I know it's been done before and annoys some people, but I would like to know what the balance of current opinion is. So, a straw poll: Do you love or hate the dots?
I think the answer to this question depends on your background. If you come to trad never having played an instrument, the dots would get in the way of what should be an aural learning experience, so, you'd probably not like them at all. If you come to trad from classical, the dots would be a strong part of your experience, and would have a value to remembering a tune.
I am an Ear player, but used dot's at times when I couldn't pick up
the notes well. Now I've caught myself being able to read ABC text
and play the note's on the Fiddle, without having to look back and forth every Note...
So you guy's on here must be teaching me something - lol.
jim,,,
Is it obligatory that we fall into one camp or another? I find Marmite very useful for flavouring soups and stews, and enjoy it as a hot drink from time to time, especially in the Winter, but don't much like it on toast or in a sandwich.
Counterexample to Ceolachan's claim - a fiddler friend in Rhode Island plays only by ear. He doesn't even know the names of the notes the fiddle strings are tuned to. If you asked him to play a D, he'd shrug his shoulders. He's got a nice style, but despite having played for maybe 20-30 years, his repertoire is fairly small and he winds up sitting out well over half the tunes at a typical session. If you want him to learn a tune, you have to give him a recording and it could be six months before he gets it. He seems to have a lack of self-confidence and believes that he's not capable of learning to read ABC or staff notation, but I think he'd like to.
As for music, I'll always opt for learning by ear if I have the time* and an aural source. It can also be interesting, though, playing tunes off the page, if you don't have a recording available or don't know the source. In fact, when I first started learning this music, the first thing I would do when I heard a new tune on a re the dots cording would be to transcribe it. Neither my playing skils nor my listening skills were up to picking up tunes on the fly, but my ear was good enough that I could write down the melody (and the placing of, if not the intricacies of, ornamentation). After listening in such detail to the tune, I would hardly need to look at the dots to recall it. More recently, I have been transcribing tunes from old recordings (Klezmer, not Irish) so that others can learn them. Perhaps it's my age, but somehow, they don't seem to stick as easily as the Irish ones did 15 years ago - so I find myself referring back to my own transcription for prompts.
It really depends on the artist. For example I thought Monet's impressionist work using a blur of dots to convey an image was brilliant. But for pure raw energy, nothing compares to the dot paintingts of the Nothern Aboriginal tribes of Australia.
However, when it comes to music, I prefer using my ears
"Is it obligatory that we fall into one camp or another?"
If you can do both, there's no need to "unlearn" one of them.
Written music can give you access to tunes you've not yet heard or different settings and versions of some you may already know.
It's also interesting to see what ornaments an/or bowings are favoured by some highly respected composers and musicians. They've obviously thought it important enough to pou them down on paper.
Having said all that, listening to a tune being played is a far better guide than anything on paper although, just as any piece of written music, the version you hear isn't the only way it can or necessarily should be played either.
I'm pretty much a dot phobic, although I can laboriously trudge through sheet music. I rarely do however, both of which things probably explain one another, and No, I don't like dots, but mother thought me not to hate anybody or thing, so Yes I don't like dots.
Love 'em. It isn't that hard to read a tune in dots on the page and (almost) simultaneously imagine this, that or another proficient musician known to you - whether in real life or just through recordings - playing it in his/her characteristic style on his/her instrument. That's called using your imagination, I believe.
In Scotland and England, the tradition has used dots and tune-books for centuries. This might have made for cut-and-dried, unvarying presentation of tunes at times, but needn't invariably have to.
Meanwhile, the archive demonstrates that while every age turns up some really good tunes, it will also most certainly generate swamps of bilge ones that get into the tune books and stay there forgotten till some modern stumbles in and stirs them up, to realise eventually (perhaps) that they have been forgotten for very good reasons.
I don't love them or hate them, any more than I love or hate print. If there were no dots a lot of good tunes would have disappeared along with the bad ones.
Dots are a very useful tool which, like a screwdriver or a bradawl, can do your ears in if misused.
The dots are only a map of the music. Some people can navigate without a map, some like reading maps.
A recording is more like a picture of the music. Some people like to see a photo of where they are going.
Of course neither have the three d-ness or resolution of the real thing
And why is it ABC is acceptable when dots ain't?
I also think some get a bit defensive and grumpy about dots because they never got round to learning them.
"Some people can navigate without a map, some like reading maps."
Some people listen to a Sat Nav but can still get lost or, even worse, end up over the side of a cliff. Other options might include following directions given by an apparently competent and knowledgeble person or even just guessing. These might also lead you somewhere you don't want to go.
A local man can still give you wrong directions and you might also hear the wrong version of a tune at your local session.
GaryAMartin..
But as you said < He's got a nice style >
The only danger I can see in Dot's is
your dependeacy on them. I was at a slow session for
learners last month and if your Music book with the Dot's fall's
off the Stand ( as it did to someone Twice that night )
You are in a Word,,, ' Fu*&ed '
jim,,,
Of course that's exactly right Jim, as Jon Kiparsky has been illustrating from his own experience elsewhere on the Board. Dots are fine for many purposes, but learners shouldn't rely on them.
Framing the discussion in terms of "love them" vs. "hate them" is stupid.
"And why is it ABC is acceptable when dots ain't?"
I was also wondering about this. It's only through computers and the internet that it's really got so big / prevalent, as it's something a computer can easily understand, and makes sites like this far easier to maintain and run.
Both it and classical notation require *some* learning, and it's probably the case that an expert in one would be able to interpret it just as fast as an expert in the other. But they're the same when compared against listening.
"I also think some get a bit defensive and grumpy about dots because they never got round to learning them."
"Of course that's exactly right Jim, as Jon Kiparsky has been illustrating from his own experience elsewhere on the Board. Dots are fine for many purposes, but learners shouldn't rely on them.
Framing the discussion in terms of "love them" vs. "hate them" is stupid."
Having yet another discussion about them at all is stupid, n'est-ce pas?
It is well established that written music has played a significant role in Irish trad music, to denounce it is not unlike denouncing evolution and insisting on creationism.
Nobody is denouncing written music copperplate, that's why it's a stupid way to frame the discussion. It's a more complicated position than just "love/hate".
Steve -
I would love to learn the dot's well after looking through the words in English of Mahler's , ' Das Lied von der Erde '
( Word's in English ) I started to get Fascinated with following the Dot's as the note's played, Wow !
