Do you really listen to versions of tunes on other instruments than the instrument(s) you play the most?
With resources like Comhaltas and Youtube I have been able to listen to
multiple renditions of tunes I am interested in by players from all over the world. If I want to add a new tune to my repertoire I can listen to
renditions on violin, concertina, flute, or banjo for example.
The most common instrument among youtube "tutorial" sites, seems to be the violin for Irish music. One has to really want to listen to the banjo in order to spend the time to find outstanding banjo renditions of Irish tunes. Since I love the banjo this is great for me. I will have a lot of ideas of how to approach a tune from all the other instruments that I happen to listen to before I arrive at a decent version on the banjo. For violin players it seems to be not as convenient to hear other instruments and timbres for a tune, since one has to look a little harder to find decent renditions of tunes on other instruments.
I am asking if all you violin or flute or other instrument players out there spend much time listening to solo banjo or mandolin renditions of tunes for example. (Just plug in your main instrument(s) into the first part of the question and another instrument you don't play into the second part of the question.)
Maybe I'm just an eccentric who likes to hear how the tunes sound on many different instruments. This gives me ideas about how to do something on the banjo to "sound like that fiddle version" or to accentuate the uniqueness of the timbre of instruments I play. Thanks in advance for considering this question.
I think what you're doing is perfectly fine. You're doing something that seems to work for you for learning, approaching, etc. However, I would have a hard time believing that a fiddler, for example, would spend much if any time listening to tunes played primarily/exclusively on a plectrum instrument.I personally would listen to versions of tunes played on whistle or other wind instruments for purposes of learning whistle, which I'm currently trying to do, or I might listen to a typical session ensemble version, but I don't know why I would listen to a banjo playing a tune when I'm trying to learn whistle.
Yeah gam is absolutely right, as long as it is a good version it's totally irrelevant what instrument is being played!
I play the banjo, but I have found that Michael Eskin's whistle playing on tradlessons on YouTube is superb for learning new tunes, regardless of what instrument you play!
Well as a fiddler I must say If I am learning new fiddle tune I look at different fiddle versions only and when I am learning whistle tunes I look for good whistle versions that I like. It's because fiddles do differrent things from banjos and other plucked things and I want to learn how to make it sound like an excellently played fiddle. Likewise the whistle with whistle-played tunes. Ornamentation and technique are much easier to hear and copy on same instrument, especially as I am doing it without the slow-down gizmos that people seem to use.
But good luck to you HWT, - sounds like an interesting exercise, trying to take the best of one instrument and making into the best of another.
While I have maybe 70 or so tunes on my site, for whistle/flute players, I highly recommend Michael Clarkson's Irish Flute tunes podcast where he has nearly 300 tunes played slow/fast:
Again agree with gam. I listen to as much as I can, trying to soak up as much as I can. Playing a tune on more than one instrument is great too, for those that are so inclined. There are lots of tunes I can play on whistle that I struggle with the flow of on box until I've let go of my whistle version and relearned it. Then, when I play the tune on whistle again, I find that how I approach the tune has changed, most times for the better. The more knowledge and experience you can get, the better I reckon.
i am a concertina player, although originally a flute player. i listen almost exclusively to fiddle players. after that, it goes accordion, pipes, sean nós singing, and then finally concertina and flute. i rarely listen to whistle, even though i've been playing the whistle for 10 years.
i copy fiddle phrasing and tone on the concertina, and then move it over to the flute and whistle. i guess i heard enough of flute and whistle over the years to know how it all goes, and am very well versed in traditional techniques.
the reason i do this is it was how i was taught. my uncle taught me to listen to everything but my main instrument, so that i would develop a unique sound. matt molloy did this with the pipes, and so did noel hill.
my inspiration has always been the fiddle, though my first few years of playing (and before) were spent listening to my uncle playing the flute. so, my style is derivative from his.
from the concertina i mostly have spent my time learning from and listening to my teacher (who comes to the states once a year). lately i've been studying recordings of another player (and had a long lesson with him in ireland), but i still would say i listen to fiddlers 95% of the time.
so, i listen to fiddlers, but i study concertina technique and phrasing. if that make sense...
I do the opposite to 'Sky fiddler' and prefer to get a basic version of a tune from different instruments before paying close attention to flute renditions. When I get to that stage Michael Clarkson's site is usually the first port of call (don't miss the pipe tunes on Harry Bradley's similar site though http://errantelbows.podbean.com/)
Hearing a tune on mandolin is a good way of getting a take on it without it being cluttered up with rolls and stuff. Seeing the wood from the trees
Of course it's great to listen to a recording with the same instrument, if you want to learn ornamentation and different variations, specific to your instrument.
If you just want to get the tune into your head I much prefer a recording with e.g. mandolin as David50 pointed out!
I don't know about you other guys, but I feel that the ornamention and articulation come naturally when you know the "base melody" of the tune?
It's down to this "ornamentation" word again. It's this whole concept that there can be a thing that's called "just the tune" and then you hang your baubles on to it. I hear so many people play like this, learn like this. It's just not what the music is.
I defy anyone to successfully define the boundaries between what's described as tune, variation and ornament.
If I hear a tune I like, I learn it from whatever recording I have on hand. I'm quicker at picking up tunes from pipers so if I have one of them playing the tune, it's my first port of call, but I'm not picky. Any instrument will do so long as it's a good, clear version.
I normally learn off an accordionist and/or fiddler I play with so my version tends to mimic or complement theirs. If it's for the ceilidh band I try to lock pretty tight with their articulation (in a banjo kind of way) because I like that snappy tight sound for the dancing. Cue session-players rolling their eyes. A lot of it's learned on the fly so it develops over time as I feel my way into the tune. Then I might hear another version I like live or on record so take something from that. As far as I can see it's pretty much the same for everyone.
Being primarily a mandolin player, like halfwaythere, I have little choice but to learn tunes from other instruments. But I have never seen this as a problem and, in retrospect, I think it has been of great benefit to my playing. It is always a delight to hear traditional music played well on mandolin, but if I were to restrict my learning sources to mandolin recordings only, I would have a very limited repertoire indeed.
I dabble in other instruments as well - tenor banjo (not very different from mandolin), whistle, fiddle, guitar, piano, piano accordion*(!!) - and, echoing what others have said, I find playing the same tune on more than one instrument a useful way to get better acquainted with a tune, as it divorces the 'music' of the tune from the technique, thus forcing you to listen more intently. Furthermore, each instrument lends itself most easily to certain types of ornamentation, melodic variation, expression etc., each thus giving a slightly different take on the tune; this can then be brought back to the original instrument with a fresh approach, outside the normally perceived 'constraints' of the instrument.
*Not my first choice of instrument for Irish trad, but great for klezmer.
Returning to the subject of listening to other instruments, I think it depends a great deal on the instrument you play - the pipes, fiddle and flute all have well established styles and techniques associated with them, which have come about through generations of pipers learning from pipers, fiddlers learning from fiddlers and fluters learning from fluters. Playing styles on fiddle and flute have, of course, drawn a lot on piping** (either uillean or HIghland/war pipes, depending on the locality), but there are enough flute and fiddle players out there, with enough variety in repertoire, style and approach, to provide enough material for a learner of one of those instruments to become a fully-fledged traditional musician. The same may be true, to a lesser extent of the button accordion and concertina. But, whilst I could perhaps have become a better mandolin player by listening only to other mandolin players, I could certainly not have amassed the repertoire and understanding of Irish traditional music (such as they are; compared to anyone who has been raised in the tradition, I have barely scratched the surface) that I have.
