertainment.
The discussion didn't really resolve itself, but I argued that seeing art as 'mere' entertainment would actually stifle it, partly by restricting its potential subject matter and partly because it creates a different relationship between the 'artist' and the 'audience'.
If it is entertainment, then the artist has an obligation to provide what the audience wants to be entertained by, whereas in art, it is the creative artist who is in charge, and therby is under no real obligation to the audience at all. Many artists have reported how their creativity dries up as soon as they are commissioned to produce art to order.
So the important part of your previous post is the phrase "not all music is made for entertainment". By saying that, you immediately acknowledge a relationship between the music(ian) and the audience that the vast proportion of the populace fails to see, simply prefering to be 'entertained' by that with which they are alreay familiar -and which for the most part therefore lacks any challenge.
In the long run, of course, it is they who are the losers.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I meant to say, the discussion has a direct application because it influences the choice of music for our band - i.e. the balance between giving an audience 'all the old sing-along favourites' or playing stuff they aren't familiar with in the hope that they'll be open-minded enough to accept it anyway.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"In the long run, of course, it is they who are the losers." And that's what makes it sad. But what also interest me, is the idea of "Enjoyment" in context of experienced ears vs. less experienced ears. I use to think that i could enjoy and appreciate music more because i could hear things that not everyone could ear(like tune in to a subtle or background sound that i really like). But then i questioned myself. Maybe they hear and feel everything just like i do? And if they can`t hear it, they can still feel it, cause it`s in the air. But i haven't been interested enough to research the idea.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"My view was (broadly) that music is primarily an art form, whereas my opponent's was that it is primarily entertainment. "
For me, it's more basic than either of those labels. Music is expression. If someone else within earshot thinks it's art or entertainment, that's their choice.
I sometimes play music as entertainment (gigs, charity events), but it's not my main focus by a long shot.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I feel you Will, but our perceptions are slightly different. I agree that Music is an Art Form, *because Music is an Expression, and Art is Expression to me
What better way to Express yourself than creating something? 
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
There's a notion going round in fashionable education circles here at present, that says all 'talent' is actualyl learned rather than innate. That means that you can be as good at anything as you want, just so long as you work hard enough. (It also has the downside that says if you didn't make it it's all your own fault). But I just don't believe it. I see enough people pass through my classroom to believe that people *do* have different innate aptitiudes - and for some they may be musical.
But you *can* also educate yourself in many ways. I learned to appreciate different wines largely through perseverance, trying new things and by having a couple of people who guided me through it. Before that, all wine tasted the same.
I think music is probably the same - and if pressed for an explanation, I would suggest it is all down to the neural pathways you give yourself the opportunity to build.
I really don't think everybody *does* hear the same things because they all have different experience. The classic thing for trad, of course, is that all the tunes sound the same - which we of course know not to be the case. It's only with the training that we realise this. I'm sure that's where Llig would say I'm still deficient in the Liz Carroll department
I'm much less certain whether we hear different things innately, though there is this issue of the metabolic impact of different pitches (i.e. I love deep bass but it panics my wife). An experienced musician yesterday told me that I have a 'good ear' for the music - but what is that and where did it come from?
What is more mysterious is why different musics 'speak' to different people in the first place - innate or learned? I think part of it is to learn to escape the tyrranny of 'genre' and just hear music for what it is. Many people reject a lot of music because they (think they) can't relate to the genre.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>Music is expression. If someone else within earshot thinks it's art or entertainment, that's their choice.
Fair enough, Will - but if I were to labour the point, I would suggest that that may simply be the artist in you speaking. Isn't that what drives artists - the need to express themselves?
I would posit that many artists are equally unconcerned/unconscious of what people really make of what they do (apart perhaps from the celeb artists who have arguably diverted their work for financial gain). The fact that your playing was not being explicitly dictated by the whims of an audience means that you were not providing "Entertainment" (capital E) - even if they did derive entertainment (small 'e') from listening.
Ironically, it seems to me that it is precisely this lack of concern for the audience that confims the good folk here as artists, playing a form of non-highbrow* art music - despite their protests to the contrary. I don't have any agenda for saying it - just a sociological observation. Good art comes from such unconscious, intrinsic motivation. It's ony modern consumer culture that has rendered it self-conscious by means of commodifying it.
*incidentally, we had Messrs Hayes and Cahill playing over dinner, and my wife remarked, "This really is very highbrow isn't it!"
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Can we "escape the tyranny" of our past musical experience (all those neural connections) and "just here the music for what it is". Is singing songs together at a funeral art or entertainment ?
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
The difference is that I'm not aiming or intending to create art when I play this music. (Which should be clear enough to anyone who's ever heard me play!
