As I was reading on Jack Gilder's website http://www.tipsyhouse.com I saw this: "...the lads simply love the music for what it is rather than what they can make it into."
That reminded me of a post regarding Lunasa made a ways back. I found it: "They are just not up to creating something new. It's a shame."
That set me thinking. I don't think it's a good idea to create something new all the time. At least not something radically new. I think it's really great that Lunasa didn't come up with some radical new invention of the music (at least not as radical as some, like the Bothy Band and Planxty) The tradition gives lots of room for moving around, and freedom do to what you want, but if everybody does something new, pushing the tradition farther and farther, won't it just crumble? I mean, if every band was a new Bothy Band, totally changing how we hear the music, it seems like it would get chaotic.
I'm interested to know what others think about this.
I disagree about Lunasa, Max. I think their material is a radical change - so much so I was reluctant to put Otherworld beside my Altan, Bothy Band, and Connerys CDs. Maybe I'm even more conservative than you.
I think the point was made on another thread that the big bands are not the tradition. Their innovation, no matter how dramatic, shouldn't cause the tradition to crumble.
Greg, big bands are not the tradition but they are part of it, and they have a huge impact on it. All I was saying was that they did not make as radical a change as the Bothy Band did. Otherworld has lots of radical material, but that's not really Lunasa. Otherworld is full of studio trickery and multi-tracking and stuff, giving a false impression of the band. The Kinnitty Sessions is a good example of the real Lunasa. Listening to that, and the Bothy Band albums, you can see that Lunasa is not changing the way people hear trad the way that the Bothy Band did. They are following in their footsteps, making changes, but not completley diverting the path.
I think it's a crime to second guess a creative inspiration of any sort Max. If I suddenly get the idea that I absolutely *must*, without delay, record a flamenco guitar and tabla version of Maid Behind the Bar with yiddish performance poetry throughout, well, I just have to do it. Lofty philosophical questions about contributing to the crumbledom of ITM won't cross my mind. If I start dismissing creative lightening bolts because of some arbitrary set of standards and regulations they will stop coming.
Ultimately we all have to decide what we want to do with our music. As long as you follow your heart you'll be fine. For myself, I wouldn't play the Monaghan jig to Moroccan 6/8 rhythm with tars, dumbeks, and handclaps unless I was calling it something other than ITM. It's important that one doesn't mislead the listener about the music you're either interpreting or inventing. Case in point was the way “River Dance” promoted itself as "Traditional Irish Music and Dance" on it's first U.S. tour. This led to great misconceptions from the public about what exactly ITM was, and an outcry forced them to change their publicity.
I don't think the tradition will ever suffer because of musical innovation. There will be experimentaion and innovation to the nth degree, some of it will be absolute crap and in truly awful taste (no names here, that will only start another debate), some of it will be clever, brilliant, uplifting and in perfect taste. All on a subjective level, of course.
There will always be the clever and carefree innovators, just like there will always be the die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists who will find their pleasure and their own level in the variations and varied settings of the "diddly". Nothing wrong with that, either.
Michael Gill summed it up perfectly when so many times he called it "diddly", because essentially that's what it is. It's a great form of music to play, and it ranges from easy-to-moderately- difficult to play, for the average amateur / moderately skilled musician. And when you play it well, some people will dance to it. What more do you want?
Change will continue to happen. If you like it, then good. If you don't, no harm done.
Kerri, I'm not trying to set an arbitrary set of standards and regulations, I'm just trying to say that I don't think creating something totally new is a necesary element of a good band, for example, Lunasa. You can follow in someones footsteps without completely copying them. The Bothy Band created this new image of ITM, and now Lunasa is developing it, and carrying it on.
BTW -- all my posts are coming from a 15 year old kid in California that is new to ITM. I'm not trying to pretend that I know a lot, so if I'm wrong, please help me out.
Jim, we must have been posting at the same time. I know that change will continue to happen, and I'm not trying to stop it, like Seamus O Dubhthaigh. But don't you think that a band shoudn't be looked down upon just because it hasn't made anything new? That was kind of my initial question.
Max - a band should be judged primarily on its musical merits at any time. It doesn't have to be persistenly innovative to be 'good' or 'cool' or 'better' than anyone else.
In short, music itself doesn't have to be innovative to be good. Jimi Hendrix was good. He was also innovative. His music is still good today. I also like the guitar work of Doc Watson. Not particularly innovative, especially juxtaposed with Hendrix, but good all the same.
