I know we've talked about this before - but there are heaps of new people on this site so I'm interested to hear.
Do you want to be a professional tune player ala Liz Carroll / Dervish?
Are you content learning a couple of new tunes a month and playing them out a sessions every couple of weeks?
I guess my question is are you obsessed? If so why?
For example - when I first started playing I was very, very naive and used to tell my fiddle teacher (hi greenwiggle) that I was going to be a professional fiddle player touring the world and just generally being famous.
Hah!
I had no clue how hard it really was just to make the fiddle sound semi decent let alone brilliant!
So this is what I want now. I want to be at a level with my playing where I dont irritate really brilliant players. Where they dont mind me being there and if fact think its good that I'm there in sessions with them. The worst thing is - I could practice my whole life and never reach that point. Because the bar is constantly being raised and a good fiddle player now may have been incredible 20years ago!
I learn heaps of new tunes - consantly but because we are at the back end of nowhere when I go playing in sessions with friends from Ireland those new tunes I've learnt are not even close to new to those lads, they've gone out of fashion or have been totally overplayed etc.
On the other hand while I moan about this or that tune/ session/ player, I know other players who literally love just playing out in sessions - not minding that they arent brilliant and learning a couple of tunes a month.
Which type are you?
I don't have a long range goal exactly - just a series of small and achievable challenges, usually in the form of learning tunes or techniques that appear to be beyond my ability (thereby increasing my ability). I would say I am obsessed at the moment, but I never thought to ask myself why. Probably because it's difficult enough to be challenging, but not TOO difficult - and the proof of my progress (or lack thereof) is obvious in my playing. It's like building a dream house that will never be finished. Is the "goal" to live in the house of your dreams, or does the satisfaction come from the process of building it?
I don't imagine I will ever get to the point where I feel I have "arrived". Even if I end up touring the world playing music, making millions (or in the case of ITM, dozens), playing with absolutely "perfect" rhythm, attack, ornamentation, and tone, I would still seek out challenges in order to broaden my abilities. No matter how well I can do something, I will always believe could do it better. If ITM ceased to be challenging I would probably try to learn to play Romanian gypsy music, pick up another instrument, or attempt a career as a cinematic composer.
So I guess my goal is to battle my human limitations, and I have been achieving it all my life!
I agree Kerri, even if I reached *the* goal I would just want to be even better, it is a challenge and thats what keeps it interesting. Luckily for me I think there is no chance of sounding remotely as good as Declan Folan/Siobhan Peoples so that keeps me practicing and learning
On the other hand I know people who are really not very good (Beebs is poking the wasps nest and dont learn tunes but are completley satisfied and happy with that, I find that really difficult to understand, where is the challenge in that??
Getting better and better is part of the fun. I can't believe anyone is happy with not sounding good ot not learning new stuff.
I'll never sound as good as most of the fiddle players I play with but I'm going to go for it anyway. I learn on average 1 tune a week but then some of the great players can play a tune when they've heard it played only once, so they're always going to be ahead.
Just do your best, hope you don't upset people with your playing, and have fun.
cath
My goal these days is just to have enjoyment from my music, play as many good tunes as possible and get better if I can. However, it's for my own satisfaction rather than anyone else as long as I'm considerate and don't upset my fellow musicians along the way.
Short-term goal: learning to flatpick.
Long-term goal: collect a group of people to play with. Already made a good start - the fiddler's hooked *evil grin*.
Am I obsessed? No, I'm not. Too many amazing things for me happening around to concentrate on one. Guess I will never be the peer of T. McManus, but it does not make me bitter. Still, I love music, and I love playing music. Music is the best way to relax for me, and good session is a delight hard to match by anything.
"I can't believe anyone is happy with not sounding good"
Cath - your'e almost certainly right there - but there's an awful lot of poor souls who aren't happy with sounding like themselves, and are always trying to sound like someone else - and that saddens me.
Who wants to be a player - and who wants to be a "Tribute Act"?
My husband is always asking me these questions: Why do you work so hard at this, what do you want to do with the Music, what are your ulterior motives?......I ask myself these questions too sometimes. I simply love playing Irish Trad Music on my blackwood flute. Nothing more, nothing less. I love playing in sessions with my friends and going to music schools/festivals, especially overseas...so my goals aren't too crazy. I'm not out to set the world on fire or anything like that. I just want to keep learning and being challenged (which is never a problem). I hope to someday play well enough to contribute to those "high level" sessions with great players. Right now I just try to play in tune, and not ruffle any feathers. Hopefully someday with a big enough repertoire and many improvements in my playing I'll be able to attend festivals and play well in the sessions. But overall I play this music for pure fun and enjoyment so I guess *happiness* is the ultimate goal and reason I spend so much time playing my flute. I'm sure the Music is saving me thousands of dollars in therapy bills....Hmmm.....I still think trips to Ireland are cheaper than therapy : )
Old Chinese Curse say "May you achieve all your goals"
I'm sure I'm in no danger of this. Meanwhile, I am wondering what my goals are, actually. Session playing is something I don't really do these days, and I think that even were I willing to take my knife and cut my way through the fag smoke to get to one, I might find it difficult as I tend to play the tunes the way I play them and would have a lot of adjusting to do. Having said that I would enjoy playing with folk more than I do at the moment - so if you're situated Edinburghish please feel free to get in touch.
My goal is always to play better, and I know you never arrive. Or to put it bluntly: if you think you're good you're f*****d!
Guess I'd like to do a bit more performing in the ITM area, but don't really want to go the "Wild Rover" route, which seems to be where the money is.
Gee, listen to me, I've got a million excuses for not just getting on with it, haven't I.
I want other flute players to weep bitter tears of envy when they hear me play. I want them to immolate their flutes in the nearest flames as a tribute to my playing, and then throw themselves from the highest cliff (preferably Moher).
(At the rate I'm going, this will occur approximately 5-6 lifetimes from now.)
At one of my very first lessons my teacher reminded me that it's the journey, not the destination. Not to be totally cliche, but it's something that I have to keep reminding myself.
My short term goals are:
1. Get up the courage to go to sessions more often.
2. Get good enough so as not to annoy the high level players.
My long term goals are:
1. Get good enough to pass this stuff on to someone else.
2. Not sure what else, but time will tell....
Very thought provoking for a monday (for me anyway).
Short Term Goals
1. To learn more tunes
2. To learn cool tunes that not everyone and their dog performs --in my neck of the woods anyway.
3. To learn to play the fiddle
Short Term Wishes
1. That learning fiddle would be as easy for me as the flute was
Long Term Goals
1. To have fun
2. To be challenged and not fall into a creative rut
3. To keep playing for as long as I'm alive
4. To perform as often as I can
5. To play the fiddle as well as I play the flute
Long Term Wishes
1. To be amazing and well regarded
2. To make a living making music
3. To enjoy making a living making music
4. To travel places far and wide performing (I love performing)
Funny Bridie but I went through almost exactly the same process as you over 20-odd years of fiddling, ending with the ambition of being able to play in a session with top players in Ireland without annoying them.
A goal that, while it is a few steps down from being a world-famous soloist, is not as modest as it looks at first sight. I feel I achieved it anyway (in a limited sense - there are many top musos whose annoyance threshold I'd never have dreamed of testing.)
Now that I play mainly whistle, however, my goal is one day to be able to play without annoying myself.
For me i generally fail to be intimidated yet constantly impressed by choice players. i came to the satisfying relization a few years back that "there's always a bigger fish". i think that idea used to freak me out a bit, either inspired or depressed by better players. now it's a comfort.
i guess i'm saying i play to play, and becoming a better player is something that happens along the way (are we there yet?!).
Too often i've seen brilliant musicians stink up the place and average ones have the house pumping. play from the heart and the rest follows, in time, hopefully! Roger Daltrey once said "a bead of sweat and a bum note anyday". Pete Townshend probably punched him then.
From someone who has heard Joyce play, she can already play with the big boys. Anyway my aim also is just to play in sessions in tune and not annoy anyone greatly and hopefully contribute to the overall sound. I already play quite frequently in sessions but still feel very timid about the whole thing.
Took my concertina out at the Fleadh and played all my tunes and nobody threw anything at me . Would love to be able to play the concertina in sessions along with people but I find they all go too fast for me except for Maria and Sean who have sympathy for my stumblings. God, I love the music.
Deirdre you are very kind (the cheque is in the mail..hehehe)
Last year I met Deirdre and her friend Maria at the Louisburgh May Bank Festival. It was a really fantastic time for me. I took a workshop with Eamonn Cotter, hung out and got to play a few tunes with Mick O'Connor, Patsy Maloney, John Bowe and some other great great people, met Matt Molloy, hung out in his pub until the wee hours of the morning......but the highlight of that festival was having some tunes after breakfast at the B&B with Deirdre and Maria who are both gorgeous flute players. I went home and told everybody about these two lovely Irish ladies who spent some time playing tunes with me. I really hope we can meet up soon for more tunes and craic. I feel so sad I won't be in Louisburgh for the May Bank weekend.....someday soon!
Yeah, I'm a "don't want to irritate the big kids" person too. And I want to have fun and to be fun to be around. And I love being obsessed, but I would be distressed to find out that my obsession upset those I love or made them feel less loved than I want them to be and feel. "Moderation in everything, including moderation", and "know thyself."
Music keeps me sane. Irish/Scottish/Welsh music keeps me not only sane but happy.
My goals are: short-term, to play every day and get better at whatever pace I can manage; long-term, to play like Johnny Cunningham, Kevin Burke, and Aly Bain. (Yes, all three. not simultaneously, though!)
I know I probably won't ever get to the long-term goal, but trying anyway makes me learn a heck of a lot plus I get to obsessively listen to their cds without my husband going totally round the bend. ;)
I'm not interested in the Rambling Rover trip; I love my garden too much to leave it for months at a time, and besides I have drastic food allergies that can make travel interesting in a *bad* way. (Spent a month in England & Wales last summer. Literally lived on ham eggs & chips, yeast-flavored rice cakes, and jacket potatoes with tuna mayo. Still can't look a chip in the face... although I happily brought a Marmite addiction home with me.)
However --- am I obsessed? You betcha! And it's a wonderful thing.
Sara
I've noticed a few "I'll never be as good as (insert ITM superstar here)" over the years on this site. bb, you mentioned Siobhan Peoples. Did you know she plays with only the first two fingers of her left hand? (She has some kind of injury or illness that prevents her from using the others). A very nice old farmer named Paddy told me that when she lost the use of two of her fingers she just kept working and working her fiddle until she got it to sound right. What I'm trying to say is something along the lines of; how do YOU know how well you are capable of playing? Ascribing supernatural qualities such as unattainable "talent" and "giftedness" to musicians we admire is an illness, I think - and distracts us from the reality that in the end it just comes down to this: the harder you work, the better you play.
