Has anybody had the experience of being put in ones place in a session, humourously or otherwise?
Once after playing a couple of reels with a well known fiddler in a village pub, a gentleman turned to him and said, great music,
you're a fine fiddler. He then turned to me and said, "Theres a gift boy, and you almost have it..........."
Yes. In a pub in Co Wexford. This has stuck with me:
"You have it the wrong way about. Your playing is too rough and your singing is too smooth"
He was just jealous cos more folk were listening to me than his prissy note-perfect versions of Cat Stevens songs.
I like to think.
I like the ambiguous ones, a friend was once told, "If I had your talent I wouldn't be playing that yoke.
When I first started learning tunes, 13 of us used to play in a pub every night of the week, there were only two of us who were singers, so it was difficult to learn songs with so much music about, my friend sang a song he had just learned and when he had finished he said to nobody in particular, "Did you ever here that song before?" some bright spark answered ,"No and I never want to hear it again;" The same man wanted a reference for a job so he asked the Dean of Zoology for a reference, it went something like this. He is an excellent singer, a very competent musician and if you can get him to work for you, the company will be very lucky indeed.....
From one uncle to another after he had just sang a song at a family get-together:
"Chris, I never have a good word to say about you, but that wasn't bad".
Not music-related, but a sentence from a letter of recommendation for a new Ph.D. applying for academic jobs: His thesis fills a much-needed gap in the literature.
And a music-related one, from a well-known songwriter to a wannabe at a songwriting critique workshop: I like what you were trying to do in that song.
I once was in a session in Arnhem (the session past away...sadly ), and people told us (me and 2 friends of mine) that we were playing the tunes different than the others (meaning the 2 session leaders).
Backer, that's a good one.
Heres one from the classical music scene.
Sir Malcolm Sargeant to Jacqueline Dupré '(Cellist) "Madame, between your two legs is the greatest gift that God gave to anyone, stop scratching it."
Bit of a background-foreground illusion put down, meant entirely kindly:
A couple of weeks ago a woman told me that she thought my fiddle playing was lovely, and she should know, because she's married to a professional classical viola player.
My son was listening to one of those endless Gaelic dirges on the "Thistle and Shamrock" one time. When it was finally over, he told me, "That was pretty good. I especially like the part at the end when she quit singing."
I was told once by a Wexford man living in Clare, "You've no spirit in your music! You have every f***in' tune off every f***in' record but you can't f***in' play them!" (the missing vowel was not an 'e'). It was at a big session, where I doubt he could hear my playing, and this man is not known for his geniality but, nevertheless, it made me think incessantly, for weeks.
Last summer in Milltown Malbay, after coming back from a session in Mullagh in the small hours, I was playing a few tunes on the street with a fiddler friend from Cork. A few people (of the type one expects to meet wandering the streets in the small hours) were standing listening, including the said Wexford man - in much better humour, on this occasion. He was calling out, "This is spiritual! I'm in heaven!", and meaning every word of it. I suspect he did not recognise me - if he had, he would probably have remembered me as "that boy that plays with no spirit", regardless of how well I was playing.
I still regard his harsh words as constructive criticism, and last summer's rapturous rantings as a great compliment (although I cannot take full credit for the quality of the music, since there were two of us) however influenced they may have been by the amount of liquor in him. Good music touches people deep down, and the more people it touches, the better.
i was playing in a session in Galway when a very drunk Scotsman asked if he could sing Danny Boy. The excellent flautist opposite me replied: "I don't know. Can you?"
Here the one with Séamus Ennis and the spoons player?
back in the day he was playin a session when a spoons player invaded. Ennis knew the barman and asked quietly for a bowl of soup. A few minutes later the soup was sent over and Ennis grabbed the spoons and stuck them in it sayin somethin to the extent of "thats what they're for."
I was trying to describe to my husband the sound of a wonderful fiddle player I had heard. I started to say, it was so smooth and silky. Then I said, never mind, I give up. I can't describe it. To which he replied, "I can imagine exactly what your'e talking about...because I know what the OPPOSITE of that sounds like."
Some years ago, before I took up the fiddle, I was playing guitar with an accordian player in our lunch break. As we stopped an Irish lab technician came in and said "you should come down the Irish club and play, there's some players down there who are absolutely atrocious, your just as good as them"! He couldn't understand why we fell about with laughter.
Nothing to do with traditional music or sessions, but I like this one. There are many stories about hecklers at the music halls they used to have in Glasgow. I think it was Tony Cuffe – who always had a great store of stories – who told me this.