**I don't know to what extent piping has been influenced by other instruments, or by which instruments
The tune can be played on any trad instrument , Ornaments are instrument specific.
Variation encompasses ornamentation , melodic and rhythmic variation from the tune.
To conflate ornamentation and tune is a basic error.
A tune can be played with no variation and no ornamentation , ornamentation and variation can not be played with out tune.
I play 7 instruments fluently, woodwind and strings. The tune can be played on all these instruments but some variations and ornamentation can not. This is the line dividing tune and ornamentation.
Any exceptions anyone.?
I recommend learning tunes from other instruments for a number of reasons , ear training, ease of learning , the ideas presented by the different approaches.
Once Ive learned a tune, I play it on several instruments and they settings vary as do the ornaments and key.
Learning tunes in unconventional keys is IMO of great advantage for ideas of variation. . Try it and see.
Sheesh, I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to jig, what a sucker I am, but here goes:
"The tune can be played on any trad instrument":
What's a "trad" instrument?
"Ornaments are instrument specific." Some are, most aren't.
"Variation encompasses melody" You've answered that one.
"To conflate ornamentation and tune is a basic error."
This is the one that really gets my goat. It succinctly says that it is a basic error to combine or blend melody and ornamentation so as to form a whole. Even coming from a standpoint where you may think of these elements as separate, this is a really dumb thing to say.
Not at all llig, its a basic error to confuse, as you do, ornamentation and tune. They are completely separate facets of the whole, the piece of music which encompasses all these parts into a single unified piece.[or not]
A tune can be played with no ornaments and its still a tune.
Most of ornaments I use are instrument specific, there are a few that can be played on fiddle, but a minuscule proportion of the whole gamut.
The argument here is an old one. Jig is seeing "tune" as the underlying object, the Platonic ideal of Toss the Feathers. The "ornaments" for him are accidental decorations, facts relevant to a particular instance. A roll here or a note held there don't change the fact that it's "Toss the Feathers", so he says the tune is separate from the ornamentation.
Michael is taking a different view, which is also reasonable. In his view, the instance is the tune. It belongs to a family, there are a lot of similar things which are all instances of "Toss the Feathers", but the interesting object for him is not the ideal, rather it is the instance. In this view it might be possible to examine a number of different versions of the tune and figure out what they all have in common, but the exercise would be a dry academic one; the thing we're concerned about is the object at hand, the tune we're playing right now. And of course it's impossible to separate out the "ornaments" part of "what we're playing right now" from the "tune" part. It's all tune.
(This view is in line with Michael's position on sheet music: it doesn't really matter that much what it says on your bit of paper there, what we're playing right now is this. Yes, it might be similar in some ways, but when you're looking at that, you're not hearing this)
I think Jig's theory is actually reasonable as far as it goes, which is not very far. It's obvious that Pat can play a certain set of sounds on the fiddle, and Peter, hearing them, can know that he's playing "Toss the Feathers" and play that, and there's a bit of music. Lovely.
However, implicit in this is a bit of translation, which I think most people grow out of after a little while. After you've been playing for a certain time you no longer go through the intermediate step of recognizing the name of the tune - looking up the archetype - and you just go to playing the tune the other guy is playing. And this is, I think, more in line with Michael's view.
When I was a lot younger, my thinking was a lot more like Will's: there is a "real" version of the tune, and my job as a player, I thought, was to learn "the real tune" and, when I hear someone playing it, to play that tune, which I would alter to suit my tastes and my instrument and my mood.
Having learned something in the intervening time, I find that is less and less tenable, but I can still understand how a naive and unschooled player can hold that view.
On that basis when I listen to the things like the Foinn Seisiun recordings I hear several different, simultaneous, compatible instances of the tune as Jon says Michael would regard it. Doesn't that give piobagusfidil's view some usefulness ? If a concertina holds a note whilst a flute rolls does that make the roll a mere decoration or the concertina wrong ?
I understand llig's frustration to some extent. The people who played this music, and the instrument on which they played it, made it wha ti is. By that token, the music is the twiddlybits and the twiddlybits are the music. I get that. Anybody who appreciates or wants to try and play it should get that.
However, that doesn't make it inappropriate to discuss any form of music as basic melody and the articulation necessary to make it this music. I learned long ago that trying to learn from sheet music is a positive detriment, but that doesn't make a basic underlying melody non-existent, even if playing it without the necessary articulation is pointless. If the basic melody is the skeleton and the articulation is everything else, then what one has without everything else is just a skeleton.
In the big scheme of things, I think it's perfectly possibly to deconstruct melody and articulation, and for some still come out on top. However, the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way.
Even with Michael's view of things you can still construct a sentence like 'Niall Vallely's setting of Toss The Feathers is heavily ornamented whereas Mary Macnamara plays it with sparse ornamentation'. I don't think too many people would struggle with that sentence, but implicit within it is a judgement as to what constitutes ornamentation in their respective versions.
Jimmy, your under a fundamental misapprehension.>> 'the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way>>
How do you know this to be the case? You dont , In fact.
Your befuddled by the nonsense you read on this forum about certain 'requirements' to make an Irish tune, sound 'Irish' . If you spend some time in Ireland, same goes for llig and jon, you will find your mistaken. The tunes are played in many ways, a setting without any ornamentation is just as valid as one full. Its that simple, and they are often played in a 'simple' fashion by Irish musicians.
The music can , and often does include these 'twiddly bits'as you describe them, but not always by any means.
I play the fiddle but have probably learned more tunes from listening to flute, box, pipes, whistle, even the odd banjo.
And for anyone new to sessions, it will help you hear what the other players are doing, blend with them, and maybe even figure out which tune they're playing...
"However, that doesn't make it inappropriate to discuss any form of music as basic melody and the articulation necessary to make it this music."
Perhaps not, but I think it's important to keep in mind that, when you know the tunes, the sheet music is the imaginary thing, and the tune you're hearing is the real thing.
As long as you have it the other way around, you're missing out.
This point needs to be made over and over again, as novices take up the music, because the misconception is so easy. After all, I can go down to a book store and get a copy of O'Neill's, and it's a concrete object with permanent markings in it. Surely this is the real tune, no?
Well, no, but it takes a while to get rid of that misconception once it takes hold.
"If a concertina holds a note whilst a flute rolls does that make the roll a mere decoration or the concertina wrong ?"
A session is a performance by several people. Maybe the concertina decided that given the overall sound at the time, they needed to reinforce the primary notes of the tune, while the whistle player felt that the upper end of the sound spectrum was a bit thin and extra ornamentation was needed. And on other occasions each might have chosen to do the opposite.
You do listen to what's going on around you when you decide how much to ornament, don't you? (Yep, there are players who don't - whichever end of the plain/twiddly gradient they're on, they can be a bit of a pain).
IME most players in sessions are too busy concentrating on their own sound to really bother about what others are doing . Its when the players are really listeners that sessions really take off.
As regarding tunes and the 'right way to play them' including lots of rolls no doubt
look atr his quote from llig;
<<You hear this all time and it's very frustrating. For example, people playing the Salamanca "fg afdg bgeg" instead of how is should go, "fg afde gbeg">>
Much much better to have no preconceptions of how you might think a particular run might go. Listen a fresh every time.
# Posted on October 15th 2009 by llig leahcim
Well I agree with the second point but the first?! ? As I pointed out Bobby Casey ,Patrick Kelly, Liam Rowesome and Tommy Peoples amongst many play the 'wrong' setting according to llig. LOL
I have spent time in Ireland, and listened to a few sessions, more in the North than others, and noted differences in settings. That makes me no expert on the matter.