I want to busk, busk and busk some more! I want to go the wild rover route and spend months away from home with my volkswagen campervan (haven't got one yet) and fiddle (can't play barely anything yet )
Then eventually I'd like a lil' band and we'd go round giving everyone the time of their lives. We mightn't be the best musicians you ever heard, but we'd make up for that with a brilliant show - I love that quote "A bead of sweat and a bum note anyday", in fact, I shall write it on my fiddle case!
Never mind all this not ruffling any feathers or annoying the good players - they're annoyed with my not-up-to-standard playing? They don't have to give me their spare change or get a ticket to see me then!
(however, I wouldn't mind too much if things got to the point of people burning their instruments as a tribute to my playing )
Oh, AND I don't want to play like anyone else, no matter how good; it comes from the heart and it's unique to me :D
I like basking too, find a nice sunny rock and stretch out, close your eyes....
Goals? Hmmmm. I'll have to revert to my hockey analogy again. Sure, it's fun scoring goals, but when I think back on years of skating the puck around, the plays that really jump out at me weren't goals but assists--times when I helped someone else get a goal.
So, in musical terms, what I like about playing in sessions is when my playing pulls other people's playing up to a higher level. And the great thing about this is that it works even with players who are better than I am. In the lingo of this thread, I suppose my goals are to play so that myself and others enjoy the music, and to encourage other people in their playing.
In a previous lifetime, when I was still quite footloose and fancy-free (no kids, no responsibilities) I made a living playing music and travelling. I never got rich, but I was comfortable, had a blast, and saw some really nice places, including the Caribbean. A little over 2 yrs ago I began studying ITM in earnest, and it wasn't too long before a little dream began to take hold of doing this profesionally (all that means to me, is getting paid gigs). I'm very happy to have realized that dream, getting paid to do what I love is just awesome. I still have my responsibilities and day job, of course...but performing gives me such a thrill. My goal now is to keep improving....Like Jack Gilder, when I can come close to sounding like what I love to listen to, that's when I truly feel accomplished. Further down the road, with experience, I might feel more like Nat, I love his attitude too. More than ever, I feel like I have finally found the music I was meant to do, and I never want to lose that passion. It that's obsession, fine.
Totallly! Suzuki says that nobody is born with more talent than anybody else, but that it's all a matter of how much you want to do it, and consequently how hard you work. I don't think that is entirely true, but there is a lot of truth in it. Siobhan is the perfect example. She must have had an immense desire to play the fiddle for her to spend so much time trying to work with her two good fingers.
"For example - when I first started playing I was very, very naive and used to tell my fiddle teacher (hi greenwiggle) that I was going to be a professional fiddle player touring the world and just generally being famous. "
Well Bridie, I'm think I'm in that stage right now. I want to be the next Seamus Egan. Of course, as I get older, and more sane, I'll probably begin to realize that the chances of that aren't too big. At least, it will take a heck of a lot of work, and it will probably mean devoting my life to it, and becoming a professional musician. Right now, I spend all my time playing and practicing, instead of doing school, so being a professional musician (practicing hours each day, playing in a band, touring) sounds like heaven to me. I've thought sometimes though, that if it was my job, and I had to do it, it might lose some of it's fun. I do it now because I love it, and I think I woud still love it just as much if I did it for my job, but I'm not sure. I guess it's one of those things you'll never know until you try. I'm going to try it.
Yes, I am obsessed. No doubt there. Why? It's just so awesome! I don't really know why I love it so much.
"So this is what I want now. I want to be at a level with my playing where I dont irritate really brilliant players. Where they dont mind me being there and if fact think its good that I'm there in sessions with them."
Who knows, I might change as I get older too, and not aim so high, but I hope not!
"Cath - your'e almost certainly right there - but there's an awful lot of poor souls who aren't happy with sounding like themselves, and are always trying to sound like someone else - and that saddens me."
I know. By saying that I want to "be the next Seamus Egan", I just meant that I want to achieve his level of musicianship, in my own unique way. I want to learn from him (and others), not "be" him, if you know what I mean.
D'you know, I think people tend to take the whole "don't want to annoy because we know it teases" thing a little too seriously and even too personally. To me, it just implies a certain amount of skill, a measure of good standards set for oneself, a healthy dose of being a "good hang", and overall means a good session player. I don't care what anyone thinks of me, really, in a personal way, but the whole point of session playing is that you're playing with other people, operative word, "with". So yeah, you have to play up to a certain standard in order not to annoy, or an obligation of knowing when not to play in order to keep the crack up. I don't see anything wrong with that, myself.
Ahem. Seriously, I don't disagree with the notion that putting lots of hours into the music is a good way to improve and reach your potential. And there will be frustrations to play through, and muscles and nerve synapses to build, and mental gymanstics to master. But--and I can't emphasize this enough--thinking of it as "the harder you work..." can be counterproductive and even harmful, to yourself and your music.
Now, I know Kerri knows this cuz she once posted a comment here about not "grind a tune into the fiddle, but lifting it out," and that's a beautiful sense of the lightness and lift that makes wonderful musicians so wonderful. Pardon me for being the word police, but my experience is that how you talk and think about playing does indeed influence how you play (and besides, Max is at that impressionable age... .
No long-term goal, just a series of limited challenges that get refreshed regularly (must learn the tune they played on Saturday, work on the triplets a bit more, crank up the speed a little notch more...) Too much in life is planned and goaled to death already - this is my hobby, so I keep a mostly relaxed attitude to it . And I'm grateful for the chance to meet so many really nice people along the way.
And, of course, banjo players don't have to worry about annoying the really brilliant session musos, do they??
Kerri, sure did know that about Siobhan Peoples - that is why she is amazing - she would be amazing still if she had all her fingers working properly anyway. But she doesnt, and she is just incredible.
I beleive everybody has talent - just maybe not all muscial - which is cool.
And Brother steve - I agree - being at that level in a session is not an easy task at all - Max you think I'm aiming lower now Ive gotten a bit older? Not at all! I mean be accepted into the *best of the best* sessions - which requires a hellavu lot of work!
We play on a friday nite surrounded by knackered people, (some of them bautered in cow dung), relaxing and enjoying their pints, and I sometimes hope that what we do brings a little pleasure into their lives.
Alf Housman wrote this a long long time ago, and it sort of sums it up in a way
FANCY'S KNELL
When lads were home from labour
At Abdon under Clee,
A man would call his neighbor
And both would send for me.
And where the light in lances
Across the mead was laid,
There to the dances
I fetched my flute and played.
Ours were idle pleasures,
Yet oh, content we were,
The young to wind the measures,
The old to heed the air;
And I to lift with playing
From tree and tower and steep
The light delaying,
And flute the sun to sleep.
The youth toward his fancy
Would turn his brow of tan,
And Tom would pair with Nancy
And Dick step off with Fan;
The girl would lift her glances
To his, and both be mute:
Well went the dances
At evening to the flute.
Wenlock Edge was umbered,
And bright was Abdon Burf,
And warm between them slumbered
The smooth green miles of turf;
Until from grass and clover
The upshot beam would fade,
And England over
Advanced the lofty shade.
The lofty shade advances,
I fetch my flute and play:
Come, lads, and learn the dances
And praise the tune to-day.
To-morrow, more's the pity,
Away we both must hie,
To air the ditty,
And to earth I.
bb, the point I was trying to make about Ms. Peoples was that when one is not daunted by one's unique challenges, and continues to "work hard" (I'll get to that in a minute, Will), any level of brilliance is possible for any of us. When you say she sounded brilliant with four fingers and she *still* sounds brilliant with two, it tends to gloss over what was probably an extremely long and difficult time when she may have sounded not quite so brilliant but refused to give up.
Will, I am speaking of "hard work" as a person who generally doesn't bother much with any kind of work unless I am going to a) enjoy it, or b) get paid a fortune for it. Preferably both. So I don't really have negative personal connotations for that phrase. Thank you for reminding me about the semantic leanings of the general public. To clarify, I mean "hard" as in "performed with or marked by great diligence or energy" and "work" as in "to exert oneself physically or mentally in order to do, make, or accomplish something" (or on the off days, "to strain in heavy seas so that the joints give slightly and the fastenings become slack).
Oooohh, I _like_ that bit about joints and fastenings. Reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit, certainly appropriate for us musicians and our endeavors. And all those ocean/wave related tunes....
I wasnt not trying to 'gloss over' anything Kerri - in fact the opposite. I really believe talent has an awful lot to do with it as well as practicing like a mad person I and truely believe that only 1 in a million people can do what Siobhan Peoples has done...which is why I think she is Brilliant!
She is brilliant, I agree. I just attach more significance to the process of learning to be brilliant than to the resulting genius - and in my mind (as this is just an exchange of opinions) I prefer to think that *anybody* could aquire that level of ability, although I fully aknowledge that only one in a million people *will* get there, because for most of us this is a side dish to the main course of our lives - we have jobs, kids, obligations, etc. and can't be arsed to practice for six hours a day. No offence to those who prefer the idea that excellent players are born destined for greatness.
There are many many thousands of musicians who practice and dedicate their lives to music, not as a side dish but as a main who end up in the the Redding Orchestra instead of the the London Symphony (just a example - I know nothing about classical music in England or anywhere else for that matter). I of course attach significance to the learning to be brilliant part..I know its probably what keeps most of us going. But I know from personal experience that many thousand upon thousands of hours playing tunes, living in Ireland, going to festivals, playing in sessions and listening constantly to trad, can result in a musican being a bit decent/mediocre but by no means inspiring (dont worry I'm not slagging anyone - I'm talking about me). That is why I have a great respect for talent and brilliance. I'm not saying I base my life on it and I'm not saying that I'll give it up cause I am not the next Siobhan/Oisin/ Folan.....But I have complete respect for all those musicians who are amazing and I dont think they are just born to be that great either, suprisingly enough I know its bloody hard work no matter who you are.
Bridie I'm inclined to agree with you. I've heard many technically competent musicians who just don't do it for me. They lack that spark of brilliance, inspiration, call it what you will. That's something you're born with, unfortunately. The hard work is what enables those musicians with that extra something to express what's in their imagination.
