So, assume for the sake of argument that there are some tunes in which I feel reasonably comfortable. I can play them at desired pace, with inflection, and with ornamention that sounds right (at least to me).
However, I also play (assuming I don't stumble over my own fingers) the tunes pretty much the same way every time. Same ornaments, etc.
So, what now? Should I look for alternatives for the handful of tunes I feel comfortable with, with an eye towards varying the playing, or should I expand my repertoire and look at the current tunes again later?
Up to you. If you want to start in on variations, I've found that for me it's best to start with just little changes at first -- a note here and there different, not a whole different phrase. A good way to slowly do that is to look at different settings of the tune from yours and use bits as variations.
For ornaments, try substituting a different ornament for the one you've used (a triplet instead of a roll, a little trill instead of a roll, a cut instead of a bow change or vice versa, etc.) on one of the repeats.
I've been told over and over again by great players that the reason their variations flow so smoothly is that 1) they've played for so long that they have their favorite ways of varying those stock phrases that Irish music contains, and 2) they've played the tunes for so long that variations are how they don't get bored with a tune.
You'll find that most tunes come in "families" -- Hunter's Purse, Swallow Tail Reel, The Congress, for instance. You can sometimes use two-or-three-note bits from another tune as variations as well, or take a musical idea from, say, James Kelly's setting of The Congress and slot it into the Swallow Tail. The longer you play, and the more tunes you learn, the easier it gets to vary.
But remember, as my teacher once told me, "there's nothing wrong with just playing the damn tune!"
...and don't forget to try it the Scottish (some would say Altan-esque, Aly Bain) way also : remove every single ornament, but keep your loud and soft dynamics, and make it sound good ....
Dave, my personal answer would be head in both directions--learn more tunes, but also start working on varying the tunes you're already comfortable with.
The more tunes you know, the more familiar you'll be with all the boilerplate--the stock building pieces--common in this music. And you'll get to know them in their various guises, which can then be used as variations across tunes.
I know I've used this example before, but it works, so here goes.
Take the fairly common phrase:
K:G
| G2 BG dGBG |
It appears in hundreds of reels. But depending on the version you first learn, you may know this same phrase as any of the following possibilities:
| G2 BG DGBG | (how I learned it in Sligo Maids)
| G2 BG DGBd | (how I learned it in Maude Millar)
| G2 BG cGBG | (how it appears in Brenda McMahon's, aka Tommy Peoples')
| G~B3 GBdB | (the Ballintore Fancy)
And so on. Then you start to add in your own ideas. Take just the first half of the phrase. Off the top of my head, you could do:
| DGBG dGBG |
| (3GGG BG dGBG |
| D~G3 dGBG |
| G~B3 dGBG |
| GABG dGBG |
| FGBG dGBG |
| G2 (3BAG dGBG |
| GB (3ABc dGBG |
etc.
It's particularly worthwhile to tinker with the stock phrases like this because they appear in so many tunes, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to use your favorite variations.
Another idea that helps when getting started on building variations is to focus on just one part of the tune--say the first half--and leave the other part(s) alone. This gives you a "rest" each time through the tune, where you play a part basically on auto pilot and then throw variations into the other part. Once this feels comfortable, switch it around, playing variations in the once stable part, and playing the other part the same each time through. Eventually you'll have variations to incorporate into each part.
And ditto what Zina said: don't be afraid to just play the tune, simply and well.
I don't really see the point of trying to put in variations just for the sake of putting in variations. You will, given enough time playing and listening, get to the point where the music doesn't make sense without variation. Even calling this "variation" is misleading, as the tunes are fluid things. There really is no "fixed" thing to "vary" in the first place.
If a good player learns a tune, s/he will most likely adapt the tune almost immediately to fit his or her playing. I don't think this is adding variations, though. This is style. Some peoples' style is to play the tune pretty much the same way everytime, whatever that way might be. Some people try to give the overall shape to a set of tunes, e.g. Martin Hayes, by adding more each time through and by varying dynamics.
So to answer the question, best to learn more tunes, I think. When they become fluid and you realize that you changed something without thinking about it, then you can think about variation - but then you won't have to think about it!
Hmmm...I don't think of it as adding variation "just for the sake of putting in variations." It's all part of letting the tune come alive, with your own flavor added. Specifically, it's about bringing out the _lift_ of the tune.