)
Seriously, this music may be art in the ear of the beholder, but as soon as players start trying to create art, the music gets pretentious, overwrought, unduly polished. Meh. I'd rather hear expressive spontaneity any day.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>Is singing songs together at a funeral art or entertainment
Hmm. Good question. Instinctive reaction is that it is a form of pick-me-up. Not quite sure why but something to do with the feel-good factor involved in bellowing. Endorphins of something? So in that case, neither art nor entertainment.
No, I don't think we can escape our pasts, musical or otherwise, but we can have some more or less conscious influence on where we go next. I still think that a lot of people who are supposedly rejecting music are actually unable to see past the tribal social labels that we attach to different genres.
Having said that, I have dim memories from well before I became consciously aware of this music, of lying in bed just over-hearing the T.V., where my parents were listening to the Cambridge Folk Festival. They weren't folkies, just musically curious - but I remember being captured by it even then, as it floated into my bedroom. I can't have been more than seven or eight.
Born or made?
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Maybe some things we learn are innate. I've always wondered why Asians seem to be more skilled than everyone else at everything. My HS Choir Director said because their culture has taught them self-discipline, hard work, and patience for centuries. And something about rice farming...
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>I'm not aiming or intending to create art when I play this music
The more people protest on this, the more convinced I am. Just for peace's sake, I am not trying to build any pretentious case here, it simply seems that what is going on in this music very neatly matches my understanding of the nature of art and artists.
But that's *precisely* the best way to create art! As soon as you start trying, you fail. I agree with the over-polished bit, but see my previous comment.
>>expressive spontaneity
sounds pretty much like art to me
I do wish, however, that collectively, we didn't need to react horrified because of the perceived snobberies that surround certain parts of the more formal art world. Art comes in all shapes and sizes...
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Well some of us play this music not as artists or entertainers, but because it's just part of daily life, like going for a walk or making a good meal. It's a salve, a joy, a way to grieve or celebrate, a way to pass time. Mostly, for me, it's a voice to otherwise inarticulate feelings, and a connection to other people.
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>their culture has taught them self-discipline, hard work, and patience for centuries
That, then is not innate, by definition. Innate is things that you just come into the world somehow pre-programmed for.
As soon as something is absorbed from/ imposed by others, it becomes cultural assimilation - i.e. nurture rather than nature. You can't (I assume) culturally normalise someone who hasn't yet been born!
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Will, far be it from me to gainsay what you do. But in which case, how is art different from that?
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
ian, so you're saying that them having been adapted to the culture doesn't now make them "pre-programmed" for coming into the world?
# Posted on June 1st 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Ian, I think you're making too much out of this art label. Sure, a urinal can be art, too. But sometimes it really is just a p*ss pot.
Yes, this music can be both a simple fact of daily life and artful at the same time. But I don't want to go around thinking that I'm an artist or that my music is art. Too many connotations of producing it for others, for an audience, and of having "something to say," making a statement. I guess my point is that I *don't* have something to say, just subtle, non-verbal feelings that come out when I play fiddle. Feels the same whether I'm at a session or sitting alone in a cabin 30 miles from the nearest human being.
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by Will Harmon
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Jerone, so far as I understand it, 'innate' means something that you are born with, that is somehow part of your unique make-up - be it a physical or a mental characteristic.
I can't see how anyone can realistically argue that all people are born equal. I mean equal as in identical, not in terms intrinsic 'value'. People aren't all the same height, hair colour, or complexion, they don't have equally long fingers or equal lung capacity, so why mental capabilities should be any different, I don't know. It's more to do with the social stigmatisation of having less efficient mental capabilities, I think. I also believe that most people probably only use a fraction of what they actually have, and the job of education is to increase that fraction.
But the moment someone is born, they start being inducted into whatever culture they landed in - from the foods they are given to the language they start learning. I don't see why the music that they are or aren't exposed to shouldn't be part of this.
I was brought up in a musically active household, as were most of my musically-active friends. I see a lot of students who tell me that the only music they have at home comes from MTV or UK Radio 1 etc. They grow up thinking of music as a passive form of light entertainment, which they can also expect to be finacially fleeced for. Any suprise their ears aren't open to the alternatives?
The puzzling ones are the relatively few who do grow up in that environment but still find the wherewithall to branch out.
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Will, I think this is another case of internet-itis blowing things up. The art label really is no big deal to me – it’s in the background.
Pretty much the same me too, but I don’t have any issue with that being what art is ‘for’.
I certainly don’t want to go round telling people they’re wrong, nor hyping trad into a pretentious art-form. I wouldn't want the trad scene to turn pretentiously arty. But I think that your reaction is bound up in your perceptions of what art is, or rather has become. The least artistic thing about art is the art establishment, which I generally have little time for either. It’s basically a form of social snobbery that has commodified art for its elitist potential.