I can't remember who it was that said "improvisation is too good to leave to chance", or words to that effect, and I do know of one well-known button accordionist in England who said on a TV interview that all of his "improvisation" was practised beforehand.
Personally I can't abide that, as it's usually possible to tell when something is contrived in that way and it's not "honest". I know some players who sometimes like to try things out on the fly; sometimes they come off, sometimes they don't. When they do it's divine, when they don't it's horrendous. But that's all part of the fun of music.
Damn, you know, I meant to ask Tommy Peoples about Siobhan's rehab process; probably just as well I didn't, I guess, on such tenuous acquaintance. ;) I've always been amazed that the music is so strong in people that they'll overcome so many obstacles to become a channel to get it from inside to outside. Siobhan Peoples is to me (although I've never met her, so who knows what I'm projecting onto her!) a shining example of someone who, as Conan says, contains that spark inside her, but who also hasn't shirked at working at fanning it to flame no matter the state of the firewood, if you'll pardon the metaphor running amok.
Gosh, now I wonder why such a destructive image leapt to mind? LOL
I suppose it, as always, comes down to priorities, but sometimes our passions don't allow us much leeway in choosing those priorities.
OK, OK you win, Bridie. Even most of those who really really really try might never *get there*, if "there" is represented by Siobhan's playing. Maybe we have been sucked into a semantic battle - I attribute the skills of the people whose playing I admire most to a particular blend of patience and willpower that only one in a million people have got. Maybe this, or something like this, is part of what you mean when you say "genius".
Kerri, in a rare few people, I believe there _is_ something beyond patience and willpower and a million hours of 'hard work.' How else do you explain the whiz kids who haven't been alive long enough to put in even a thousand hours of practice, or endure any meaningful dose of patience, yet they're debuting with a major symphone at age 7? I can't believe that simple dedication and willpower explains child prodigies. Talent (whether in the form of music, other art, athleticism, intelligence, whatever) spills out of a few lucky people, while most of us *must* rely on perseverance and willpower.
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." (Theodore Roosevelt)
Meh - I'll come clean - I don't really have an opinion about natural genius. I was just making conversation. I haven't met any ITM players yet who would fit into the "child prodigy" mold, but that's just because folkies and trad heads tend to be a little more (looking for a gentle word) "mature". When I see somebody play and my initial reaction is "Oh, lord, look at that unattainable level of genius in action!" I often walk up and say "So, how long you been playing?" The minimum answer is ten years. So then I think "OK, well, I've only been at it for five, maybe in the next five years I will be able to attain some small level of genius myself if I really concentrate." I did meet one kid who had only been playing the uilleann pipes for a year and it already sounded pretty good. I think he had been secretly practicing for several hours a day though.
There are examples of effortless ability though--Seamus Tansey winning All-Ireland after playing about a year, that sort of thing. On another level, I see it in my own family. My oldest son is a very good guitarist, and besides practicing his fingers off, he has a good ear and a knack for rock solid rhythm. His younger brother, however, can pick up a guitar and instantly play any tune that happens to be blasting off the radio, cd player, television, or his brother's amp, *even though he doesn't actually play guitar.* Ask him how he does it, and he says, "It's easy," and shrugs his shoulders. At the other end of the scale, I once had a friend who played bluegrass guitar several hours a day, every day, for many years, and the tunes remained unrecognizable. It *never* sounded like music--arrhythmical, lots of clams, no flow, no dynamics, nothing. He desperately wanted to be a guitarist, but it just wasn't in him, no matter how much he tried. I had a banjo student like that once. Most people stuck with lessons for 6 months to a year and then went off to learn on their own. But one guy took lessons from me for 3 or 4 years and literally never got past Cripple Creek. In fact, never got Cripple Creek so that you could clap to it. He swore he practiced every day after work--that was his R&R. I suggested that he try a different instrument, but he said he really loved the sound of a banjo, and he wanted to keep trying.
I wish blood, sweat, and tears were all it took to achieve musicality, but I'm afraid there must be a gene for it. And a handful of players have it in spades.
Ah yes Grasshopper... to play ITM you must first listen for 7 years, then practice for 7 years, and then play for 7 more years.
Many times I have met people who claim to have only played for a year or two and they sound better than what you would expect. Then I find out later that certain details of their musical past have been left out. For example: I met a young flute player once who claimed he
Ah, Samurai Jack, your wisdom is like the the glare of high beams on my bug-spattered windshield at night. I am fascinated but cannot bear to look.
Seriosuly, that's a fairly garden variety of talent you describe. I've played 4 string banjo for 5 months, but I already can play several hundred tunes. Am I gifted? (Must be--my parents always said they'd never have *paid* for me . No--but I've played fiddle for 25 years, mandolin and guitar for even longer, so I had lots of applicable skills and experience.
I'm more curious about the true prodigies who can play like veterans before they reach 10 years of age. That kind of ability is rare, but it too is part of the human condition.
Itzhak Perlman has some great insights on this. The following interview is long, but it touches on this talent topic, as well as how to practice and some other notions that keep coming up on threads here. Definitely worth reading, and very applicable to Irish trad playing.
As Seen In The New York Times
Itzhak Perlman Discusses Child Prodigies and Handicap Access
By PIA LINDSTROM
In the movie "Shine," a teacher warns a young musician to watch out for the Rach 3: "It's dangerous!" The Rach 3 is not a pterodactyl, it's Rachmaninoff's treacherously difficult Piano Concerto, No. 3. In this movie based on the Australian child prodigy David Helfgott, the young musician has a breakdown and spends years in a mental institution after tackling the Rach 3.
Itzhak Perlman, the violinist who has a home on the East End, was host at a benefit screening of "Shine" at the East Hampton Cinema for the Hamptons Summer Music School, which is run by his wife, Toby Perlman.
Q. Can music make you crazy?
A. So many things can drive you mad as a child, not only music. This particular case was a very extreme situation. But it's not just musicians, it's tennis players, everybody. Any gifted child can potentially get in real trouble because of the way they are handled. I always say an unusual talent is an abnormality because kids don't have talents like that, not your average child. You're open for great dangers. You've got so many things that can go wrong.
No. 1, parents. What is the agenda of a parent? Do they want their child to be successful, or do they want to have success through their child? For every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them.
Q. Is it possible that struggling with the complexity of the music, as this boy does in the film, triggers something in the brain?
A. I disagree with that. I think the music was just the vehicle, it became a challenge. He was obviously capable of playing it. The point was that the father wanted to keep the child. He did not want to let him explore, go into the world and study with other people without his blessing.
Some people are stronger than others. You can handle people with kid gloves and sometimes they just go ahead and say, "I will do it, despite it." But I feel that you always pay when you are a child. You have a particular set of circumstances where you start playing concerts early on. You always hear about all these kids -- and these days they are getting younger and younger -- and you hear things such as: "Ah! What a wonderful kid, and totally normal, going to school. He has friends." Baloney! You always pay for it.
You don't pay now, you pay later. Rarely do you see people survive, and that's the goal, to survive your gift. Especially when the gift is given to a youngster who doesn't necessarily deserve that gift.
I listen to kids play a lot. People say to me, "This is a wonderful, blah blah, great, fantastic," and I say, "O.K." So I listen.
Sometimes I listen to somebody who is, I don't know, 10, 11, 12, and when I hear that person sounds like a child, I say, "Thank God," because that's good. If you close your eyes and say, "That's a kid, but with talent," that's great. But if you close your eyes and say, "Oh my God, that's like someone 25 years old," that's dangerous. There's nothing you can do. You can't say, "Well, it's bad to have talent." But, it's a fact, if somebody has that, then they have a lot more problems.
Q. In the movie, they say the Rach 3 is "too passionate, too dangerous; he's too young," as though it were sex, or driving a fast car.
A. It's a part of development. When you are 8 or 9, you should have a childhood. You should have adolescence. You should go through everything in a normal way. It's very difficult, unless somebody is exceptionally unusual. It's very interesting that in math most mathematical geniuses were working at a very early age, a teen-ager, and then afterwards it's just gone.
Q. Math and music are related?
A. In a way. But if you play mathematically, it's not very good.
Q. Are you good at math?
A. No! In our family, we call it the "Perlman math curse." Only two of our kids are good at math. The rest have what my wife terms, "the regular Perlman math situation," which is, "What's THAT?"
Q. How did you survive your talent?
A. Who knows if I did! But it is a fact that at the age of 8 I sounded like a reasonably talented 8-year-old. When I came to the United States, I appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show as a 13-year-old and I played a Mendelsohn Concerto and it sounded like a talented 13-year-old with a lot of promise. But id did not sound like a finished product.
Q. Why were people so taken with you?
A. They weren't taken with me.
Q. You were considered a child prodigy.
A. No, I wasn't. I'll tell you why.
Q. You mean, now you're considered a child prodigy.
A. Yes. Now: He was a child prodigy. But a child prodigy is somebody that can step up to the stage of Carnegie Hall and play with an orchestra one of the standard violin concertos with aplomb. I couldn't do that! I can name you five people who could do that at the age of 10 or 11. And did. Not five, maybe three. But I couldn't do that. At that age I showed a lot of promise. People said, "Ach! Come on, you can see that he has a beautiful sound, he has some musicianship." But it was all in the frame of the child. It was not one of those things that you cannot believe. There are people who are uncanny, who are finished products at that age. I wasn't, thank God.
My playing was good, it showed promise, and then I came to Juilliard and I studied until I was 18. When you think about what the child prodigies are playing these days! The minute someone shows promise, they get management. They play 20, 30, 40 50 concerts a year. I couldn't do that. So I studied at Juilliard and at the age of 18 I won the Leventritt Prize and then, from the age of 19, I started to play on a professional level. At benefits for Jewish organizations. I would play 10 minutes at a UJA function at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Q. It's interesting that there are few young Israeli musicians today and many young Asians.
A. It's a cycle. There used to be a lot, and now it's going the other way. When you think about the Juilliard School, there are a lot of Asians. There are fiddle players from China, Japan; 40 per cent.
Q. Why is that?
A. It's a hunger for music. It's the ability for discipline. You achieve great form, great results.
Q. How important is a teacher?
A. Very. I think a teacher should be your musical guide and your personal guide. In the musician, there is a tendency to have a narrowness. It's all compartmentalized. I am playing the violin, that's all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day.
I had an ideal teacher, and I had two, Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay, and she was an all-around kind of teacher. She would look for what else you do, besides the violin. Do you go to concerts? Do you go to operas? Do you go to museums? Are you a broad sort of a person?