But then there is the question of "Style, personal touches, tempo and the swing" in classical music too. It works fine there too. Ok there's not so much variation, but surely any classical piece is based on the conductor/performer/soloist's interpretation?
"Steve -
I would love to learn the dot's well after looking through the words in English of Mahler's , ' Das Lied von der Erde '
( Word's in English ) I started to get Fascinated with following the Dot's as the note's played, Wow !
But it just dose not work in ITM I think, ie/ Style, personal touches, tempo and the swing, and variation's in the Tune/s.
jim,,,"
Well, there's something we can agree on. There's nowt I love more than listening to a bit o' Beethoven with the mini-score to follow (or not). But then the guys playing the Beethoven quartet or whatever are sticking to the written note. Ish. Wot does not happen in diddley, Why, I reckon most of the people playing good diddley don't even know that the written note exists.
It's true that there's no difference, in principle, between how any musician changes, embellishes, varies and generally adds to the music they play compared to the information contained within the notation. If a musician doesn't do this, any musician, classical, Jazz, Irish, any musician, they are either a really dreadful musician, not worthy of the moniker "musician" or a machine.
The only difference is in the degree of how much the musician changes, embellishes, varies and generally adds. Classical soloists do it more than the rank and file orchestra players. Traditional Irish musicians do it more than Classical soloists. So what.
Steve ,,
< Why, I reckon most of the people playing good diddley don't even know that the written note exists.> That's a very good point !
I know a Bango player if you said that's in Am, C and then D... He would just look at you.. But get him to Play Bunker Hill... And you'll just fall off your chair afterwards - lol.
jim,,,
Steve, it seems very unlikely to me that somebody could get to be a good player without at some point hearing about O'Neill's and other books. Or is your experience so different from mine?
llig, I'd say the differences in the amount and nature of the freedom allowed to traditional, classical and jazz musicians are very significant.
A jazz musician should never play what the composer wrote, a classical player should always play what the composer wrote, and in traditional music there is no original written source or composer, even when there is. I think the idea is that you should play what you heard others play before you.
Bernie, were there no good players before O'Neill's book?
And I never said the differences in the amount of changes, embellishments, variation and general add ons are not significant between different styles of music. Of course they are. I just said the is no difference in principle. All musicians do it.
This is simply anecdotal, & not at all about playing Irish music. Every jazz musician I have met, who has told me they do not read music, has also told me they would prefer they had learned to read music. That's not to say they aren't brilliant at picking up tunes; they are. I'm not sure why they regard reading music as a missed opportunity, but I've heard it from a number of jazz musicians. I will point out that I have never met a jazz drummer with the same misgivings.
On the other hand there are many jazz musicians I've known who can transcribe, sight-read, transpose, & maybe even play backwards off the dots, though typically they shun the sheet. They prefer playing.
But, then there was nothing good recoded before O'Neils book
to prove otherwise, unless John McKenna & James Morrison,
cut there 78 RPM's in America before it..
Sorry I don't really know the answer to that llig.
jim,,,
cross-posted with you Bernie. I'd be very surprised if all of the so-called classical composers would agree their music *must* always be played exactly as originally written. Most conductors probably, but not all composers.
There's a confusion here about what "exactly as written" means. It does not mean how a midi player would play a score. It's important to recognise that any musician who writes music down expects any player of that music to bring to it an understanding and recognition of the genre.
Every score invites interpretation. And there can be many many interpretations which can all be "exactly as written".
Yes there where good musicians before recordings..
But Irish music Recording's are not that old really,
but here's a good point for the dot players.
In Manuscript's we still have a good source to turn to,
if we wish to see what Bach, Mozart, etc, Had in there mind's.
In Sheet music you would need to write like Mahler or Shostakovich to write the players Interpretation's down correctly. But then even with that, an Irish Musician would most likely change even that after the second time around - lol..
jim
Some of the transcribers like Pat Mitchell do a fine job. It doesn't need to be every nuance of the player's rendition to produce a "memo" of the tune structure.
Does any violinist adopting Kreisler's cadenza for Beethoven's violin concerto play it exactly as written, or use it as a guide?
A beginner could certainly gain useful information about this topic from this board, but not when the discussion is framed and conducted in such a stupid way.
On the other hand, I can see how someone with the right abiltiies could get a lot out of them. In a radio interview the late Martyn Bennet's mother said how when he was young he would read multi-part scores; at night she would tell him it was time to turn the light out and he would say "but I haven't finished my tune yet".
Sorry it upsets some people to even suggest a discussion. I know it's been done before, but there are still new viewpoints. I was interested, mostly, in getting an idea of what the current balance of opinion is. Got some good laughs to.
For what it's worth, I think if standard music notation was useful enough for my great great grandaddy to use then they ought to be useful for me.
For me I think CreadurMawnOrganig is on the right lines with the marmite analogy. I like Yaahlhouse's map analogy as well. So, you are unlikely to play a tune you haven't heard, from a line of notated melody, any more than than you can paint a picture of a place you have never seen from a map.
What you can do is use the dots as a prompt to what you already know, but can't quite recall, or as a way of making it easier to find your way around a tune.
I'm not sure what it says about me, but I love browsing maps nearly as much as I enjoy browsing the dots.
Sorry that was a bit cryptic. Noted it down to jog my memory.
The point I was going to make was that I believe all musicians playing within the celtic tradition (if you'll pardon the expression) owe a debt to the dots, whether they can read them or not. Without them a lot would have been lost, changed out of recognition. For instance, without people such as Neale and Bunting writng down the tunes of Carolan it is likely that many, if not most, would have been lost.
"So, you are unlikely to play a tune you haven't heard, from a line of notated melody, any more than than you can paint a picture of a place you have never seen from a map."
Of course, you won't know exactly how a tune should sound or a place should look but, if you use your imagination along with your existing skills, you can still paint a beautiful picture.
Also, it doesn't get mentioned here much, but there's often situations when you may be required or encouraged to learn a tune which you haven't yet heard, eg for a concert, musical gathering of some sort.
I will sometimes have a batch of tunes sent to me for this purpose. While some players might not even look at these until the event (Not a wise move, in my opinion) and can apparently play the tunes straight "off the dots", I tend to research them if I can, i.e. seek out recordings etc and/or try to interpret them in my own way. Quite often, when they are played by "the group", they can sound more than a little different. However, I can usually adapt for the occasion provided I'm familiar enough with the material already.
That's not to say that their way is necessarily any more "correct" than mine or another interpretation I've heard, of course.