I really don’t think art need include any of the things you mentioned – for me, it is simply a means of expressing that for which spoken language is inadequate – and that can apply to anyone anywhere, whether there is an audience or not. The grandstanding of art in galleries, concerts etc. is in some ways a distraction. That’s not to say it’s invalid – some people like expressing themselves to others, but the person quietly talking to themselves in the corner can just as much be an artist in my world. The paintings that artists paint just for themseleves are still art.
I assume you would have no issue with notions of prehistoric art, tribal art etc.? None of which fits into your caricature, except when hijacked by wealthy westerners. It is all made for self-consumption by people who are largely culturally unconscious of what they are doing; they are just expressing themselves. I see trad as a modernised form of western tribal art – simply made by people for themselves. It need not have anything specific to say, just the feeling that it either expresses or evokes is sufficient.
I agree, the moment you start planning it to make external ‘statements’ the lesser art it becomes. That’s the problem with Entertainment – it is all about crowd-pleasing and nothing to do with the self-expression of real art. To consider this music as ‘mere’ entertainment is to debase it in my view; whether you consciously see it as art or not really doesn't matter.
Kevin Burke’s ‘If the Cap Fits’ arrived this morning – the sleeve notes read as follows: “Many of these older musicians used to play by themselves as an expression and a relaxation...at other times it meant relief from more worldly troubles, a therapy...people forget that the musician often plays for his own enjoyment...” Sounds like you’re doing it right
What is more tricky is how you reconcile playing in a band. Personally, I have never quite been able to resolve this – it is actually a fraught experience for me, but I still feel compelled to do it. But I know it is most definitely not about showing off, nor ‘entertainment’. While an audience is necessary for a performance, somehow I actually don’t really care if it is there or not...
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>somehow I actually don’t really care if it is there or not...
Correction: I'm not unduly concerned about 'entertaining' them. I think the difference between an 'entertainment' audience and an 'art' audience is down to who is seen as the more important - the art audience will generally be prepared to give the performer a much greater degree of latitiude and also be prepared to do more of the work themselves.
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>> There's a notion going round in fashionable education circles here at present, that says all 'talent' is actually learned rather than innate. That means that you can be as good at anything as you want, just so long as you work hard enough. <<
If that's actually the notion going around, they've gotten it mixed up. The evidence however, indicates that achievement in music is rather directly tied to hours practiced. That's not to say everyone who puts in the hours can become world class, but that one cannot become world class without putting in the hours. In reality most people seem to be incapable of putting in the hours. Also those who do practice (properly) will almost invariably improve. As long as one continues to improve, one will eventually become competent, then good, and perhaps really good. There seems to be no end to progress -- it's just a question of time.
Invariably, those who are greatest have spent more hours in practice than the rest. To the extent that talent exists, it is probably that which allows one person to practice so much longer than another. Perhaps borderline obsessive compulsive.
How many times have you heard someone start off a conversation with, "Oh, I used to play piano but the practice was so boring." You see -- they can not become great, because they chose to stop practicing.
"If the Cap Fits" is a great album. I can hear it right now, even though it's not playing anywhere but between my ears.
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by green whistler
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>If that's actually the notion going around, they've gotten it mixed up
Yep - all part of the view that says standards can go on rising indefinitely and the affluenza notion that even unlimited brilliance is something anyone can have just as long as they want it enough.
I agree about the importance of practice - but I suspect that natural aptitude may be about more than stamina - a combination of manual dexterity, physical attributes such as long fingers or big lungs and the ability to conceptualise music readily. It makes the practice more productive for some people than others.
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Can one acquire a taste for a particular kind of music? I'm not so sure this is what happens. One gives one's self an education and therefore an understanding.
The problem with taste is that it's almost always used as an excuse for a lack of understanding.
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>Can one acquire a taste for a particular kind of music
By 'acquire' I was really meaning self-acquisition in the sense you meant, not somehow passively 'getting hold of'...
Where else does it come from? But I'm more sure that you can *stop* yourself liking something by determinedly closing your ears to it. IMO that is more likely to happen because of genre-tribalism than anything else.Sometimes, though, even open ears don't do the trick.
>>One gives one's self an education and therefore an understanding.
Why do some people bother and others not? Where does that initial drive come from? What drew me to trad rather than heavy rock? It was certainly neither up-bringing nor peer-pressure in my case. And why is it so imperative to play this music rather than just listen to it?
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
i like what you said there llig. Ian-- Sir, i like you and everything... but you can be a real thread hog man. Just sayin'
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Well I do apologise. Just trying to be helpful. I'll shut up
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Understanding, how? For me this implies studying something in as many different ways as possible. Is this incorrect?
