Hey guys I was wondering if you could help me out.
Can any of you fiddlers (or otherwise) talk me through the process you go though from finding a tune that you like in a book to turning it into somehting that sounds less wooden and more folky and lively. If I just read it off the page as it is it sounds so boring!
Any pointers?
(hope I'm making sense)
Fran
"You fiddlers" leaves me inclined to believe that you're not a frequent visitor to the Land of Diddley. The topic of notes vs. listening vs. some-of-both vs. off-topic-jibberish has been done to death, so instead of hurtling this thread down that path again, I'll try to answer your question:
Use the notes as the skeleton of your tune. A specific instruction for yerself (assuming you're not into ITM): go find at least 2 to 3 different recordings of this tune and listen to them over and over until they get "into your bones", then go back to your skeleton and rework the notes, phrasing (bowing) and lilt until they line up with the chune bouncing around in your melon. Actually, just rework them until you feel joy inside when you play.
The long answer is to just give in - don't continue fighting it - give yerself over to ITM and become as obsessed and crazed as the rest of us here at theasylum.org - years of obsessive listening and chune learning will soak into your playing and then ...uh oh I've said too much...here comes Nurse Ratchet...
I'm not a fiddle player but your question is not particular to fiddlers, so for what it's worth...
I would suggest trying to learn tunes by ear first of all, or from an experienced player; this way you'll learn appropriate ornamentation, how to get the "swing" of a tune and how to enjoy it a heck of a lot more. If you start off by learning from the dots and you haven't a fair amount of "diddley" music already, it'll be a bit of an uphill struggle.
And I second what Steph said! (Hi Steph! - going to East Durham this year?)
ITM.... It's the abbreviation for Irish Traditional Music. Most Irish Traditional Musicians don't use it, but hey that's what happens on the Internet. Every time I hear it I think of the ITN news.
Even Trad is preferable.. just.
Ok, I get the ITM thing now and guess that the Land of Diddley is therefore Ireland!
Actually you're right, I play English music mainly - so what you're saying makes sense.
The question isn't about learning by ear vs learning by sheet music. The question is about finding a tune I like in an obscure book somewhere and making it sound good. I know the whole thing about listening to recordings etc but what if no recordings are to be found?
You've been v helpful so far so keep it up!
Fran
Acronym for Irish Traditional Music and the cause of many an argument on this site.
I agree with Conan and Steph.
Learn to play by ear free yourself from the tyranny of the dots (difficult I know for a classical player). Also listen to loads of other fiddlers and see how they achieve their effects i.e. simple slides into and out of notes, triplets, rolls etc which characterise trad fiddle as opposed to classical violin.
Also start playing along with other people and react to what they are doing rather than just learning stuff from books of tunes. Tunebooks have their place ( I have loads) but you start to really learn the tune only when you have memorised the notes and take it out on the road with other players.
I think I understood the first time around. The same thing applies: to make the tune sound good, even if there are no existing recordings of that specific tune, just be as familiar as possible with the genre from which it came. When that's the case, you'll know instinctively what to do!
I guess then the main thing is to get away from the sheet music as soon as possible and so be playing from memory.
Thanks again - keep commenting if you want to!
Hi Franny,
if no recordings are to be found, and you've never heard anyone play it, you can invent the way it's meant to sound!
But really, what Conán says is right - if you want it to sound like an 'English Folk Tune', you just have to 'learn the genre' - there's no short-cut. Reading between the lines in your original post, maybe what you need to do to make the tune sound less rigid is to take the basic tune and try playing it with different rhythmic devices (i.e. playing straight, then with a dotted rhythm, then as a jig (Diddley Diddley), then with a march-type feel) until you know it well enough that you loosen up a bit - just an idea. The other logical thing to do is get music for something you HAVE got a recording of. Figure out how to play the dots like the recording, then apply that process to the 'unknown tune'....
Mark
I still regard myself as a beginner so take my advice with a pinch of salt, but I wanted to stick up for the dots in a recent discussion but the thread got too long - I wish I'd learnt earlier. So much pleasure is to be had from picking through tune books, but having said that, you obviously need to listen to spirited renderings whether on cd or live in order to get the "so that's what it's meant to sound like!" moment of revelation. I've found bargain-bin ceili band recordings most helpful in translating the dots on the page into something that's got the proper sort of gusto. An example is this cd which I bought in a charity shop recently for a few pence: http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1174
"The question isn't about learning by ear vs learning by sheet music."