And it's "variation" in the sense of changing the basic setting you learn in the first place. Less experienced players tend to lump a sequence of notes or phrases together as the basic form of the tune and play that over and over because their attention is still wrapped around technical challenges, keeping a steady rhythm, producing a clear tone, etc. After several years of this it can be hard to break out of the rut. So I think it *can* help to spend some time toying with variations, intentionally, and exploring the musical ideas that other players use to give lift and interest to a tune.
To each his own, and I agree that Chris's approach can work too. I just don't think there's any harm in being more deliberate about it.
My method is pain-staking and time consuming - which is why, alas, I don't do it nearly as often as I should.
I take several different recordings of a tune and park myself next to my CD player with my flute and nit-pick thru the different settings with the pause and reverse buttons for hours on end. That way I see, "Oh, Mary Bergin does a triplet here, Mike McHale cuts into that note, Catherine McEvoy does a short roll, Paddy Carty takes a breath, etc, etc, etc..."
This helps me in two ways: It exposes me to how many different ways the same phrase can be played, and broadens my own mind to the possibilies that I can use elsewhere in other tunes.
I hope this helps, although I wouldn't wish this obsessiveness on anyone...
I agree with much of what has already been said by Zina and Will. I would add that dynamics can be really useful. Listen to the way paddy canny uses phrasing and dynamic changes.
Another neat trick, which I first heard an all Ireland winning fiddler use in a touring concert here in Dundee, was in the second bar of the tune the red bee (the way I play it):
K: Bmin
|:f(B{d}B)B cBAc|dBc(B {d}BA)FE|
becomes
|:f(B{d}B)B cBAc|(cd)c(B {d}BA)FE|
this little melodic variation can be used in many many tunes and when you get used to putting it in adlib, it is highly effective. What is effectively happening is the tonic (or a note from the chord of the tonic) is held back by the addition of a sliding note (in this case the first "c" of the second bar) which then slurred into the "held back" note.
Indeed, I've just been listening to Oisin MacDiarmada while having a shower, and noticed that he uses it very frequently. He also ties notes (dropping the cuts or bow changes) across the beat and bar lines which adds to the flowing melodic line.
P.S. I've heard a number of good musicians (Kevin Burke, Vassar Clements, Mark O'Connor, Martin Hayes) say something along the lines of: "I love this music. I hope I'm playing the same tunes 20 years from now. But I hope I'm not playing them the same way."
In my early years, that used to really get under my skin and irritate me, because I felt like I was stuck playing the same tunes the same way for an eternity. I suppose that's a big part of what drove me to learn new tunes and to listen closely to other musicians.
It takes time--years of listening, mostly, and trying different things in your own playing--but eventually you reach a point where technique issues fade away and the tunes are simply musical experiences, to be shaped by your mood, the energy level in the room, your session mates, etc. And you'll have the tools to express yourself in the music, so it necessarily comes out different every time you play. It gets to the point where it takes real concentration to play a tune the same way twice, say, when teaching it to others.
So I say the urge to vary things is a healthy indication that you're ready to go totally obsessive over the music and immerse yourself in tunes and styles and the sounds of different instruments and all the rest. Go for it.
Jamie, I love that little delay--coming in "late" by slurring from the previous note. It's a strong feature of lots of today's fiddlers--Ciaran Tourish, Kevin Burke, Martin Hayes, Brendan Bulger. You don't hear it so much in the old masters, but Bobby Casey did it, sparingly. My guess is that it's grown more popular since the rise of button box and piano accordion.
To me, it's just another way of tweaking the timing of how the melody falls on the rhtyhm of the tune, which is what most "variations" are all about in this music. Good on you for bringing it up! For Dave, it's a highly effective technique on concertina as well.
I think Chris McGrath's posting is the best one here, though I'm dissapointed with bkessler's.
I think the point about what we call variations is that they are not really variations at all, they are the tune itself. It's one of the problems about peoples obsessions with writing tunes down, you get to a state where you think the written version is the tune, and anything else you do with it is the variation. But in actual fact it's the other way round, the written version is "a" variation and all your so called variations "is" the tune. The amount of improvisation/variation is the essence of this diddley stuff. That's one of the reasons you can't write it down.›
LOL, I didn't realize this was an essay competition (and who appointed MG judge and jury?).