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
So, is taste a process? I looked up the etymology for understanding. It's a slippery term. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=understand
Llig, I would like to understand how you are using the term understand. Do you think it possible to use the term taste so it is not an excuse for a lack of understanding?
# Posted on June 2nd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
To understand a piece of music one has to be clear in one's mind about all the sounds that are going on, from the minutia to the big picture. What are those sounds' functions in relation to rest of the sounds. How the subdivisions (both rhythmically and harmonically) divide. Where the repetitions are and why (both in the minutia and the big picture). etc.
If one eschews any part of it, for what ever reason, then one can never understand it.
So the only way one can really use the word "taste" when it is not an excuse for a lack of understanding is if you've gone through the process of understanding something, but still don't like it.
But this is rarely how it works practically. One hears something about a piece of music one is initially not fond of and usually leaves that piece of music where it is. Why would one bother with a piece of music one is not fond of? It's a perfectly acceptable stand point. It's just that if you do do this, have the decency to actually say that you find it difficult because you don't understand it.
This was Ian's problem in the whole Liz Carroll debacle. And, conversely, I think it's what's driving fiddlelearner exponential rise - a thirst for understanding.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
This is sounding a bit like an 'you don't like this posh wine because you don't have an educated palette' sort of explanation. I need convincing that 'acquired tastes' are not mainly a matter of experience rather than understanding.
I see sense in me not being as fond of Liz Carroll's playing as I am of Martin Hayes' because I find it harder to latch on to the structure of a tune when the 'dance-related' features (e.g AABBAABB with a 'question-answer' pattern within A and B including reappearance of parts of phrases) are less overt.
But picking up on that structure without having to think about it is a matter of experience, not understanding. Similarly to appreciate variations one has to recognise without thinking about it that part of a tune is not as before and is 'unexpected' in a pleasing way.
I'm happy that experience has a lot to do with me often getting distracted from what I am doing by going from one youtube clip of Martin Hayes to another but not so often of Liz Carrol. I am not convinced understanding is neccessarily part of it.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I think that in this case, experience and understanding are largely synonymous. Or at least, that experience directly relates to subconscious understanding.
However, I'm not sure that experience in its self is enough. I think that at some stage, you have to actually think about about.
And the rub here, I think, is that a lot of people just don't want to think about it. They prefer to assimilate a subconscious understanding and are therefore left lacking when something a little harder comes their way.
Appreciating a variation is a good example. If you are very familiar with a tune, you have it subconsciously assimilated as it were, then you will be able to pick up on variations without thinking about it. But to appreciate a really good player you are not familiar with play a tune you are not familiar with all you have to do is think about it. Listen and remember the first time through and compare it with the next. It takes a bit of effort, that's all. Simply saying that it's not to your taste is an admission of lazyness
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
It may not be lazyness if one is in the mood for more of an aesthetic experience than an intellectual one. I had a long drive at the weekend and took along a CD full of Bobby Casey and one of Felix Doran, neither of whom I had heard much of before. I had to stop the Casey half way through (and later come back to it) because it made my head hurt but I let the Doran go round a second time - there was no need for me to think too much to appreciate the wild stuff going on there.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
You are confusing aesthetic with anaesthetic.
What you actually meant was, "if one is in the mood for more of an anaesthetic experience than an intellectual one."
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I don't particularly like the songs of Engelbert Humperdinck (I mean Mr Dorsey, not the composer). It's not that I haven't taken the time to 'understand' him. It's just that I don't like his style of music. It's not to my taste, and no amount of analysis is likely to change that.
'Lazyness' is the epitome of laziness.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by Weejie
Re: An Aquired Taste.
ha ha, got me
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
No, I was listening to the Felix Doran and simply enjoying it without thinking much except for during the couple of tunes I am working on. It may be that since I am learning the flute I found it easier to follow what pipes were doing - but I don't see why that should be lazy if I was after an aesthetic experience.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I've been watching a good programme on the telly about Easy Listening. I had no idea of the enormity of that market. I think Easy Listening is one of the most honest musical genres there are. It basically says, if you are lazy and not interested in music, listen to this. And it sells billions and good luck to it.
If I had a record shop I'd put Martin Hayes in the Easy Listening section. I'd shift hundreds of units.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Does it have to be 'easy listening' to 'soothe a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak'? Does it have to be understood to do the same? I somehow doubt it.
I would be worried if I had to understand a piece of music before I liked it - emphasis on 'had'.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by Weejie
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Llig, can you enjoy a dawn chorus without always wanting to know what the birds are ? Or the flowers in a hedgerow in May without needing to know their names ?
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
No, I don't think you do have to understand a piece of music before you like it. But you should make an effort to understand a piece of music before you say you don't like it. Easy Listening, Engelbert Humperdinck et all, is easy music to understand .. it's made that way deliberately. So to say it is not to your taste is fine.
