Many of you might consider some of the views to be "par for the course" over there.
The most outrageous responses seem to be along the lines of "It doesn't really matter as nobody is listening anyway"
My own view is that there are obviously several versions and settings of many tunes and, left to ourselves, we wouldn't all be playing the same thing. However, whereas slight variations can often "blend in" OK, surely the participants of a session should be listening to what is going on and "adapting" if necessary?
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I agree. I think, for Mudcat, that thread was quite liberal (/coherent). I find that when I boil down my reasons for having an issue with someone (in a session or otherwise), it's just the fact that they don't listen
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
The Mudcatters don't seem to treat tunes with the same reverence they treat songs. After all, if it doesn't have words, it is just some pale shadow of the real thing, right?
And as long as you hit one or two notes out of every three or four, what's the problem?
Variations should be the result of a deliberate decision of someone who already knows the tune, not the refuge of someone who is just fluffing through it.
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I'm wondering John if this is another mid-atlantic discussion i.e. given that from all I hear, it is much more common for musicians at Jams in the U.S. to quite happily just busk along with a tune, even although they don't even know it & may never have heard it before, whereas folks over here tend to have a bit more respect for the tune & the other musicians, so tend to wait until they have actually learned the darn thing.
" ... a melodeon could make "a useful noise" without necessarily playing all the notes. I found that a very constructive idea." .. Aaaaaaaarrrrggg
Just imagine if 50% of the musicians were doing that in YOUR session!
As for different versions of a tune .... of course there are, but what ever happened to good old common sense ... i.e. listen to whoever kicks the tune off & play THAT version, if you don't know that one, then just shut up & listen & learn it for the next time.
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
The folks in the US who jam along at open mic sessions are not the same ones who come to Irish sessions, Ptarmy, and those who come into Irish pubs with that 'liberal' attitude of what constitutes a tune are soon corrected. Those who wish to contribute 'useful noise' to our local session will get pointed in the right direction very quickly...
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
Indignity and horripilant noises surround, I am told, the beginnings of every human life. It is not unreasonable then to conjecture that the same might apply to the genesis of many a new musical genre. Perhaps I am reading about the birth-throes of the most staggering musical epoch ever, ready to crash all our doors down in its tsunamic swagger round the planet. I'd hate to diss it now and feel like a tit once it was big, in 40 years' time. But if I'm not going to be here in 40 years' time, can I diss it? I can! But I don't want to stamp on the tender outgrowths of artistic liberty, all the same, just so long as they're happening on another continent. My aspirations to being a trad fascist are best confined to the inside of my head and - er - the sessions I actually frequent.
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
They seem to be discussing sessions where the the tune is not king. However, in a session where the tune is king it does not mean harmony is forbidden. It simply means, if you're playing, learn the tune first. Don't overpower the tune.
Here's another take on learning the tune, letting the tune come through, but playing some appropriate harmony;
Re: 3 chord trick in Minor, Mixoldian, Dorian?
Posted on January 17th 2010 by irisnevins http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/23610/comments#comment490664
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
IMHO, if one player slightly 'fudges' the tune it might just be ok if the stronger players cover it but any more and the tune just gets muddier - ideally all players (especially melody players) need to be in synch and know the tune or just listen until they know the next one - general rule - if your playing doesn't enhance the tune don't do it
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I don't go to mudcat much but was curious about your link, John J. There are some beauts there - I liked these most:
"Tin whistles add trills and rolls which are almost impossible on a fiddle"
"you can play bass runs, or countermelodies, and you will make the overall sound of the tune better by filling spaces in the overall sound."
"All in all, it's just a session.
Nobody's listening..."
"even when I haven't got the whole tune fluent, I can make a "useful noise"."
"I'm always a bit surprised if I start a tune and lots of people dive right in. My version is likely to be just that, my version, so I would expect them to listen out for the first A and B at least"
One for Llig - "Most sessions are in a public place and gather people by chance. It's hard to see how they can be selective about who plays and who doesn't."
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I try to vary the tune slightly each time through, and some of those around me are doing the same thing. So of course we’re rarely playing exactly the same note-for-note. Maybe there's even a whole phrase that’s slightly different, but in the same key and the same musical idea, and it more or less fits. Sometimes, I’ll hear something I like and give it a try next time it comes around, but then the person I heard it from has moved on to some other variation. Maybe when people have played together a long time, they can sound like the Kane sisters, but I like the texture of the little differences between players and instruments.