Q. But don't you have to have an obsession? Wouldn't a child have to be somewhat obsessive by nature?
A. Could be a little bit.
Q. How else would you practice for eight hours a day, unless you have an obsessive streak?
A. I don't practice eight hours a day. I practiced eight hours, three days. Eight hours a day, forget about it! Eight hours a day doesn't do any good.
Q. What is the ideal amount of practice?
A. The ideal amount would be between four and five hours. I never practiced more than about three. It depends on the gift, depends on the talent. After five hours, it becomes useless. A lot of kids put in all those hours. After a while, it actually hurts you. It becomes counterproductive. You can't absorb any more. It's like a sponge. A sponge has that much absorbent capability and after a while you can pour water over it and nothing stays.
Q. In this film, they portray the competition as almost like Rocky going into the ring. He's got to dominate his instrument and he sweats. Is it that physical?
A. Competition can be the most nerve-racking experience. Some people just thrive on it. I don't remember being as nervous as when I entered that final round. I just didn't know where I was. I was saying, "Oh yeah, I think I'm in Carnegie Hall, here." The adrenaline was so overpowering.
Q. It must be like actors when they forget the scene and they make it up. The other musicians must go crazy.
A. It was maybe 20 years ago when we were doing a piece and all of a sudden the conductor started to clear his throat in the middle of the concert, "cough, cough," and I said to myself, why is he clearing his throat? We are playing music here and he's clearing his throat? I looked at him and he was sort of giving me a funny sign, like, what's going on? Then I realized that I was actually at the end of the movement instead of at the beginning. I just started and then I was finished already! SO I just made up a couple of little things and then we went back.
Q. I talked to you years ago when you first got involved with changes in the architecture for handicapped people who travel. Are things better?
A. Every now and then there is a little improvement, but it is still not working. When you think about the American's With Disabilities Act, you go on the street and you say, "Where is the A.D.A.? Where is it?!" This machine, the wheelchair, I can go all over the place, but you need a place without stairs to get in.
It's so easy, the store has to put a little ramp in there and I can come in. The concept of access sometimes escapes people. Access means getting to a place where everybody else gets to, whether it's a concert hall, so you don't have to go through the back, you don't have to make special calls to warn them of your arrival.
Just recently I went to an airport and I asked for a wheelchair. There were three of us in wheelchairs and only two porters, so the guy just took two of us at the same time. I cannot tell you how humiliating that is. It's like letting them take two suitcases. They are very skillful, but I feel like: What is this? Then I say to myself, either I do that or I have to wait an extra 20 minutes until he brings the other person. These things still happen. Sometimes the wheelchairs don't arrive, sometimes the chairs are broken, there's only one leg rest, and they say, "Well, that's the only chair we have." There's an awful lot that's not being done. But let's hope that if we talk about it long enough, someone will make it improve at a faster pace. Right now, it's difficult out there.
My favorite experience is in Paris. They have special wheelchairs that go through every doorway. Even if the doorway is slightly narrow, the wheelchairs are narrow. They don't change the doorways, they change the wheelchairs and to hell with the people! If someone weighs a couple more pounds, that's it! You sit in the chair, you go like that. [He hunches his body.] It's very uncomfortable.
Q. You teach at the Hamptons Music School?
A. Let me tell you about the Hamptons Music School. I have nothing to do with the system. This is my wife's thing, and it's a wonderful school. It is a school for pre-college kids. We have about 35 kids, piano, violin, cello, and general music. That's her dream and it's been her dream all along. She's got a concept about what it is to go to a music camp and the horrible things that happen. She tries to take those away.
They practice in a concentrated way, but they are having a good time. I know some camps where the pressure is so tremendous that it's almost a horrible experience. Sometimes you have it so laid back that nobody does any work. She has got the combination of doing the work, but then going to the beach and having a good time and playing Ping-Pong, or swimming, or whatever.
My job is nothing. I just happen to be there. I'm available if somebody comes and says, "What's-her-name has the Brahms violin concerto and she's having a little problem in the first movement, could you hear?" I listen to them.
There's a little orchestra there, so I wave my arms and start them off and we have a nice time. It's fun.
Q. Actors say that if you lose your concentration for a split second, stage fright comes in. Is that true in music? You start to say to yourself, I wonder how this sounds?
A. If you doubt yourself...that's the worst! You can have things like, you probably have the same thing with acting, "What's the next line?" You'll forget it!
A lot of what happens is a lack of trust. Let's say you have a concerto to play and you practice it a lot and you know it. You know everything about it. You've done the correct way of practicing it, slowly. The first time you play it, you will be nervous. It's the same with acting, or with anything that you do for the first time. You're not aware how nerves are going to affect you. You get more nervous in front of a lot of people. That's why, when you play a concerto, you play with a small orchestra, in some place where you don't feel that it is as important as Carnegie Hall. You try to work out all the little problems. Once that's all done, trust comes in. If you don't trust, then you're going to have a problem.
Trust your ability. Let's say a technical passage has to do with building up a bunch of chains. You have a pattern. The patterns are in your brain. If you start to concentrate on what makes these patterns, you may just listen to those patters. They might get lost, so that's where trust comes in. It's like speaking a sentence and not thinking of every word. You have to concentrate on how you are going to say it, what you want to convey, but you aren't going to say, "This is the first word, this is the second word, and this is the third." It's the same thing with music.
Q. That's something one would have to give a student? The confidence to trust?
A. The confidence and the sense of enjoyment and the ability to look at the music and say, this is so wonderful. The ability to enjoy the music. When you hear some of the students in the school, it is fantastic. Some of the questions are so wonderful, so insightful. For example, we showed some videos, and the musicians were fairly immobile. One comment was, Isn't it interesting how without moving, they were able to play music in such a way that they moved a person emotionally. They didn't need to go through all those physical machinations. So sometimes you get from the mouth of kids wonderful things.
Q. Are all your children musicians of various sorts?
A. Four out of the five are either interested or doing it for money. My oldest daughter is a pianist, she plays concerts, we play together, also.
Q. No child prodigies here?
A. Thank God, no. Child prodigy is a curse because, like we saw in the movie, you've got all those terrible possibilities.
Don't fool yourself. I teach both adults and kids how to stepdance, and the kids just tell themselves they're no good in a different way from adults. *grin*
But Zina... yesterday (it was a heat wave here in SF) and I was playing a few tunes on my favorite bench in the cool of Golden Gate park when these three little girls came by and started step dancing on the path to my music. I said, "Do you girls do Irish step dancing?" (Dumb question, but it seemed like a good thing to ask) and they screamed, "YES!!!" I said, "Do you want a reel or a jig?" and they screamed with hyperbolic enthusiasm, "We want a reel AND a jig!" So I played, and they danced happily on the path among the beautiful foliage of the Arboretum. It was magic to be sure, but could you imagine adults doing anything remotely like that without their inner voices scolding them and preventing them from doing it at all?
Yes, I can. You're talking to someone who has danced in airports waiting for a plane, in front of museums while waiting for buses, once even out at a nightclub, etc. Further, my first teacher was Molly Bennett, who wouldn't turn a hair at doing exactly what those girls did.
That Victorian image of kids cuts both ways -- kids aren't always innocent and sweet by a long shot, anyone who has watched their toddler bang another kid on the head for daring to share their toy or watched a kid pitch a hissy fit because they now have a younger sibling can vouch for that... *grin*
In San Francisco?! Sure, Jack, I can imagine adults doing all sorts of things in the Arboretum without a care in the world, heh.
I've always been surprised when people stop to dance when I'm just noodling around in some public place. Sure, usually kids. But I've had lots of adults do it to. Very unselfconsciously. Once was in a carpet of red and gold maple leaves on the ground, with more big leaves somersaulting down all around us, and three women (one in her 50s) started ceiling right there on the sidewalk. They danced to three reels, clapped at the end, and happily went on their way.
Will wrote: "In San Francisco?! Sure, Jack, I can imagine adults doing all sorts of things in the Arboretum without a care in the world, heh." Well... true, but I can't talk about that here... this is a family website.
As for the kids dancing for me in the park; maybe it's because to them I look kind of like Santa; and to the adults, I look like a weirdo with a big beard -- and I scare them.
Will said, "If you really think about it, Santa is kinda freaky." My point exactly Will. As for yesterday's dancers; yes, they are little people, but no, they didn't give me a tune. Next time your visiting SF Will, if it's during another heat wave, let's go play some tunes in the park and see if any of your "Little People" show up ok?
yeah - these last few posts have made me realise my goal - to remember the last hour of any recent Blythe Hill Tavern session (free beer for musos, remember?)
What is your goal?
What is your goal?
I know we've talked about this before - but there are heaps of new people on this site so I'm interested to hear.
Do you want to be a professional tune player ala Liz Carroll / Dervish?
Are you content learning a couple of new tunes a month and playing them out a sessions every couple of weeks?
I guess my question is are you obsessed? If so why?
For example - when I first started playing I was very, very naive and used to tell my fiddle teacher (hi greenwiggle) that I was going to be a professional fiddle player touring the world and just generally being famous.
Hah!
I had no clue how hard it really was just to make the fiddle sound semi decent let alone brilliant!
So this is what I want now. I want to be at a level with my playing where I dont irritate really brilliant players. Where they dont mind me being there and if fact think its good that I'm there in sessions with them. The worst thing is - I could practice my whole life and never reach that point. Because the bar is constantly being raised and a good fiddle player now may have been incredible 20years ago!
I learn heaps of new tunes - consantly but because we are at the back end of nowhere when I go playing in sessions with friends from Ireland those new tunes I've learnt are not even close to new to those lads, they've gone out of fashion or have been totally overplayed etc.
On the other hand while I moan about this or that tune/ session/ player, I know other players who literally love just playing out in sessions - not minding that they arent brilliant and learning a couple of tunes a month.
Which type are you?
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by bb
Re: What is your goal?
I don't have a long range goal exactly - just a series of small and achievable challenges, usually in the form of learning tunes or techniques that appear to be beyond my ability (thereby increasing my ability). I would say I am obsessed at the moment, but I never thought to ask myself why. Probably because it's difficult enough to be challenging, but not TOO difficult - and the proof of my progress (or lack thereof) is obvious in my playing. It's like building a dream house that will never be finished. Is the "goal" to live in the house of your dreams, or does the satisfaction come from the process of building it?
I don't imagine I will ever get to the point where I feel I have "arrived". Even if I end up touring the world playing music, making millions (or in the case of ITM, dozens), playing with absolutely "perfect" rhythm, attack, ornamentation, and tone, I would still seek out challenges in order to broaden my abilities. No matter how well I can do something, I will always believe could do it better. If ITM ceased to be challenging I would probably try to learn to play Romanian gypsy music, pick up another instrument, or attempt a career as a cinematic composer.
