Following a question on an earlier discussion, what do you think is the most difficult type of tune to play? Given that there are musicians on this site who play music other than Irish Traditional, I'll include tune types from other genres.
I should think it would vary from one instrument to another.
For the fiddle, I'd vote for the slow air, but not because I think it's technically easy; it only looks that way. For me it's much more technically challenging to produce the sort of clear, resonant tone you need to play a slow air well than it is to learn how to play a string of notes rapidly and clearly.
On the other hand, for the harp, I'd reverse the vote and say a fast tune that requires rapid, clear articulation of notes. Especially if you play bronze-strung and have to damp. :p ("Why yes, ma'am, I do normally have to stop and unwrap the strings from around my fingers when I play that tune.")
sorry, I was being a little faceacious there. What I meant to refer to was the difference between playing music and mastering technique. Playing fast is a good example. I'll be specific: Eileen Ivers sure is a cracking fiddle player, don't care much for her music thoughd
Anything slow, soulful, and requiring vibrato, because I don't have any...
Bach ... on the fiddle. I can slide with some of the Partitas on the mandolin, but there's no hiding on the viloin.
Lastly, I struggle with any reading that involves dotted quarter and sixteenth notes. Like some polkas. Tune that are relatively easy to play by ear, but impossible to read and count. What's wrong with me!?
depends very much on the instrument. Slides and polkas on a banjo can be a real pain to get right, but fall to a fiddle very easy. If the tune was composed on the instrument that you are learning it on it tends to be easier
Learning to play an unfamiliar hornpipe crisply and without overswinging the rhythm demands more focus from me than when I am learning new tunes in other forms.
anything that has cursed *plet runs in them that are mean and too fast. plus my flute teacher makes me put down the Eb key on the flute, even though it does nothing but make the tone clearer, but who can hear the tone when the note is so fast you cant discern tone?
other than that all irish tunes are hard for me. i can do jigs pretty well... but reels, and hornpipes and slip jigs are harder. i dont see why all tunes just cant be jigs, haha, ^_^. its just cuz i dont have the rhythms in my head, though. the neagh, so i bought myself a minidisc player and any chance i get i pipe ITM through the headphones to get them shamrocks in my blood better. too much bothy band tho, haha. i mean, i dont have a problem with it... but i'm starting to only get bothy band tunes stuck in my head, even if i havent listened to them all day and listened to someone else. i want balanced craziness.
i had no idea how little i could play slip jigs until i tried to learn michael gorman's on "old hag you have killed me". minus the ornamentation and triplets (i think) that matt molloy does i'm having a lot of trouble with the second ending to that tune. i almost got it, but it took me a while. i was trying to lilt / diddle along with the recording to get it in my head a couple days ago, and i couldnt. but then, i let it keep playing once to the tune cunla...
i had never consciously listened to cunla before, yet i could lilt the whole thing along with it, but i couldnt lilt gorman's at all even though i'd been listening to it for days.
ok, so this all had very little to do with the thread, but i just started thinking about that infernal slip jig and i lost myself. ignore it and get mad at eachother on the way to play hornpipes or something. you could get mad at me for somethign i said about slip jigs but i didnt say how i was trying to play them so i'm safe for now.
On the whistle.....hmmm.....I wouldn't say that difficulty is slightly harder with one form or another, it's really the tune-what notes it has, how fast it's supposed to go etc. For example, Rip the Calico (a reel) is quite a hard tune to play well as it's fast with triplets, but Teetotalers (also a reel) is really quite easy.
Interesting thread here. I have come to the conclusion that subconsciously there are tunes which sound grand but in the end are not meant for you personally and it's these pieces that give the most trouble in the playing. One tends to learn tunes which are popular at a given time for the sake of being able to play them with other people, but is that the right criterium?
I wrote a tune 30 years ago which I found impossible to play, it sounds grand when put into notation and played electronically. Maybe there is someone out there who takes to the piece naturally and finds it relatively easy, would be interesting to hear.
I think I'd exclude (slow) airs from this question on the grounds that they are of too variable a format to be tied down - if you submit a slow air in the tunes section you almost always have to force the darn thing into some specious "waltz" format and then post a comment that you mustn't play it as a waltz! Anyway, slow airs aren't really dance tunes, but more songs. So let's restrict the question to reels, jigs (of the various kinds - 6/8,9/8,12/8), hornpipes, polkas, highlands, barndances, and mazurkas.
In my experience as a fiddle player I'd point the finger at reels as demanding the most work to get up to a standard suitable for playing in a session or gig. They are usually intended to be played quickly, have more notes than most other tunes, need a lot of thought regarding bowing, can have fairly complex internal structures, and give more scope for ornamentation than the other common tune types. Having said that, I'd add that the Donegal highlands and the strathspeys are quite capable of coming up fast on the blind side.