The entertainer/musician Roy Castle was appearing somewhere in Glasgow. He comes onto stage and starts doing a wee tap-dance – no response. He picks up the trumpet and plays a tune – nothing. So he tries – “Ladies and gentlemen, I ‘d like to sing a song for you now……”
That’s as far as he gets. A Glasgow voice comes out of the audience, “Hey, Roy! Is there nae f***in’ END tae yer talent? “
Then there are the unwitting self-putdowns. A few years ago, a well-known singer/songwriter who was big in the 60s invited his twenty-something daughter up on stage to do a few of her own songs. She said, "I went to an open mic and saw all these people get up on stage and do their own songs. They were dreadful. And I thought to myself, I can do that!"
And there are the singers who proudly include in their press kits quotes from someone famous who described them as "a voice to watch."
Rob said, "i was playing in a session in Galway when a very drunk Scotsman asked if he could sing Danny Boy. The excellent flautist opposite me replied: "I don't know. Can you?"
This is not necessarily a put-down. We normally try to honor all requests, but when we get one we don't know, or aren't in the mood to sing ourselves, we often encourage the requestor to sing it themselves. Sometimes it chastens them, sometimes they try and fail, but every once in a while, we get a nice surprise!
A local singer got up in a local riverside pub -
Punter: Do you do requests?
Singer: Yes, I will try.
Punter: This one involves lead boots and the River Don.
And clarinetist Acker Bilk was asked
Punter: Do you do requests?
Acker: What do you want?
Punter: Oh, Anything.
Acker: F*k off *** ***
Another of Sir Malcolm Sargeant's wit, or the lack of it.
At an orchestral rehearsal one day, the musicians having already tuned up, started to play the piece. 10 seconds into it Sir Malcolm tapped the podium with his baton, "Second Bassoon you are out of tune." First Bassoonist, "Sir , the Second Bassoon isn't here today." Sir Malcolm quick as a flash. " When the Second Bassoon graces us with his esteemed presence, tell him he's out of tune."
I finished playing and an old woman came up to me. I had messed up(pretty obviously) and cajuns aren't known for their tact. She came up and said, "That was beautiful. Now all you have to do is go home and practice some more." Not exactly as clever as Irish put-downs but it managed to get me to stop smiling as if I had played decently.
Geoff's reminded me of this. A friend of mine used to run a session in Missoula, Montana, near the banks of the Clark Fork River. One night a guy showed up with two big, heavy cobblestones. When the music started, he held one in each hand and proceeded to bang them together, "whack, whack, whack," ostensibly playing "rhythm." My friend asked him what he was doing. "These are river rocks," came the reply, "and I'm a percussionist."
"Well put them in your pockets and throw them back where they came from," said my friend.
Speaking of self put downs, there was the time I overheard a punter asking a guitar player, "What tune was that you all just played?" as the last strum was fading from his strings.
"Oh I don't know," the guitarist said, "I wasn't listening."
I got this one from Tony McManus - a folk singer in Glasgow was doing a spot between bigger acts but was taking forever to tune up.
As a joke, he said "when I get this guitar in tune, I'm going to get it welded".
The comeback was instant "Aye, get it welded to a bus".
We often play for weddings at an Inn on the coast. Its location is remote and it's difficult to get to so guests are usually trickling in for the wedding. We've taken to playing tunes, (like a session,) in the pub at the Inn as folks arrive before the wedding begins. Our guitar player has taken up the banjo and I suggested that he bring it for the “session” part of the gig. It was the first time he brought it out in public, but he's actually getting very good at it since he already played the melody of many tunes on his guitar. So we're playing away and this 6-year-old girl who was watching with pinched face comes up when we stopped and says to him in a whiny voice, "Why were you doing that!" Needless to say he was devastated. We had to have a benefit for him later so he could pay for his therapy sessions. As you might imagine this has become a regular remark to one another at our gigs now.
Six year old girls must be practicing their devastation skills (for later dealings with adolescent boys). Staying with friends once, I took out my fiddle during a lull in the visiting. As soon as I started to play, their six year old daughter clamped her hands over her ears and ran from the room, wailing at the top of her lungs. I haven't been the same since.
That's why we have kids, Will, to keep our egos in check....
A few years after I started playing the fiddle, one of the neighbor kids was wandering through the house as I was playing some tunes. She is a fine musician, but her family is noted for their sharp tongues. She stuck her head in the practice room and said "Gee, Mrs. Sims, you don't sound bad any more." I took it as the highest compliment.
"First the good news Mr. Harmon: you have a strong, healthy ego. Now the bad news: there is no realistic basis for it."
*grin*
Over the years, I've occasionally played for grade school classes, usually around St. Paddy's Day, under the guise of cultural enrichment. They're a touch audience. "Compliments" I've received from kids include:
"Is it supposed to sound like that?"
"How many years do you have to play to get better?"
"Can you play something really quiet?"
"Do you know any easier tunes?"