So I guess my goal is to battle my human limitations, and I have been achieving it all my life!
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: What is your goal?
I agree Kerri, even if I reached *the* goal I would just want to be even better, it is a challenge and thats what keeps it interesting. Luckily for me I think there is no chance of sounding remotely as good as Declan Folan/Siobhan Peoples so that keeps me practicing and learning
and dont learn tunes but are completley satisfied and happy with that, I find that really difficult to understand, where is the challenge in that??
On the other hand I know people who are really not very good (Beebs is poking the wasps nest
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by bb
Re: What is your goal?
My goal is to enjoy the next session I go to as much as I enjoyed the last one.
I almost always achieve this.
Dave
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: What is your goal?
Getting better and better is part of the fun. I can't believe anyone is happy with not sounding good ot not learning new stuff.
I'll never sound as good as most of the fiddle players I play with but I'm going to go for it anyway. I learn on average 1 tune a week but then some of the great players can play a tune when they've heard it played only once, so they're always going to be ahead.
Just do your best, hope you don't upset people with your playing, and have fun.
cath
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Cath
Re: What is your goal?
Liz Carrol is not a professional. She's a nurse.
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by ...
Re: What is your goal?
I think this was my post last time round.
My goal these days is just to have enjoyment from my music, play as many good tunes as possible and get better if I can. However, it's for my own satisfaction rather than anyone else as long as I'm considerate and don't upset my fellow musicians along the way.
John
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Johnny Jay
Re: What is your goal?
Short-term goal: learning to flatpick.
Long-term goal: collect a group of people to play with. Already made a good start - the fiddler's hooked *evil grin*.
Am I obsessed? No, I'm not. Too many amazing things for me happening around to concentrate on one. Guess I will never be the peer of T. McManus, but it does not make me bitter. Still, I love music, and I love playing music. Music is the best way to relax for me, and good session is a delight hard to match by anything.
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Janek
Re: What is your goal?
Amen to that Janek
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by Cath
Re: What is your goal?
"I can't believe anyone is happy with not sounding good"
Cath - your'e almost certainly right there - but there's an awful lot of poor souls who aren't happy with sounding like themselves, and are always trying to sound like someone else - and that saddens me.
Who wants to be a player - and who wants to be a "Tribute Act"?
(tonight Matthew, I'm going to be. . . .)
Dave
# Posted on April 25th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: What is your goal?
I'm just enjoying the journey. What's at the end of the road is unimportant.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by tocotodo
Re: What is your goal?
My husband is always asking me these questions: Why do you work so hard at this, what do you want to do with the Music, what are your ulterior motives?......I ask myself these questions too sometimes. I simply love playing Irish Trad Music on my blackwood flute. Nothing more, nothing less. I love playing in sessions with my friends and going to music schools/festivals, especially overseas...so my goals aren't too crazy. I'm not out to set the world on fire or anything like that. I just want to keep learning and being challenged (which is never a problem). I hope to someday play well enough to contribute to those "high level" sessions with great players. Right now I just try to play in tune, and not ruffle any feathers. Hopefully someday with a big enough repertoire and many improvements in my playing I'll be able to attend festivals and play well in the sessions. But overall I play this music for pure fun and enjoyment so I guess *happiness* is the ultimate goal and reason I spend so much time playing my flute. I'm sure the Music is saving me thousands of dollars in therapy bills....Hmmm.....I still think trips to Ireland are cheaper than therapy : )
Joyce
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by JMH
Re: What is your goal?
Old Chinese Curse say "May you achieve all your goals"
I'm sure I'm in no danger of this. Meanwhile, I am wondering what my goals are, actually. Session playing is something I don't really do these days, and I think that even were I willing to take my knife and cut my way through the fag smoke to get to one, I might find it difficult as I tend to play the tunes the way I play them and would have a lot of adjusting to do. Having said that I would enjoy playing with folk more than I do at the moment - so if you're situated Edinburghish please feel free to get in touch.
My goal is always to play better, and I know you never arrive. Or to put it bluntly: if you think you're good you're f*****d!
Guess I'd like to do a bit more performing in the ITM area, but don't really want to go the "Wild Rover" route, which seems to be where the money is.
Gee, listen to me, I've got a million excuses for not just getting on with it, haven't I.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by kris
Re: What is your goal?
I want other flute players to weep bitter tears of envy when they hear me play. I want them to immolate their flutes in the nearest flames as a tribute to my playing, and then throw themselves from the highest cliff (preferably Moher).
(At the rate I'm going, this will occur approximately 5-6 lifetimes from now.)
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by knockwool
Re: What is your goal?
At one of my very first lessons my teacher reminded me that it's the journey, not the destination. Not to be totally cliche, but it's something that I have to keep reminding myself.
My short term goals are:
1. Get up the courage to go to sessions more often.
2. Get good enough so as not to annoy the high level players.
My long term goals are:
1. Get good enough to pass this stuff on to someone else.
2. Not sure what else, but time will tell....
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Andee
Re: What is your goal?
Oh, and to answer your other question bb, yes I am obsessed.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Andee
Re: What is your goal?
To play as well as my musical role models.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Hanley
Re: What is your goal?
Very thought provoking for a monday (for me anyway).
Short Term Goals
1. To learn more tunes
2. To learn cool tunes that not everyone and their dog performs --in my neck of the woods anyway.
3. To learn to play the fiddle
Short Term Wishes
1. That learning fiddle would be as easy for me as the flute was
Long Term Goals
1. To have fun
2. To be challenged and not fall into a creative rut
3. To keep playing for as long as I'm alive
4. To perform as often as I can
5. To play the fiddle as well as I play the flute
Long Term Wishes
1. To be amazing and well regarded
2. To make a living making music
3. To enjoy making a living making music
4. To travel places far and wide performing (I love performing)
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by autumn
Re: What is your goal?
Funny Bridie but I went through almost exactly the same process as you over 20-odd years of fiddling, ending with the ambition of being able to play in a session with top players in Ireland without annoying them.
A goal that, while it is a few steps down from being a world-famous soloist, is not as modest as it looks at first sight. I feel I achieved it anyway (in a limited sense - there are many top musos whose annoyance threshold I'd never have dreamed of testing.)
Now that I play mainly whistle, however, my goal is one day to be able to play without annoying myself.
Steve
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Jeeves Tones
Re: What is your goal?
For me i generally fail to be intimidated yet constantly impressed by choice players. i came to the satisfying relization a few years back that "there's always a bigger fish". i think that idea used to freak me out a bit, either inspired or depressed by better players. now it's a comfort.
i guess i'm saying i play to play, and becoming a better player is something that happens along the way (are we there yet?!).
Too often i've seen brilliant musicians stink up the place and average ones have the house pumping. play from the heart and the rest follows, in time, hopefully! Roger Daltrey once said "a bead of sweat and a bum note anyday". Pete Townshend probably punched him then.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by bodherin
Re: What is your goal?
From someone who has heard Joyce play, she can already play with the big boys. Anyway my aim also is just to play in sessions in tune and not annoy anyone greatly and hopefully contribute to the overall sound. I already play quite frequently in sessions but still feel very timid about the whole thing.
Took my concertina out at the Fleadh and played all my tunes and nobody threw anything at me . Would love to be able to play the concertina in sessions along with people but I find they all go too fast for me except for Maria and Sean who have sympathy for my stumblings. God, I love the music.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by MollyB
Re: What is your goal?
Deirdre you are very kind (the cheque is in the mail..hehehe)
Last year I met Deirdre and her friend Maria at the Louisburgh May Bank Festival. It was a really fantastic time for me. I took a workshop with Eamonn Cotter, hung out and got to play a few tunes with Mick O'Connor, Patsy Maloney, John Bowe and some other great great people, met Matt Molloy, hung out in his pub until the wee hours of the morning......but the highlight of that festival was having some tunes after breakfast at the B&B with Deirdre and Maria who are both gorgeous flute players. I went home and told everybody about these two lovely Irish ladies who spent some time playing tunes with me. I really hope we can meet up soon for more tunes and craic. I feel so sad I won't be in Louisburgh for the May Bank weekend.....someday soon!
Joyce
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by JMH
Re: What is your goal?
Yeah, I'm a "don't want to irritate the big kids" person too. And I want to have fun and to be fun to be around. And I love being obsessed, but I would be distressed to find out that my obsession upset those I love or made them feel less loved than I want them to be and feel. "Moderation in everything, including moderation", and "know thyself."
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
Music keeps me sane. Irish/Scottish/Welsh music keeps me not only sane but happy.
My goals are: short-term, to play every day and get better at whatever pace I can manage; long-term, to play like Johnny Cunningham, Kevin Burke, and Aly Bain. (Yes, all three. not simultaneously, though!)
I know I probably won't ever get to the long-term goal, but trying anyway makes me learn a heck of a lot plus I get to obsessively listen to their cds without my husband going totally round the bend. ;)
I'm not interested in the Rambling Rover trip; I love my garden too much to leave it for months at a time, and besides I have drastic food allergies that can make travel interesting in a *bad* way. (Spent a month in England & Wales last summer. Literally lived on ham eggs & chips, yeast-flavored rice cakes, and jacket potatoes with tuna mayo. Still can't look a chip in the face... although I happily brought a Marmite addiction home with me.)
However --- am I obsessed? You betcha! And it's a wonderful thing.
Sara
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by sara g
Re: What is your goal?
I've noticed a few "I'll never be as good as (insert ITM superstar here)" over the years on this site. bb, you mentioned Siobhan Peoples. Did you know she plays with only the first two fingers of her left hand? (She has some kind of injury or illness that prevents her from using the others). A very nice old farmer named Paddy told me that when she lost the use of two of her fingers she just kept working and working her fiddle until she got it to sound right. What I'm trying to say is something along the lines of; how do YOU know how well you are capable of playing? Ascribing supernatural qualities such as unattainable "talent" and "giftedness" to musicians we admire is an illness, I think - and distracts us from the reality that in the end it just comes down to this: the harder you work, the better you play.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: What is your goal?
I want to busk, busk and busk some more! I want to go the wild rover route and spend months away from home with my volkswagen campervan (haven't got one yet) and fiddle (can't play barely anything yet
)
)
Then eventually I'd like a lil' band and we'd go round giving everyone the time of their lives. We mightn't be the best musicians you ever heard, but we'd make up for that with a brilliant show - I love that quote "A bead of sweat and a bum note anyday", in fact, I shall write it on my fiddle case!