Trevor
Generally I find reels the hardest but there are exceptions. The Blue Angel aka King's Favourite (jig) is very hard; the Wind that shakes the Barley (reel) I find relatively easy.
Looking beyond ITM bowing is hard in Scottish music because of the 'scottish snap'. I never liked strathspeys anyway...
I find reels the most difficult to play. It’s a challenge for me to give the rhythm the subtle lift that can make a really good tune sparkle, without overdoing the bounce into a hornpipe-a-rama.
The standard for application and usage of the modifiers "really" and "quite" is really quite variable from region to region. Some regions apply a loose standard of reallys per number of words yet the quites are let fly; others restrict quites per clause while yet others regard really as quite, quite as really, then restrict both within compound complex sentences. Quite shameful really!
I quite understand multiple application of both modifiers when discussing the music, especially reels. I personally quit using quite quite so much as really regarding reels, but hornpipes really ratchet up my usage of really, really quite, quite and quite really quite a bit in my discussions. Should I care? Not really. Enforcement is quite lax; penalties really nonexistent.
I find some of the unusual French Canadian timings hard to follow, sometimes it sounds like they have missed a bit, but if the whole band is doing it ,it must be correct. 5/4s etc....
On the mandolin, the easiest tunes to play tend to be those which are made up predominantly of equal note values - e.g. jigs and reels - as they allow a steady, repetitive picking pattern. Triplets, once you get used to them, can be thrown in quite easily, without disturbing the pattern. The greater the variety of rhythmic building blocks, the more difficult it is to pick. Consequently polkas, with their assorted quavers and semiquavers, can be tricky. Hornpipes with long triplet runs can also be difficult, especially where the triplets cross strings (Triplets in Horpipes are often more integral to the tune that they are in jigs and reels, and are consequently more difficult to leave out).
For variety of note groupings, however, strathspeys win hands down. In addition to the Scotch snaps and reversed Scotch snaps (which must *not* sound like triplet-based groupings), you need to get your pick hand round triplets, semiquaver runs and undotted quaver groupings. Most Irish settings of strathspeys have undergon some degree of rhythmic simplification - not without good reason.
Reels for most instruments just because they can be really difficult and are the fastest. On GHBs though it would have to be Hornpipes because they are always written in 2/4 and it confuses the hell out of me going from 2/2 to 2/4.
I don't think ragas (per se) aren't difficult - they just need patience and lots of concentration.
GHBs are Great Highland bagpipes - like what you play when you go to war, or want to empty a session in a Dublin pub, want to steal somebody's busking patch, or head towards a divorce.....
According to many Indian music masters, you have to be reincarnated as an Indian musician a few times before you can really play that stuff. I prefer to learn music that can be played in one lifetime, myself.
I hate those bloody pipes, Unseen 122, a hornpipe in England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Wales and Spain are played in Hornpipe time which is 4/4 timing.
Name Time Signature Rhythm
Polka 2/2 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 ...
Waltz 3/4 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 ....
Reel 4/4 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 ...
Hornpipe 4/4 1-,2,3-,4,1-,2,3-,4 ...
Jig 6/8 1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6 ...
It's these GHB hornpipes that are actually more like reels that cause the problems. Somewhere along the years of GHB composing, somebody decided to take the swing out of hornpipes and write them out in straight timings. Or more to the point, people misinterpretated the straight timings and took them at face value instead of adding the dotted rhythms themselves.
If they'd just stuck to the oral tradition.............
Most demanding tune form?
Most demanding tune form?
Following a question on an earlier discussion, what do you think is the most difficult type of tune to play? Given that there are musicians on this site who play music other than Irish Traditional, I'll include tune types from other genres.
What say youze?
Jim
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by Worldfiddler
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Smart*ss remark: ANY tune, well played.
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Most demanding tune form?
the most difficult type of tune to play is without doubt the one that you find technically the easyest. slow airs for example;
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by ...
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I should think it would vary from one instrument to another.
For the fiddle, I'd vote for the slow air, but not because I think it's technically easy; it only looks that way. For me it's much more technically challenging to produce the sort of clear, resonant tone you need to play a slow air well than it is to learn how to play a string of notes rapidly and clearly.
On the other hand, for the harp, I'd reverse the vote and say a fast tune that requires rapid, clear articulation of notes. Especially if you play bronze-strung and have to damp. :p ("Why yes, ma'am, I do normally have to stop and unwrap the strings from around my fingers when I play that tune.")
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by sara g
Re: Most demanding tune form?
sorry, I was being a little faceacious there. What I meant to refer to was the difference between playing music and mastering technique. Playing fast is a good example. I'll be specific: Eileen Ivers sure is a cracking fiddle player, don't care much for her music thoughd
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by ...
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Anything slow, soulful, and requiring vibrato, because I don't have any...