"Well--*that* was a lot of notes!"
and my favorite
"I've always wanted to play violin but now I think I'll try piano instead."
Ah, there's another one I'm going to miss. I used to bump into him quite a bit after he moved to Massachusetts. He even showed up for open mic at my coffeehouse in upstate NY now and again. Me and a friend were the only ones who knew who he was, so he could just kinda blend in.
In private his putdowns could lack all subtlety. We were discussing some CDs that had recently been released and his comment on them was simply:
"I don't know why they bother."
"Then there are the unwitting self-putdowns."
Last night I was playing solo flute in a parking garage, and a woman returning to her car stopped, listened for a minute, and then asked:
"That's Scottish, isn't it?"
"Why yes, it is, isn't it?" I replied, " Of course, it wasn't *supposed* to be. . ."
One of my 16-month-old nephew's favourite responses to my mandolin playing is to place his palm flat across the strings, reducing all the notes to pitchless clicks. I like to think of it as a sign of appreciation - of the sensation of the plucked strings on his hand, if not of my playing per se.
My kids used to do that.
Being the curmudgeon I am, I interpreted it as a demand for attention: "How dare you get absorbed in that mandolin when you should be amusing ME!"
The very one that used to do it has now, 16 years later, permanently "borrowed" that old mando. Sometimes I have to go up to his room and yell at him to get his attention when he is playing it or his guitar: "How dare you get absorbed in that mandolin when you should be listening to ME!"
A disgruntled punter saying "just another bloody English session" - not a put-down to English people per se, but after I got him in headlock and pressed hard on his eyeballs, he admitted he meant an Irish session where Irish music was played badly.
I'm not a violent man you understand, but I've got a reputation to uphold, you know.
When I was studying classical piano my cat was the music critic of the house. She would stay in the room if she approved, but leave in a very undignified manner when she disapproved.
There was one piece, Chopin's Opus 10 #3, that she had a consistent response to. She very much enjoyed the beginning by actually getting up on the bench next to me with her back to the piano and her ears tilted to the rear. As soon as I got to the middle part with the simultaneous descending and ascending parallel-diminished fifths -- she would run to the furthest end of the house. When I got to the end where it returns to the theme from the beginning, she would come back and resume her previous position. It was so predictable that I could amuse my friends with the routine.
Years ago, one of my students on 5-string banjo broke his leg and could no longer make the commute into the music studios I taught at. But he lived in my neighborhood, so we rescheduled the weekly lesson so I could show up at his house and teach there. The very first lesson broke his heart. His old terrier Maggie met me at the door and followed us into the living room. The man opened his banjo case and the dog left the room, scurrying down the hall to a distant bedroom. "She always does that--goes to the farthest part of the house. She doesn't like the sound of the banjo, you see," he said.
I got my banjo out and started to warm up on last week's tune, looking out the picture window and enjoying the view. After a bit, the man asked me to stop. He looked on the verge of tears and pointed at my feet. There sat Maggie, impersonating the "His Master's Voice" dog, obviously enjoying the banjo music.
Someone should really have started a new thread about animals and music stories, but as it's included now, heres one.
A friend who played flute and whistles had a Jack Russell cross which was extremely friendly and loving, but one day in his house he said to me, listen to this, starting to play on a D whistle, the dog sang along with it. The same on the flute, a G whistle and the old Clarkes C. However when he took out the Bb, he had just about put it in his mouth when the dog went absolutely berserk, started tearing the curtains, jumping on the table and pushing everything over the edge. Finally attacking my friend and trying to reach the whistle. Some days later he told me that the whistle was no longer..... showing it to me, the dog had actually bent and put holes through it with his teeth. And that was a Generation........
At a session after a day of workshops one of the leaders looks at me and says to another leader.... pretty tune she played, what was it? "The Musical Priest"... "Really?,,, I had no idea it would sound like that when played so slowly"... one of the reasons I don't start tunes in sessions yet.
Music and animals? I have 5 birds, each with different musical tastes. The sun conure loves the flute... and I mean loves!!! He puffs up and sways back and forth like he's in a trance. The peach front conure loves the blues and rocks up and down saying "It's beautiful" at exactly the right point. He actually just loves to sing but blues really gets him going. The budgies really, really like the harp. And best of all the Amazon... loves the fiddle and whistles along whenever I play. Jigs are her favourite but if you get a good rhythm going on a reel she does this clucking thing in time with it. Kind of how I know I've got it right. The down side is that she screams at the top of her lungs (97 decibels) when I stop and she hasn't quite finished singing. I just started learning mandolin and was very surprised to see that it puts them all to sleep... they just close their eyes and listen. It's very sweet.
I was playing some reels for set dancers once, at what I though it was quite a speedy pace. After one set a girl comes to me and asks "can you play something really fast like reels now?"