Doctor, it hurts when I go like this.
The problem is that it is, innately, a question of ear vs. dots as your own question illustrates. You know when you "play the dots" it sounds wrong. Well, don't do that then. Play it so it sounds right.
Ahhhhh, but that just brings us right back to your question, doesn't it? How do you play it so it sounds right?
By having listened to so much of the music that you know how it sounds, even if the specific piece is new to you and no recording is available. The brain is part of your ear. That's why sounds sound like music in the first place. The ear is simply the mechanical part of the hearing mechanism. The "computer" part is just as important. It's the part that translates mechanical action (vibrating molocules vibrating a membrane) into *music.*
So, here's what you do, you to play by ear from your own playing. You teach yourself the tune. The dots only represent the specific notes to be played and a rough guide to their rhythm, *not* how to play them. Think of them as crude tab, not "music." Use the dots to memorize the notes, as quickly as possible, then. . . .throw the music away.
Now start playing the tune, from memory, and *listen* to what you are playing. Listen to what your brain is telling you it should sound like, and make the two match up. It's playing by the internal ear through the external ear. "Feel" the music, instead of reading it.
The music is written on your "soul," not on the paper.
This applies to any genre, even those, like classical, where you are supposed to "read the dots as written." The fact is that you *cannot* read dots unless you already know what a dot is supposed to sound like, because you have listened to it.
And "folk" dots represent a different sound than classical dots. You simply have to abandon any preconcieved notion about what a dot means, just as when learning a foreign language you have to abandon all preconcieved notions about what a particular letter of the alphabet sounds like.
"Jean" is two different words in French and English, even though the notation is identical, but the only way to know the difference is to hear the difference. So with dots.
This is exactly what I do except for one additional stage. I find it important to be able to *sing* the tune and not just inside my head but out loud. This method was suggested to me by a jazz instructor many years ago and it really works for me. It's a sure way of not only proving to myself that I Know the tune, but also makes the transfer from the "reference" to the instrument independent of anything external. I can sit with my instrument and work on my music anywhere anytime with no sheet music, tape recorder, cd player etc.
The land of diddley is NOT Ireland! It is a mythical place wherein are to be found the diddley dees. As in 'Oh f**k here come the didlley dees'. [The call of the short stranders in Tom Kelly's old place at 96 Short Strand]
Transportation to the said land can be achieved only through closing your eyes and rattling out humungous amounts of tunes.
If you play long enough and hard enough you might pass through to the transcendental twilight zone. Here you can play tunes for 18 hours a day, drink gallons of whiskey, get stoned out of your head and still get up for breakfast at 9.30 the next morning.
1) LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN -- listen to your chosen genre, compulsively and obssessively and continuously. Recordings for handiness, live for preference. Remember that there's a huge amount of difference between the Irish, Scottish, Old Time, Bluegrass, Cape Breton, etc. genres, and if you want to sound like a, say, Irish player, then you need to listen to Irish players, not Cape Breton players.
2) Dots on the page, in the Irish trad music forms, are simply shorthand for the bare notes of the tune, as you've noticed. No one was *ever* meant to play them like that. Do not make the mistake of taking written music as gospel.
3) Ask any experienced player (or even a not experienced player who is familiar with the genre you want to sound like) to show you at least three different ways they'd play any four bar phrase out of any tune. That will likely include ornamentation, variation, and implied chord changes/different settings of the tune. This will show you that there's no one right way to play any tune (although there are also a million ways to play the stuff wrong) and also give you a good start on ways to get the notes off the page and make them alive again.
Not because you will then use those three different ways in everything you play. Mainly because you've now made a great contact of an experienced player and if you're smart you'll cultivate that contact and learn lots more about the music from him/her than you could ever learn here at thesession.org, wonderful a resource though it may be.
4) Have fun with it. If you can't find joy in playing music (including in the picky little details), why bother?
Fran: Breandan's nailed it as regards the Land of Diddley. I hope that encourages you and doesn't frighten you off - on paper it sounds extreme, but particularly when you surround yourself with companions to take the trip with you, it can be a sublime voyage indeed.