Bach ... on the fiddle. I can slide with some of the Partitas on the mandolin, but there's no hiding on the viloin.
Lastly, I struggle with any reading that involves dotted quarter and sixteenth notes. Like some polkas. Tune that are relatively easy to play by ear, but impossible to read and count. What's wrong with me!?
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by Romkey
Re: Most demanding tune form?
depends very much on the instrument. Slides and polkas on a banjo can be a real pain to get right, but fall to a fiddle very easy. If the tune was composed on the instrument that you are learning it on it tends to be easier
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by compaqjohn
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Learning to play an unfamiliar hornpipe crisply and without overswinging the rhythm demands more focus from me than when I am learning new tunes in other forms.
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by ∅
Re: Most demanding tune form?
anything that has cursed *plet runs in them that are mean and too fast. plus my flute teacher makes me put down the Eb key on the flute, even though it does nothing but make the tone clearer, but who can hear the tone when the note is so fast you cant discern tone?
other than that all irish tunes are hard for me. i can do jigs pretty well... but reels, and hornpipes and slip jigs are harder. i dont see why all tunes just cant be jigs, haha, ^_^. its just cuz i dont have the rhythms in my head, though. the neagh, so i bought myself a minidisc player and any chance i get i pipe ITM through the headphones to get them shamrocks in my blood better. too much bothy band tho, haha. i mean, i dont have a problem with it... but i'm starting to only get bothy band tunes stuck in my head, even if i havent listened to them all day and listened to someone else. i want balanced craziness.
i had no idea how little i could play slip jigs until i tried to learn michael gorman's on "old hag you have killed me". minus the ornamentation and triplets (i think) that matt molloy does i'm having a lot of trouble with the second ending to that tune. i almost got it, but it took me a while. i was trying to lilt / diddle along with the recording to get it in my head a couple days ago, and i couldnt. but then, i let it keep playing once to the tune cunla...
i had never consciously listened to cunla before, yet i could lilt the whole thing along with it, but i couldnt lilt gorman's at all even though i'd been listening to it for days.
ok, so this all had very little to do with the thread, but i just started thinking about that infernal slip jig and i lost myself. ignore it and get mad at eachother on the way to play hornpipes or something. you could get mad at me for somethign i said about slip jigs but i didnt say how i was trying to play them so i'm safe for now.
you = generic, indefinite pronoun
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by daiv
Re: Most demanding tune form?
On the whistle.....hmmm.....I wouldn't say that difficulty is slightly harder with one form or another, it's really the tune-what notes it has, how fast it's supposed to go etc. For example, Rip the Calico (a reel) is quite a hard tune to play well as it's fast with triplets, but Teetotalers (also a reel) is really quite easy.
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by Folkie Junkie
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I just re-read my comment and I can't believe how many 'reallys' and 'quites' I used!
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by Folkie Junkie
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Interesting thread here. I have come to the conclusion that subconsciously there are tunes which sound grand but in the end are not meant for you personally and it's these pieces that give the most trouble in the playing. One tends to learn tunes which are popular at a given time for the sake of being able to play them with other people, but is that the right criterium?
I wrote a tune 30 years ago which I found impossible to play, it sounds grand when put into notation and played electronically. Maybe there is someone out there who takes to the piece naturally and finds it relatively easy, would be interesting to hear.
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I think I'd exclude (slow) airs from this question on the grounds that they are of too variable a format to be tied down - if you submit a slow air in the tunes section you almost always have to force the darn thing into some specious "waltz" format and then post a comment that you mustn't play it as a waltz! Anyway, slow airs aren't really dance tunes, but more songs. So let's restrict the question to reels, jigs (of the various kinds - 6/8,9/8,12/8), hornpipes, polkas, highlands, barndances, and mazurkas.
In my experience as a fiddle player I'd point the finger at reels as demanding the most work to get up to a standard suitable for playing in a session or gig. They are usually intended to be played quickly, have more notes than most other tunes, need a lot of thought regarding bowing, can have fairly complex internal structures, and give more scope for ornamentation than the other common tune types. Having said that, I'd add that the Donegal highlands and the strathspeys are quite capable of coming up fast on the blind side.
Trevor
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Generally I find reels the hardest but there are exceptions. The Blue Angel aka King's Favourite (jig) is very hard; the Wind that shakes the Barley (reel) I find relatively easy.
Looking beyond ITM bowing is hard in Scottish music because of the 'scottish snap'. I never liked strathspeys anyway...
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by kuec
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I find reels the most difficult to play. It’s a challenge for me to give the rhythm the subtle lift that can make a really good tune sparkle, without overdoing the bounce into a hornpipe-a-rama.
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by fidkid
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Flutie,
The standard for application and usage of the modifiers "really" and "quite" is really quite variable from region to region. Some regions apply a loose standard of reallys per number of words yet the quites are let fly; others restrict quites per clause while yet others regard really as quite, quite as really, then restrict both within compound complex sentences. Quite shameful really!