I shall reiterate my best advice for this music: don't use the dots if you feel you need them.
The dots contain only two bits of information, the order of the notes and a ballpark approximation of their relative lengths. (they contain the fixed pitch also, but that's redundant to this music, all that's relevant as far a pitch goes is the relative intervals.)
And these two bits of information, the order of the notes and the ballpark approximation of their relative lengths are the easiest bits of information to gleen from an aural source. What's not on the paper – i.e. everything about the music that makes it not sound like a classically trained sight reader picking up a copy of O'Neill's and "having a go" – is harder to gleen from your aural source. So if you are having trouble getting the easiest bits by ear and are resorting to the paper, what chance have you with the harder bits?
And don't let's hear all this nonsense about "people learn in different ways". It's one of two things. Can you hear it or can't you. If you can't hear it then there are no tricks, short cuts, magic potions or notions or notations that can help you. You simply have to sit down and listen listen listen as hard as you can until you do hear it.
However, if/when you can hear it, and are perfectly comfortable with the prospect of never seeing the dots in your life ever again, then dive in a use them as much as you like. As I said, there's not really much information at all in sheet music, but that doesn't mean that that information is not a truly great wealth of information. You just have to remember that that wealth is worse than useless unless you already posses a reasonable degree of that much greater wealth, the wealth of the tradition.
To the classically trained sight reader picking up a copy of O'Neill's and "having a go", the wealth of that book is worse than useless.
Might I tentatively suggest that one factor contributing to the antipathy towards staff notation is its association with the ruling classes and 'cultured' society? Of course, the whole concept of naming notes with letters is closely connected with staff notation . and the formalised ABC notation that we use for submitting tunes to this site essentially IS staff notation in an encoded form.
For me, personally, staff notation is superior to alphabetical (I use this term as I am not referring necessarily to the computer-readable code) because it represents a synaesthetic relationship that I (and many others) instantly recognise - 'high' notes appear high on the staff and 'low' notes appear low on the staff. (I don't claim to be a true synaesthete, whatever that is, but I learned at an early age, before I could read music or words, that high notes were called 'high' and low notes were called 'low', thus a correspondance between pitch and spatial position was foged in my brain.) Alphabetical notation, on the other hand, requires being familiar with a particular sequence of abstract symbols and their names (i.e. the first 7 letters of the alphabet), before associating each one of them with a note.
Now, as far as I recall, I could recite the alphabet without any trouble before the age of 4. But , even 33 years on, if you were to ask me, for example, what letter lies 4 places before M in the alphabet, I would have to visualise or mentally recite the alphabet and count the letters to come up with the answer. No doubt, some people (perhaps most) could do it in a flash, without any conscious thought process - perhaps, for them, an alphabetical system is just as good as, if not better than, a staff system. But it seems to me that it requires more intellectualisation to get from a letter to a musical note than it does to get from a dot on a staff to a musical note.
I agree, llig - I was responding to an earlier part of the thread.
Yes, written music is written music, and whatever symbols are used, they are only a set of reference points. But it has its uses, as you yourself point out.
Don't NEED the notes! - ABCs, dots, Solfeggio, Tab, whatever... And don't take them too seriously. They're useful, fun, interesting, but if they become anything even approximating a 'necessity', then your understanding of music is hobbled. Imagine trying to dance with your legs tied together, or with a book in hand and in front of your face. You want a 'natural' and free, unencumbered, association with music. You want it inside, not outside at a distance on paper...
The above warning comes from someone with a long association with various types of notation for music and dance, and a lefty who went to the difficult bother of learning proper dot notation with pen and ink. You'd have to understand what that means for a lefty... It's no easy task... I love notation and all its forms and histories, but I also have had to deal with the difficult task of trying to get someone to kick the habit, to break from the addiction. Notation can raise ones understanding and appreciation, but it can also stifle and strangle the life out of the thing it can only approximate...
But you can put much more coded info into conventional notation than ABC notation eg. phrasing, dynamics, articulations and so on. But I agree that ITM needs not this written info.
I have my own symbols I use for long and short rolls. I use the dots but have never bothered with abc. The reason, of course, one should never share music via notation with strangers, you've no idea how they'll murder it. I often give dots to people though.
The great advantage of dots over ABCs is that you can play the tune yourself on a musical instrument to hear how it supposed to go.
I only learned ABC as a code with which I can convert a tune into standard notation via another program, eg ABC Navigator, Tune A tron, the facilty here etc. So, I will obtain tunes this way or write them out in ABC before converting them.
However, I'd never play a tune or learn it directly from the ABC.
"one should never share music via notation with strangers"
I'm still amazed at how much space is used to debate the legitimacy of something that is so essential to this website's existence; music notation. (or "dots" as you like to call them) It's like talking about cars and debating the legitimacy of the wheel.
No, it's like talking about cars, and debating the legitimacy of drawings of the wheel. It is not the music being argued, it is how the music is captured on a piece of paper.
"I'm still amazed at how much space is used to debate the legitimacy of something that is so essential to this website's existence; music notation. (or "dots" as you like to call them) It's like talking about cars and debating the legitimacy of the wheel."
The space isn't being used to debate the legitimacy of music notation. Nobody, as far as I can see, is arguing that music notation is illegitimate. The space is being taken up predominantly by people like yourself, who have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and are refusing to put the stick down again.
"The space is being taken up predominantly by people like yourself, who have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and are refusing to put the stick down again."
Well, he's certainly not alone. There's more pots and kettles here than in your average ironmonger's store.
However, there's plenty of space on this site. If one thread gets too busy, it's easy enough to just start another one.
"....or like talking about cooking and debating the legitimacy of the recipe book."
CMO, this is a good analogy, I would take it a step further and say it's like talking about cookbooks and dismissing the validity and usefulness of recipes. This website relies on music notation to exchange tunes, so dismissing music notation is silly. Maybe people that dismiss music notation should start a similar website that uses recordings as the exchange medium for tunes instead.
I don't think music notation is as central to this musical tradition as you seem to be saying, copperplate— i.e. as wheels to a car, or recipes to a cookbook. Notation can be useful but it's supplementary. FWIW I use the discussion forum far more than the tunes section, and use neither anywhere near as much as I spend listening and playing with people.
“I'm still amazed at how much space is used to debate the legitimacy of something that is so essential to this website's existence; music notation. (or "dots" as you like to call them) It's like talking about cars and debating the legitimacy of the wheel.”