I prescribe an irish music summer school - jump in with both feet, immerse yourself and give your body and mind a good soaking in it.
Conan - I've got a bunch of friends going so I'll probably pop down to East Durham for a few days of tune binging, and will likely be found in the same location and state-of-mind as the last time you came knocking at the window! I assume ye'll be there all week?
Feel free to jump down my throat, anyone, whilst I have my mouth open, should you disagree, but playing English music, you have perhaps a little more room for interpretation than if you were playing Irish music. Whilst it would be a falsehood to say that there is *no* living tradition in English dance music, it is certainly more sparse than its Irish counterpart. Consequently, you are less likely to come up against listeners who will immediately recognise your style as 'not traditional'. That said, I am only the shallowest of dabblers in English music (when I play an English tune, it sounds Irish, even though I am English) so I cannot offer genre-specific advice. I would say, however, that if you are playing dance tunes of any kind, the most important point to focus on is rhythm - extensive listening to your chosen genre will reveal rhythmic subtleties which are not and cannot be notated on the page. As most people have said or insinuated already, there are no short-cuts - you *might* be able to fake it up to a point, but if you are really interested in the music, why would you want to?
If you think the Strand was bad in Tom Kelly's day you want to see it now. We were playing in the melting pot, banjo, bodhran, fiddle and such and the first request was "Mack the Knife". Well I hope it was a request and there was not a comma after the "Mack". Could have been a pen knife they were asking for.
I am also getting worried about M.G's niceness. It's not a good sign.
As for dots sounding folky, what are dots?I've played most things but never dots. I have seen other forms of dots, but wouldn't take them, honestly.
I certainly agree to really understand how a song is to be played you must listen, hear and feel it. I would be the first to say however that musical notation has it's place, to learn the structure of the song, and maybe to find some of the notes you are missing....I do at times pick up a tune fresh off the page and because I have adapted a style I play it that way...and later hear how others play it....often I like it both ways.
For the love of Benedict!!!! Can we stop calling musical notation "DOTS" ?!?
If you would prefer "ovoids," yeah, I guess, although I'll note we don't call musical notation dots. We only call dots dots. We call other kinds of musical notation other things, like ABCs.
There's nothing sacred about dots, excuse me, ovoids, as musical notation.
'Ovoids' sounds vaguely obstetrical or gyneacological to me. How about Clubs? With the little sticks on the wee dots they do look a bit like golf clubs. For specifically Irish written music, they could be called Hurleys, as in "I think I'm only playing half the notes, I'll look up the Hurleys when I get home..".
making dots sound folky
making dots sound folky
Hey guys I was wondering if you could help me out.
Can any of you fiddlers (or otherwise) talk me through the process you go though from finding a tune that you like in a book to turning it into somehting that sounds less wooden and more folky and lively. If I just read it off the page as it is it sounds so boring!
Any pointers?
(hope I'm making sense)
Fran
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by frannyc
Re: making dots sound folky
Fran -
"You fiddlers" leaves me inclined to believe that you're not a frequent visitor to the Land of Diddley. The topic of notes vs. listening vs. some-of-both vs. off-topic-jibberish has been done to death, so instead of hurtling this thread down that path again, I'll try to answer your question:
Use the notes as the skeleton of your tune. A specific instruction for yerself (assuming you're not into ITM): go find at least 2 to 3 different recordings of this tune and listen to them over and over until they get "into your bones", then go back to your skeleton and rework the notes, phrasing (bowing) and lilt until they line up with the chune bouncing around in your melon. Actually, just rework them until you feel joy inside when you play.
The long answer is to just give in - don't continue fighting it - give yerself over to ITM and become as obsessed and crazed as the rest of us here at theasylum.org - years of obsessive listening and chune learning will soak into your playing and then ...uh oh I've said too much...here comes Nurse Ratchet...
Steph
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: making dots sound folky
Hi Franny
I'm not a fiddle player but your question is not particular to fiddlers, so for what it's worth...
I would suggest trying to learn tunes by ear first of all, or from an experienced player; this way you'll learn appropriate ornamentation, how to get the "swing" of a tune and how to enjoy it a heck of a lot more. If you start off by learning from the dots and you haven't a fair amount of "diddley" music already, it'll be a bit of an uphill struggle.