Never mind all this not ruffling any feathers or annoying the good players - they're annoyed with my not-up-to-standard playing? They don't have to give me their spare change or get a ticket to see me then!
(however, I wouldn't mind too much if things got to the point of people burning their instruments as a tribute to my playing
Oh, AND I don't want to play like anyone else, no matter how good; it comes from the heart and it's unique to me :D
Nat xxx
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by fiddlefantastic
Re: What is your goal?
I like basking too, find a nice sunny rock and stretch out, close your eyes....
Goals? Hmmmm. I'll have to revert to my hockey analogy again. Sure, it's fun scoring goals, but when I think back on years of skating the puck around, the plays that really jump out at me weren't goals but assists--times when I helped someone else get a goal.
So, in musical terms, what I like about playing in sessions is when my playing pulls other people's playing up to a higher level. And the great thing about this is that it works even with players who are better than I am. In the lingo of this thread, I suppose my goals are to play so that myself and others enjoy the music, and to encourage other people in their playing.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
To be able to play the music as I hear it when I am most enjoying it.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: What is your goal?
In a previous lifetime, when I was still quite footloose and fancy-free (no kids, no responsibilities) I made a living playing music and travelling. I never got rich, but I was comfortable, had a blast, and saw some really nice places, including the Caribbean. A little over 2 yrs ago I began studying ITM in earnest, and it wasn't too long before a little dream began to take hold of doing this profesionally (all that means to me, is getting paid gigs). I'm very happy to have realized that dream, getting paid to do what I love is just awesome. I still have my responsibilities and day job, of course...but performing gives me such a thrill. My goal now is to keep improving....Like Jack Gilder, when I can come close to sounding like what I love to listen to, that's when I truly feel accomplished. Further down the road, with experience, I might feel more like Nat, I love his attitude too. More than ever, I feel like I have finally found the music I was meant to do, and I never want to lose that passion. It that's obsession, fine.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by ketida
Re: What is your goal?
"the harder you work, the better you play"
Totallly! Suzuki says that nobody is born with more talent than anybody else, but that it's all a matter of how much you want to do it, and consequently how hard you work. I don't think that is entirely true, but there is a lot of truth in it. Siobhan is the perfect example. She must have had an immense desire to play the fiddle for her to spend so much time trying to work with her two good fingers.
"For example - when I first started playing I was very, very naive and used to tell my fiddle teacher (hi greenwiggle) that I was going to be a professional fiddle player touring the world and just generally being famous. "
Well Bridie, I'm think I'm in that stage right now. I want to be the next Seamus Egan. Of course, as I get older, and more sane, I'll probably begin to realize that the chances of that aren't too big. At least, it will take a heck of a lot of work, and it will probably mean devoting my life to it, and becoming a professional musician. Right now, I spend all my time playing and practicing, instead of doing school, so being a professional musician (practicing hours each day, playing in a band, touring) sounds like heaven to me. I've thought sometimes though, that if it was my job, and I had to do it, it might lose some of it's fun. I do it now because I love it, and I think I woud still love it just as much if I did it for my job, but I'm not sure. I guess it's one of those things you'll never know until you try. I'm going to try it.
Yes, I am obsessed. No doubt there. Why? It's just so awesome! I don't really know why I love it so much.
"So this is what I want now. I want to be at a level with my playing where I dont irritate really brilliant players. Where they dont mind me being there and if fact think its good that I'm there in sessions with them."
Who knows, I might change as I get older too, and not aim so high, but I hope not!
-Max
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: What is your goal?
last line should have read: "IF" that's obsession, fine.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by ketida
Re: What is your goal?
One more thing:
"Cath - your'e almost certainly right there - but there's an awful lot of poor souls who aren't happy with sounding like themselves, and are always trying to sound like someone else - and that saddens me."
I know. By saying that I want to "be the next Seamus Egan", I just meant that I want to achieve his level of musicianship, in my own unique way. I want to learn from him (and others), not "be" him, if you know what I mean.
-Max
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: What is your goal?
D'you know, I think people tend to take the whole "don't want to annoy because we know it teases" thing a little too seriously and even too personally. To me, it just implies a certain amount of skill, a measure of good standards set for oneself, a healthy dose of being a "good hang", and overall means a good session player. I don't care what anyone thinks of me, really, in a personal way, but the whole point of session playing is that you're playing with other people, operative word, "with". So yeah, you have to play up to a certain standard in order not to annoy, or an obligation of knowing when not to play in order to keep the crack up. I don't see anything wrong with that, myself.
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
Oops, so the crack is supposed to be pointing _up_? Hmmm...I'll have to try some other seating arrangement....
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Ahem. Seriously, I don't disagree with the notion that putting lots of hours into the music is a good way to improve and reach your potential. And there will be frustrations to play through, and muscles and nerve synapses to build, and mental gymanstics to master. But--and I can't emphasize this enough--thinking of it as "the harder you work..." can be counterproductive and even harmful, to yourself and your music.
.
Now, I know Kerri knows this cuz she once posted a comment here about not "grind a tune into the fiddle, but lifting it out," and that's a beautiful sense of the lightness and lift that makes wonderful musicians so wonderful. Pardon me for being the word police, but my experience is that how you talk and think about playing does indeed influence how you play (and besides, Max is at that impressionable age...
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
I
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by Tish
Re: What is your goal?
No long-term goal, just a series of limited challenges that get refreshed regularly (must learn the tune they played on Saturday, work on the triplets a bit more, crank up the speed a little notch more...) Too much in life is planned and goaled to death already - this is my hobby, so I keep a mostly relaxed attitude to it . And I'm grateful for the chance to meet so many really nice people along the way.
And, of course, banjo players don't have to worry about annoying the really brilliant session musos, do they??
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by grego
Re: What is your goal?
Kerri, sure did know that about Siobhan Peoples - that is why she is amazing - she would be amazing still if she had all her fingers working properly anyway. But she doesnt, and she is just incredible.
I beleive everybody has talent - just maybe not all muscial - which is cool.
And Brother steve - I agree - being at that level in a session is not an easy task at all - Max you think I'm aiming lower now Ive gotten a bit older? Not at all! I mean be accepted into the *best of the best* sessions - which requires a hellavu lot of work!
# Posted on April 26th 2004 by bb
Re: What is your goal?
We play on a friday nite surrounded by knackered people, (some of them bautered in cow dung), relaxing and enjoying their pints, and I sometimes hope that what we do brings a little pleasure into their lives.
Alf Housman wrote this a long long time ago, and it sort of sums it up in a way
FANCY'S KNELL
When lads were home from labour
At Abdon under Clee,
A man would call his neighbor
And both would send for me.
And where the light in lances
Across the mead was laid,
There to the dances
I fetched my flute and played.
Ours were idle pleasures,
Yet oh, content we were,
The young to wind the measures,
The old to heed the air;
And I to lift with playing
From tree and tower and steep
The light delaying,
And flute the sun to sleep.
The youth toward his fancy
Would turn his brow of tan,
And Tom would pair with Nancy
And Dick step off with Fan;
The girl would lift her glances
To his, and both be mute:
Well went the dances
At evening to the flute.
Wenlock Edge was umbered,
And bright was Abdon Burf,
And warm between them slumbered
The smooth green miles of turf;
Until from grass and clover
The upshot beam would fade,
And England over
Advanced the lofty shade.
The lofty shade advances,
I fetch my flute and play:
Come, lads, and learn the dances
And praise the tune to-day.
To-morrow, more's the pity,
Away we both must hie,
To air the ditty,
And to earth I.
Dave ;o)
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: What is your goal?
bb, the point I was trying to make about Ms. Peoples was that when one is not daunted by one's unique challenges, and continues to "work hard" (I'll get to that in a minute, Will), any level of brilliance is possible for any of us. When you say she sounded brilliant with four fingers and she *still* sounds brilliant with two, it tends to gloss over what was probably an extremely long and difficult time when she may have sounded not quite so brilliant but refused to give up.
Will, I am speaking of "hard work" as a person who generally doesn't bother much with any kind of work unless I am going to a) enjoy it, or b) get paid a fortune for it. Preferably both. So I don't really have negative personal connotations for that phrase. Thank you for reminding me about the semantic leanings of the general public. To clarify, I mean "hard" as in "performed with or marked by great diligence or energy" and "work" as in "to exert oneself physically or mentally in order to do, make, or accomplish something" (or on the off days, "to strain in heavy seas so that the joints give slightly and the fastenings become slack).
Source: http://www.dictionary.com
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: What is your goal?
Oooohh, I _like_ that bit about joints and fastenings. Reminds me of the Velveteen Rabbit, certainly appropriate for us musicians and our endeavors. And all those ocean/wave related tunes....
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
I wasnt not trying to 'gloss over' anything Kerri - in fact the opposite. I really believe talent has an awful lot to do with it as well as practicing like a mad person I and truely believe that only 1 in a million people can do what Siobhan Peoples has done...which is why I think she is Brilliant!
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by bb
Re: What is your goal?
Whoops - sorry
'I was not'
or 'I wasnt'
not 'I wasnt not'!!!
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by bb
Re: What is your goal?
She is brilliant, I agree. I just attach more significance to the process of learning to be brilliant than to the resulting genius - and in my mind (as this is just an exchange of opinions) I prefer to think that *anybody* could aquire that level of ability, although I fully aknowledge that only one in a million people *will* get there, because for most of us this is a side dish to the main course of our lives - we have jobs, kids, obligations, etc. and can't be arsed to practice for six hours a day. No offence to those who prefer the idea that excellent players are born destined for greatness.
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: What is your goal?
"to strain in heavy seas so that the joints give slightly and the fastenings become slack"
Yeah! that's me. And my trousers.
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: What is your goal?
There are many many thousands of musicians who practice and dedicate their lives to music, not as a side dish but as a main who end up in the the Redding Orchestra instead of the the London Symphony (just a example - I know nothing about classical music in England or anywhere else for that matter). I of course attach significance to the learning to be brilliant part..I know its probably what keeps most of us going. But I know from personal experience that many thousand upon thousands of hours playing tunes, living in Ireland, going to festivals, playing in sessions and listening constantly to trad, can result in a musican being a bit decent/mediocre but by no means inspiring (dont worry I'm not slagging anyone - I'm talking about me). That is why I have a great respect for talent and brilliance. I'm not saying I base my life on it and I'm not saying that I'll give it up cause I am not the next Siobhan/Oisin/ Folan.....But I have complete respect for all those musicians who are amazing and I dont think they are just born to be that great either, suprisingly enough I know its bloody hard work no matter who you are.