I think what makes a good band is a sound of their own. Doesn't matter so much whether it's innovative as long as it's personal and heartfelt.
What I meant Max is that you're right on about Lunasa picking up the ball where the Bothy Band put it down. I'm reminded of a quote by Matt Malloy when he first saw Lunasa. They were playing at his pub and he said, "Reminds me of a band I was in." Another way to think of it is that the Bothy Band pushed the envelope, and Lunasa are pushing the same envelope a little further along.
I think traditional music is in a very healthy state at the moment, thanks, in part, to The Bothy Band, Planxty, Moving Hearts, Lunasa etc. They are what stops it from becoming stuck in time and ending up in a museum. Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, on the other hand, is what keeps progress in check, an stops the music from turning into Indo-Afro-Celtic-acid-death-trance-jungle-AOR-jazz-fusion.
No, Max, I didn't think you were trying to suggest we shouldn't be innovative or imposing your own ideas, don't worry. Just expressing my own opinion, questioning the question of questioning innovation.
;^)
I don't think anybody needs to *try* to be innovative in order to be good. *Trying* to be innovative is a great way to ensure something is going to suck. Now, if you happen to simply *be* innovative, then trying *not* to be innovative will make your work suck.
Kerri, I think I agree with your statement above about "trying" to be innovative. It brings to mind terrible student artwork from my college days. Not my own artwork, of course. ;o)
Of course! I write songs. The ones that work are the ones that aren't forced - they just emerge while I'm having a bit of craic with my guitar. The ones that stink are the ones where I decide "OK, I am going to write a song about ______, with a ______ rhythm, and be creative in THIS particular way." I've decided creativity comes from the heart, not the brain, so I guess I'm not in a position to philosophise about whether innovation is good or bad.
It was through Lunasa that I got to know ITM. But, it was Sean Smyth who encouraged me in person to go to Ireland to listen to the real traditional music.
I'm really conservative now and so hesitate to think Lunasa counts as mainstream. Of course, they are great on the stage, but that's something different from what I've been seeing and listening to in small villages in Co. Clare or here in Yorkshire.
Yeah, some bands are stars in ITM world, but it is also true lots of young musicians now try to record very old-fashioned music intentionally avoiding recent compositions and trendy tunes.
I can't satisfactorily put what I've been thinking into words, but I think big popular, experimental bands are not standing at the centre of ITM but rather on the periphery. Do you know what I mean?
Innovation = great!
Conservative = also great!
Doing your own thing with the music = Great!
Trying to emulate what other musicians did before = great!
ITM = great!
The wonder of the music is that it changes and stays the same. I love to hear new takes on tunes, new arrangements, new instruments, BUT I am also glad for the musicians who hanker after a consistency, and a sameness that is comforting and certain in it's simplicity.
As long as we still have an uncorrupted well into which we all can dip then who cares what happens outside the well. Just enjoy it.
It's not Lunasa that bug me, they're really good players, it's when people say to you about how they've never heard anything like it. It's like I was chatting to this young thing the other day and he was saying how much he enjoyed a Gomez gig he went to. I said fine, but give me Tom Waits any day. And he said "Tom who?"
Great band, greg. I don't think they're anything like Tom Waits. Nobody is anything like Tom Waits, really. I've never heard anything like him. Or Gomez.
Change
Change
As I was reading on Jack Gilder's website http://www.tipsyhouse.com I saw this: "...the lads simply love the music for what it is rather than what they can make it into."
That reminded me of a post regarding Lunasa made a ways back. I found it: "They are just not up to creating something new. It's a shame."
That set me thinking. I don't think it's a good idea to create something new all the time. At least not something radically new. I think it's really great that Lunasa didn't come up with some radical new invention of the music (at least not as radical as some, like the Bothy Band and Planxty) The tradition gives lots of room for moving around, and freedom do to what you want, but if everybody does something new, pushing the tradition farther and farther, won't it just crumble? I mean, if every band was a new Bothy Band, totally changing how we hear the music, it seems like it would get chaotic.
I'm interested to know what others think about this.
-Max
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
So Max, you have a problem with chaos?
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Change
I disagree about Lunasa, Max. I think their material is a radical change - so much so I was reluctant to put Otherworld beside my Altan, Bothy Band, and Connerys CDs. Maybe I'm even more conservative than you.
I think the point was made on another thread that the big bands are not the tradition. Their innovation, no matter how dramatic, shouldn't cause the tradition to crumble.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by grego
Re: Change
Will, wasn't Maxwell Smart with Chaos?
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Robby B.