Ah, sorry--my mistake: you weren’t saying that notation is central to Irish music, you were saying that it is central to this website. True.
However, I don’t think people were talking about this website. The discussion (as I took it) was a larger one, about Irish traditional music. And notation's place in that tradition.
Oh... now I read the second post of yours. Regarding music notation as it relates to Irish music: it is well documented to have been very useful but not essential, but it still can't be dismissed. I don't think any music can be learned purely by notation... you have to hear it first to understand what the notation attempts to represent. I use it as a tool to document tunes, but I rarely utilize it as a source for learning tunes unless no audible source is available.
In the larger realm whenever someone thinks about abc notation (of Irish dance tunes) chances are good they are thinking about thesession.org
Not the discussion pages, but the Tunes category is currently a prime source for notated music.
The tunes section here is magnificent, on par with O’Neills books I think in terms of documenting and disseminating this tradition. But it’s a terrible, perilous primary source. You shouldn’t take a tune from there without cross-referencing it with a knowledgeable live player, or a recording, or both.
I'll venture onto the ice. One thing may be worse than anything related to dot reliance; when certain strummings of chords has tune players feeling as though they are wearing strait-jackets. Or the players just don't care.
At least this site is not known for enabling poor souls jonesing for chords.
and thanks for your comments Bernie. I don't mind you think it was a stupid way to phrase the question or that it upsets some that the discussion is not new. I am impressed by how considered a discussion has come out of it. I felt I had seen somerather one sided attitudes dominationg some recent discussions.
Greg, I don't know what you expected from a thread titled, "Stir the pot." Not exactly a title that renders peace and tranquility... seems to beg for a heated debate on a subject that is guaranteed to generate a heated debate.
copperplate, I hoped for exactly what I got. The discussion was lively but I wouldn't have said heated. And it's ok, I really don't mind my question being called stupid. I think someone once said something on the lines of "there are no stupid questions..." . trouble i can't remember the rest of it!
Stir the pot
Stir the pot
I know it's been done before and annoys some people, but I would like to know what the balance of current opinion is. So, a straw poll: Do you love or hate the dots?
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by greg sheils
Re: Stir the pot
What a stupid question.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
Seurat?
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
I think the answer to this question depends on your background. If you come to trad never having played an instrument, the dots would get in the way of what should be an aural learning experience, so, you'd probably not like them at all. If you come to trad from classical, the dots would be a strong part of your experience, and would have a value to remembering a tune.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Stir the pot
...but to respond the original question, put me down as a dot guy.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Stir the pot
I will join the dots.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Innocent Bystander
Re: Stir the pot
Polka dots?
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by RichardB
Sweeping statement thrown into the stir ~
There is no one in Irish Traditional Music that hasn't learned from and benefited from notated music, not a one - directly or indirectly...
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Stir the pot
I am an Ear player, but used dot's at times when I couldn't pick up
the notes well. Now I've caught myself being able to read ABC text
and play the note's on the Fiddle, without having to look back and forth every Note...
So you guy's on here must be teaching me something - lol.
jim,,,
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
I love them if they look like this lot - http://www.the-dots.de/.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by MacCruiskeen
Sweeping statement number II
There is no one in Irish Traditional Music that hasn't learned from and benefited from WWII, not a one - directly or indirectly...
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
You remind me of that hurricane we had recently llig.
Here is a tune:
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/4377
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Jams_O'Donnell
Re: Stir the pot
I reckon WW3 will be upon us before Llig plays a Scott Skinner tune with or without the dots.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
Is it obligatory that we fall into one camp or another? I find Marmite very useful for flavouring soups and stews, and enjoy it as a hot drink from time to time, especially in the Winter, but don't much like it on toast or in a sandwich.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Stir the pot
Counterexample to Ceolachan's claim - a fiddler friend in Rhode Island plays only by ear. He doesn't even know the names of the notes the fiddle strings are tuned to. If you asked him to play a D, he'd shrug his shoulders. He's got a nice style, but despite having played for maybe 20-30 years, his repertoire is fairly small and he winds up sitting out well over half the tunes at a typical session. If you want him to learn a tune, you have to give him a recording and it could be six months before he gets it. He seems to have a lack of self-confidence and believes that he's not capable of learning to read ABC or staff notation, but I think he'd like to.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by GaryAMartin
Re: Stir the pot
Anyway, dots ar alright, but I prefer stripes.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Stir the pot
@Gary ... and those recordings he listens to are from people who have been influenced by the dots.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Fiddler3
Re: Stir the pot
As for music, I'll always opt for learning by ear if I have the time* and an aural source. It can also be interesting, though, playing tunes off the page, if you don't have a recording available or don't know the source. In fact, when I first started learning this music, the first thing I would do when I heard a new tune on a re the dots cording would be to transcribe it. Neither my playing skils nor my listening skills were up to picking up tunes on the fly, but my ear was good enough that I could write down the melody (and the placing of, if not the intricacies of, ornamentation). After listening in such detail to the tune, I would hardly need to look at the dots to recall it. More recently, I have been transcribing tunes from old recordings (Klezmer, not Irish) so that others can learn them. Perhaps it's my age, but somehow, they don't seem to stick as easily as the Irish ones did 15 years ago - so I find myself referring back to my own transcription for prompts.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Stir the pot
ok - missed the "indirectly" qualifier.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by GaryAMartin
Re: Stir the pot
It really depends on the artist. For example I thought Monet's impressionist work using a blur of dots to convey an image was brilliant. But for pure raw energy, nothing compares to the dot paintingts of the Nothern Aboriginal tribes of Australia.
However, when it comes to music, I prefer using my ears
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Stir the pot
"Northern"
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Jusa Nutter Eejit
Re: Stir the pot
"Is it obligatory that we fall into one camp or another?"
If you can do both, there's no need to "unlearn" one of them.
Written music can give you access to tunes you've not yet heard or different settings and versions of some you may already know.
It's also interesting to see what ornaments an/or bowings are favoured by some highly respected composers and musicians. They've obviously thought it important enough to pou them down on paper.
Having said all that, listening to a tune being played is a far better guide than anything on paper although, just as any piece of written music, the version you hear isn't the only way it can or necessarily should be played either.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
I'm pretty much a dot phobic, although I can laboriously trudge through sheet music. I rarely do however, both of which things probably explain one another, and No, I don't like dots, but mother thought me not to hate anybody or thing, so Yes I don't like dots.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Backer
Re: Stir the pot
Love 'em. It isn't that hard to read a tune in dots on the page and (almost) simultaneously imagine this, that or another proficient musician known to you - whether in real life or just through recordings - playing it in his/her characteristic style on his/her instrument. That's called using your imagination, I believe.