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by bb
Re: What is your goal?
Bridie I'm inclined to agree with you. I've heard many technically competent musicians who just don't do it for me. They lack that spark of brilliance, inspiration, call it what you will. That's something you're born with, unfortunately. The hard work is what enables those musicians with that extra something to express what's in their imagination.
I can't remember who it was that said "improvisation is too good to leave to chance", or words to that effect, and I do know of one well-known button accordionist in England who said on a TV interview that all of his "improvisation" was practised beforehand.
Personally I can't abide that, as it's usually possible to tell when something is contrived in that way and it's not "honest". I know some players who sometimes like to try things out on the fly; sometimes they come off, sometimes they don't. When they do it's divine, when they don't it's horrendous. But that's all part of the fun of music.
My goal is to have fun.
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What is your goal?
All I need now is thousands of hours of hard work and a brain transplant.
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What is your goal?
Same here!
# Posted on April 27th 2004 by bb
Re: What is your goal?
Damn, you know, I meant to ask Tommy Peoples about Siobhan's rehab process; probably just as well I didn't, I guess, on such tenuous acquaintance. ;) I've always been amazed that the music is so strong in people that they'll overcome so many obstacles to become a channel to get it from inside to outside. Siobhan Peoples is to me (although I've never met her, so who knows what I'm projecting onto her!) a shining example of someone who, as Conan says, contains that spark inside her, but who also hasn't shirked at working at fanning it to flame no matter the state of the firewood, if you'll pardon the metaphor running amok.
Gosh, now I wonder why such a destructive image leapt to mind? LOL
I suppose it, as always, comes down to priorities, but sometimes our passions don't allow us much leeway in choosing those priorities.
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
OK, OK you win, Bridie. Even most of those who really really really try might never *get there*, if "there" is represented by Siobhan's playing. Maybe we have been sucked into a semantic battle - I attribute the skills of the people whose playing I admire most to a particular blend of patience and willpower that only one in a million people have got. Maybe this, or something like this, is part of what you mean when you say "genius".
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: What is your goal?
Kerri, in a rare few people, I believe there _is_ something beyond patience and willpower and a million hours of 'hard work.' How else do you explain the whiz kids who haven't been alive long enough to put in even a thousand hours of practice, or endure any meaningful dose of patience, yet they're debuting with a major symphone at age 7? I can't believe that simple dedication and willpower explains child prodigies. Talent (whether in the form of music, other art, athleticism, intelligence, whatever) spills out of a few lucky people, while most of us *must* rely on perseverance and willpower.
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." (Theodore Roosevelt)
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Reincarnation! I put it down to reincarnation, Will. LOL
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
Amen, Zina!
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: What is your goal?
Meh - I'll come clean - I don't really have an opinion about natural genius. I was just making conversation. I haven't met any ITM players yet who would fit into the "child prodigy" mold, but that's just because folkies and trad heads tend to be a little more (looking for a gentle word) "mature". When I see somebody play and my initial reaction is "Oh, lord, look at that unattainable level of genius in action!" I often walk up and say "So, how long you been playing?" The minimum answer is ten years. So then I think "OK, well, I've only been at it for five, maybe in the next five years I will be able to attain some small level of genius myself if I really concentrate." I did meet one kid who had only been playing the uilleann pipes for a year and it already sounded pretty good. I think he had been secretly practicing for several hours a day though.
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: What is your goal?
Yeah - making conversation is good
There are examples of effortless ability though--Seamus Tansey winning All-Ireland after playing about a year, that sort of thing. On another level, I see it in my own family. My oldest son is a very good guitarist, and besides practicing his fingers off, he has a good ear and a knack for rock solid rhythm. His younger brother, however, can pick up a guitar and instantly play any tune that happens to be blasting off the radio, cd player, television, or his brother's amp, *even though he doesn't actually play guitar.* Ask him how he does it, and he says, "It's easy," and shrugs his shoulders. At the other end of the scale, I once had a friend who played bluegrass guitar several hours a day, every day, for many years, and the tunes remained unrecognizable. It *never* sounded like music--arrhythmical, lots of clams, no flow, no dynamics, nothing. He desperately wanted to be a guitarist, but it just wasn't in him, no matter how much he tried. I had a banjo student like that once. Most people stuck with lessons for 6 months to a year and then went off to learn on their own. But one guy took lessons from me for 3 or 4 years and literally never got past Cripple Creek. In fact, never got Cripple Creek so that you could clap to it. He swore he practiced every day after work--that was his R&R. I suggested that he try a different instrument, but he said he really loved the sound of a banjo, and he wanted to keep trying.
I wish blood, sweat, and tears were all it took to achieve musicality, but I'm afraid there must be a gene for it. And a handful of players have it in spades.
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
P.S. My reincarnation must be retrograde....
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Ah yes Grasshopper... to play ITM you must first listen for 7 years, then practice for 7 years, and then play for 7 more years.
Many times I have met people who claim to have only played for a year or two and they sound better than what you would expect. Then I find out later that certain details of their musical past have been left out. For example: I met a young flute player once who claimed he
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: What is your goal?
Ah, Samurai Jack, your wisdom is like the the glare of high beams on my bug-spattered windshield at night. I am fascinated but cannot bear to look.
. No--but I've played fiddle for 25 years, mandolin and guitar for even longer, so I had lots of applicable skills and experience.
Seriosuly, that's a fairly garden variety of talent you describe. I've played 4 string banjo for 5 months, but I already can play several hundred tunes. Am I gifted? (Must be--my parents always said they'd never have *paid* for me
I'm more curious about the true prodigies who can play like veterans before they reach 10 years of age. That kind of ability is rare, but it too is part of the human condition.
Itzhak Perlman has some great insights on this. The following interview is long, but it touches on this talent topic, as well as how to practice and some other notions that keep coming up on threads here. Definitely worth reading, and very applicable to Irish trad playing.
As Seen In The New York Times
Itzhak Perlman Discusses Child Prodigies and Handicap Access
By PIA LINDSTROM
In the movie "Shine," a teacher warns a young musician to watch out for the Rach 3: "It's dangerous!" The Rach 3 is not a pterodactyl, it's Rachmaninoff's treacherously difficult Piano Concerto, No. 3. In this movie based on the Australian child prodigy David Helfgott, the young musician has a breakdown and spends years in a mental institution after tackling the Rach 3.
Itzhak Perlman, the violinist who has a home on the East End, was host at a benefit screening of "Shine" at the East Hampton Cinema for the Hamptons Summer Music School, which is run by his wife, Toby Perlman.
Q. Can music make you crazy?
A. So many things can drive you mad as a child, not only music. This particular case was a very extreme situation. But it's not just musicians, it's tennis players, everybody. Any gifted child can potentially get in real trouble because of the way they are handled. I always say an unusual talent is an abnormality because kids don't have talents like that, not your average child. You're open for great dangers. You've got so many things that can go wrong.
No. 1, parents. What is the agenda of a parent? Do they want their child to be successful, or do they want to have success through their child? For every child prodigy that you know about, at least 50 potential ones have burned out before you even heard about them.
Q. Is it possible that struggling with the complexity of the music, as this boy does in the film, triggers something in the brain?
A. I disagree with that. I think the music was just the vehicle, it became a challenge. He was obviously capable of playing it. The point was that the father wanted to keep the child. He did not want to let him explore, go into the world and study with other people without his blessing.
Some people are stronger than others. You can handle people with kid gloves and sometimes they just go ahead and say, "I will do it, despite it." But I feel that you always pay when you are a child. You have a particular set of circumstances where you start playing concerts early on. You always hear about all these kids -- and these days they are getting younger and younger -- and you hear things such as: "Ah! What a wonderful kid, and totally normal, going to school. He has friends." Baloney! You always pay for it.
You don't pay now, you pay later. Rarely do you see people survive, and that's the goal, to survive your gift. Especially when the gift is given to a youngster who doesn't necessarily deserve that gift.
I listen to kids play a lot. People say to me, "This is a wonderful, blah blah, great, fantastic," and I say, "O.K." So I listen.
Sometimes I listen to somebody who is, I don't know, 10, 11, 12, and when I hear that person sounds like a child, I say, "Thank God," because that's good. If you close your eyes and say, "That's a kid, but with talent," that's great. But if you close your eyes and say, "Oh my God, that's like someone 25 years old," that's dangerous. There's nothing you can do. You can't say, "Well, it's bad to have talent." But, it's a fact, if somebody has that, then they have a lot more problems.
Q. In the movie, they say the Rach 3 is "too passionate, too dangerous; he's too young," as though it were sex, or driving a fast car.
A. It's a part of development. When you are 8 or 9, you should have a childhood. You should have adolescence. You should go through everything in a normal way. It's very difficult, unless somebody is exceptionally unusual. It's very interesting that in math most mathematical geniuses were working at a very early age, a teen-ager, and then afterwards it's just gone.
Q. Math and music are related?
A. In a way. But if you play mathematically, it's not very good.
Q. Are you good at math?
A. No! In our family, we call it the "Perlman math curse." Only two of our kids are good at math. The rest have what my wife terms, "the regular Perlman math situation," which is, "What's THAT?"
Q. How did you survive your talent?
A. Who knows if I did! But it is a fact that at the age of 8 I sounded like a reasonably talented 8-year-old. When I came to the United States, I appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show as a 13-year-old and I played a Mendelsohn Concerto and it sounded like a talented 13-year-old with a lot of promise. But id did not sound like a finished product.
Q. Why were people so taken with you?
A. They weren't taken with me.
Q. You were considered a child prodigy.
A. No, I wasn't. I'll tell you why.
Q. You mean, now you're considered a child prodigy.
A. Yes. Now: He was a child prodigy. But a child prodigy is somebody that can step up to the stage of Carnegie Hall and play with an orchestra one of the standard violin concertos with aplomb. I couldn't do that! I can name you five people who could do that at the age of 10 or 11. And did. Not five, maybe three. But I couldn't do that. At that age I showed a lot of promise. People said, "Ach! Come on, you can see that he has a beautiful sound, he has some musicianship." But it was all in the frame of the child. It was not one of those things that you cannot believe. There are people who are uncanny, who are finished products at that age. I wasn't, thank God.