Of course sometimes it’s a real clash, and there’s not a lot you can do except wince, and look around apologetically.
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I wonder if you couldn't say that an Irish traditional tune (one without a known composer) is more of a "melodic shape" than a specific series of notes. But that's not an excuse to play randomly all around the tune without really knowing it.
The trick is to know what fits in that shape (i.e., that particular tune), which notes can be changed, how, and when, without losing the plot.
So--perhaps, for expert players--there is no "exact tune," but rather a very intricate set of requirements for notes that serve the purpose of the (for lack of a better term) "melodic shape." And knowing those requirements is a big challenge, even bigger than knowing all the notes of a certain setting perfectly. Certainly a much bigger challenge than figuring out what key something is in, and noodling around in that key, thinking that you are contributing something of value.
In theory, anyway. I have learned not to noodle, myself, but I struggle with pretty much everything else.
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I always thought knowing the tune was a good place to start
Myself included, most of us learn or have learned tunes from recordings which may have arrangements that vary alot. I notice that after a few bars, most everyone comes together in consensus. On the other hand, sometimes there is a trainwreck when too many people play too many different interpretations.
Usually a good reason after playing the poyphonics to have a nice chat about the passages in question. I thought that was part of the learning process.
Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I've just stumbled on this discussion on Mudcat
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=141152&messages=8
Many of you might consider some of the views to be "par for the course" over there.
The most outrageous responses seem to be along the lines of "It doesn't really matter as nobody is listening anyway"
My own view is that there are obviously several versions and settings of many tunes and, left to ourselves, we wouldn't all be playing the same thing. However, whereas slight variations can often "blend in" OK, surely the participants of a session should be listening to what is going on and "adapting" if necessary?
# Posted on October 30th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I agree. I think, for Mudcat, that thread was quite liberal (/coherent). I find that when I boil down my reasons for having an issue with someone (in a session or otherwise), it's just the fact that they don't listen
# Posted on October 30th 2011 by Fred Holden
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
The Mudcatters don't seem to treat tunes with the same reverence they treat songs. After all, if it doesn't have words, it is just some pale shadow of the real thing, right?
And as long as you hit one or two notes out of every three or four, what's the problem?
Variations should be the result of a deliberate decision of someone who already knows the tune, not the refuge of someone who is just fluffing through it.
# Posted on October 30th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I'm wondering John if this is another mid-atlantic discussion i.e. given that from all I hear, it is much more common for musicians at Jams in the U.S. to quite happily just busk along with a tune, even although they don't even know it & may never have heard it before, whereas folks over here tend to have a bit more respect for the tune & the other musicians, so tend to wait until they have actually learned the darn thing.
" ... a melodeon could make "a useful noise" without necessarily playing all the notes. I found that a very constructive idea." .. Aaaaaaaarrrrggg
Just imagine if 50% of the musicians were doing that in YOUR session!
As for different versions of a tune .... of course there are, but what ever happened to good old common sense ... i.e. listen to whoever kicks the tune off & play THAT version, if you don't know that one, then just shut up & listen & learn it for the next time.
Cheers,
Dick
# Posted on October 30th 2011 by Ptarmigan
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
The folks in the US who jam along at open mic sessions are not the same ones who come to Irish sessions, Ptarmy, and those who come into Irish pubs with that 'liberal' attitude of what constitutes a tune are soon corrected. Those who wish to contribute 'useful noise' to our local session will get pointed in the right direction very quickly...
# Posted on October 30th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I hope I never accidentally show up any of those people's sessions and they never come to mine.
# Posted on October 30th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
balls.... show up *at...
# Posted on October 30th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
Indignity and horripilant noises surround, I am told, the beginnings of every human life. It is not unreasonable then to conjecture that the same might apply to the genesis of many a new musical genre. Perhaps I am reading about the birth-throes of the most staggering musical epoch ever, ready to crash all our doors down in its tsunamic swagger round the planet. I'd hate to diss it now and feel like a tit once it was big, in 40 years' time. But if I'm not going to be here in 40 years' time, can I diss it? I can! But I don't want to stamp on the tender outgrowths of artistic liberty, all the same, just so long as they're happening on another continent. My aspirations to being a trad fascist are best confined to the inside of my head and - er - the sessions I actually frequent.