Of course there are lots of ways to approach this topic, and Chris's suits Michael. Great. As a music teacher, I've found many people want and need more step-by-step help. Chris's advice is insightful and useful, but, as he says, it tends to apply more to "good players," people who already get it. Someone who doesn't "get it" might even resent the implication that the fluidity of tunes can't be taught, or that some mystic talent is required. In reality, the kinds of changes common to most trad players' repertoires are relatively small rhythmic or melodic twists, rarely as substantive as they are in jazz or even bluegrass.
I'm glad we have a diversity of views here, and I wouldn't say any one perspective is necessarily better than another.
There's also some overlap with the thread about making every tune a masterpiece. Even "good players" sometimes are so struck by the simple melody line of a tune that they leave it alone, and they might play it that way for years. Surely there's room in most sessions for playing essentially the same setting of a tune week in, week out, until it changes of its own accord. Some nights, I just want to soak my nose in a pint and let the tunes fall where they may. Other nights, I'm in a more adventurous mood. Most nights my playing changes simply because I'm listening to the players around me and responding to their playing. Sessions are great for encouraging unplanned forays into the unfamiliar. But it's all good.
I've been thinking about this myself lately. I think of ornaments and variations as a way to find a personal connection with a tune - something that makes it "mine" and not a repetition of something I heard somebody else do. I aim for something subtle enough so nobody would say it's my own "version", but interesting enough to play that the tune doesn't bore me.
The method (theoretically) is to take a tune I really love but haven't learned to play that suggests interesting ornaments and variations when I lilt it, (either out loud or in my brain). Then I learn the notes dry, then I pull out all the phrases I wanted to fool around with and play them several times, never doing the same thing twice. Then I put the whole tune back together and play it a few times, again trying something different each time.
I don't use tunes I already know because it's frustrating trying to disconnect my automated fingering. The variations I come up with tend to infect my older tunes through osmosis anyway.
Wow! I didn't mean to offend or frustrate anyone. Let me clarify a few points . . .
I don't think there's anything wrong with playing a tune the same way every time. I know lots of "good players" who do this. If this is part of your "style", then there you go. Different people understand music in different ways, on a lot of different levels - intellectual, spiritual, social, etc., and all of these variables will effect one's style. So consider that you might be the kind of person who is better suited to a style that incorporates little or no variation.
If you do want the variation thing . . . I think that Will (and others?) made a good point that deliberate work on variations can be a productive thing. But to really understand why you're doing the variations at all takes years of experience and knowledge of loads of tunes. I'm not exactly suggesting that this can't be taught - better to say that it CAN be learned. But not too fast. It's the process (practicing, playing in sessions, listening to good music, etc.) that's important to focus on, not the goal. It's a zen kind of thing - as you sit practicing, one day, when you least expect it, the buddhist monk sneaks up behind you and whacks you on the back of the head with a broomstick, and voila! It all makes sense! Except that you can't quite explain it to somebody who hasn't gone through the process . . . There's no way of KNOWING without going through the process.
And sure, folks sign up to be monks all the time knowing that enlightenment may or may not come - it's the journey toward it that matters.
C'mon Kerri, we've got Chris on the run. Now's our chance to WIN!
Naw, no one's offended, mate. Crikey, we're just gettin' warmed up.
Mastery of music falls into the Govinda complex of syndromes. You can only attain it by not seeking it. The harder you look for it, the more blind to it you'll become. Agreed.
But even monks spend years practicing little rituals designed to at once distract them from the quest _and_ implant certain skills and attitudes that will carry them further down the road. I think that the deliberate work on variations (for lack of a better word) can function the same way.
Agreed also that there are no short cuts to *being* a musician--it takes time to experience all that goes into becoming a musician to actually *be* a musician. No try, only do. Like it was explained at Clown College (no lie), either you're funny or you're not. Acting, behaving, or even being funny is not the same as just funny. It's the difference between Adam Sandler (who tries awfully hard to be funny) and Robin Williams, who is funny even when he tries not to be.
BTW, my Buddhist monk whacked me with a fiddle bow.
I do variations all the time... well ok... they're mistakes actually -- but technically they ARE “variations”. (If Will looks up the word maybe he’ll see I’m right.) Some of us perform “variations” while others simply do them. I do my variations only for my own enjoyment and not to entertain drunks. If I do a variation, but I didn’t intend to, is it a “performance” of a variation or just a “variation”? These are intriguing questions huh.
I think if your performance of a variation is improvisational and unintentional, you're dangerously close to the noodle threshold... better watch it or you might have to get a mirror and glare at yourself!