If you want to "correct" me on what Irish music is, there's nothing stopping you. However, if you can't recognize a measured response that showed no lack or respect or love for this music, then that's your problem. It won't affect my sleep any.
"You do listen to what's going on around you when you decide how much to ornament, don't you?" I try to listen to what is going on around me - for now to influence phrasing and adjusting a fairly plain course through the tune.
Listening to other instruments helps me to appreciate the options. Learning a tune from a recording of the same instrument might help technique but doesn't seem to do much for flexibility.
Jimmy, Im talking about a few years, not days or weeks. With a breadth of Experience in rural Ireland[ and the cities'] you will find tunes played in many ways, many settings and ornamented or not as the case maybe.
If your main exposure is to recorded musicians and sessions populated by players whose main experience is records and sessions populated by musicians whos main experience is recordings and sessions populated by ...... then you have only a partial picture, a distorted picture and understanding of the wide range of music within the genre.
I don't play the fiddle but I like learning from them because their fingers are close together and they are easy to watch in one view without moving your eyes and head. That involves knowing the notes. If you don't know the notes on the fiddle, get into the habit of watching the fiddle neck/fingering with a tune that you know and then with time you will beable to "watch" the method to their rolls, triplets without really looking at notes, or thinking about it. Then, in time, you'll be able to ear tunes with your eyes.
I'm sorry Kiparsky that you get a bad rap so much but why must you beat us like "pinatas" ?????
What my earlier post was meant to convey, if I failed in that regard, was that when I think of trad musicians from many generations ago, I don't believe they played from sheet music nor thought of the music in terms of a basic structured melody. The tune just was what it was.
Jimmy, I'd like to thank you for these comments, "However, that doesn't make it inappropriate to discuss any form of music as basic melody and the articulation necessary to make it this music. I learned long ago that trying to learn from sheet music is a positive detriment, but that doesn't make a basic underlying melody non-existent, even if playing it without the necessary articulation is pointless. If the basic melody is the skeleton and the articulation is everything else, then what one has without everything else is just a skeleton."
"In the big scheme of things, I think it's perfectly possibly to deconstruct melody and articulation, and for some still come out on top. However, the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way."
IMHO, it does show a fine breadth of understanding. Yes, Llig is very likely correct in saying the people who created this music did not deconstruct it (my words). Ironically though, I believe Will Evans is trying to say there are players in Ireland who may be of the same ilk as those who created this music yet some of them are (at least partially) deconstructing the music & very likely doing much of this by listening to recordings (going by some of the musicians names he often cites). While at the same time saying if your main source of this music is through recordings then you won't experience the full breadth of this music. Sorry, that's such a mouthful. Piobagusfidil, apologies if I have misrepresented your intention. I'm trying my best to sort out what you've written.
Thanks Babs. I'm really not offended, and I don't think I misunderstood anything that was said about the music.
Let's just say that, as was suggested, my lack of having attended sessions for years in Ireland means I lack understanding of the music. So be it. I can't very well get offended about something I have no control over.
Regardless, I'm going to have my perception of the music, and that perception is that articulation, whether spare or heavy, is a part of the music. I don't think that perception is off-base, since the only time I've ever heard ITM without any articulation was on a midi playback or a person playing straight from sheet music.
No, I'm pretty sure articulation of tunes is a necessary component of the music, whether one chooses to deconstruct it or not. I recognize that there is a non-ornamented melody present, I said that from the beginning. However, lacking some form of human articulation, however sparse, I may as well be listening to a midi instrument play it.
None of this affects me. I'm going to continue to listen to the music and do my best to play it.
Well some did obviously! they wrote it for each other! and we have copies now!..
The trouble is we have a tradition that stretches back a long way and situations have changed drastically over those centuries so any statement of what 'was' or 'was not' can only be based on the available evidence and can only apply to certain areas, people and era's. So a blanket statement like you made simply can not be true and is demonstrably so.
But its a living tradition so we only need to look at Charlie Lennon for example to realise that notation is an accepted part of the tradition. It does not hold the weight as it does in Art Music but its a valid part . Its not at all; necessary to read music to be a master at the idiom, but its a standard tool to communicate Ideas and to record them.
As regards the tune sans ornament. As kids, in Ireland , its normal to teach the melody , the tune , plain and simple, to get the structure, the bones . Then perhaps an ornament or 2 progressing on as they develop in technical skill.
Why would anyone want to skip such a crucial step? ! Its not a random system, but one developed by the people for the people over generations.
I recommend deconstruction and reconstruction, simplify as far as possible and work up from there discovering variations and ideas as they occur holistically over the course of a couple of decades just as the old guys did. The system didnt just arrive fully fledged,! y its developed over centuries and those standards have change over those yrs. No one just woke up one day being able to play brilliantly! We all started of simply.
Ye you can copy verbatim and it might appear to be the real thing, but is it?
At what point did I say that tunes don't have a barebones structure? For some reason you seem to be ignoring where I've said exactly that. I'm a fledgling player and absolutely rely on those barebones, nor would I ever want to skip such a step in order to learn a tune. I'm not sure where you got that from my postings.
What strikes me as odd is that we are essentially saying the same thing. Your statement, "it's normal to teach the melody, the tune, plain and simple, to get the structure, the bones" doesn't seem too different from my referring to the same thing as the skeleton and the everything else as the body, heart and soul of the music. Honestly, I don't really understand where you had such exception to my earlier post.
'the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way>>
I just said that was a misapprehension. thats all? I didnt take exception at all .
I agree with you , in general we are saying the same thing about structure and ornamentation ;>>skeleton and the everything else as the body, heart and soul of the music. <<
Well Im throwing it out there as an example of one approach, very different from a Pipers approach for example, very different IMO .
Personally ? I think its incredibly tastefully ornamented, quite spare in some ways but every triplet has depth and application. You might notice its all at a fair pace too, and theres no mush, its all rock solid .
Its very different to a 'typical 'fiddle approach IMO if there is such a thing! its very rooted in the tradition as well despite the electronic keyboard.
You will find many players of this instrument who will play sparse settings ornamentally, sparser than that for sure but still with that immense drive pushing the music on and lifting the dancers , light as a feather.
There may be several reasons to listen to other instruments. As A fiiddler, I have learnt most of my repertoire and techniques listening to other fiddlers.
Next step to broaden the sound is to listen to other instruments. I find that pipes have a lot of common to fiddling when it comes to ornamentations and the ability to bend the notes. (eg Clare style). For sliabh Luachra style I like the sound of the irish accordion.
After having picked up Guitars for backing I have become more able to listen to and dechipher what guitar, zouks and piano players do with the music.
Finally, who your session mates are plays a big deal. Currently I a lot with Flute players and concertina players and by listening and learning those instruments you increase your versatility and ability to play and complement other instruments.
Sometimes I also find it easier to pick tunes up by ear when they are played on a different instrument to the one that Im playing. I find it can help me to clearly differentiate what they are playing without the tones merging.
Apparently this discussion has occasionally gotten off track, with possibly even some deletions, but I have gained some interesting insights and some confirmation of some of my original speculation about how
different instrument players would react to this.
The link to a terrific box player (Michael Sexton) that I've never heard of, above, is a perfect example of what I look for online to inspire me to
look at tunes in different ways to improve my own playing and to inject new life into old standards.