And I second what Steph said! (Hi Steph! - going to East Durham this year?)
All the best
Conán
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: making dots sound folky
Both good replies
plus:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/6386
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by ...
Re: making dots sound folky
What's ITM?
Fran
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by frannyc
Re: making dots sound folky
".....just rework them until you feel joy inside when you play"
I love that. It's poetry.
It's as good as (and shorter than) my own: "If it sounds right you're not doing it wrong, and if it sounds wrong you're not doing it right."
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: making dots sound folky
ITM.... It's the abbreviation for Irish Traditional Music. Most Irish Traditional Musicians don't use it, but hey that's what happens on the Internet. Every time I hear it I think of the ITN news.
Even Trad is preferable.. just.
C
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: making dots sound folky
Ok, I get the ITM thing now and guess that the Land of Diddley is therefore Ireland!
Actually you're right, I play English music mainly - so what you're saying makes sense.
The question isn't about learning by ear vs learning by sheet music. The question is about finding a tune I like in an obscure book somewhere and making it sound good. I know the whole thing about listening to recordings etc but what if no recordings are to be found?
You've been v helpful so far so keep it up!
Fran
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by frannyc
Re: making dots sound folky
ITM?
Acronym for Irish Traditional Music and the cause of many an argument on this site.
I agree with Conan and Steph.
Learn to play by ear free yourself from the tyranny of the dots (difficult I know for a classical player). Also listen to loads of other fiddlers and see how they achieve their effects i.e. simple slides into and out of notes, triplets, rolls etc which characterise trad fiddle as opposed to classical violin.
Also start playing along with other people and react to what they are doing rather than just learning stuff from books of tunes. Tunebooks have their place ( I have loads) but you start to really learn the tune only when you have memorised the notes and take it out on the road with other players.
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Geoff Pollitt
Re: making dots sound folky
Hi Fran, me again.
I think I understood the first time around. The same thing applies: to make the tune sound good, even if there are no existing recordings of that specific tune, just be as familiar as possible with the genre from which it came. When that's the case, you'll know instinctively what to do!
C
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: making dots sound folky
Thanks guys that's ace!
I guess then the main thing is to get away from the sheet music as soon as possible and so be playing from memory.
Thanks again - keep commenting if you want to!
Fran
x
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by frannyc
Re: making dots sound folky
Hi Franny,
if no recordings are to be found, and you've never heard anyone play it, you can invent the way it's meant to sound!
But really, what Conán says is right - if you want it to sound like an 'English Folk Tune', you just have to 'learn the genre' - there's no short-cut. Reading between the lines in your original post, maybe what you need to do to make the tune sound less rigid is to take the basic tune and try playing it with different rhythmic devices (i.e. playing straight, then with a dotted rhythm, then as a jig (Diddley Diddley), then with a march-type feel) until you know it well enough that you loosen up a bit - just an idea. The other logical thing to do is get music for something you HAVE got a recording of. Figure out how to play the dots like the recording, then apply that process to the 'unknown tune'....
Mark
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Ottery
Re: making dots sound folky
I still regard myself as a beginner so take my advice with a pinch of salt, but I wanted to stick up for the dots in a recent discussion but the thread got too long - I wish I'd learnt earlier. So much pleasure is to be had from picking through tune books, but having said that, you obviously need to listen to spirited renderings whether on cd or live in order to get the "so that's what it's meant to sound like!" moment of revelation. I've found bargain-bin ceili band recordings most helpful in translating the dots on the page into something that's got the proper sort of gusto. An example is this cd which I bought in a charity shop recently for a few pence:
http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display.php/1174
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by RichardB
Re: making dots sound folky
"The question isn't about learning by ear vs learning by sheet music."
Doctor, it hurts when I go like this.
The problem is that it is, innately, a question of ear vs. dots as your own question illustrates. You know when you "play the dots" it sounds wrong. Well, don't do that then. Play it so it sounds right.
Ahhhhh, but that just brings us right back to your question, doesn't it? How do you play it so it sounds right?