But Kerri, is it a "noodle" if you weren't "performing" a noodle? I mean, if you perform a noodle in a forest and there's no session to perform it in, is it a noodle or some other kind of pasta?
I am struck by the ability of some of the great players to play variations which are substantially different from any widely recognised version of the tune, yet somehow stay within the boundaries* of that tune, making it instantly recogniseable as such. Certain tunes are inherently easy to vary(variate?), but it is also easy to get carried away with the variations so that, while perhaps adhering to the overall structure, the essence of the tune is lost, becoming a sort of lokshen soup.
*Do the tunes really have boundaries, marked by, say, a title or a range of different settings, or are they merely points on a multi-dimensional continuum? I know it sounds pompous, but I couldn't think of a better way of putting it.
I have a friend who gets bored with the tunes very quickly and decides to do variations. The irony is that his tunes all start sounding more alike when he does that. Defeats his own purpose if you ask me. (I realize this thread is about varying the ornamentation and not the melody, but it seems to drift that direction here and there and reminded me of this.)
What I mean by points is, when we play a partcular tune in a particular way, that tune is representative of a point somewhere on that continuum of tunestuff. In theory, there are an infinite number of points, or tunes. There are just not enough minutes in 6 billion lifetimes to play them all - much less *learn* them all.
If, as you say, Will, tunes are not points, then can a tune be said to exist at all as a discrete entity?
Varying Ornamentation
Varying Ornamentation
So, assume for the sake of argument that there are some tunes in which I feel reasonably comfortable. I can play them at desired pace, with inflection, and with ornamention that sounds right (at least to me).
However, I also play (assuming I don't stumble over my own fingers) the tunes pretty much the same way every time. Same ornaments, etc.
So, what now? Should I look for alternatives for the handful of tunes I feel comfortable with, with an eye towards varying the playing, or should I expand my repertoire and look at the current tunes again later?
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Dave Weinstein
Re: Varying Ornamentation
Up to you. If you want to start in on variations, I've found that for me it's best to start with just little changes at first -- a note here and there different, not a whole different phrase. A good way to slowly do that is to look at different settings of the tune from yours and use bits as variations.
For ornaments, try substituting a different ornament for the one you've used (a triplet instead of a roll, a little trill instead of a roll, a cut instead of a bow change or vice versa, etc.) on one of the repeats.
I've been told over and over again by great players that the reason their variations flow so smoothly is that 1) they've played for so long that they have their favorite ways of varying those stock phrases that Irish music contains, and 2) they've played the tunes for so long that variations are how they don't get bored with a tune.
You'll find that most tunes come in "families" -- Hunter's Purse, Swallow Tail Reel, The Congress, for instance. You can sometimes use two-or-three-note bits from another tune as variations as well, or take a musical idea from, say, James Kelly's setting of The Congress and slot it into the Swallow Tail. The longer you play, and the more tunes you learn, the easier it gets to vary.
But remember, as my teacher once told me, "there's nothing wrong with just playing the damn tune!"
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Varying Ornamentation
...and don't forget to try it the Scottish (some would say Altan-esque, Aly Bain) way also : remove every single ornament, but keep your loud and soft dynamics, and make it sound good ....
Jim
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Varying Ornamentation
Dave, my personal answer would be head in both directions--learn more tunes, but also start working on varying the tunes you're already comfortable with.
The more tunes you know, the more familiar you'll be with all the boilerplate--the stock building pieces--common in this music. And you'll get to know them in their various guises, which can then be used as variations across tunes.
I know I've used this example before, but it works, so here goes.
Take the fairly common phrase:
K:G
| G2 BG dGBG |
It appears in hundreds of reels. But depending on the version you first learn, you may know this same phrase as any of the following possibilities:
| G2 BG DGBG | (how I learned it in Sligo Maids)
| G2 BG DGBd | (how I learned it in Maude Millar)
| G2 BG cGBG | (how it appears in Brenda McMahon's, aka Tommy Peoples')
| G~B3 GBdB | (the Ballintore Fancy)
And so on. Then you start to add in your own ideas. Take just the first half of the phrase. Off the top of my head, you could do:
| DGBG dGBG |
| (3GGG BG dGBG |
| D~G3 dGBG |
| G~B3 dGBG |
| GABG dGBG |
| FGBG dGBG |
| G2 (3BAG dGBG |
| GB (3ABc dGBG |
etc.