For example, the tempo is blistering (to me) but the execution is flawless. The keys are unusual to me for the tunes. I've never even considered "Maid Behind the Bar" in C. In open position on the banjo it requires a completely new picking and fingering pattern. This was fun and frustrating to attempt and practice. (I'll probably inflict this upon my local session mates the next chance I get.) New Mown Meadow was in Dm/G. I didn't know this was even allowed!! Cool!! By the way, what was that last tune called from the first clip above? I'll probably work on it even if I don't get the name.
The grace notes on the box are wicked and I don't know how to recreate them on the banjo, but I can try. It's made me wonder if anyone has ever tried to recreate a "banjoey"
effect on the box, violin, flute or pipes. Lord knows, banjo players have been working a long time at trying to emulate rolls, birls, and whatevers on the banjo.
Thanks again for the spirited debate in response to my original posting.
Cheers, Will. Mostly I am hearing the tunes being played the way you describe them. ;) I would most likely play those tunes differently on flute, but am happy to learn from any good accordion player. I would like to hear Michael Sexton playing some of these same tunes when he is not playing in a ceili band. Pardon my ignorance, but are there many ceili bands with pipers? ~ i.e. "Im throwing it out there as an example of one approach, very different from a Pipers approach"
@Not that I know of, Perhaps that clip explains why..... but I have seen at least one old picture with one. ..
I think your point about playing them differently on a flute is crucial to the discussion in that it means we have a very broad spectrum of stylistic choice and allows us to freely develop our own style.
We have the choice to play it as a flute player, on the flute , or perhaps as a box player, but on the flute. So for example Micheal does this pipering thing on notes its a triplet, but its like a very fast triplet and a rest , For a piper its sometimes called 'rubbing' the back D [or A] .
And if you can vary your volume this little triplet can be really effective but./.. the big but is that its not a technique that is, as far as Im aware, generally done on the flute . People generally just roll or if they're adventurous ; crann.
I think you'd have to break the three notes up with your tongue to get that effect.
If you listen to Sean Ryan nowadays he has a great line in this kind of technique but he apply it up and down in all sorts of combination, a unique sound, really quite astounding.
@ Halfwayhouse; I play the maid behind the bar in C on the fiddle. D too of course, but after 25+ odd yrs of a tune its nice to keep progressing and adapting. I know several box players who play in C etc so it was a natural development and it really got me back into to all these old tunes like ; Smash the windows, boys of blue hill Banish misfortune in C mix. , all a tone down.
[ I think if you use the C#/D fingering on a G/D instrument thats why you end up with , but im no box player at all. ]
The tempo, the tempo! we all noticed that, so what does that mean to you as a banjo player or me as a piper?
Everyone (except a midi machine) articulates every note they play, in length (especially relative to the notes immediately after or prior), in attack (or lack thereof), with twiddly bits, sliding in or out, cutting, tapping, etc. I would suggest that, except for that infamously hideous midi sound, there is no such thing as an unornamented or unarticulated version of a tune. Some of those choices are more subtle than others, but they are always there.
There is always some meat on those bones...
Yes AlBrown. I wonder if the focus here is often on the more overt twiddly bits because they are easier to talk about. Its the subtle stuff I find fun and challenging. Every change of note or gap between them seems to matter.
shheesh, I wouldnt know Ben, just a vague idea,can you tell me more?
David, at first , IMO , the articulations and ornaments are a distraction from the central core, playing the tune with interesting phrasing, punctuation.
I can relate to llig , in that although the ornaments are generally speaking, optional extras, which we use for many reasons, they are not something hung on like baubles, they are more like the intricate finer detail in antique silver, its ornamentation, its not essential, but they are an integral part of a piece that includes them if they are used.
They are an out-flowing of personal inspiration and considered thought. They come from inside the player and manifest in the music.
Now as an aside Im a big fan of piobaireachd, now these tunes could be played on, say fiddle, but its simply not physically possible to play them fully because the ornaments are impossible on other instruments. These ornaments ARE how we develop the ground or tune .
However as a learner its quite normal to pick up the ground and play it alone. Traditionally different players interpret these tunes in different ways and vary them ' at the performers pleasure'.
So it could be said that Irish pipe music is the same, it simply can not be played fully on any other instrument. But then where does that leave the rest of us and the entire tradition outside pipering!
OK so I think its fair to say that Its NT essential to play these tunes with all the typical pipe ornaments in their 'correct' fashion as they 'should' be played and us fiddlers can just approximate the music and that IS what we have as the tradition, where by the melody, pure and simple, can be played by kids beginners, for dances etc , on banjo or box or whatever and this is OK , its not deficient because you cant crann on the banjo !
The point that Ive been going on about since I came to this site is the speed of the music,. Micheal is playing the tunes at dance speed, that IS the standard, and its mighty high! Now there are players who can play at pace with cranns rolls etc and maintain momentum but its not all of us.
The music at this speed, serves a social function, if its not at this pace +- then it cant serve that function, it needs the pace to maintain the lift, Im not talking about competition show dance, but the weekly set dance.
So then what on earth is the point in having the tunes but not being able to play them right as a part of the wider social group, not players but dancers?
Thats why I stress simple playing, highly rhythmical and steady AT pace, not because we all [allways]want to play like that , but so we have the ability and wont fall short if we're in a situation where this style is required.
OK , 'you dont play for dancers' fair enough, legitimate decision., but the dance is a part of the greater whole and needs to be considered IMO After all Ive played for dancing all my life and its one of the biggest buzz's going, an experience not to be missed.
So to play at pace, unless we are as good as MS then an approach that strips things down to minimalism will facilitate this, especially for those of us in our first yrs at this.
#
Its not where we will stay, but a reference point on the journey. Its all very well playing Art music, slow highly ornamented baroque styley settings of trad tunes, something Im very fond of and where I spend 95% of my playing, but its only a part of the fuller picture.
"Its all very well playing Art music, slow highly ornamented baroque styley settings of trad tunes, something Im very fond of and where I spend 95% of my playing."
Listening to other instruments...
Listening to other instruments...
Do you really listen to versions of tunes on other instruments than the instrument(s) you play the most?
With resources like Comhaltas and Youtube I have been able to listen to
multiple renditions of tunes I am interested in by players from all over the world. If I want to add a new tune to my repertoire I can listen to
renditions on violin, concertina, flute, or banjo for example.
The most common instrument among youtube "tutorial" sites, seems to be the violin for Irish music. One has to really want to listen to the banjo in order to spend the time to find outstanding banjo renditions of Irish tunes. Since I love the banjo this is great for me. I will have a lot of ideas of how to approach a tune from all the other instruments that I happen to listen to before I arrive at a decent version on the banjo. For violin players it seems to be not as convenient to hear other instruments and timbres for a tune, since one has to look a little harder to find decent renditions of tunes on other instruments.
I am asking if all you violin or flute or other instrument players out there spend much time listening to solo banjo or mandolin renditions of tunes for example. (Just plug in your main instrument(s) into the first part of the question and another instrument you don't play into the second part of the question.)
Maybe I'm just an eccentric who likes to hear how the tunes sound on many different instruments. This gives me ideas about how to do something on the banjo to "sound like that fiddle version" or to accentuate the uniqueness of the timbre of instruments I play. Thanks in advance for considering this question.
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by halfwaythere
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I think what you're doing is perfectly fine. You're doing something that seems to work for you for learning, approaching, etc. However, I would have a hard time believing that a fiddler, for example, would spend much if any time listening to tunes played primarily/exclusively on a plectrum instrument.I personally would listen to versions of tunes played on whistle or other wind instruments for purposes of learning whistle, which I'm currently trying to do, or I might listen to a typical session ensemble version, but I don't know why I would listen to a banjo playing a tune when I'm trying to learn whistle.
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Listening to other instruments...