I was over at my friend's place hanging out and I was showing her my low whistle. My friend has a cat, and as soon as I started playing, the cat's eyes bugged out and it bolted for the basement.
This is the friend who I am moving in with in about two weeks. I have no illusions about how well my relationship with the cat will go.
Another time I played a tune to my horse. She tried to chew on the whistle. I took it as a compliment, as she also likes to play with cell phones, ipods, watches, jewelry, and other expensive things. Probably thought that Generation whistle was worth more than it actually was.
Then there's the put down from the mid 90s that we all had a good laugh at. We were playing tunes at a Irish pub in the heart of the tourist area and someone came up and said, "Do you guys know any Irish music?" and I said, "That's what we've been playing all night." and the person replied, "No you haven't, I've seen River Dance and what you're playing isn't Irish music."
Another one has just come into my head, this from the late sixties. Before I started the mandolin I was just a singer, but I was with a crowd of musicians in a pub and towards the end of the night someone said to us. "That diddly music sounds all the same, could you play some Sean O'Riada...."
Ian Stevenson: I had a similar experience with my dog and the neighborhood dogs with a Didjeridoo. When I would play, they had a multi part harmony going like a coyote pack. I got the neighbors upset and I had to stop, but it was really funny. The sound would echo off the mountain side and my dog would always check everywhere for the weird animal that could make that noise.
PS: I just hope the dog in that story didn't have to "pass" the mouthpiece. I have heard about passing stones, but a mouthpiece would be excruciating. That would probably cause a different type of howling.
I'm a regular at a session in Michigan. About a year ago we had a bodhran player who was truthfully pretty bloody awful, and didn't really pay much attention to session ettiquite either (such as, bodhran players generally take turns). One night after a particularly loud set of tunes, one of the flute players took the guys hands in his and said "sometimes it's alright to just listen and watch the musicians!" Not enough for the guy. The next week he was back again. It was a full night, and we were running out of chairs, so one of the fiddlers said to the guy, "could you get up and make room for the musicians?" Luckily that seemed to do the trick, and we never saw him again.
As a teenage musician, us kids are constantly getting told off for playing too fast, even when it's not our fault. Sometimes I think that the older generation just wants to keep us in our places.
I meant that during a session, after a particularly fast set of tunes, the younger musicians will sometimes get unfairly blamed for how speedy they were.
Put Downs
Put Downs
Has anybody had the experience of being put in ones place in a session, humourously or otherwise?
Once after playing a couple of reels with a well known fiddler in a village pub, a gentleman turned to him and said, great music,
you're a fine fiddler. He then turned to me and said, "Theres a gift boy, and you almost have it..........."
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Put Downs
Yes. In a pub in Co Wexford. This has stuck with me:
"You have it the wrong way about. Your playing is too rough and your singing is too smooth"
He was just jealous cos more folk were listening to me than his prissy note-perfect versions of Cat Stevens songs.
I like to think.
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Bren
Re: Put Downs
Someone once told me that I was so good that I should consider taking it up as a hobby
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by RichardB
Re: Put Downs
And then there's the oft-used, "Do you know how to play far, far away?"
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Tunes!
Re: Put Downs
I like the ambiguous ones, a friend was once told, "If I had your talent I wouldn't be playing that yoke.
When I first started learning tunes, 13 of us used to play in a pub every night of the week, there were only two of us who were singers, so it was difficult to learn songs with so much music about, my friend sang a song he had just learned and when he had finished he said to nobody in particular, "Did you ever here that song before?" some bright spark answered ,"No and I never want to hear it again;" The same man wanted a reference for a job so he asked the Dean of Zoology for a reference, it went something like this. He is an excellent singer, a very competent musician and if you can get him to work for you, the company will be very lucky indeed.....
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Put Downs
From one uncle to another after he had just sang a song at a family get-together:
"Chris, I never have a good word to say about you, but that wasn't bad".
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Conán McDonnell
Re: Put Downs
Here's one: Words can't describe your musical ability.
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by IC Keith
Re: Put Downs
This one is similar to one already posted, but here goes:
I always joke that when my accordion comes out, my wife asks me to play "Far From Home."
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Put Downs
Not music-related, but a sentence from a letter of recommendation for a new Ph.D. applying for academic jobs: His thesis fills a much-needed gap in the literature.
And a music-related one, from a well-known songwriter to a wannabe at a songwriting critique workshop: I like what you were trying to do in that song.
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by GaryAMartin
Re: Put Downs
I once was in a session in Arnhem (the session past away...sadly ), and people told us (me and 2 friends of mine) that we were playing the tunes different than the others (meaning the 2 session leaders).
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Dark Raven
Re: Put Downs
"If you put in half of what you left out, and left out half of what you put in, that would have been a grand tune!"