My playing was good, it showed promise, and then I came to Juilliard and I studied until I was 18. When you think about what the child prodigies are playing these days! The minute someone shows promise, they get management. They play 20, 30, 40 50 concerts a year. I couldn't do that. So I studied at Juilliard and at the age of 18 I won the Leventritt Prize and then, from the age of 19, I started to play on a professional level. At benefits for Jewish organizations. I would play 10 minutes at a UJA function at the Waldorf-Astoria.
Q. It's interesting that there are few young Israeli musicians today and many young Asians.
A. It's a cycle. There used to be a lot, and now it's going the other way. When you think about the Juilliard School, there are a lot of Asians. There are fiddle players from China, Japan; 40 per cent.
Q. Why is that?
A. It's a hunger for music. It's the ability for discipline. You achieve great form, great results.
Q. How important is a teacher?
A. Very. I think a teacher should be your musical guide and your personal guide. In the musician, there is a tendency to have a narrowness. It's all compartmentalized. I am playing the violin, that's all I know, nothing else, no education, no nothing. You just practice every day.
I had an ideal teacher, and I had two, Ivan Galamian and Dorothy DeLay, and she was an all-around kind of teacher. She would look for what else you do, besides the violin. Do you go to concerts? Do you go to operas? Do you go to museums? Are you a broad sort of a person?
Q. But don't you have to have an obsession? Wouldn't a child have to be somewhat obsessive by nature?
A. Could be a little bit.
Q. How else would you practice for eight hours a day, unless you have an obsessive streak?
A. I don't practice eight hours a day. I practiced eight hours, three days. Eight hours a day, forget about it! Eight hours a day doesn't do any good.
Q. What is the ideal amount of practice?
A. The ideal amount would be between four and five hours. I never practiced more than about three. It depends on the gift, depends on the talent. After five hours, it becomes useless. A lot of kids put in all those hours. After a while, it actually hurts you. It becomes counterproductive. You can't absorb any more. It's like a sponge. A sponge has that much absorbent capability and after a while you can pour water over it and nothing stays.
Q. In this film, they portray the competition as almost like Rocky going into the ring. He's got to dominate his instrument and he sweats. Is it that physical?
A. Competition can be the most nerve-racking experience. Some people just thrive on it. I don't remember being as nervous as when I entered that final round. I just didn't know where I was. I was saying, "Oh yeah, I think I'm in Carnegie Hall, here." The adrenaline was so overpowering.
Q. It must be like actors when they forget the scene and they make it up. The other musicians must go crazy.
A. It was maybe 20 years ago when we were doing a piece and all of a sudden the conductor started to clear his throat in the middle of the concert, "cough, cough," and I said to myself, why is he clearing his throat? We are playing music here and he's clearing his throat? I looked at him and he was sort of giving me a funny sign, like, what's going on? Then I realized that I was actually at the end of the movement instead of at the beginning. I just started and then I was finished already! SO I just made up a couple of little things and then we went back.
Q. I talked to you years ago when you first got involved with changes in the architecture for handicapped people who travel. Are things better?
A. Every now and then there is a little improvement, but it is still not working. When you think about the American's With Disabilities Act, you go on the street and you say, "Where is the A.D.A.? Where is it?!" This machine, the wheelchair, I can go all over the place, but you need a place without stairs to get in.
It's so easy, the store has to put a little ramp in there and I can come in. The concept of access sometimes escapes people. Access means getting to a place where everybody else gets to, whether it's a concert hall, so you don't have to go through the back, you don't have to make special calls to warn them of your arrival.
Just recently I went to an airport and I asked for a wheelchair. There were three of us in wheelchairs and only two porters, so the guy just took two of us at the same time. I cannot tell you how humiliating that is. It's like letting them take two suitcases. They are very skillful, but I feel like: What is this? Then I say to myself, either I do that or I have to wait an extra 20 minutes until he brings the other person. These things still happen. Sometimes the wheelchairs don't arrive, sometimes the chairs are broken, there's only one leg rest, and they say, "Well, that's the only chair we have." There's an awful lot that's not being done. But let's hope that if we talk about it long enough, someone will make it improve at a faster pace. Right now, it's difficult out there.
My favorite experience is in Paris. They have special wheelchairs that go through every doorway. Even if the doorway is slightly narrow, the wheelchairs are narrow. They don't change the doorways, they change the wheelchairs and to hell with the people! If someone weighs a couple more pounds, that's it! You sit in the chair, you go like that. [He hunches his body.] It's very uncomfortable.
Q. You teach at the Hamptons Music School?
A. Let me tell you about the Hamptons Music School. I have nothing to do with the system. This is my wife's thing, and it's a wonderful school. It is a school for pre-college kids. We have about 35 kids, piano, violin, cello, and general music. That's her dream and it's been her dream all along. She's got a concept about what it is to go to a music camp and the horrible things that happen. She tries to take those away.
They practice in a concentrated way, but they are having a good time. I know some camps where the pressure is so tremendous that it's almost a horrible experience. Sometimes you have it so laid back that nobody does any work. She has got the combination of doing the work, but then going to the beach and having a good time and playing Ping-Pong, or swimming, or whatever.
My job is nothing. I just happen to be there. I'm available if somebody comes and says, "What's-her-name has the Brahms violin concerto and she's having a little problem in the first movement, could you hear?" I listen to them.
There's a little orchestra there, so I wave my arms and start them off and we have a nice time. It's fun.
Q. Actors say that if you lose your concentration for a split second, stage fright comes in. Is that true in music? You start to say to yourself, I wonder how this sounds?
A. If you doubt yourself...that's the worst! You can have things like, you probably have the same thing with acting, "What's the next line?" You'll forget it!
A lot of what happens is a lack of trust. Let's say you have a concerto to play and you practice it a lot and you know it. You know everything about it. You've done the correct way of practicing it, slowly. The first time you play it, you will be nervous. It's the same with acting, or with anything that you do for the first time. You're not aware how nerves are going to affect you. You get more nervous in front of a lot of people. That's why, when you play a concerto, you play with a small orchestra, in some place where you don't feel that it is as important as Carnegie Hall. You try to work out all the little problems. Once that's all done, trust comes in. If you don't trust, then you're going to have a problem.
Trust your ability. Let's say a technical passage has to do with building up a bunch of chains. You have a pattern. The patterns are in your brain. If you start to concentrate on what makes these patterns, you may just listen to those patters. They might get lost, so that's where trust comes in. It's like speaking a sentence and not thinking of every word. You have to concentrate on how you are going to say it, what you want to convey, but you aren't going to say, "This is the first word, this is the second word, and this is the third." It's the same thing with music.
Q. That's something one would have to give a student? The confidence to trust?
A. The confidence and the sense of enjoyment and the ability to look at the music and say, this is so wonderful. The ability to enjoy the music. When you hear some of the students in the school, it is fantastic. Some of the questions are so wonderful, so insightful. For example, we showed some videos, and the musicians were fairly immobile. One comment was, Isn't it interesting how without moving, they were able to play music in such a way that they moved a person emotionally. They didn't need to go through all those physical machinations. So sometimes you get from the mouth of kids wonderful things.
Q. Are all your children musicians of various sorts?
A. Four out of the five are either interested or doing it for money. My oldest daughter is a pianist, she plays concerts, we play together, also.
Q. No child prodigies here?
A. Thank God, no. Child prodigy is a curse because, like we saw in the movie, you've got all those terrible possibilities.
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# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Jayzus Will
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: What is your goal?
Don't fool yourself. I teach both adults and kids how to stepdance, and the kids just tell themselves they're no good in a different way from adults. *grin*
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
But Zina... yesterday (it was a heat wave here in SF) and I was playing a few tunes on my favorite bench in the cool of Golden Gate park when these three little girls came by and started step dancing on the path to my music. I said, "Do you girls do Irish step dancing?" (Dumb question, but it seemed like a good thing to ask) and they screamed, "YES!!!" I said, "Do you want a reel or a jig?" and they screamed with hyperbolic enthusiasm, "We want a reel AND a jig!" So I played, and they danced happily on the path among the beautiful foliage of the Arboretum. It was magic to be sure, but could you imagine adults doing anything remotely like that without their inner voices scolding them and preventing them from doing it at all?
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: What is your goal?
Yes, I can. You're talking to someone who has danced in airports waiting for a plane, in front of museums while waiting for buses, once even out at a nightclub, etc. Further, my first teacher was Molly Bennett, who wouldn't turn a hair at doing exactly what those girls did.
That Victorian image of kids cuts both ways -- kids aren't always innocent and sweet by a long shot, anyone who has watched their toddler bang another kid on the head for daring to share their toy or watched a kid pitch a hissy fit because they now have a younger sibling can vouch for that... *grin*
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
In San Francisco?! Sure, Jack, I can imagine adults doing all sorts of things in the Arboretum without a care in the world, heh.
I've always been surprised when people stop to dance when I'm just noodling around in some public place. Sure, usually kids. But I've had lots of adults do it to. Very unselfconsciously. Once was in a carpet of red and gold maple leaves on the ground, with more big leaves somersaulting down all around us, and three women (one in her 50s) started ceiling right there on the sidewalk. They danced to three reels, clapped at the end, and happily went on their way.
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Will wrote: "In San Francisco?! Sure, Jack, I can imagine adults doing all sorts of things in the Arboretum without a care in the world, heh." Well... true, but I can't talk about that here... this is a family website.
As for the kids dancing for me in the park; maybe it's because to them I look kind of like Santa; and to the adults, I look like a weirdo with a big beard -- and I scare them.
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: What is your goal?
If you really think about it, Santa is kinda freaky.
:-|
Maybe they weren't children, Jack. Maybe they were Little People. Did they give you a tune?
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Will said, "If you really think about it, Santa is kinda freaky." My point exactly Will.
As for yesterday's dancers; yes, they are little people, but no, they didn't give me a tune. Next time your visiting SF Will, if it's during another heat wave, let's go play some tunes in the park and see if any of your "Little People" show up ok?
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: What is your goal?
LOL, if they do, I intend to ask them to leave my computer alone and return all those single socks.....
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
If you drink enough, it won't matter if they show up or not, yeah?
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
Define "enough." Is there such a thing?
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Alcohol poisoning?
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
Ah, _now_ we're talking serious goals.
No, I didn't say that. Drinking sensibly is all about getting lively without pushing the tempo--it's all in the lift, eh?
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
Lift? Sounds like a great way to get the spins...
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: What is your goal?
More power to your elbow....
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Will Harmon
Re: What is your goal?
yeah - these last few posts have made me realise my goal - to remember the last hour of any recent Blythe Hill Tavern session (free beer for musos, remember?)
# Posted on April 28th 2004 by Rudall the time