If I hear a tune that I like I just find as many versions of it as I can. I doesn't matter what instrument, it's the tune I'm after.
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by gam
Re: Listening to other instruments...
With gam on that. And part of my fun is 'interpreting a fiddle or flute tune on a banjo . I think it's made me a better player.
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by shanty
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Yes, same as gam.
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by David50
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Yeah gam is absolutely right, as long as it is a good version it's totally irrelevant what instrument is being played!
I play the banjo, but I have found that Michael Eskin's whistle playing on tradlessons on YouTube is superb for learning new tunes, regardless of what instrument you play!
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by Mattias Holm
Re: Listening to other instruments...
No Gam, the instrument matters very much indeed. However, the player matters even more.
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by ...
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Well as a fiddler I must say If I am learning new fiddle tune I look at different fiddle versions only and when I am learning whistle tunes I look for good whistle versions that I like. It's because fiddles do differrent things from banjos and other plucked things and I want to learn how to make it sound like an excellently played fiddle. Likewise the whistle with whistle-played tunes. Ornamentation and technique are much easier to hear and copy on same instrument, especially as I am doing it without the slow-down gizmos that people seem to use.
But good luck to you HWT, - sounds like an interesting exercise, trying to take the best of one instrument and making into the best of another.
# Posted on October 2nd 2011 by Sky fiddler
Re: Listening to other instruments...
While I have maybe 70 or so tunes on my site, for whistle/flute players, I highly recommend Michael Clarkson's Irish Flute tunes podcast where he has nearly 300 tunes played slow/fast:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/irish-flute-tunes/id295878286
Audio only, but still an amazing resource that I've used to learn many tunes.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Michael Eskin
Re: Listening to other instruments...
A lot of fiddlers in Scotland play Highland pipe tunes.
It's not hard to identify the ones who have never bothered to listen to anybody but other fiddlers playing them.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jack Campin
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Again agree with gam. I listen to as much as I can, trying to soak up as much as I can. Playing a tune on more than one instrument is great too, for those that are so inclined. There are lots of tunes I can play on whistle that I struggle with the flow of on box until I've let go of my whistle version and relearned it. Then, when I play the tune on whistle again, I find that how I approach the tune has changed, most times for the better. The more knowledge and experience you can get, the better I reckon.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by cbw
Re: Listening to other instruments...
i am a concertina player, although originally a flute player. i listen almost exclusively to fiddle players. after that, it goes accordion, pipes, sean nós singing, and then finally concertina and flute. i rarely listen to whistle, even though i've been playing the whistle for 10 years.
i copy fiddle phrasing and tone on the concertina, and then move it over to the flute and whistle. i guess i heard enough of flute and whistle over the years to know how it all goes, and am very well versed in traditional techniques.
the reason i do this is it was how i was taught. my uncle taught me to listen to everything but my main instrument, so that i would develop a unique sound. matt molloy did this with the pipes, and so did noel hill.
my inspiration has always been the fiddle, though my first few years of playing (and before) were spent listening to my uncle playing the flute. so, my style is derivative from his.
from the concertina i mostly have spent my time learning from and listening to my teacher (who comes to the states once a year). lately i've been studying recordings of another player (and had a long lesson with him in ireland), but i still would say i listen to fiddlers 95% of the time.
so, i listen to fiddlers, but i study concertina technique and phrasing. if that make sense...
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by daiv
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Seems to me the best rule is to listen to stuff you like, and listen to a lot of it. It'll come through what you play, sooner or later.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I do the opposite to 'Sky fiddler' and prefer to get a basic version of a tune from different instruments before paying close attention to flute renditions. When I get to that stage Michael Clarkson's site is usually the first port of call (don't miss the pipe tunes on Harry Bradley's similar site though http://errantelbows.podbean.com/)
Hearing a tune on mandolin is a good way of getting a take on it without it being cluttered up with rolls and stuff. Seeing the wood from the trees
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Of course it's great to listen to a recording with the same instrument, if you want to learn ornamentation and different variations, specific to your instrument.
If you just want to get the tune into your head I much prefer a recording with e.g. mandolin as David50 pointed out!
I don't know about you other guys, but I feel that the ornamention and articulation come naturally when you know the "base melody" of the tune?
If you can sing it, you can play it, so to speak!
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Mattias Holm
Re: Listening to other instruments...
It's down to this "ornamentation" word again. It's this whole concept that there can be a thing that's called "just the tune" and then you hang your baubles on to it. I hear so many people play like this, learn like this. It's just not what the music is.
I defy anyone to successfully define the boundaries between what's described as tune, variation and ornament.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: Listening to other instruments...
If I hear a tune I like, I learn it from whatever recording I have on hand. I'm quicker at picking up tunes from pipers so if I have one of them playing the tune, it's my first port of call, but I'm not picky. Any instrument will do so long as it's a good, clear version.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I normally learn off an accordionist and/or fiddler I play with so my version tends to mimic or complement theirs. If it's for the ceilidh band I try to lock pretty tight with their articulation (in a banjo kind of way) because I like that snappy tight sound for the dancing. Cue session-players rolling their eyes. A lot of it's learned on the fly so it develops over time as I feel my way into the tune. Then I might hear another version I like live or on record so take something from that. As far as I can see it's pretty much the same for everyone.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Bren
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I go to sessions where there are people playing different instruments. I listen to them ...
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Richard Robinson
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Being primarily a mandolin player, like halfwaythere, I have little choice but to learn tunes from other instruments. But I have never seen this as a problem and, in retrospect, I think it has been of great benefit to my playing. It is always a delight to hear traditional music played well on mandolin, but if I were to restrict my learning sources to mandolin recordings only, I would have a very limited repertoire indeed.
) - and, echoing what others have said, I find playing the same tune on more than one instrument a useful way to get better acquainted with a tune, as it divorces the 'music' of the tune from the technique, thus forcing you to listen more intently. Furthermore, each instrument lends itself most easily to certain types of ornamentation, melodic variation, expression etc., each thus giving a slightly different take on the tune; this can then be brought back to the original instrument with a fresh approach, outside the normally perceived 'constraints' of the instrument.
I dabble in other instruments as well - tenor banjo (not very different from mandolin), whistle, fiddle, guitar, piano, piano accordion*(!!
*Not my first choice of instrument for Irish trad, but great for klezmer.
Returning to the subject of listening to other instruments, I think it depends a great deal on the instrument you play - the pipes, fiddle and flute all have well established styles and techniques associated with them, which have come about through generations of pipers learning from pipers, fiddlers learning from fiddlers and fluters learning from fluters. Playing styles on fiddle and flute have, of course, drawn a lot on piping** (either uillean or HIghland/war pipes, depending on the locality), but there are enough flute and fiddle players out there, with enough variety in repertoire, style and approach, to provide enough material for a learner of one of those instruments to become a fully-fledged traditional musician. The same may be true, to a lesser extent of the button accordion and concertina. But, whilst I could perhaps have become a better mandolin player by listening only to other mandolin players, I could certainly not have amassed the repertoire and understanding of Irish traditional music (such as they are; compared to anyone who has been raised in the tradition, I have barely scratched the surface) that I have.
**I don't know to what extent piping has been influenced by other instruments, or by which instruments
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Listening to other instruments...
The tune can be played on any trad instrument , Ornaments are instrument specific.
Variation encompasses ornamentation , melodic and rhythmic variation from the tune.
To conflate ornamentation and tune is a basic error.
A tune can be played with no variation and no ornamentation , ornamentation and variation can not be played with out tune.