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Backer
Re: Put Downs
Backer, that's a good one.
Heres one from the classical music scene.
Sir Malcolm Sargeant to Jacqueline Dupré '(Cellist) "Madame, between your two legs is the greatest gift that God gave to anyone, stop scratching it."
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Put Downs
A kindly meant one - I like to think - to me six months ago:
'I like the way you play fiddle slightly off key, you sound more like the real thing'
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Cath
Re: Put Downs
Bit of a background-foreground illusion put down, meant entirely kindly:
A couple of weeks ago a woman told me that she thought my fiddle playing was lovely, and she should know, because she's married to a professional classical viola player.
KFG
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by KFG
Re: Put Downs
My son was listening to one of those endless Gaelic dirges on the "Thistle and Shamrock" one time. When it was finally over, he told me, "That was pretty good. I especially like the part at the end when she quit singing."
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Jiml
Re: Put Downs
I was told once by a Wexford man living in Clare, "You've no spirit in your music! You have every f***in' tune off every f***in' record but you can't f***in' play them!" (the missing vowel was not an 'e'). It was at a big session, where I doubt he could hear my playing, and this man is not known for his geniality but, nevertheless, it made me think incessantly, for weeks.
Last summer in Milltown Malbay, after coming back from a session in Mullagh in the small hours, I was playing a few tunes on the street with a fiddler friend from Cork. A few people (of the type one expects to meet wandering the streets in the small hours) were standing listening, including the said Wexford man - in much better humour, on this occasion. He was calling out, "This is spiritual! I'm in heaven!", and meaning every word of it. I suspect he did not recognise me - if he had, he would probably have remembered me as "that boy that plays with no spirit", regardless of how well I was playing.
I still regard his harsh words as constructive criticism, and last summer's rapturous rantings as a great compliment (although I cannot take full credit for the quality of the music, since there were two of us) however influenced they may have been by the amount of liquor in him. Good music touches people deep down, and the more people it touches, the better.
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by granama
Re: Put Downs
One sessioneer commenting on another's playing:
"Wow, you can really make that instrument talk........ and it's saying 'put me down'! "
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by harrywhohaa
Re: Put Downs
i was playing in a session in Galway when a very drunk Scotsman asked if he could sing Danny Boy. The excellent flautist opposite me replied: "I don't know. Can you?"
# Posted on May 12th 2005 by Rob Millner
Re: Put Downs
Here the one with Séamus Ennis and the spoons player?
back in the day he was playin a session when a spoons player invaded. Ennis knew the barman and asked quietly for a bowl of soup. A few minutes later the soup was sent over and Ennis grabbed the spoons and stuck them in it sayin somethin to the extent of "thats what they're for."
Not a one liner but effective anyway.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by phiddle
Re: Put Downs
Me to a guitarist ...
You've got to play either in tune or on the beat, but you've got to get at least one of the two to play with us...
A friend to me...
*You don't suck as much as you used to...
*You still suck when you don't use a capo...
*You used to suck but we were too nice to tell you...
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Eliot
Re: Put Downs
I was trying to describe to my husband the sound of a wonderful fiddle player I had heard. I started to say, it was so smooth and silky. Then I said, never mind, I give up. I can't describe it. To which he replied, "I can imagine exactly what your'e talking about...because I know what the OPPOSITE of that sounds like."
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by MC2
Re: Put Downs
Some years ago, before I took up the fiddle, I was playing guitar with an accordian player in our lunch break. As we stopped an Irish lab technician came in and said "you should come down the Irish club and play, there's some players down there who are absolutely atrocious, your just as good as them"! He couldn't understand why we fell about with laughter.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Daver
Re: Put Downs
Nothing to do with traditional music or sessions, but I like this one. There are many stories about hecklers at the music halls they used to have in Glasgow. I think it was Tony Cuffe – who always had a great store of stories – who told me this.
The entertainer/musician Roy Castle was appearing somewhere in Glasgow. He comes onto stage and starts doing a wee tap-dance – no response. He picks up the trumpet and plays a tune – nothing. So he tries – “Ladies and gentlemen, I ‘d like to sing a song for you now……”
That’s as far as he gets. A Glasgow voice comes out of the audience, “Hey, Roy! Is there nae f***in’ END tae yer talent? “
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Kenny
Re: Put Downs
... as he lit another fag (ho ho)
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Put Downs
Then there are the unwitting self-putdowns. A few years ago, a well-known singer/songwriter who was big in the 60s invited his twenty-something daughter up on stage to do a few of her own songs. She said, "I went to an open mic and saw all these people get up on stage and do their own songs. They were dreadful. And I thought to myself, I can do that!"
And there are the singers who proudly include in their press kits quotes from someone famous who described them as "a voice to watch."