By having listened to so much of the music that you know how it sounds, even if the specific piece is new to you and no recording is available. The brain is part of your ear. That's why sounds sound like music in the first place. The ear is simply the mechanical part of the hearing mechanism. The "computer" part is just as important. It's the part that translates mechanical action (vibrating molocules vibrating a membrane) into *music.*
So, here's what you do, you to play by ear from your own playing. You teach yourself the tune. The dots only represent the specific notes to be played and a rough guide to their rhythm, *not* how to play them. Think of them as crude tab, not "music." Use the dots to memorize the notes, as quickly as possible, then. . . .throw the music away.
Now start playing the tune, from memory, and *listen* to what you are playing. Listen to what your brain is telling you it should sound like, and make the two match up. It's playing by the internal ear through the external ear. "Feel" the music, instead of reading it.
The music is written on your "soul," not on the paper.
This applies to any genre, even those, like classical, where you are supposed to "read the dots as written." The fact is that you *cannot* read dots unless you already know what a dot is supposed to sound like, because you have listened to it.
And "folk" dots represent a different sound than classical dots. You simply have to abandon any preconcieved notion about what a dot means, just as when learning a foreign language you have to abandon all preconcieved notions about what a particular letter of the alphabet sounds like.
"Jean" is two different words in French and English, even though the notation is identical, but the only way to know the difference is to hear the difference. So with dots.
It always comes down to the ear.
KFG
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by KFG
Re: making dots sound folky
This is exactly what I do except for one additional stage. I find it important to be able to *sing* the tune and not just inside my head but out loud. This method was suggested to me by a jazz instructor many years ago and it really works for me. It's a sure way of not only proving to myself that I Know the tune, but also makes the transfer from the "reference" to the instrument independent of anything external. I can sit with my instrument and work on my music anywhere anytime with no sheet music, tape recorder, cd player etc.
Avi
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by improziv
Re: making dots sound folky
The land of diddley is NOT Ireland! It is a mythical place wherein are to be found the diddley dees. As in 'Oh f**k here come the didlley dees'. [The call of the short stranders in Tom Kelly's old place at 96 Short Strand]
Transportation to the said land can be achieved only through closing your eyes and rattling out humungous amounts of tunes.
If you play long enough and hard enough you might pass through to the transcendental twilight zone. Here you can play tunes for 18 hours a day, drink gallons of whiskey, get stoned out of your head and still get up for breakfast at 9.30 the next morning.
Girvan here I come
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by breandan
Re: making dots sound folky
A summary of past posts on the subject:
1) LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN -- listen to your chosen genre, compulsively and obssessively and continuously. Recordings for handiness, live for preference. Remember that there's a huge amount of difference between the Irish, Scottish, Old Time, Bluegrass, Cape Breton, etc. genres, and if you want to sound like a, say, Irish player, then you need to listen to Irish players, not Cape Breton players.
2) Dots on the page, in the Irish trad music forms, are simply shorthand for the bare notes of the tune, as you've noticed. No one was *ever* meant to play them like that. Do not make the mistake of taking written music as gospel.
3) Ask any experienced player (or even a not experienced player who is familiar with the genre you want to sound like) to show you at least three different ways they'd play any four bar phrase out of any tune. That will likely include ornamentation, variation, and implied chord changes/different settings of the tune. This will show you that there's no one right way to play any tune (although there are also a million ways to play the stuff wrong) and also give you a good start on ways to get the notes off the page and make them alive again.
Not because you will then use those three different ways in everything you play. Mainly because you've now made a great contact of an experienced player and if you're smart you'll cultivate that contact and learn lots more about the music from him/her than you could ever learn here at thesession.org, wonderful a resource though it may be.
4) Have fun with it. If you can't find joy in playing music (including in the picky little details), why bother?
Good luck!
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: making dots sound folky
Fran: Breandan's nailed it as regards the Land of Diddley. I hope that encourages you and doesn't frighten you off - on paper it sounds extreme, but particularly when you surround yourself with companions to take the trip with you, it can be a sublime voyage indeed.
I prescribe an irish music summer school - jump in with both feet, immerse yourself and give your body and mind a good soaking in it.
Conan - I've got a bunch of friends going so I'll probably pop down to East Durham for a few days of tune binging, and will likely be found in the same location and state-of-mind as the last time you came knocking at the window! I assume ye'll be there all week?