I quite understand multiple application of both modifiers when discussing the music, especially reels. I personally quit using quite quite so much as really regarding reels, but hornpipes really ratchet up my usage of really, really quite, quite and quite really quite a bit in my discussions. Should I care? Not really. Enforcement is quite lax; penalties really nonexistent.
Best wishes.
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by ∅
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Strathspey by far. If you play it wrong it sounds like a 12/8 jig.
# Posted on December 30th 2004 by baxdrum
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I find some of the unusual French Canadian timings hard to follow, sometimes it sounds like they have missed a bit, but if the whole band is doing it ,it must be correct. 5/4s etc....
# Posted on December 31st 2004 by tirvaluk
Re: Most demanding tune form?
On the mandolin, the easiest tunes to play tend to be those which are made up predominantly of equal note values - e.g. jigs and reels - as they allow a steady, repetitive picking pattern. Triplets, once you get used to them, can be thrown in quite easily, without disturbing the pattern. The greater the variety of rhythmic building blocks, the more difficult it is to pick. Consequently polkas, with their assorted quavers and semiquavers, can be tricky. Hornpipes with long triplet runs can also be difficult, especially where the triplets cross strings (Triplets in Horpipes are often more integral to the tune that they are in jigs and reels, and are consequently more difficult to leave out).
For variety of note groupings, however, strathspeys win hands down. In addition to the Scotch snaps and reversed Scotch snaps (which must *not* sound like triplet-based groupings), you need to get your pick hand round triplets, semiquaver runs and undotted quaver groupings. Most Irish settings of strathspeys have undergon some degree of rhythmic simplification - not without good reason.
# Posted on December 31st 2004 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Jigs, reels, set dances, hornpipes, etc are a cakewalk compared to imitating a great sean os singer.
# Posted on December 31st 2004 by Hanley
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Quite so Laitch. I'll keep that it mind (really!). :¬D
# Posted on December 31st 2004 by Folkie Junkie
Re: Most demanding tune form?
"...imitating a great sean nos (sic) singer"
I've yet to hear that done on a mandolin. You can play slow airs using tremolo, but they'll probably end up sounding like O Sole Mio.
# Posted on December 31st 2004 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Reels for most instruments just because they can be really difficult and are the fastest. On GHBs though it would have to be Hornpipes because they are always written in 2/4 and it confuses the hell out of me going from 2/2 to 2/4.
# Posted on January 1st 2005 by Why Bother?
Re: Most demanding tune form?
Hornpipes are 4/4 time I would have thougth.
# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by compaqjohn
Re: Most demanding tune form?
They should be 4/4 or 2/2 (Cut time) but when they are written specificaly for the GHBs it is always 2/4.
# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by Why Bother?
Re: Most demanding tune form?
What are GHBS?
# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by compaqjohn
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I would think Indian Ragas would be very difficult.
# Posted on January 2nd 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I don't think ragas (per se) aren't difficult - they just need patience and lots of concentration.
GHBs are Great Highland bagpipes - like what you play when you go to war, or want to empty a session in a Dublin pub, want to steal somebody's busking patch, or head towards a divorce.....
Jim
# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: Most demanding tune form?
...I mean "I don't think ragas (per se) are difficult"
Jim
# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: Most demanding tune form?
According to many Indian music masters, you have to be reincarnated as an Indian musician a few times before you can really play that stuff. I prefer to learn music that can be played in one lifetime, myself.
# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Most demanding tune form?
"...or want to empty a session in a Dublin pub, want to steal somebody's busking patch, or head towards a divorce..."
Them fightin' words.
# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by Why Bother?
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I hate those bloody pipes, Unseen 122, a hornpipe in England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Wales and Spain are played in Hornpipe time which is 4/4 timing.
Name Time Signature Rhythm
Polka 2/2 1 and 2 and 1 and 2 ...
Waltz 3/4 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3 ....
Reel 4/4 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 ...
Hornpipe 4/4 1-,2,3-,4,1-,2,3-,4 ...
Jig 6/8 1,2,3,4,5,6,1,2,3,4,5,6 ...
# Posted on January 3rd 2005 by compaqjohn
Re: Most demanding tune form?
I know, that is why it annoys me so much.
# Posted on January 4th 2005 by Why Bother?
Re: Most demanding tune form?
It's these GHB hornpipes that are actually more like reels that cause the problems. Somewhere along the years of GHB composing, somebody decided to take the swing out of hornpipes and write them out in straight timings. Or more to the point, people misinterpretated the straight timings and took them at face value instead of adding the dotted rhythms themselves.
If they'd just stuck to the oral tradition.............
# Posted on January 7th 2005 by ewenhen