In Scotland and England, the tradition has used dots and tune-books for centuries. This might have made for cut-and-dried, unvarying presentation of tunes at times, but needn't invariably have to.
Meanwhile, the archive demonstrates that while every age turns up some really good tunes, it will also most certainly generate swamps of bilge ones that get into the tune books and stay there forgotten till some modern stumbles in and stirs them up, to realise eventually (perhaps) that they have been forgotten for very good reasons.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Stir the pot
I don't love them or hate them, any more than I love or hate print. If there were no dots a lot of good tunes would have disappeared along with the bad ones.
Dots are a very useful tool which, like a screwdriver or a bradawl, can do your ears in if misused.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by gam
Re: Stir the pot
The dots are only a map of the music. Some people can navigate without a map, some like reading maps.
A recording is more like a picture of the music. Some people like to see a photo of where they are going.
Of course neither have the three d-ness or resolution of the real thing
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: Stir the pot
And why is it ABC is acceptable when dots ain't?
I also think some get a bit defensive and grumpy about dots because they never got round to learning them.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: Stir the pot
different persons learn and remember differently.
Whatever floats your boat....
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by zippydw
Re: Stir the pot
"Some people can navigate without a map, some like reading maps."
Some people listen to a Sat Nav but can still get lost or, even worse, end up over the side of a cliff. Other options might include following directions given by an apparently competent and knowledgeble person or even just guessing. These might also lead you somewhere you don't want to go.
A local man can still give you wrong directions and you might also hear the wrong version of a tune at your local session.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
John J - that last is not possible, by my lights. The version at your session is, to me, the right version.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Stir the pot
While you are there I suppose it is unless you get directions from two or more different people, of course.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
GaryAMartin..
But as you said < He's got a nice style >
The only danger I can see in Dot's is
your dependeacy on them. I was at a slow session for
learners last month and if your Music book with the Dot's fall's
off the Stand ( as it did to someone Twice that night )
You are in a Word,,, ' Fu*&ed '
jim,,,
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
Of course that's exactly right Jim, as Jon Kiparsky has been illustrating from his own experience elsewhere on the Board. Dots are fine for many purposes, but learners shouldn't rely on them.
Framing the discussion in terms of "love them" vs. "hate them" is stupid.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
"Framing the discussion in terms of "love them" vs. "hate them" is stupid."
Or at least overly incendiary.
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Stir the pot
But yes, Jim, that is definitely one drawback that I hadn't considered!
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Stir the pot
"And why is it ABC is acceptable when dots ain't?"
I was also wondering about this. It's only through computers and the internet that it's really got so big / prevalent, as it's something a computer can easily understand, and makes sites like this far easier to maintain and run.
Both it and classical notation require *some* learning, and it's probably the case that an expert in one would be able to interpret it just as fast as an expert in the other. But they're the same when compared against listening.
"I also think some get a bit defensive and grumpy about dots because they never got round to learning them."
:D
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by SmashTheWindows
Re: Stir the pot
"Of course that's exactly right Jim, as Jon Kiparsky has been illustrating from his own experience elsewhere on the Board. Dots are fine for many purposes, but learners shouldn't rely on them.
Framing the discussion in terms of "love them" vs. "hate them" is stupid."
Having yet another discussion about them at all is stupid, n'est-ce pas?
# Posted on December 12th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: Stir the pot
It is well established that written music has played a significant role in Irish trad music, to denounce it is not unlike denouncing evolution and insisting on creationism.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
Nobody is denouncing written music copperplate, that's why it's a stupid way to frame the discussion. It's a more complicated position than just "love/hate".
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
I'm responding to the OP, they framed it that way... I think it's silly.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
Steve -
I would love to learn the dot's well after looking through the words in English of Mahler's , ' Das Lied von der Erde '
( Word's in English ) I started to get Fascinated with following the Dot's as the note's played, Wow !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QINqxZyqgwY
But it just dose not work in ITM I think, ie/ Style, personal touches, tempo and the swing, and variation's in the Tune/s.
jim,,,
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
Opp's said this twice ( Word's in English ) my apologies..
jim,,,
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
But then there is the question of "Style, personal touches, tempo and the swing" in classical music too. It works fine there too. Ok there's not so much variation, but surely any classical piece is based on the conductor/performer/soloist's interpretation?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by SmashTheWindows
Re: Stir the pot
In A Session, you do what you Feel ....
In an Orchestra, you do what your Told....
; )
jim,,,
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
Not necessarily true.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by SmashTheWindows
Re: Stir the pot
"Steve -
I would love to learn the dot's well after looking through the words in English of Mahler's , ' Das Lied von der Erde '
( Word's in English ) I started to get Fascinated with following the Dot's as the note's played, Wow !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QINqxZyqgwY
But it just dose not work in ITM I think, ie/ Style, personal touches, tempo and the swing, and variation's in the Tune/s.
jim,,,"
Well, there's something we can agree on. There's nowt I love more than listening to a bit o' Beethoven with the mini-score to follow (or not). But then the guys playing the Beethoven quartet or whatever are sticking to the written note. Ish. Wot does not happen in diddley, Why, I reckon most of the people playing good diddley don't even know that the written note exists.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: Stir the pot
It's true that there's no difference, in principle, between how any musician changes, embellishes, varies and generally adds to the music they play compared to the information contained within the notation. If a musician doesn't do this, any musician, classical, Jazz, Irish, any musician, they are either a really dreadful musician, not worthy of the moniker "musician" or a machine.
The only difference is in the degree of how much the musician changes, embellishes, varies and generally adds. Classical soloists do it more than the rank and file orchestra players. Traditional Irish musicians do it more than Classical soloists. So what.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
I love them because there are some tunes and tune settings that (almost certainly) would have been lost without them, but I don't read them myself.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Whiddler
Re: Stir the pot
Steve ,,
< Why, I reckon most of the people playing good diddley don't even know that the written note exists.> That's a very good point !
I know a Bango player if you said that's in Am, C and then D... He would just look at you.. But get him to Play Bunker Hill... And you'll just fall off your chair afterwards - lol.
jim,,,
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
I meant the written note in diddley. it would be demeaning to good diddley players to suggest that they were oblivious to *all* notation!