# Posted on October 31st 2011 by nicholas
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
They seem to be discussing sessions where the the tune is not king. However, in a session where the tune is king it does not mean harmony is forbidden. It simply means, if you're playing, learn the tune first. Don't overpower the tune.
Here's another take on learning the tune, letting the tune come through, but playing some appropriate harmony;
Re: 3 chord trick in Minor, Mixoldian, Dorian?
Posted on January 17th 2010 by irisnevins
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/23610/comments#comment490664
# Posted on October 31st 2011 by Batgirl has left the GPL ;)
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
IMHO, if one player slightly 'fudges' the tune it might just be ok if the stronger players cover it but any more and the tune just gets muddier - ideally all players (especially melody players) need to be in synch and know the tune or just listen until they know the next one - general rule - if your playing doesn't enhance the tune don't do it
# Posted on October 31st 2011 by Enob
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I don't go to mudcat much but was curious about your link, John J. There are some beauts there - I liked these most:
"Tin whistles add trills and rolls which are almost impossible on a fiddle"
"you can play bass runs, or countermelodies, and you will make the overall sound of the tune better by filling spaces in the overall sound."
"All in all, it's just a session.
Nobody's listening..."
"even when I haven't got the whole tune fluent, I can make a "useful noise"."
"I'm always a bit surprised if I start a tune and lots of people dive right in. My version is likely to be just that, my version, so I would expect them to listen out for the first A and B at least"
One for Llig - "Most sessions are in a public place and gather people by chance. It's hard to see how they can be selective about who plays and who doesn't."
# Posted on October 31st 2011 by domhnall.
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
"I'm always a bit surprised if I start a tune and lots of people dive right in..."
They do this to rescue the tune, of course.
# Posted on October 31st 2011 by nicholas
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I try to vary the tune slightly each time through, and some of those around me are doing the same thing. So of course we’re rarely playing exactly the same note-for-note. Maybe there's even a whole phrase that’s slightly different, but in the same key and the same musical idea, and it more or less fits. Sometimes, I’ll hear something I like and give it a try next time it comes around, but then the person I heard it from has moved on to some other variation. Maybe when people have played together a long time, they can sound like the Kane sisters, but I like the texture of the little differences between players and instruments.
Of course sometimes it’s a real clash, and there’s not a lot you can do except wince, and look around apologetically.
# Posted on October 31st 2011 by fidkid
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I wonder if you couldn't say that an Irish traditional tune (one without a known composer) is more of a "melodic shape" than a specific series of notes. But that's not an excuse to play randomly all around the tune without really knowing it.
The trick is to know what fits in that shape (i.e., that particular tune), which notes can be changed, how, and when, without losing the plot.
So--perhaps, for expert players--there is no "exact tune," but rather a very intricate set of requirements for notes that serve the purpose of the (for lack of a better term) "melodic shape." And knowing those requirements is a big challenge, even bigger than knowing all the notes of a certain setting perfectly. Certainly a much bigger challenge than figuring out what key something is in, and noodling around in that key, thinking that you are contributing something of value.
In theory, anyway. I have learned not to noodle, myself, but I struggle with pretty much everything else.
# Posted on October 31st 2011 by John Galt
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
Oops--I tend to noodle at your sessions, John Galt (you're very tolerant). I'll have to curb that tendency. . .
# Posted on November 1st 2011 by Ann M.
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
I always thought knowing the tune was a good place to start
Myself included, most of us learn or have learned tunes from recordings which may have arrangements that vary alot. I notice that after a few bars, most everyone comes together in consensus. On the other hand, sometimes there is a trainwreck when too many people play too many different interpretations.
Usually a good reason after playing the poyphonics to have a nice chat about the passages in question. I thought that was part of the learning process.
# Posted on November 1st 2011 by zippydw
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
polyphonics
# Posted on November 1st 2011 by zippydw
Re: Discussion elsewhere... "In a session, do you need the exact tune?"
We like to get as tight a unison thing as possible going, and then just all explode into as crazy a variation as possible. It's a great sound
# Posted on November 1st 2011 by ...