Yes, I love a dawn chorus. And one of the reasons is that when it's really going at it full pelt, it's so hard to tell apart the individual songs I am otherwise so familiar with, I give up and just let it wash over me.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
" Easy Listening, Engelbert Humperdinck et all, is easy music to understand ."
Understand? I haven't analysed the arrangement of 'Last Waltz' or thought much about what Williams, Miller and Yount were trying to express with 'Release Me' (other than a superficial yearning to get out of a relationship). It's not just the words or the orchestration. I just don't like his songs. They do nowt for me. That it is 'easy listening' is probably a by the by.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by Weejie
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Michael, I respect your dedication and single-mindedness, but I think you constantly forget two things: not everyone has the time, inclination and maybe talent to take things to the ‘n’th degree like you do. I don’t doubt that your analysis is right for people whose sole aim in life is to become the next Liz Carroll or Kevin Burke - but not everybody does. You also seem to forget what it is like to be less accomplished (you must have been there once) and have someone constantly raining on your parade.
To be quite so condemnatory of people who choose (or are simply at) a different level is really rather destructive. It is quite possible to play and enjoy this music greatly at a less conmplex level, just as in other genres – I know from experience. It is not a mortal sin. A friend who has taught many, many successful musicians this music over the years agrees with me on this. Yours is not the only 'truth'.
Like David, I appreciate this music more ‘in the round’ and I don’t see that that is wrong. It does not make me a numpty, just looking for different things.
The pasting I have taken on here for simply asking questions and expressing hopefully reasonably considered views has taken a toll. I have tried to take your advice seriously, but part of the result has actually been destructive to my enjoyment, in that I am now frequently dissatisfied with what I am doing. That will hopefully pass, but I think you will agree that it can hardly be a helpful development.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
So is "This music is not to my taste because..." OK ?
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
David, I don't know that it is: that's the approach I tried with Liz Carroll - and look where it got me.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Here's a quick anecdote that I thought perfectly illustrates some of the points being made.
Yesterday I was driving from Torridon to Inverness with a friend who has absolutely no interest whatsoever in Irish or Scottish traditional music. The iPod was whirring away on shuffle and it played one of my many solo uilleann piping recordings. I wasn't looking at it (as I was driving) but it sounded like David Power or Tommy Reck (who I know don't sound that much alike but I was thinking more about pretty scenery going past that the nuances of the tune at that second, so I wasn't paying enough attention to identify the player) or another one of those pipers who plays "dirty," with all the blue notes and playfulness with tuning, rather than one of the "cleaner" players, i.e. McGoldrick.
Anyway, my friend commented, "You know, you're hearing this nice tune and then all of sudden you get these awful, flat notes. It just ruins it."
Because I am that lame, the first thing I thought of was this thread and Ian's other thread about Liz Carroll. Then I said, "Half the fun of the pipes are the flat, whiny notes." And left it there, as I didn't feel like getting into a discussion about the social construction of tuning and how good Irish music, like good whisky, is just not something everyone is going to "get." I suppose if my friend had any interest whatsoever in it, I may have done, but she doesn't. She just has to tolerate it when she rides in my car.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: An Aquired Taste.
That's one reason I was asking
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
That was to Ian
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Emily, you choose whisky, I choose wine
But there is a difference: AFAIK whisky does not vary according to vintage, only label and age; wine varies according to all three.
There’s a whole range of ‘labels’ within ITM, some of which will appeal to some people more than others. I may not like LC as yet, but that clip Jim posted of Ben Lennon was pure magic, as was the Sheep in the Boat Limerick Uni clip the other day. All red musical wine, but all different, all unique. Who’s to say which is ‘best’, anymore than with wine?
Sometimes it even varies simply with vintage: I love Kevin Burke’s playing in The Bothy Band, but the jury’s out at present on ‘If the Cap Fits’. Generally I prefer a fuller melody and less rhythm, but even that isn’t a hard-and-fast rule; sometimes it’s the instrumentation that makes it, sometimes not. Sometimes those flat pipe notes are excruciating, sometimes they’re wonderful. Does John McSherry's wonderful playing of Doinna count as strong melody or not? Each case totally unique and of itself.
But not liking all equally is surely a reasonable form of discernment? Even liking none of it isn’t a capital offence – I assume your friends are still with us?
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I think that "This music is not to my taste because..." is OK. Provided that what follows the "because" is a reasonable and accurate description of the music in question. Ian's, in that other thread, wasn't.
But we a going round in circles. Let me reiterate: I'm not saying that you either have to like something or understand it. There's no rule there. All I'm saying is that if you don't like something, be prepared to say that it could well be because you don't understand it.