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by GaryAMartin
Re: Put Downs
"a voice to watch."
That would have to be the one that you wouldn't want to listen to.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Donough
Re: Put Downs
Christy Moore once asked me what part of Scotland I came from, before remembering who I was.
But sure, what can you expect from foreigners?
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: Put Downs
By the way, is this a serious thread for bodhran players?Examples of put downers, how much time have you got?
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by bodhran bliss
Re: Put Downs
Rob said, "i was playing in a session in Galway when a very drunk Scotsman asked if he could sing Danny Boy. The excellent flautist opposite me replied: "I don't know. Can you?"
This is not necessarily a put-down. We normally try to honor all requests, but when we get one we don't know, or aren't in the mood to sing ourselves, we often encourage the requestor to sing it themselves. Sometimes it chastens them, sometimes they try and fail, but every once in a while, we get a nice surprise!
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Put Downs
A local singer got up in a local riverside pub -
Punter: Do you do requests?
Singer: Yes, I will try.
Punter: This one involves lead boots and the River Don.
And clarinetist Acker Bilk was asked
Punter: Do you do requests?
Acker: What do you want?
Punter: Oh, Anything.
Acker: F*k off *** ***
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Put Downs
Another of Sir Malcolm Sargeant's wit, or the lack of it.
At an orchestral rehearsal one day, the musicians having already tuned up, started to play the piece. 10 seconds into it Sir Malcolm tapped the podium with his baton, "Second Bassoon you are out of tune." First Bassoonist, "Sir , the Second Bassoon isn't here today." Sir Malcolm quick as a flash. " When the Second Bassoon graces us with his esteemed presence, tell him he's out of tune."
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Put Downs
I finished playing and an old woman came up to me. I had messed up(pretty obviously) and cajuns aren't known for their tact. She came up and said, "That was beautiful. Now all you have to do is go home and practice some more." Not exactly as clever as Irish put-downs but it managed to get me to stop smiling as if I had played decently.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by The Celt
Re: Put Downs
Actual instructions to the orchestra from professional conductors (courtesy of Norma G. Rogers, Flutist, Nashville Symphony Orchestra):
1. Pianissimo doesnt mean drop the f*ck out!
2. Listen to the tune, and then accompany it in a non-disgraceful fashion.
3. Let's see if you can pizzicato together in a non-banjo-like way.
4. It's very hard to raise money for something that sounds like this does.
5. Imagine you're getting enough money for what you do.
6. There is a lot of fishing for notes. I wish you would catch them.
7. Play as if you were musicians.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Pawl
Re: Put Downs
Geoff's reminded me of this. A friend of mine used to run a session in Missoula, Montana, near the banks of the Clark Fork River. One night a guy showed up with two big, heavy cobblestones. When the music started, he held one in each hand and proceeded to bang them together, "whack, whack, whack," ostensibly playing "rhythm." My friend asked him what he was doing. "These are river rocks," came the reply, "and I'm a percussionist."
"Well put them in your pockets and throw them back where they came from," said my friend.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Put Downs
Speaking of self put downs, there was the time I overheard a punter asking a guitar player, "What tune was that you all just played?" as the last strum was fading from his strings.
"Oh I don't know," the guitarist said, "I wasn't listening."
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Put Downs
I got this one from Tony McManus - a folk singer in Glasgow was doing a spot between bigger acts but was taking forever to tune up.
As a joke, he said "when I get this guitar in tune, I'm going to get it welded".
The comeback was instant "Aye, get it welded to a bus".
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by ian clark
Re: Put Downs
At a Fife and Drum muster jam session last summer, I received two "left-handed" compliments at separate times from two fifers whose playing I respect:
"Man, you can blow!"
and
"You're 2/3 of the way there, man."
Left me smiling, and in search of a fresh beverage if nothing else.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by FyfferGuy
Re: Put Downs
We often play for weddings at an Inn on the coast. Its location is remote and it's difficult to get to so guests are usually trickling in for the wedding. We've taken to playing tunes, (like a session,) in the pub at the Inn as folks arrive before the wedding begins. Our guitar player has taken up the banjo and I suggested that he bring it for the “session” part of the gig. It was the first time he brought it out in public, but he's actually getting very good at it since he already played the melody of many tunes on his guitar. So we're playing away and this 6-year-old girl who was watching with pinched face comes up when we stopped and says to him in a whiny voice, "Why were you doing that!" Needless to say he was devastated. We had to have a benefit for him later so he could pay for his therapy sessions. As you might imagine this has become a regular remark to one another at our gigs now.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Put Downs
At a local music party, not long after I first moved here, I heard the host tell a guest who had just finished playing a tune, "You don't suck."