It's particularly worthwhile to tinker with the stock phrases like this because they appear in so many tunes, and you'll have plenty of opportunities to use your favorite variations.
Another idea that helps when getting started on building variations is to focus on just one part of the tune--say the first half--and leave the other part(s) alone. This gives you a "rest" each time through the tune, where you play a part basically on auto pilot and then throw variations into the other part. Once this feels comfortable, switch it around, playing variations in the once stable part, and playing the other part the same each time through. Eventually you'll have variations to incorporate into each part.
And ditto what Zina said: don't be afraid to just play the tune, simply and well.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I don't really see the point of trying to put in variations just for the sake of putting in variations. You will, given enough time playing and listening, get to the point where the music doesn't make sense without variation. Even calling this "variation" is misleading, as the tunes are fluid things. There really is no "fixed" thing to "vary" in the first place.
If a good player learns a tune, s/he will most likely adapt the tune almost immediately to fit his or her playing. I don't think this is adding variations, though. This is style. Some peoples' style is to play the tune pretty much the same way everytime, whatever that way might be. Some people try to give the overall shape to a set of tunes, e.g. Martin Hayes, by adding more each time through and by varying dynamics.
So to answer the question, best to learn more tunes, I think. When they become fluid and you realize that you changed something without thinking about it, then you can think about variation - but then you won't have to think about it!
Chris
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Chris McGrath
Re: Varying Ornamentation
Hmmm...I don't think of it as adding variation "just for the sake of putting in variations." It's all part of letting the tune come alive, with your own flavor added. Specifically, it's about bringing out the _lift_ of the tune.
And it's "variation" in the sense of changing the basic setting you learn in the first place. Less experienced players tend to lump a sequence of notes or phrases together as the basic form of the tune and play that over and over because their attention is still wrapped around technical challenges, keeping a steady rhythm, producing a clear tone, etc. After several years of this it can be hard to break out of the rut. So I think it *can* help to spend some time toying with variations, intentionally, and exploring the musical ideas that other players use to give lift and interest to a tune.
To each his own, and I agree that Chris's approach can work too. I just don't think there's any harm in being more deliberate about it.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
My method is pain-staking and time consuming - which is why, alas, I don't do it nearly as often as I should.
I take several different recordings of a tune and park myself next to my CD player with my flute and nit-pick thru the different settings with the pause and reverse buttons for hours on end. That way I see, "Oh, Mary Bergin does a triplet here, Mike McHale cuts into that note, Catherine McEvoy does a short roll, Paddy Carty takes a breath, etc, etc, etc..."
This helps me in two ways: It exposes me to how many different ways the same phrase can be played, and broadens my own mind to the possibilies that I can use elsewhere in other tunes.
I hope this helps, although I wouldn't wish this obsessiveness on anyone...
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by browndog
Re: Varying Ornamentation
Well, now we have the whole spectrum, from "play the tunes and it'll come to you" to "analyze the masters phrase by phrase and learn what they do."
It's all good. Go with what suits you.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I agree with much of what has already been said by Zina and Will. I would add that dynamics can be really useful. Listen to the way paddy canny uses phrasing and dynamic changes.
Another neat trick, which I first heard an all Ireland winning fiddler use in a touring concert here in Dundee, was in the second bar of the tune the red bee (the way I play it):
K: Bmin
|:f(B{d}B)B cBAc|dBc(B {d}BA)FE|
becomes
|:f(B{d}B)B cBAc|(cd)c(B {d}BA)FE|
this little melodic variation can be used in many many tunes and when you get used to putting it in adlib, it is highly effective. What is effectively happening is the tonic (or a note from the chord of the tonic) is held back by the addition of a sliding note (in this case the first "c" of the second bar) which then slurred into the "held back" note.
Indeed, I've just been listening to Oisin MacDiarmada while having a shower, and noticed that he uses it very frequently. He also ties notes (dropping the cuts or bow changes) across the beat and bar lines which adds to the flowing melodic line.
Does that make sense?
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Jamie
Re: Varying Ornamentation
P.S. I've heard a number of good musicians (Kevin Burke, Vassar Clements, Mark O'Connor, Martin Hayes) say something along the lines of: "I love this music. I hope I'm playing the same tunes 20 years from now. But I hope I'm not playing them the same way."
In my early years, that used to really get under my skin and irritate me, because I felt like I was stuck playing the same tunes the same way for an eternity. I suppose that's a big part of what drove me to learn new tunes and to listen closely to other musicians.