I do not forget that not everyone has the time or inclination to dig deeper into more difficult music than "Easy Listening". I rejoice in the fact that there is lots of music in the world for such people.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I like wine as well but I choose it on the basis of whether it costs 5 or 6 pounds or less. I can't tell the difference between a mediocre wine and a great wine but that could well be because I don't really understand wine. Which is fine. I'm quite happy not being a wine snob and enjoying cheap wine.
Maybe it's all a bit like that. I'm a beer snob and a traditional music snob, though. I understand the nuances of those things far better.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I was once at a dinner with a bunch of authors (don't ask how little old me got there, it is a long story). And they went around the table, with everyone ordering fancy wine and cocktails. When they finally got to me, I asked "What do you have on tap?" And funny enough, three other guys changed their orders to beer.
Sometimes people are more afraid of what others will think of them than they should be. We like what we like, and don't what we don't. And our tastes change as we learn and experience new things. And what we like, as TSS says, we get to know really well, and it is there that the subtleties become apparent, and get cherished.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by AlBrown
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Tommy Tiernan:
There's two kinds of wine.
One where after a gulp you go, "Hmmm ... Yes ... very nice."
And the other where you go, "UEEEARRRGHHH"
No, hang on a minute ... there's a third kind.
One where you go, "UEEEARRRGHHH ... Hmmm ... Yes ... very nice."
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Ian, I meant to also say, I think it's ok and normal to start hearing other things in the music, mainly the things you're not doing, and consequently going through periods of, "My God, I really suck at this." That's how improvement happens, in my experience. If you can't hear it, you won't know you don't have it -- in which case you'll not find it and not get better. I've met plenty of people who can't -- or more accurately have never learned how -- hear the "nyah" (for lack of a better word). They'll not get much better. You have to hear it, in yourself and others, to play it.
I know what you mean though about feeling frustrated and not enjoying your playing. I've been there. I still might be there. Anyone on this board who has known me for some time can easily confirm all the times I have threatened to quit the pipes completely.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"UEEEARRRGHHH" reminds me of my first sip of beer. The glass was at eye level. I was standing up. Big laughs "you'll like it one day lad". I am not sureI had drunk it again before I first sneaked into a pub with my mates. I can't remember what it tasted like (it was probably Watney's Red Barrel...) but I wasn't going to ask for a Coke.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Aye, me too. I didn't like beer until I lived in Ireland for a summer. Then I realized the only thing I could vaguely afford to drink was Guinness (at the time, whiskey was still way out of the question). I have fond memories of nursing half pints, forcing myself to drink them although I found it pretty nasty. I supposed I could have been a teetotaller for the summer but in Ireland, that seemed like the worse option! Anyway, after enough forced half pints, I started liking the stuff.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: An Aquired Taste.
>>Ian's, in that other thread, wasn't.
Michael, read my lips – yours is not the only valid check-list. My evaluation of LC might not seem accurate to you - because I wasn’t looking for what you look for. You don’t rate my criteria because you think they are superficial or simplisitic, I think yours are perhaps over-analytical. It doesn’t make either of us inherently Wrong.
I’m no wine connoisseur, but I know a few people who are – and my God you should see them argue! So connoisseurship in itself is no guarantee of consensus – it all depends what you are looking for. LC satisfies your criteria but misses mine – and some situations no doubt do it the other way round - just as with wines or indeed anything else where degrees of insight are possible. There’s no Eleventh Commandment to say who is right. For sure, familiarity brings greater powers of differentiation – but there’s still no guarantee that all people will value the same qualities.
That last paragraph of yours is doing it all again – casting everyone into either True Believers or the Great Unwashed. Life’s not that simple. Music’s not that simple. Especially when you set the bar so high.
Emily, I know that dissatisfaction can be a great driver, but I think there are two sorts: the positive sort that makes you resolve to do better and the negative sort that makes you want to give up in despair.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Yes, I know, and I know the latter kind well. I was in despair about the pipes and sessions for years. For a while, I only didn't quit because I had made playing every day, or most days, such a habit that I would just do it anyway, even though I was completely f*cked off with my playing and sessions and the whole thing. And not in a positive, "I will now do better" sort of way. I wasn't positive about it all. But I'm glad now I plodded on with it anyway. After a few years of being p*ssed off with irish music and how crap I was at it -- I did get better and less frustrated.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: An Aquired Taste.
"My evaluation of LC might not seem accurate to you"
You might of had something there Ian, if was just me. But everyone on that thread jumped on you for such outrageaous nonsense as "wannabe classical player".