Months afterwards I found out "doesn't suck" is a local idiom. It was actually a compliment --- the host was saying "You're good."
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by sara g
Re: Put Downs
Six year old girls must be practicing their devastation skills (for later dealings with adolescent boys). Staying with friends once, I took out my fiddle during a lull in the visiting. As soon as I started to play, their six year old daughter clamped her hands over her ears and ran from the room, wailing at the top of her lungs. I haven't been the same since.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Put Downs
That's why we have kids, Will, to keep our egos in check....
A few years after I started playing the fiddle, one of the neighbor kids was wandering through the house as I was playing some tunes. She is a fine musician, but her family is noted for their sharp tongues. She stuck her head in the practice room and said "Gee, Mrs. Sims, you don't sound bad any more." I took it as the highest compliment.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Batlady
Re: Put Downs
"First the good news Mr. Harmon: you have a strong, healthy ego. Now the bad news: there is no realistic basis for it."
*grin*
Over the years, I've occasionally played for grade school classes, usually around St. Paddy's Day, under the guise of cultural enrichment. They're a touch audience. "Compliments" I've received from kids include:
"Is it supposed to sound like that?"
"How many years do you have to play to get better?"
"Can you play something really quiet?"
"Do you know any easier tunes?"
"Well--*that* was a lot of notes!"
and my favorite
"I've always wanted to play violin but now I think I'll try piano instead."
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Put Downs
er, that would be "tough" audience, though "touchy" also applies.
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Put Downs
"I think it was Tony Cuffe. . ."
Ah, there's another one I'm going to miss. I used to bump into him quite a bit after he moved to Massachusetts. He even showed up for open mic at my coffeehouse in upstate NY now and again. Me and a friend were the only ones who knew who he was, so he could just kinda blend in.
In private his putdowns could lack all subtlety. We were discussing some CDs that had recently been released and his comment on them was simply:
"I don't know why they bother."
"Then there are the unwitting self-putdowns."
Last night I was playing solo flute in a parking garage, and a woman returning to her car stopped, listened for a minute, and then asked:
"That's Scottish, isn't it?"
"Why yes, it is, isn't it?" I replied, " Of course, it wasn't *supposed* to be. . ."
KFG
# Posted on May 13th 2005 by KFG
Re: Put Downs
One of my 16-month-old nephew's favourite responses to my mandolin playing is to place his palm flat across the strings, reducing all the notes to pitchless clicks. I like to think of it as a sign of appreciation - of the sensation of the plucked strings on his hand, if not of my playing per se.
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by granama
Re: Put Downs
My kids used to do that.
Being the curmudgeon I am, I interpreted it as a demand for attention: "How dare you get absorbed in that mandolin when you should be amusing ME!"
The very one that used to do it has now, 16 years later, permanently "borrowed" that old mando. Sometimes I have to go up to his room and yell at him to get his attention when he is playing it or his guitar: "How dare you get absorbed in that mandolin when you should be listening to ME!"
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by Bren
Re: Put Downs
A disgruntled punter saying "just another bloody English session" - not a put-down to English people per se, but after I got him in headlock and pressed hard on his eyeballs, he admitted he meant an Irish session where Irish music was played badly.
I'm not a violent man you understand, but I've got a reputation to uphold, you know.
Jim
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by Worldfiddler
Re: Put Downs
Our cat runs out of the room everytime my husband picks up his guitar - there's animal honesty for you
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by Cath
Re: Put Downs
"there's animal honesty for you"
When I was studying classical piano my cat was the music critic of the house. She would stay in the room if she approved, but leave in a very undignified manner when she disapproved.
There was one piece, Chopin's Opus 10 #3, that she had a consistent response to. She very much enjoyed the beginning by actually getting up on the bench next to me with her back to the piano and her ears tilted to the rear. As soon as I got to the middle part with the simultaneous descending and ascending parallel-diminished fifths -- she would run to the furthest end of the house. When I got to the end where it returns to the theme from the beginning, she would come back and resume her previous position. It was so predictable that I could amuse my friends with the routine.
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Put Downs
Years ago, one of my students on 5-string banjo broke his leg and could no longer make the commute into the music studios I taught at. But he lived in my neighborhood, so we rescheduled the weekly lesson so I could show up at his house and teach there. The very first lesson broke his heart. His old terrier Maggie met me at the door and followed us into the living room. The man opened his banjo case and the dog left the room, scurrying down the hall to a distant bedroom. "She always does that--goes to the farthest part of the house. She doesn't like the sound of the banjo, you see," he said.
I got my banjo out and started to warm up on last week's tune, looking out the picture window and enjoying the view. After a bit, the man asked me to stop. He looked on the verge of tears and pointed at my feet. There sat Maggie, impersonating the "His Master's Voice" dog, obviously enjoying the banjo music.