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: Stir the pot
I think dots is very great.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by
Re: Stir the pot
Steve, it seems very unlikely to me that somebody could get to be a good player without at some point hearing about O'Neill's and other books. Or is your experience so different from mine?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
llig, I'd say the differences in the amount and nature of the freedom allowed to traditional, classical and jazz musicians are very significant.
A jazz musician should never play what the composer wrote, a classical player should always play what the composer wrote, and in traditional music there is no original written source or composer, even when there is. I think the idea is that you should play what you heard others play before you.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
Bernie, were there no good players before O'Neill's book?
And I never said the differences in the amount of changes, embellishments, variation and general add ons are not significant between different styles of music. Of course they are. I just said the is no difference in principle. All musicians do it.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
This is simply anecdotal, & not at all about playing Irish music. Every jazz musician I have met, who has told me they do not read music, has also told me they would prefer they had learned to read music. That's not to say they aren't brilliant at picking up tunes; they are. I'm not sure why they regard reading music as a missed opportunity, but I've heard it from a number of jazz musicians. I will point out that I have never met a jazz drummer with the same misgivings.
On the other hand there are many jazz musicians I've known who can transcribe, sight-read, transpose, & maybe even play backwards off the dots, though typically they shun the sheet. They prefer playing.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
But, then there was nothing good recoded before O'Neils book
to prove otherwise, unless John McKenna & James Morrison,
cut there 78 RPM's in America before it..
Sorry I don't really know the answer to that llig.
jim,,,
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
. . .
cross-posted with you Bernie. I'd be very surprised if all of the so-called classical composers would agree their music *must* always be played exactly as originally written. Most conductors probably, but not all composers.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
Jim, again it's not Irish dance tunes, but James Scott Skinner made some recordings around that time.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
Do you think there were no good musicians before recordings?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
I am well aquainted with the dots, and from time to time benefit from my friendship with them, but that doesn't mean I want to marry them...
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Stir the pot
There's a confusion here about what "exactly as written" means. It does not mean how a midi player would play a score. It's important to recognise that any musician who writes music down expects any player of that music to bring to it an understanding and recognition of the genre.
Every score invites interpretation. And there can be many many interpretations which can all be "exactly as written".
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
No, every score does not *invite* interpretation. A jazz lead sheet is nothing like an orchestral score. Very different beasts.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ain't fluffed
. . . every score does not invite many, many interpretations.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
Show me a score that asks for it to be played exactly as a computer would play it
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
You're right about that. So, where is the confusion?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
Either every score invites interpretation or the "ideal" is like a computer would play it.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
I posted too fast. Every score invites interpretation, just not equally so.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
Did Francis O'Neill not transcribe some of his tunes from wax cylinders?
http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/playlist/touhey-patsy/
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Stir the pot
I very much doubt it. As you (should) know, Francis O'Neill couldn't read or write music.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Stir the pot
I'll re-phrase that, Prof:
Did Francis O'Neill not have James O'Neill transcribe some of his tunes from wax cylinders?
Happier?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Stir the pot
Yes there where good musicians before recordings..
But Irish music Recording's are not that old really,
but here's a good point for the dot players.
In Manuscript's we still have a good source to turn to,
if we wish to see what Bach, Mozart, etc, Had in there mind's.
In Sheet music you would need to write like Mahler or Shostakovich to write the players Interpretation's down correctly. But then even with that, an Irish Musician would most likely change even that after the second time around - lol..
jim
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
Some of the transcribers like Pat Mitchell do a fine job. It doesn't need to be every nuance of the player's rendition to produce a "memo" of the tune structure.
Does any violinist adopting Kreisler's cadenza for Beethoven's violin concerto play it exactly as written, or use it as a guide?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Stir the pot
I like the dots, though it is clear that you can not fully learn the art of this music from a page.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by palethinboy
Re: Stir the pot
There are currently 72 responses to this and I can honestly say that I'm not one bit the wiser.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by strayaway
Re: Stir the pot
Greg, have you seen this?!?! It seems one person "likes" the dots, albeit with certain reservations.
Have you decided yet what you will do with all this mind-numbingly uninteresting information you are collecting?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
Bit of a naff poll, anyway, IMO. You couldn't expect to get any wiser from a subject like this on this board.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Stir the pot
A beginner could certainly gain useful information about this topic from this board, but not when the discussion is framed and conducted in such a stupid way.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
I can't work out why anyone would hate them. Indifference yes, but why hate ?
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by David50
Re: Stir the pot
Polka dots can look lovely on the right woman.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
On the other hand, I can see how someone with the right abiltiies could get a lot out of them. In a radio interview the late Martyn Bennet's mother said how when he was young he would read multi-part scores; at night she would tell him it was time to turn the light out and he would say "but I haven't finished my tune yet".
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by David50
Re: Stir the pot
I'm sure Margaret Bennett helped to nurture those abilities too.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Stir the pot
Thanks for your comments.
Sorry it upsets some people to even suggest a discussion. I know it's been done before, but there are still new viewpoints. I was interested, mostly, in getting an idea of what the current balance of opinion is. Got some good laughs to.
For what it's worth, I think if standard music notation was useful enough for my great great grandaddy to use then they ought to be useful for me.
For me I think CreadurMawnOrganig is on the right lines with the marmite analogy. I like Yaahlhouse's map analogy as well. So, you are unlikely to play a tune you haven't heard, from a line of notated melody, any more than than you can paint a picture of a place you have never seen from a map.
What you can do is use the dots as a prompt to what you already know, but can't quite recall, or as a way of making it easier to find your way around a tune.
I'm not sure what it says about me, but I love browsing maps nearly as much as I enjoy browsing the dots.
Neale and Bunting
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by greg sheils
Re: Stir the pot
Neale and Bunting
Sorry that was a bit cryptic. Noted it down to jog my memory.
The point I was going to make was that I believe all musicians playing within the celtic tradition (if you'll pardon the expression) owe a debt to the dots, whether they can read them or not. Without them a lot would have been lost, changed out of recognition. For instance, without people such as Neale and Bunting writng down the tunes of Carolan it is likely that many, if not most, would have been lost.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by greg sheils
Re: Stir the pot
Well I rarely use dot's Greg ,
But I still vote they should Stay !
jim,,,
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
"So, you are unlikely to play a tune you haven't heard, from a line of notated melody, any more than than you can paint a picture of a place you have never seen from a map."
Of course, you won't know exactly how a tune should sound or a place should look but, if you use your imagination along with your existing skills, you can still paint a beautiful picture.