Bite the bullet mate and please be prepared to say that it could well be that you don't like Liz Carroll's playing because you don't understand it. Please be prepared to admit that your evaluation of her playing is indeed not only inaccurate, but superficial and simplistic.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Emily, I suppose I'm lucky that most of the time my dissatisfaction is of the first type, and I think I do verge on OCD in trying to do something about it. Most of the time the reward moments come often enough to make it worthwhile. But there have been times recently when it was tipping over into the other sort, not initally with my own playing, but with all this other stuff. It then started to shift into dissatisfaction with my own efforts.
I have found myself asking the question, "Why bother?" too often for comfort.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Michael, I have never disagreed that I may not fully understand her music, in the sense you mean. I have only ever challenged the view that this makes me a lesser judge, or that the other musical qualities I look for are of lesser importance.
I don’t ‘understand’ it because I haven’t devoted the time to it that you have. But that is partly because I don’t ascribe as much importance to those aspects that you admire about her. I can hear what you are talking about, but that is not what makes me generally value this music so highly. I can think “how clever” to her music but it does not move me in the way I seek, in the way I can find elsewhere. I don’t see what’s so controversial about that. I just don’t agree that that is a numpty’s view.
I don’t doubt that you experience it differently, and good luck to you – but to imply that your way is the only knowledgeable way to appreciate or play the music is just not reasonable.
The word ‘wannabe’ was poorly chosen. It is not a word I habitually use and I had clearly misunderstood its connotations. I unconditionally took the word back, but I think it was that above all else that got me jumped upon. But I still stand by the view that certain tracks *on that album* have overtones of classical music about them, in the tone she coaxes from her instrument – not her choice of music, nor perhaps even her conscious intentions. You may not hear that, but I do - maybe you're just missing the subtleties? It’s no big deal - just a concept that I find intriguing, and it was actually one of the more unexpected but positive aspects of what I heard.
All music, even mine, has micro-variations in it; whether they are intentional or not is another matter. The view that one interpretation is objectively 'better' than another is ultimately futile – not least because you can never hear what *wasn’t* played. Sometimes I deliberately play a tune one way rather than another, more often it just comes out that way; sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t. But ultimately, the response is emotive and singular.
No amount of deconstruction can explain or predict the subjective, emotional impact of music - it is irreducible. I like David’s birdsong analogy – the emotional response is not enhanced (much) by knowing which birds are singing, any more than knowing whose sweaty feet crushed the grapes improves my appreciation of a particular wine. It’s just an in-the-round, singular whole. It just is what it is; you either like it or you don’t, albeit in degrees. I don’t think that explaining the technical niceties to Emily’s friend is likely to do much to improve her taste for the music.
I would put my response down to a complex combination of:
• the inherent sound(s) of the instrument
• the character/nature of the music chosen, both macro and micro scale
• the circumstances in which it is being played
• the interpretive choices made by the player
• my own predictable preferences (which I know pretty well)
• the degree to which the music fits my multiple perceptions of the genre and what I like about it
• the quality of my hearing
• my own mood at the time
Even then, I am sometimes surprised and sometimes disappointed, even by repeat playing of the same piece. It’s so complex and so subjective that I just don’t think it is really gains much from analysing. Just play from the heart - but that needn't imply any particular thing.
For personal reward, I think I’m getting at least as much now from finally being able to play fiddle tunes that sound reasonably ‘right’ (especially after a surprisingly small time) as from anything I expect to get later on. The greatest revelation often comes from the *first* time you hear/do something, with all the unfamiliarity that implies. The quest for ever more refinement can be satisfying, but it's the only place to go once you’ve climbed all the other mountains. I’m not sure it actually increases total reward either as a player or a listener.
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Ian, the only way to kill a troll is to stop feeding it...
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by Michael Eskin
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Aren't most of the tunes more are less just 16 or 32 bars?
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Yes, I guess you're right, Michael. I've had enough right now. Still, it's clarified a few things in my own mind too
# Posted on June 3rd 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
llig, the only way to stop Ian is to quit goading him. You know he was off base in his Liz Carroll comments, we all know he was off base, but he seems to think that if he throws enough words at us, we will eventually come around.
Lets just agree to disagree and move on!!!