I play 7 instruments fluently, woodwind and strings. The tune can be played on all these instruments but some variations and ornamentation can not. This is the line dividing tune and ornamentation.
Any exceptions anyone.?
I recommend learning tunes from other instruments for a number of reasons , ear training, ease of learning , the ideas presented by the different approaches.
Once Ive learned a tune, I play it on several instruments and they settings vary as do the ornaments and key.
Learning tunes in unconventional keys is IMO of great advantage for ideas of variation. . Try it and see.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Sheesh, I don't know why I'm bothering to reply to jig, what a sucker I am, but here goes:
"The tune can be played on any trad instrument":
What's a "trad" instrument?
"Ornaments are instrument specific." Some are, most aren't.
"Variation encompasses melody" You've answered that one.
"To conflate ornamentation and tune is a basic error."
This is the one that really gets my goat. It succinctly says that it is a basic error to combine or blend melody and ornamentation so as to form a whole. Even coming from a standpoint where you may think of these elements as separate, this is a really dumb thing to say.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by ...
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Not at all llig, its a basic error to confuse, as you do, ornamentation and tune. They are completely separate facets of the whole, the piece of music which encompasses all these parts into a single unified piece.[or not]
A tune can be played with no ornaments and its still a tune.
Most of ornaments I use are instrument specific, there are a few that can be played on fiddle, but a minuscule proportion of the whole gamut.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
The argument here is an old one. Jig is seeing "tune" as the underlying object, the Platonic ideal of Toss the Feathers. The "ornaments" for him are accidental decorations, facts relevant to a particular instance. A roll here or a note held there don't change the fact that it's "Toss the Feathers", so he says the tune is separate from the ornamentation.
Michael is taking a different view, which is also reasonable. In his view, the instance is the tune. It belongs to a family, there are a lot of similar things which are all instances of "Toss the Feathers", but the interesting object for him is not the ideal, rather it is the instance. In this view it might be possible to examine a number of different versions of the tune and figure out what they all have in common, but the exercise would be a dry academic one; the thing we're concerned about is the object at hand, the tune we're playing right now. And of course it's impossible to separate out the "ornaments" part of "what we're playing right now" from the "tune" part. It's all tune.
(This view is in line with Michael's position on sheet music: it doesn't really matter that much what it says on your bit of paper there, what we're playing right now is this. Yes, it might be similar in some ways, but when you're looking at that, you're not hearing this)
I think Jig's theory is actually reasonable as far as it goes, which is not very far. It's obvious that Pat can play a certain set of sounds on the fiddle, and Peter, hearing them, can know that he's playing "Toss the Feathers" and play that, and there's a bit of music. Lovely.
However, implicit in this is a bit of translation, which I think most people grow out of after a little while. After you've been playing for a certain time you no longer go through the intermediate step of recognizing the name of the tune - looking up the archetype - and you just go to playing the tune the other guy is playing. And this is, I think, more in line with Michael's view.
When I was a lot younger, my thinking was a lot more like Will's: there is a "real" version of the tune, and my job as a player, I thought, was to learn "the real tune" and, when I hear someone playing it, to play that tune, which I would alter to suit my tastes and my instrument and my mood.
Having learned something in the intervening time, I find that is less and less tenable, but I can still understand how a naive and unschooled player can hold that view.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Listening to other instruments...
On that basis when I listen to the things like the Foinn Seisiun recordings I hear several different, simultaneous, compatible instances of the tune as Jon says Michael would regard it. Doesn't that give piobagusfidil's view some usefulness ? If a concertina holds a note whilst a flute rolls does that make the roll a mere decoration or the concertina wrong ?
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I understand llig's frustration to some extent. The people who played this music, and the instrument on which they played it, made it wha ti is. By that token, the music is the twiddlybits and the twiddlybits are the music. I get that. Anybody who appreciates or wants to try and play it should get that.
However, that doesn't make it inappropriate to discuss any form of music as basic melody and the articulation necessary to make it this music. I learned long ago that trying to learn from sheet music is a positive detriment, but that doesn't make a basic underlying melody non-existent, even if playing it without the necessary articulation is pointless. If the basic melody is the skeleton and the articulation is everything else, then what one has without everything else is just a skeleton.
In the big scheme of things, I think it's perfectly possibly to deconstruct melody and articulation, and for some still come out on top. However, the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Even with Michael's view of things you can still construct a sentence like 'Niall Vallely's setting of Toss The Feathers is heavily ornamented whereas Mary Macnamara plays it with sparse ornamentation'. I don't think too many people would struggle with that sentence, but implicit within it is a judgement as to what constitutes ornamentation in their respective versions.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by johndsamuels
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I meant to write the plural "instruments" in that first para. Sorry.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Jimmy, your under a fundamental misapprehension.>> 'the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way>>
How do you know this to be the case? You dont , In fact.
Your befuddled by the nonsense you read on this forum about certain 'requirements' to make an Irish tune, sound 'Irish' . If you spend some time in Ireland, same goes for llig and jon, you will find your mistaken. The tunes are played in many ways, a setting without any ornamentation is just as valid as one full. Its that simple, and they are often played in a 'simple' fashion by Irish musicians.
The music can , and often does include these 'twiddly bits'as you describe them, but not always by any means.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I play the fiddle but have probably learned more tunes from listening to flute, box, pipes, whistle, even the odd banjo.
And for anyone new to sessions, it will help you hear what the other players are doing, blend with them, and maybe even figure out which tune they're playing...
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Just a person
Re: Listening to other instruments...
"However, that doesn't make it inappropriate to discuss any form of music as basic melody and the articulation necessary to make it this music."
Perhaps not, but I think it's important to keep in mind that, when you know the tunes, the sheet music is the imaginary thing, and the tune you're hearing is the real thing.
As long as you have it the other way around, you're missing out.
This point needs to be made over and over again, as novices take up the music, because the misconception is so easy. After all, I can go down to a book store and get a copy of O'Neill's, and it's a concrete object with permanent markings in it. Surely this is the real tune, no?
Well, no, but it takes a while to get rid of that misconception once it takes hold.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Listening to other instruments...
"If a concertina holds a note whilst a flute rolls does that make the roll a mere decoration or the concertina wrong ?"
A session is a performance by several people. Maybe the concertina decided that given the overall sound at the time, they needed to reinforce the primary notes of the tune, while the whistle player felt that the upper end of the sound spectrum was a bit thin and extra ornamentation was needed. And on other occasions each might have chosen to do the opposite.
You do listen to what's going on around you when you decide how much to ornament, don't you? (Yep, there are players who don't - whichever end of the plain/twiddly gradient they're on, they can be a bit of a pain).
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jack Campin
Re: Listening to other instruments...
IME most players in sessions are too busy concentrating on their own sound to really bother about what others are doing . Its when the players are really listeners that sessions really take off.
As regarding tunes and the 'right way to play them' including lots of rolls no doubt
look atr his quote from llig;
<<You hear this all time and it's very frustrating. For example, people playing the Salamanca "fg afdg bgeg" instead of how is should go, "fg afde gbeg">>
Much much better to have no preconceptions of how you might think a particular run might go. Listen a fresh every time.
# Posted on October 15th 2009 by llig leahcim
Well I agree with the second point but the first?! ? As I pointed out Bobby Casey ,Patrick Kelly, Liam Rowesome and Tommy Peoples amongst many play the 'wrong' setting according to llig. LOL
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
piobagusfidil -
I have spent time in Ireland, and listened to a few sessions, more in the North than others, and noted differences in settings. That makes me no expert on the matter.