Also, it doesn't get mentioned here much, but there's often situations when you may be required or encouraged to learn a tune which you haven't yet heard, eg for a concert, musical gathering of some sort.
I will sometimes have a batch of tunes sent to me for this purpose. While some players might not even look at these until the event (Not a wise move, in my opinion) and can apparently play the tunes straight "off the dots", I tend to research them if I can, i.e. seek out recordings etc and/or try to interpret them in my own way. Quite often, when they are played by "the group", they can sound more than a little different. However, I can usually adapt for the occasion provided I'm familiar enough with the material already.
That's not to say that their way is necessarily any more "correct" than mine or another interpretation I've heard, of course.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
I shall reiterate my best advice for this music: don't use the dots if you feel you need them.
The dots contain only two bits of information, the order of the notes and a ballpark approximation of their relative lengths. (they contain the fixed pitch also, but that's redundant to this music, all that's relevant as far a pitch goes is the relative intervals.)
And these two bits of information, the order of the notes and the ballpark approximation of their relative lengths are the easiest bits of information to gleen from an aural source. What's not on the paper – i.e. everything about the music that makes it not sound like a classically trained sight reader picking up a copy of O'Neill's and "having a go" – is harder to gleen from your aural source. So if you are having trouble getting the easiest bits by ear and are resorting to the paper, what chance have you with the harder bits?
And don't let's hear all this nonsense about "people learn in different ways". It's one of two things. Can you hear it or can't you. If you can't hear it then there are no tricks, short cuts, magic potions or notions or notations that can help you. You simply have to sit down and listen listen listen as hard as you can until you do hear it.
However, if/when you can hear it, and are perfectly comfortable with the prospect of never seeing the dots in your life ever again, then dive in a use them as much as you like. As I said, there's not really much information at all in sheet music, but that doesn't mean that that information is not a truly great wealth of information. You just have to remember that that wealth is worse than useless unless you already posses a reasonable degree of that much greater wealth, the wealth of the tradition.
To the classically trained sight reader picking up a copy of O'Neill's and "having a go", the wealth of that book is worse than useless.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
"why is it ABC is acceptable when dots ain't?"
Might I tentatively suggest that one factor contributing to the antipathy towards staff notation is its association with the ruling classes and 'cultured' society? Of course, the whole concept of naming notes with letters is closely connected with staff notation . and the formalised ABC notation that we use for submitting tunes to this site essentially IS staff notation in an encoded form.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Stir the pot
They are both the same. They carry exactly the same information.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
For me, personally, staff notation is superior to alphabetical (I use this term as I am not referring necessarily to the computer-readable code) because it represents a synaesthetic relationship that I (and many others) instantly recognise - 'high' notes appear high on the staff and 'low' notes appear low on the staff. (I don't claim to be a true synaesthete, whatever that is, but I learned at an early age, before I could read music or words, that high notes were called 'high' and low notes were called 'low', thus a correspondance between pitch and spatial position was foged in my brain.) Alphabetical notation, on the other hand, requires being familiar with a particular sequence of abstract symbols and their names (i.e. the first 7 letters of the alphabet), before associating each one of them with a note.
Now, as far as I recall, I could recite the alphabet without any trouble before the age of 4. But , even 33 years on, if you were to ask me, for example, what letter lies 4 places before M in the alphabet, I would have to visualise or mentally recite the alphabet and count the letters to come up with the answer. No doubt, some people (perhaps most) could do it in a flash, without any conscious thought process - perhaps, for them, an alphabetical system is just as good as, if not better than, a staff system. But it seems to me that it requires more intellectualisation to get from a letter to a musical note than it does to get from a dot on a staff to a musical note.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Stir the pot
Regardless of how easily you can read the code/convention, they are the same because the coded information is the same.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
I agree, llig - I was responding to an earlier part of the thread.
Yes, written music is written music, and whatever symbols are used, they are only a set of reference points. But it has its uses, as you yourself point out.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Stir the pot
Don't NEED the notes! - ABCs, dots, Solfeggio, Tab, whatever... And don't take them too seriously. They're useful, fun, interesting, but if they become anything even approximating a 'necessity', then your understanding of music is hobbled. Imagine trying to dance with your legs tied together, or with a book in hand and in front of your face. You want a 'natural' and free, unencumbered, association with music. You want it inside, not outside at a distance on paper...
The above warning comes from someone with a long association with various types of notation for music and dance, and a lefty who went to the difficult bother of learning proper dot notation with pen and ink. You'd have to understand what that means for a lefty... It's no easy task... I love notation and all its forms and histories, but I also have had to deal with the difficult task of trying to get someone to kick the habit, to break from the addiction. Notation can raise ones understanding and appreciation, but it can also stifle and strangle the life out of the thing it can only approximate...
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ceolachan
Well, it can do more than 'approximate', but it is ridiculously complex when you go into the minutia of it all, and messy, even silly...
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ceolachan
Re: Stir the pot
But you can put much more coded info into conventional notation than ABC notation eg. phrasing, dynamics, articulations and so on. But I agree that ITM needs not this written info.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Gran Cassa
Re: Stir the pot
I have my own symbols I use for long and short rolls. I use the dots but have never bothered with abc. The reason, of course, one should never share music via notation with strangers, you've no idea how they'll murder it. I often give dots to people though.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
And receive of course
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
The great advantage that ABCs offer over standard notation is that you can create MIDI tracks to hear how the tune is supposed to go.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by fidkid
Re: Stir the pot
Yes but with cheap, readily available software such as Finale or Sibelius you can also achieve such an effect.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by SmashTheWindows
Re: Stir the pot
For Learning and indeed playing , '' Irish Music ''
This is the best advice on this page on this topic...
jim,,,
< don't use the dots if you feel you need them. >
llig
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by FIDDLE4
Re: Stir the pot
Tee hee...
The great advantage of dots over ABCs is that you can play the tune yourself on a musical instrument to hear how it supposed to go.
I only learned ABC as a code with which I can convert a tune into standard notation via another program, eg ABC Navigator, Tune A tron, the facilty here etc. So, I will obtain tunes this way or write them out in ABC before converting them.
However, I'd never play a tune or learn it directly from the ABC.
"one should never share music via notation with strangers"
Music publishers have a lot answer for then.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
Oops.
"A lot TO answer for", I meant to say.
# Posted on December 13th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
I thought the MIDI was to check for typos.