Steph
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: making dots sound folky
Flight and digs booked Steph! That wee sesh we had last year was great, Hope to catch you there for more of the same.
Cheers
Cx
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: making dots sound folky
Feel free to jump down my throat, anyone, whilst I have my mouth open, should you disagree, but playing English music, you have perhaps a little more room for interpretation than if you were playing Irish music. Whilst it would be a falsehood to say that there is *no* living tradition in English dance music, it is certainly more sparse than its Irish counterpart. Consequently, you are less likely to come up against listeners who will immediately recognise your style as 'not traditional'. That said, I am only the shallowest of dabblers in English music (when I play an English tune, it sounds Irish, even though I am English) so I cannot offer genre-specific advice. I would say, however, that if you are playing dance tunes of any kind, the most important point to focus on is rhythm - extensive listening to your chosen genre will reveal rhythmic subtleties which are not and cannot be notated on the page. As most people have said or insinuated already, there are no short-cuts - you *might* be able to fake it up to a point, but if you are really interested in the music, why would you want to?
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: making dots sound folky
If you think the Strand was bad in Tom Kelly's day you want to see it now. We were playing in the melting pot, banjo, bodhran, fiddle and such and the first request was "Mack the Knife". Well I hope it was a request and there was not a comma after the "Mack". Could have been a pen knife they were asking for.
I am also getting worried about M.G's niceness. It's not a good sign.
As for dots sounding folky, what are dots?I've played most things but never dots. I have seen other forms of dots, but wouldn't take them, honestly.
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: making dots sound folky
Here now, I feel like I have to stand up for Michael -- he's actually quite nice, so long as you don't get him started on one of his pet windups. ;)
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: making dots sound folky
Besides, where would we be without a list curmudgeon? We'd have to go make poor Trevor grouchy or something. ;)
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by sara g
Re: making dots sound folky
Yeah, it used to be Brad, now it's Michael. Who's volunteering for the next open slot?
# Posted on April 25th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: making dots sound folky
I certainly agree to really understand how a song is to be played you must listen, hear and feel it. I would be the first to say however that musical notation has it's place, to learn the structure of the song, and maybe to find some of the notes you are missing....I do at times pick up a tune fresh off the page and because I have adapted a style I play it that way...and later hear how others play it....often I like it both ways.
For the love of Benedict!!!! Can we stop calling musical notation "DOTS" ?!?
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by Tim_Fiddler
Re: making dots sound folky
If you would prefer "ovoids," yeah, I guess, although I'll note we don't call musical notation dots. We only call dots dots. We call other kinds of musical notation other things, like ABCs.
There's nothing sacred about dots, excuse me, ovoids, as musical notation.
KFG
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by KFG
Re: making dots sound folky
"For the love of Benedict!!!! Can we stop calling musical notation "DOTS" ?!?"
Heh! Only if we can promise to stop calling tunes "songs" thats far more irritating that calling musical notation "dots"
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by bb
Re: making dots sound folky
Every dot is sacred.
Every dot is great.
If one dot is wasted, . . .
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by ∅
Thank you Eric Idle
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: making dots sound folky
Maybe I really do need to make some sort of effort to go see Spamalot.
KFG
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by KFG
Re: making dots sound folky
'Ovoids' sounds vaguely obstetrical or gyneacological to me. How about Clubs? With the little sticks on the wee dots they do look a bit like golf clubs. For specifically Irish written music, they could be called Hurleys, as in "I think I'm only playing half the notes, I'll look up the Hurleys when I get home..".
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by Ottery
Re: making dots sound folky
Which is easier to say and type?:
The musical notation for Irish traditional music
or
the dots for ITM
sod Benedict I say, lets stick with dots.
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by showaddydadito
Re: making dots sound folky
...if you called it "the hurleys" in America, everyone would think you were referring to the consequences of overdosing on an emetic.
I'm with Dave; dots isn't great, but it covers the territory.
# Posted on April 26th 2005 by sara g
Re: making dots sound folky
Yeh, I don't like The D Word but used it cos everyone knows what it means etc.!
# Posted on April 27th 2005 by frannyc
Re: making dots sound folky
sorry -but i cannot figure out what a dot is -are they the notes writtin on the page of music?
thanks anyone...
# Posted on September 8th 2006 by doublestop64