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Dark Chocolate! Not that extra sweet 60% cocoa stuff, i'm talkin' about that Intense Dark 90% Cocoa stuff. My goodness! When i first tried it, i couldn't eat a whole piece of it... It was soooooo bitter and NASTY! I put the bar in my cabinet and i think threw it away a couple weeks later. I began eating 60% and 75% chocolate. I developed a taste for 75% though, and now it taste really sweet, but also rich because of high cocoa percentage. A friend gave me a bar of 90% Cocoa Lindt Chocolate. Over the last couple of months i`ve been steadily trying it. I finished it yesterday. The last piece i didn`t have to force down my throat like the first one. It was actually pretty good.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Now when i eat milk chocolate, it taste like caramel with extra sugar. It's so sweet, i can't even eat a whole *piece of a Hershey bar. I have to eat it a bite at a time. But that's ok. The more i learned about the Darker Chocolates, the more motivated i was to try them. I learned that they were a lot more healthy than the sweeter, lighter chocolates. Not only that, but chocolate makes us feel good. Something about endorphines and biological chemicals or something. So now i can enjoy Dark Chocolate and the Lighter chocolates. If i want something really really sweet, i'll go for the white or caramel chocolate bars. If i want to be more healthy, and also enjoy the richness of Cocoa, then i'll go for the darker chocolates.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
You never struck me as the voice of intolerance before, Al.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by ian stock
Re: An Aquired Taste.
So my point? If i had not tried the dark chocolates, and learned more about them, i would be missing out on something really, really good. Too good to say. It basically opened up my *mouth so i could enjoy more that God had to offer. But with music, i guess we could say the same thing. The reality is, music is subjective. We could learn and understand a *style* all we want, but that could very well lead to us not likeing it, just as much as it could lead to us adoring it. There's musics that i have listened to since i was a kid, and just recently stopped listening to them. There's some that are fairly new that i'm falling in love with. There are some that i don't like the majority of, but find something to like about them(like the sweetness of some County/Western lyrics)
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Hopefully this won't distract everyone from my real-life chocolate analogy, Ian. But one thing i've learned here, is the less i say, the less everyone else has to argue with me about. You know why? Because the more i say, the more my own knowledge and opinion comes out, and both of them could be either wrong, or different than someone elses view. Unless you like the attention and for people to argue with you, i suggest you learn how to trim down your posts by a couple paragraphs. Or maybe just know who to answer and what to reply and what not to reply to. We're not always right, other people have opinions to. And other people know and understand things that we don't. Sometimes arguing isn't the best choice. And sometimes its fun to sit back and watch others ;)
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Does one get to like something merely through exposure to it?
I think it's possibly true with food stuffs. But I also think there is a world of difference between educating one's taste buds to an unfamiliar concoction of chemicals and educating one's mind to a new form of sounds.
The main difference being the level of creativity in music. "Forms" of sounds are "formed/created" by the delicate balance of peoples' personal reactions to conventions that surround them and their own creativity. Get this balance wrong and it's either regurgitated facsimile or self indulgent nonsense. And the rub is, that in order to tell the difference, one has to have studied the conventions first.
However, it seems to me, through discussions on this topic over the years, that there is a significant proportion of people who profess interest in music who are either happy to listen to and produce regurgitated facsimile, or cannot tell the difference.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by ...
Re: An Aquired Taste.
'If i had not tried the dark chocolates, and learned more about them, i would be missing out on something really, really good. Too good to say. It basically opened up my *mouth so i could enjoy more that God had to offer.'
Willie Wonka = God?
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: An Aquired Taste.
I guess i ccould understand that llig. Prof. No, God is cooler than Willie Wonka ANY day. But C/S Have you checked my progress videos? I posted them a little while ago. I didn't receive any feedback from you with criticism and advice, though i was looking forward to. I would like for you to do that since everyone else who's opinion i care about has already posted.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
'No, God is cooler than Willie Wonka ANY day'
But only one of them owns a chocolate factory if I am not mistaken.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: An Aquired Taste.
You know,this week was only half term...I fear what's to come in the big Summer hols,I really do.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by biggus dave
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Willie Wonka may own a Chocolate Factory, but God owns the Universe... and i'm not mistaken.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Wow, from tuning to chocolate to God, with a visit to the continuing discussion of Ian's Liz Carroll comments. What a wild and varied thread this is.
Sorry you think I am intolerant, Ian, I just think the more and more and more you keep getting drawn into discussing the Liz Carroll comments, and the more and more and more you say, the more you define yourself by that issue. Time to move on and talk about other things is my advice. And if someone brings it up, feel free to ignore them.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Oh! I remember one thing i really, harshly disliked about this music, and that is how some of the tunes would end, ESPECIALLY those Dorian ones. Ugh! But when i learned that that is how a lot of tunes were connected, i began to appreciate them. And after getting use to the lack of resolution, and learning how to resolve them myself, i liked to listen to them too.
# Posted on June 4th 2011 by fiddlelearner
Re: An Aquired Taste.
It's interesting watching a young savant being taken under the wings of others. The best to you, Jerone.
Ian, you're a good man. But you're taking most of the punches. Reminds me of someone. Oh, yes ~
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n0mgkaEGQc
Take care, my friend.
# Posted on June 5th 2011 by Ben Steen
Re: An Aquired Taste.
Grandpa Joe Is God.
# Posted on June 5th 2011 by ceemonster