And to discourage notating of the twiddly bits.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by David50
Re: Stir the pot
I'm still amazed at how much space is used to debate the legitimacy of something that is so essential to this website's existence; music notation. (or "dots" as you like to call them) It's like talking about cars and debating the legitimacy of the wheel.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
No, it's like talking about cars, and debating the legitimacy of drawings of the wheel. It is not the music being argued, it is how the music is captured on a piece of paper.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Stir the pot
I think it's more like talking about driving, and debating the importance of cartography.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by fidkid
Re: Stir the pot
"I think it's more like talking about driving, and debating the importance of cartography."
Which you might have time to do if you are stuck in the middle of nowhere without a map.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Stir the pot
....or like talking about cooking and debating the legitimacy of the recipe book.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Stir the pot
Or like watching Doctor Who, and then talking about the history you learned...
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Stir the pot
"I'm still amazed at how much space is used to debate the legitimacy of something that is so essential to this website's existence; music notation. (or "dots" as you like to call them) It's like talking about cars and debating the legitimacy of the wheel."
The space isn't being used to debate the legitimacy of music notation. Nobody, as far as I can see, is arguing that music notation is illegitimate. The space is being taken up predominantly by people like yourself, who have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and are refusing to put the stick down again.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by Bernie 29
Re: Stir the pot
"The space is being taken up predominantly by people like yourself, who have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, and are refusing to put the stick down again."
Well, he's certainly not alone. There's more pots and kettles here than in your average ironmonger's store.
However, there's plenty of space on this site. If one thread gets too busy, it's easy enough to just start another one.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by Johnny Jay
Re: Stir the pot
"The space is being taken up predominantly by people like yourself"
Bernie, how can you make this claim when I have only offered a few posts at best... back up and take another look.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
"....or like talking about cooking and debating the legitimacy of the recipe book."
CMO, this is a good analogy, I would take it a step further and say it's like talking about cookbooks and dismissing the validity and usefulness of recipes. This website relies on music notation to exchange tunes, so dismissing music notation is silly. Maybe people that dismiss music notation should start a similar website that uses recordings as the exchange medium for tunes instead.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
I don't think music notation is as central to this musical tradition as you seem to be saying, copperplate— i.e. as wheels to a car, or recipes to a cookbook. Notation can be useful but it's supplementary. FWIW I use the discussion forum far more than the tunes section, and use neither anywhere near as much as I spend listening and playing with people.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by fidkid
Re: Stir the pot
“I'm still amazed at how much space is used to debate the legitimacy of something that is so essential to this website's existence; music notation. (or "dots" as you like to call them) It's like talking about cars and debating the legitimacy of the wheel.”
Ah, sorry--my mistake: you weren’t saying that notation is central to Irish music, you were saying that it is central to this website. True.
However, I don’t think people were talking about this website. The discussion (as I took it) was a larger one, about Irish traditional music. And notation's place in that tradition.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by fidkid
Re: Stir the pot
fidkid, read my comments again... I said music notation is central to this website.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
Oh... now I read the second post of yours. Regarding music notation as it relates to Irish music: it is well documented to have been very useful but not essential, but it still can't be dismissed. I don't think any music can be learned purely by notation... you have to hear it first to understand what the notation attempts to represent. I use it as a tool to document tunes, but I rarely utilize it as a source for learning tunes unless no audible source is available.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
In the larger realm whenever someone thinks about abc notation (of Irish dance tunes) chances are good they are thinking about thesession.org
Not the discussion pages, but the Tunes category is currently a prime source for notated music.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by ain't fluffed
. . .
That's perhaps an exaggeration. This site is a major source of notated music. (traditional Irish dance tunes, of course)
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
The tunes section here is magnificent, on par with O’Neills books I think in terms of documenting and disseminating this tradition. But it’s a terrible, perilous primary source. You shouldn’t take a tune from there without cross-referencing it with a knowledgeable live player, or a recording, or both.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by fidkid
Re: Stir the pot
When, & if, those are available.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
So back to the OP:
Q: "Do you love or hate the dots?"
A: Yes.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by fidkid
Re: Stir the pot
I love the ambiguities of Irish music.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
I'll venture onto the ice. One thing may be worse than anything related to dot reliance; when certain strummings of chords has tune players feeling as though they are wearing strait-jackets. Or the players just don't care.
At least this site is not known for enabling poor souls jonesing for chords.
# Posted on December 14th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
If this site is your prime source for anything, then all that shows is that you are severely under resourced.
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by ...
Re: Stir the pot
You've a gift for the obvious.
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Excellent resource on the link below.
http://joefago.com/sessionshoppe/Books.html
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
I love that sessionshoppe. Gotta get me one of those books that has the dots for scales and arpeggios...
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Stir the pot
Different genre, but this one's the doall&beall of dot instruction. http://www.amazon.com/Diatonic-Major-Scales-Andres-Segovia/dp/1598060597
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Here it is. Don't share this with strangers!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6233192/Diatonic-Major-and-Minor-Scales-by-Andres-Segovia
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by ain't fluffed
This you can share, or not even watch . . .
Paco De Lucia ~ "Tico Tico"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6Nw0Hm_wTM
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
Great guitarists, but Segovia didn't write/invent a single scale, and Paco relies too heavily on his bodhrán backing track..
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by Rick Payman
Re: Stir the pot
What I like most about each of them is they really don't try to show off. They love playing.
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by ain't fluffed
Re: Stir the pot
That's probably also why I love listening to them.
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by Rick Payman
Re: Stir the pot
Thanks for your reply fidkid. I agree
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by greg sheils
Re: Stir the pot
and thanks for your comments Bernie. I don't mind you think it was a stupid way to phrase the question or that it upsets some that the discussion is not new. I am impressed by how considered a discussion has come out of it. I felt I had seen somerather one sided attitudes dominationg some recent discussions.
Thank you all and good night
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by greg sheils
Re: Stir the pot
I am not anti-dot, but I prefer to play by ear
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by celticagent
Re: Stir the pot
Greg, I don't know what you expected from a thread titled, "Stir the pot." Not exactly a title that renders peace and tranquility... seems to beg for a heated debate on a subject that is guaranteed to generate a heated debate.
# Posted on December 15th 2011 by copperplate
Re: Stir the pot
copperplate, I hoped for exactly what I got. The discussion was lively but I wouldn't have said heated. And it's ok, I really don't mind my question being called stupid. I think someone once said something on the lines of "there are no stupid questions..." . trouble i can't remember the rest of it!
# Posted on December 16th 2011 by greg sheils