It takes time--years of listening, mostly, and trying different things in your own playing--but eventually you reach a point where technique issues fade away and the tunes are simply musical experiences, to be shaped by your mood, the energy level in the room, your session mates, etc. And you'll have the tools to express yourself in the music, so it necessarily comes out different every time you play. It gets to the point where it takes real concentration to play a tune the same way twice, say, when teaching it to others.
So I say the urge to vary things is a healthy indication that you're ready to go totally obsessive over the music and immerse yourself in tunes and styles and the sounds of different instruments and all the rest. Go for it.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
Jamie, I love that little delay--coming in "late" by slurring from the previous note. It's a strong feature of lots of today's fiddlers--Ciaran Tourish, Kevin Burke, Martin Hayes, Brendan Bulger. You don't hear it so much in the old masters, but Bobby Casey did it, sparingly. My guess is that it's grown more popular since the rise of button box and piano accordion.
To me, it's just another way of tweaking the timing of how the melody falls on the rhtyhm of the tune, which is what most "variations" are all about in this music. Good on you for bringing it up! For Dave, it's a highly effective technique on concertina as well.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I think Chris McGrath's posting is the best one here, though I'm dissapointed with bkessler's.
I think the point about what we call variations is that they are not really variations at all, they are the tune itself. It's one of the problems about peoples obsessions with writing tunes down, you get to a state where you think the written version is the tune, and anything else you do with it is the variation. But in actual fact it's the other way round, the written version is "a" variation and all your so called variations "is" the tune. The amount of improvisation/variation is the essence of this diddley stuff. That's one of the reasons you can't write it down.›
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: Varying Ornamentation
...I agree, but it seems to suggest that playing a tune the same every time is wrong - which it is not.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by ragaman
Re: Varying Ornamentation
And of course your disappointment is a leading cause of suicide and despair among your many fans, Michael... ;)
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Varying Ornamentation
LOL, I didn't realize this was an essay competition (and who appointed MG judge and jury?).
Of course there are lots of ways to approach this topic, and Chris's suits Michael. Great. As a music teacher, I've found many people want and need more step-by-step help. Chris's advice is insightful and useful, but, as he says, it tends to apply more to "good players," people who already get it. Someone who doesn't "get it" might even resent the implication that the fluidity of tunes can't be taught, or that some mystic talent is required. In reality, the kinds of changes common to most trad players' repertoires are relatively small rhythmic or melodic twists, rarely as substantive as they are in jazz or even bluegrass.
I'm glad we have a diversity of views here, and I wouldn't say any one perspective is necessarily better than another.
There's also some overlap with the thread about making every tune a masterpiece. Even "good players" sometimes are so struck by the simple melody line of a tune that they leave it alone, and they might play it that way for years. Surely there's room in most sessions for playing essentially the same setting of a tune week in, week out, until it changes of its own accord. Some nights, I just want to soak my nose in a pint and let the tunes fall where they may. Other nights, I'm in a more adventurous mood. Most nights my playing changes simply because I'm listening to the players around me and responding to their playing. Sessions are great for encouraging unplanned forays into the unfamiliar. But it's all good.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I've been thinking about this myself lately. I think of ornaments and variations as a way to find a personal connection with a tune - something that makes it "mine" and not a repetition of something I heard somebody else do. I aim for something subtle enough so nobody would say it's my own "version", but interesting enough to play that the tune doesn't bore me.
The method (theoretically) is to take a tune I really love but haven't learned to play that suggests interesting ornaments and variations when I lilt it, (either out loud or in my brain). Then I learn the notes dry, then I pull out all the phrases I wanted to fool around with and play them several times, never doing the same thing twice. Then I put the whole tune back together and play it a few times, again trying something different each time.
I don't use tunes I already know because it's frustrating trying to disconnect my automated fingering. The variations I come up with tend to infect my older tunes through osmosis anyway.
# Posted on June 3rd 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Varying Ornamentation
Wow! I didn't mean to offend or frustrate anyone. Let me clarify a few points . . .
I don't think there's anything wrong with playing a tune the same way every time. I know lots of "good players" who do this. If this is part of your "style", then there you go. Different people understand music in different ways, on a lot of different levels - intellectual, spiritual, social, etc., and all of these variables will effect one's style. So consider that you might be the kind of person who is better suited to a style that incorporates little or no variation.