Re: Change
Greg, big bands are not the tradition but they are part of it, and they have a huge impact on it. All I was saying was that they did not make as radical a change as the Bothy Band did. Otherworld has lots of radical material, but that's not really Lunasa. Otherworld is full of studio trickery and multi-tracking and stuff, giving a false impression of the band. The Kinnitty Sessions is a good example of the real Lunasa. Listening to that, and the Bothy Band albums, you can see that Lunasa is not changing the way people hear trad the way that the Bothy Band did. They are following in their footsteps, making changes, but not completley diverting the path.
Do I make sense, or am I sounding really stupid?
-Max
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
You make great sense, Max. I must listen to the Kinnitty Sessions.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by grego
Re: Change
I think it's a crime to second guess a creative inspiration of any sort Max. If I suddenly get the idea that I absolutely *must*, without delay, record a flamenco guitar and tabla version of Maid Behind the Bar with yiddish performance poetry throughout, well, I just have to do it. Lofty philosophical questions about contributing to the crumbledom of ITM won't cross my mind. If I start dismissing creative lightening bolts because of some arbitrary set of standards and regulations they will stop coming.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Change
Ultimately we all have to decide what we want to do with our music. As long as you follow your heart you'll be fine. For myself, I wouldn't play the Monaghan jig to Moroccan 6/8 rhythm with tars, dumbeks, and handclaps unless I was calling it something other than ITM. It's important that one doesn't mislead the listener about the music you're either interpreting or inventing. Case in point was the way “River Dance” promoted itself as "Traditional Irish Music and Dance" on it's first U.S. tour. This led to great misconceptions from the public about what exactly ITM was, and an outcry forced them to change their publicity.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Change
And led to requests at sessions like "Can you guys play 'Riverdance'?"
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Change
'Or something from "Titanic"?'
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Change
Exactly!
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Change
I don't think the tradition will ever suffer because of musical innovation. There will be experimentaion and innovation to the nth degree, some of it will be absolute crap and in truly awful taste (no names here, that will only start another debate), some of it will be clever, brilliant, uplifting and in perfect taste. All on a subjective level, of course.
There will always be the clever and carefree innovators, just like there will always be the die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists who will find their pleasure and their own level in the variations and varied settings of the "diddly". Nothing wrong with that, either.
Michael Gill summed it up perfectly when so many times he called it "diddly", because essentially that's what it is. It's a great form of music to play, and it ranges from easy-to-moderately- difficult to play, for the average amateur / moderately skilled musician. And when you play it well, some people will dance to it. What more do you want?
Change will continue to happen. If you like it, then good. If you don't, no harm done.
Jim
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Change
Kerri, I'm not trying to set an arbitrary set of standards and regulations, I'm just trying to say that I don't think creating something totally new is a necesary element of a good band, for example, Lunasa. You can follow in someones footsteps without completely copying them. The Bothy Band created this new image of ITM, and now Lunasa is developing it, and carrying it on.
BTW -- all my posts are coming from a 15 year old kid in California that is new to ITM. I'm not trying to pretend that I know a lot, so if I'm wrong, please help me out.
-Max
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
Max, your lineage from Bothy Band to Lunasa is right on.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Change
Jim, we must have been posting at the same time. I know that change will continue to happen, and I'm not trying to stop it, like Seamus O Dubhthaigh. But don't you think that a band shoudn't be looked down upon just because it hasn't made anything new? That was kind of my initial question.
-Max
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
Jack, what do you mean? That I am right in saying that Lunasa is taking what the Bothy Band did further?
Sorry, I just can't tell from your post.
-Max
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
Max - a band should be judged primarily on its musical merits at any time. It doesn't have to be persistenly innovative to be 'good' or 'cool' or 'better' than anyone else.
Jim
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Change
That's what I was thinking.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
In short, music itself doesn't have to be innovative to be good. Jimi Hendrix was good. He was also innovative. His music is still good today. I also like the guitar work of Doc Watson. Not particularly innovative, especially juxtaposed with Hendrix, but good all the same.
I think what makes a good band is a sound of their own. Doesn't matter so much whether it's innovative as long as it's personal and heartfelt.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Will CPT
Re: Change
What I meant Max is that you're right on about Lunasa picking up the ball where the Bothy Band put it down. I'm reminded of a quote by Matt Malloy when he first saw Lunasa. They were playing at his pub and he said, "Reminds me of a band I was in." Another way to think of it is that the Bothy Band pushed the envelope, and Lunasa are pushing the same envelope a little further along.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Change
So Max, your Bothy Band CDs finally came through then?