If you want to "correct" me on what Irish music is, there's nothing stopping you. However, if you can't recognize a measured response that showed no lack or respect or love for this music, then that's your problem. It won't affect my sleep any.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Listening to other instruments...
"You do listen to what's going on around you when you decide how much to ornament, don't you?" I try to listen to what is going on around me - for now to influence phrasing and adjusting a fairly plain course through the tune.
Listening to other instruments helps me to appreciate the options. Learning a tune from a recording of the same instrument might help technique but doesn't seem to do much for flexibility.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by David50
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Jimmy, Im talking about a few years, not days or weeks. With a breadth of Experience in rural Ireland[ and the cities'] you will find tunes played in many ways, many settings and ornamented or not as the case maybe.
If your main exposure is to recorded musicians and sessions populated by players whose main experience is records and sessions populated by musicians whos main experience is recordings and sessions populated by ...... then you have only a partial picture, a distorted picture and understanding of the wide range of music within the genre.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
I don't play the fiddle but I like learning from them because their fingers are close together and they are easy to watch in one view without moving your eyes and head. That involves knowing the notes. If you don't know the notes on the fiddle, get into the habit of watching the fiddle neck/fingering with a tune that you know and then with time you will beable to "watch" the method to their rolls, triplets without really looking at notes, or thinking about it. Then, in time, you'll be able to ear tunes with your eyes.
I'm sorry Kiparsky that you get a bad rap so much but why must you beat us like "pinatas" ?????
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by kook
Re: Listening to other instruments...
What my earlier post was meant to convey, if I failed in that regard, was that when I think of trad musicians from many generations ago, I don't believe they played from sheet music nor thought of the music in terms of a basic structured melody. The tune just was what it was.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Jimmy, I'd like to thank you for these comments, "However, that doesn't make it inappropriate to discuss any form of music as basic melody and the articulation necessary to make it this music. I learned long ago that trying to learn from sheet music is a positive detriment, but that doesn't make a basic underlying melody non-existent, even if playing it without the necessary articulation is pointless. If the basic melody is the skeleton and the articulation is everything else, then what one has without everything else is just a skeleton."
"In the big scheme of things, I think it's perfectly possibly to deconstruct melody and articulation, and for some still come out on top. However, the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way."
IMHO, it does show a fine breadth of understanding. Yes, Llig is very likely correct in saying the people who created this music did not deconstruct it (my words). Ironically though, I believe Will Evans is trying to say there are players in Ireland who may be of the same ilk as those who created this music yet some of them are (at least partially) deconstructing the music & very likely doing much of this by listening to recordings (going by some of the musicians names he often cites). While at the same time saying if your main source of this music is through recordings then you won't experience the full breadth of this music. Sorry, that's such a mouthful. Piobagusfidil, apologies if I have misrepresented your intention. I'm trying my best to sort out what you've written.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Thanks Babs. I'm really not offended, and I don't think I misunderstood anything that was said about the music.
Let's just say that, as was suggested, my lack of having attended sessions for years in Ireland means I lack understanding of the music. So be it. I can't very well get offended about something I have no control over.
Regardless, I'm going to have my perception of the music, and that perception is that articulation, whether spare or heavy, is a part of the music. I don't think that perception is off-base, since the only time I've ever heard ITM without any articulation was on a midi playback or a person playing straight from sheet music.
No, I'm pretty sure articulation of tunes is a necessary component of the music, whether one chooses to deconstruct it or not. I recognize that there is a non-ornamented melody present, I said that from the beginning. However, lacking some form of human articulation, however sparse, I may as well be listening to a midi instrument play it.
None of this affects me. I'm going to continue to listen to the music and do my best to play it.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Listening to other instruments...
<<I don't believe they played from sheet music>>
Well some did obviously! they wrote it for each other! and we have copies now!..
The trouble is we have a tradition that stretches back a long way and situations have changed drastically over those centuries so any statement of what 'was' or 'was not' can only be based on the available evidence and can only apply to certain areas, people and era's. So a blanket statement like you made simply can not be true and is demonstrably so.
But its a living tradition so we only need to look at Charlie Lennon for example to realise that notation is an accepted part of the tradition. It does not hold the weight as it does in Art Music but its a valid part . Its not at all; necessary to read music to be a master at the idiom, but its a standard tool to communicate Ideas and to record them.
As regards the tune sans ornament. As kids, in Ireland , its normal to teach the melody , the tune , plain and simple, to get the structure, the bones . Then perhaps an ornament or 2 progressing on as they develop in technical skill.
Why would anyone want to skip such a crucial step? ! Its not a random system, but one developed by the people for the people over generations.
I recommend deconstruction and reconstruction, simplify as far as possible and work up from there discovering variations and ideas as they occur holistically over the course of a couple of decades just as the old guys did. The system didnt just arrive fully fledged,! y its developed over centuries and those standards have change over those yrs. No one just woke up one day being able to play brilliantly! We all started of simply.
Ye you can copy verbatim and it might appear to be the real thing, but is it?
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
At what point did I say that tunes don't have a barebones structure? For some reason you seem to be ignoring where I've said exactly that. I'm a fledgling player and absolutely rely on those barebones, nor would I ever want to skip such a step in order to learn a tune. I'm not sure where you got that from my postings.
What strikes me as odd is that we are essentially saying the same thing. Your statement, "it's normal to teach the melody, the tune, plain and simple, to get the structure, the bones" doesn't seem too different from my referring to the same thing as the skeleton and the everything else as the body, heart and soul of the music. Honestly, I don't really understand where you had such exception to my earlier post.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Jimmy B
Re: Listening to other instruments...
'the people who created this music, and this is where I see the relevance of llig's comments, didn't do it that way>>
I just said that was a misapprehension. thats all? I didnt take exception at all .
I agree with you , in general we are saying the same thing about structure and ornamentation ;>>skeleton and the everything else as the body, heart and soul of the music. <<
yes I think thats a good description.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
check out this guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIdUTNfSUno
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjuVWDyFoss&NR=1
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Piobagusfidil, care to add some commentary regarding what you hear in Michael Sexton's playing?
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Well Im throwing it out there as an example of one approach, very different from a Pipers approach for example, very different IMO .
and theres no mush, its all rock solid .
Personally ? I think its incredibly tastefully ornamented, quite spare in some ways but every triplet has depth and application. You might notice its all at a fair pace too,
Its very different to a 'typical 'fiddle approach IMO if there is such a thing! its very rooted in the tradition as well despite the electronic keyboard.
You will find many players of this instrument who will play sparse settings ornamentally, sparser than that for sure but still with that immense drive pushing the music on and lifting the dancers , light as a feather.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
correction ......quite sparse in some ways .......
What do you hear ?and how could you apply it to your own instrument? Would you want to?
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
There may be several reasons to listen to other instruments. As A fiiddler, I have learnt most of my repertoire and techniques listening to other fiddlers.
Next step to broaden the sound is to listen to other instruments. I find that pipes have a lot of common to fiddling when it comes to ornamentations and the ability to bend the notes. (eg Clare style). For sliabh Luachra style I like the sound of the irish accordion.
After having picked up Guitars for backing I have become more able to listen to and dechipher what guitar, zouks and piano players do with the music.
Finally, who your session mates are plays a big deal. Currently I a lot with Flute players and concertina players and by listening and learning those instruments you increase your versatility and ability to play and complement other instruments.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by FiddleTramp
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Sometimes I also find it easier to pick tunes up by ear when they are played on a different instrument to the one that Im playing. I find it can help me to clearly differentiate what they are playing without the tones merging.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Apparently this discussion has occasionally gotten off track, with possibly even some deletions, but I have gained some interesting insights and some confirmation of some of my original speculation about how
different instrument players would react to this.