If you do want the variation thing . . . I think that Will (and others?) made a good point that deliberate work on variations can be a productive thing. But to really understand why you're doing the variations at all takes years of experience and knowledge of loads of tunes. I'm not exactly suggesting that this can't be taught - better to say that it CAN be learned. But not too fast. It's the process (practicing, playing in sessions, listening to good music, etc.) that's important to focus on, not the goal. It's a zen kind of thing - as you sit practicing, one day, when you least expect it, the buddhist monk sneaks up behind you and whacks you on the back of the head with a broomstick, and voila! It all makes sense! Except that you can't quite explain it to somebody who hasn't gone through the process . . . There's no way of KNOWING without going through the process.
And sure, folks sign up to be monks all the time knowing that enlightenment may or may not come - it's the journey toward it that matters.
Chris
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Chris McGrath
Re: Varying Ornamentation
wha? who's offended?
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Varying Ornamentation
C'mon Kerri, we've got Chris on the run. Now's our chance to WIN!
Naw, no one's offended, mate. Crikey, we're just gettin' warmed up.
Mastery of music falls into the Govinda complex of syndromes. You can only attain it by not seeking it. The harder you look for it, the more blind to it you'll become. Agreed.
But even monks spend years practicing little rituals designed to at once distract them from the quest _and_ implant certain skills and attitudes that will carry them further down the road. I think that the deliberate work on variations (for lack of a better word) can function the same way.
Agreed also that there are no short cuts to *being* a musician--it takes time to experience all that goes into becoming a musician to actually *be* a musician. No try, only do. Like it was explained at Clown College (no lie), either you're funny or you're not. Acting, behaving, or even being funny is not the same as just funny. It's the difference between Adam Sandler (who tries awfully hard to be funny) and Robin Williams, who is funny even when he tries not to be.
BTW, my Buddhist monk whacked me with a fiddle bow.
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
My favorite Yoda quote! I love it! Just got a great cheezy poster idea - "Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Zen I learned From Star Wars"...
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I do variations all the time... well ok... they're mistakes actually -- but technically they ARE “variations”. (If Will looks up the word maybe he’ll see I’m right.) Some of us perform “variations” while others simply do them. I do my variations only for my own enjoyment and not to entertain drunks. If I do a variation, but I didn’t intend to, is it a “performance” of a variation or just a “variation”? These are intriguing questions huh.
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I think if your performance of a variation is improvisational and unintentional, you're dangerously close to the noodle threshold... better watch it or you might have to get a mirror and glare at yourself!
;^)
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Varying Ornamentation
But Kerri, is it a "noodle" if you weren't "performing" a noodle? I mean, if you perform a noodle in a forest and there's no session to perform it in, is it a noodle or some other kind of pasta?
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Varying Ornamentation
LOL
Well if your noodle is trying to perform in my dense forest I certainly won't be around to hear it...
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I am struck by the ability of some of the great players to play variations which are substantially different from any widely recognised version of the tune, yet somehow stay within the boundaries* of that tune, making it instantly recogniseable as such. Certain tunes are inherently easy to vary(variate?), but it is also easy to get carried away with the variations so that, while perhaps adhering to the overall structure, the essence of the tune is lost, becoming a sort of lokshen soup.
*Do the tunes really have boundaries, marked by, say, a title or a range of different settings, or are they merely points on a multi-dimensional continuum? I know it sounds pompous, but I couldn't think of a better way of putting it.
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by ragaman
Re: Varying Ornamentation
I have a friend who gets bored with the tunes very quickly and decides to do variations. The irony is that his tunes all start sounding more alike when he does that. Defeats his own purpose if you ask me. (I realize this thread is about varying the ornamentation and not the melody, but it seems to drift that direction here and there and reminded me of this.)
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Varying Ornamentation
David, not mere points. The tunes *are* the multi-dimensional continuum.
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Varying Ornamentation
What I mean by points is, when we play a partcular tune in a particular way, that tune is representative of a point somewhere on that continuum of tunestuff. In theory, there are an infinite number of points, or tunes. There are just not enough minutes in 6 billion lifetimes to play them all - much less *learn* them all.
If, as you say, Will, tunes are not points, then can a tune be said to exist at all as a discrete entity?
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by ragaman
Re: Varying Ornamentation
Isn't that how jazz is made? Take away all the melody until all you have left is harmony and/or improvization.
# Posted on June 4th 2004 by rocking bow