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Dow
Re: Change
Yeah Jack, that's a good way to put it.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
Oops Dow, I must have posted just as you did. Yep! Afterhours, Out of the Wind into the Sun and Live in Concert (my favorite). I love 'em!
-Max
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Max Becher
Re: Change
I think traditional music is in a very healthy state at the moment, thanks, in part, to The Bothy Band, Planxty, Moving Hearts, Lunasa etc. They are what stops it from becoming stuck in time and ending up in a museum. Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann, on the other hand, is what keeps progress in check, an stops the music from turning into Indo-Afro-Celtic-acid-death-trance-jungle-AOR-jazz-fusion.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by granama
Re: Change
No, Max, I didn't think you were trying to suggest we shouldn't be innovative or imposing your own ideas, don't worry. Just expressing my own opinion, questioning the question of questioning innovation.
;^)
I don't think anybody needs to *try* to be innovative in order to be good. *Trying* to be innovative is a great way to ensure something is going to suck. Now, if you happen to simply *be* innovative, then trying *not* to be innovative will make your work suck.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Change
Kerri, I think I agree with your statement above about "trying" to be innovative. It brings to mind terrible student artwork from my college days. Not my own artwork, of course. ;o)
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Andee
Re: Change
Of course! I write songs. The ones that work are the ones that aren't forced - they just emerge while I'm having a bit of craic with my guitar. The ones that stink are the ones where I decide "OK, I am going to write a song about ______, with a ______ rhythm, and be creative in THIS particular way." I've decided creativity comes from the heart, not the brain, so I guess I'm not in a position to philosophise about whether innovation is good or bad.
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Change
Bothy Band built the envelope. Like it or not, Lunasa are still in it. (but, heck, if you're gonna choose an envelope?)
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: Change
If the Bothy Band built the envelope, can Lunasa be the stamp that boldly takes the envelope where no envelope has gone before?
Or is that pushing it? Envelope-wise, at least?
:>
# Posted on June 8th 2004 by Q
Re: Change
It was through Lunasa that I got to know ITM. But, it was Sean Smyth who encouraged me in person to go to Ireland to listen to the real traditional music.
I'm really conservative now and so hesitate to think Lunasa counts as mainstream. Of course, they are great on the stage, but that's something different from what I've been seeing and listening to in small villages in Co. Clare or here in Yorkshire.
Yeah, some bands are stars in ITM world, but it is also true lots of young musicians now try to record very old-fashioned music intentionally avoiding recent compositions and trendy tunes.
I can't satisfactorily put what I've been thinking into words, but I think big popular, experimental bands are not standing at the centre of ITM but rather on the periphery. Do you know what I mean?
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by slainte
Re: Change
True enough, and they make great ambassadors for bringing people into the fold who can later scorn them the way I now scorn Ashley MacIsaac.
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Change
Innovation = great!
Conservative = also great!
Doing your own thing with the music = Great!
Trying to emulate what other musicians did before = great!
ITM = great!
The wonder of the music is that it changes and stays the same. I love to hear new takes on tunes, new arrangements, new instruments, BUT I am also glad for the musicians who hanker after a consistency, and a sameness that is comforting and certain in it's simplicity.
As long as we still have an uncorrupted well into which we all can dip then who cares what happens outside the well. Just enjoy it.
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by breandan
Re: Change
It's not Lunasa that bug me, they're really good players, it's when people say to you about how they've never heard anything like it. It's like I was chatting to this young thing the other day and he was saying how much he enjoyed a Gomez gig he went to. I said fine, but give me Tom Waits any day. And he said "Tom who?"
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: Change
Gomez who?
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by grego
Re: Change
Great band, greg. I don't think they're anything like Tom Waits. Nobody is anything like Tom Waits, really. I've never heard anything like him. Or Gomez.
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by Kerri Brown
Re: Change
How long does Tom wait for Gomez?
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Change
um......yay! yay! yay! hurray for positive thinking! it IS great...
Change......
Conservation,
Preservation,
Innovation,
Heart,
Impulse...
Knowledge
Wisdom
Respect
It's all part of the great Drumbeat in the Sky..
,.but y'know, ya gotta watch them young california sproggets.....them's sharp cookies
( BTW jmh: no,i ain't bin smokin!! hahaha)
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by vboyd100
Re: Change
Tom Waits for no one
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: Change
how did you get that square, Michael?
# Posted on June 9th 2004 by Q