The link to a terrific box player (Michael Sexton) that I've never heard of, above, is a perfect example of what I look for online to inspire me to
look at tunes in different ways to improve my own playing and to inject new life into old standards.
For example, the tempo is blistering (to me) but the execution is flawless. The keys are unusual to me for the tunes. I've never even considered "Maid Behind the Bar" in C. In open position on the banjo it requires a completely new picking and fingering pattern. This was fun and frustrating to attempt and practice. (I'll probably inflict this upon my local session mates the next chance I get.) New Mown Meadow was in Dm/G. I didn't know this was even allowed!! Cool!! By the way, what was that last tune called from the first clip above? I'll probably work on it even if I don't get the name.
The grace notes on the box are wicked and I don't know how to recreate them on the banjo, but I can try. It's made me wonder if anyone has ever tried to recreate a "banjoey"
effect on the box, violin, flute or pipes. Lord knows, banjo players have been working a long time at trying to emulate rolls, birls, and whatevers on the banjo.
Thanks again for the spirited debate in response to my original posting.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by halfwaythere
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Cheers, Will. Mostly I am hearing the tunes being played the way you describe them. ;) I would most likely play those tunes differently on flute, but am happy to learn from any good accordion player. I would like to hear Michael Sexton playing some of these same tunes when he is not playing in a ceili band. Pardon my ignorance, but are there many ceili bands with pipers? ~ i.e. "Im throwing it out there as an example of one approach, very different from a Pipers approach"
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Listening to other instruments...
@Not that I know of, Perhaps that clip explains why..... but I have seen at least one old picture with one. ..
I think your point about playing them differently on a flute is crucial to the discussion in that it means we have a very broad spectrum of stylistic choice and allows us to freely develop our own style.
We have the choice to play it as a flute player, on the flute , or perhaps as a box player, but on the flute. So for example Micheal does this pipering thing on notes its a triplet, but its like a very fast triplet and a rest , For a piper its sometimes called 'rubbing' the back D [or A] .
And if you can vary your volume this little triplet can be really effective but./.. the big but is that its not a technique that is, as far as Im aware, generally done on the flute . People generally just roll or if they're adventurous ; crann.
I think you'd have to break the three notes up with your tongue to get that effect.
If you listen to Sean Ryan nowadays he has a great line in this kind of technique but he apply it up and down in all sorts of combination, a unique sound, really quite astounding.
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Regarding Cats & Farming
Many pardons. Crossed up my threads > >
Re: Can anyone learn how to sing?
Posted on October 2nd 2011 by airport
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/28526#comment606612
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Did someone imply there is not a spectrum of styles &/or choices?
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Listening to other instruments...
@ Halfwayhouse; I play the maid behind the bar in C on the fiddle. D too of course, but after 25+ odd yrs of a tune its nice to keep progressing and adapting. I know several box players who play in C etc so it was a natural development and it really got me back into to all these old tunes like ; Smash the windows, boys of blue hill
Banish misfortune in C mix. , all a tone down.
[ I think if you use the C#/D fingering on a G/D instrument thats why you end up with , but im no box player at all. ]
The tempo, the tempo! we all noticed that, so what does that mean to you as a banjo player or me as a piper?
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
''''or to any of us , fluters fiddlers etc?
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Is that a joke, piobagusfidil?
> > @halfwayhouse ...
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Listening to other instruments...
oops . i mean ; halfway there
# Posted on October 3rd 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Everyone (except a midi machine) articulates every note they play, in length (especially relative to the notes immediately after or prior), in attack (or lack thereof), with twiddly bits, sliding in or out, cutting, tapping, etc. I would suggest that, except for that infamously hideous midi sound, there is no such thing as an unornamented or unarticulated version of a tune. Some of those choices are more subtle than others, but they are always there.
There is always some meat on those bones...
# Posted on October 4th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Will, you mean "if you use C#/D fingering on a B/C box". Doing so on a G/D box would be more like ... well, it would be interesting.
# Posted on October 4th 2011 by ethical blend
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Yes AlBrown. I wonder if the focus here is often on the more overt twiddly bits because they are easier to talk about. Its the subtle stuff I find fun and challenging. Every change of note or gap between them seems to matter.
# Posted on October 4th 2011 by David50
Re: Listening to other instruments...
shheesh, I wouldnt know Ben, just a vague idea,can you tell me more?
David, at first , IMO , the articulations and ornaments are a distraction from the central core, playing the tune with interesting phrasing, punctuation.
I can relate to llig , in that although the ornaments are generally speaking, optional extras, which we use for many reasons, they are not something hung on like baubles, they are more like the intricate finer detail in antique silver, its ornamentation, its not essential, but they are an integral part of a piece that includes them if they are used.
They are an out-flowing of personal inspiration and considered thought. They come from inside the player and manifest in the music.
Now as an aside Im a big fan of piobaireachd, now these tunes could be played on, say fiddle, but its simply not physically possible to play them fully because the ornaments are impossible on other instruments. These ornaments ARE how we develop the ground or tune .
However as a learner its quite normal to pick up the ground and play it alone. Traditionally different players interpret these tunes in different ways and vary them ' at the performers pleasure'.
So it could be said that Irish pipe music is the same, it simply can not be played fully on any other instrument. But then where does that leave the rest of us and the entire tradition outside pipering!
OK so I think its fair to say that Its NT essential to play these tunes with all the typical pipe ornaments in their 'correct' fashion as they 'should' be played and us fiddlers can just approximate the music and that IS what we have as the tradition, where by the melody, pure and simple, can be played by kids beginners, for dances etc , on banjo or box or whatever and this is OK , its not deficient because you cant crann on the banjo !
The point that Ive been going on about since I came to this site is the speed of the music,. Micheal is playing the tunes at dance speed, that IS the standard, and its mighty high! Now there are players who can play at pace with cranns rolls etc and maintain momentum but its not all of us.
The music at this speed, serves a social function, if its not at this pace +- then it cant serve that function, it needs the pace to maintain the lift, Im not talking about competition show dance, but the weekly set dance.
So then what on earth is the point in having the tunes but not being able to play them right as a part of the wider social group, not players but dancers?
Thats why I stress simple playing, highly rhythmical and steady AT pace, not because we all [allways]want to play like that , but so we have the ability and wont fall short if we're in a situation where this style is required.
OK , 'you dont play for dancers' fair enough, legitimate decision., but the dance is a part of the greater whole and needs to be considered IMO After all Ive played for dancing all my life and its one of the biggest buzz's going, an experience not to be missed.
So to play at pace, unless we are as good as MS then an approach that strips things down to minimalism will facilitate this, especially for those of us in our first yrs at this.
#
Its not where we will stay, but a reference point on the journey. Its all very well playing Art music, slow highly ornamented baroque styley settings of trad tunes, something Im very fond of and where I spend 95% of my playing, but its only a part of the fuller picture.
# Posted on October 4th 2011 by piobagusfidil
Re: Listening to other instruments...
To the OP, Yes, particularly the Bodhran.
# Posted on October 4th 2011 by Nicholas Jelinek
Re: Listening to other instruments...
Jimmy Shand played in very strict tempo, and was very influential for many older irish musicians.
# Posted on October 5th 2011 by Nicholas Jelinek
Re: Listening to other instruments...
"Its all very well playing Art music, slow highly ornamented baroque styley settings of trad tunes, something Im very fond of and where I spend 95% of my playing."
Shudder
# Posted on October 12th 2011 by ...