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Put Downs
A traditional put down for traditional music.
"Here's the chamber pot lad. Thought you might need some help in carrying that tune."
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: Put Downs
Someone should really have started a new thread about animals and music stories, but as it's included now, heres one.
A friend who played flute and whistles had a Jack Russell cross which was extremely friendly and loving, but one day in his house he said to me, listen to this, starting to play on a D whistle, the dog sang along with it. The same on the flute, a G whistle and the old Clarkes C. However when he took out the Bb, he had just about put it in his mouth when the dog went absolutely berserk, started tearing the curtains, jumping on the table and pushing everything over the edge. Finally attacking my friend and trying to reach the whistle. Some days later he told me that the whistle was no longer..... showing it to me, the dog had actually bent and put holes through it with his teeth. And that was a Generation........
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Put Downs
PS. We never found the mouthpiece.......
# Posted on May 14th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Put Downs
But, curiously, the dog thereafter farted in Bb....
# Posted on May 15th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Put Downs
Did you get him put down?!
# Posted on May 15th 2005 by Rob Millner
Re: Put Downs
Fun comments....
At a session after a day of workshops one of the leaders looks at me and says to another leader.... pretty tune she played, what was it? "The Musical Priest"... "Really?,,, I had no idea it would sound like that when played so slowly"... one of the reasons I don't start tunes in sessions yet.
Music and animals? I have 5 birds, each with different musical tastes. The sun conure loves the flute... and I mean loves!!! He puffs up and sways back and forth like he's in a trance. The peach front conure loves the blues and rocks up and down saying "It's beautiful" at exactly the right point. He actually just loves to sing but blues really gets him going. The budgies really, really like the harp. And best of all the Amazon... loves the fiddle and whistles along whenever I play. Jigs are her favourite but if you get a good rhythm going on a reel she does this clucking thing in time with it. Kind of how I know I've got it right. The down side is that she screams at the top of her lungs (97 decibels) when I stop and she hasn't quite finished singing. I just started learning mandolin and was very surprised to see that it puts them all to sleep... they just close their eyes and listen. It's very sweet.
# Posted on May 15th 2005 by ANNY
Re: Put Downs
I was playing some reels for set dancers once, at what I though it was quite a speedy pace. After one set a girl comes to me and asks "can you play something really fast like reels now?"
# Posted on May 15th 2005 by Beheader
Re: Put Downs
I was over at my friend's place hanging out and I was showing her my low whistle. My friend has a cat, and as soon as I started playing, the cat's eyes bugged out and it bolted for the basement.
This is the friend who I am moving in with in about two weeks. I have no illusions about how well my relationship with the cat will go.
Another time I played a tune to my horse. She tried to chew on the whistle. I took it as a compliment, as she also likes to play with cell phones, ipods, watches, jewelry, and other expensive things. Probably thought that Generation whistle was worth more than it actually was.
# Posted on May 15th 2005 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Put Downs
Then there's the put down from the mid 90s that we all had a good laugh at. We were playing tunes at a Irish pub in the heart of the tourist area and someone came up and said, "Do you guys know any Irish music?" and I said, "That's what we've been playing all night." and the person replied, "No you haven't, I've seen River Dance and what you're playing isn't Irish music."
# Posted on May 15th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Put Downs
Another one has just come into my head, this from the late sixties. Before I started the mandolin I was just a singer, but I was with a crowd of musicians in a pub and towards the end of the night someone said to us. "That diddly music sounds all the same, could you play some Sean O'Riada...."
# Posted on May 15th 2005 by Ian Stevenson
Re: Put Downs
Ian Stevenson: I had a similar experience with my dog and the neighborhood dogs with a Didjeridoo. When I would play, they had a multi part harmony going like a coyote pack. I got the neighbors upset and I had to stop, but it was really funny. The sound would echo off the mountain side and my dog would always check everywhere for the weird animal that could make that noise.
PS: I just hope the dog in that story didn't have to "pass" the mouthpiece. I have heard about passing stones, but a mouthpiece would be excruciating. That would probably cause a different type of howling.
# Posted on May 16th 2005 by CeolCairdeas
Re: Put Downs
I'm a regular at a session in Michigan. About a year ago we had a bodhran player who was truthfully pretty bloody awful, and didn't really pay much attention to session ettiquite either (such as, bodhran players generally take turns). One night after a particularly loud set of tunes, one of the flute players took the guys hands in his and said "sometimes it's alright to just listen and watch the musicians!" Not enough for the guy. The next week he was back again. It was a full night, and we were running out of chairs, so one of the fiddlers said to the guy, "could you get up and make room for the musicians?" Luckily that seemed to do the trick, and we never saw him again.
As a teenage musician, us kids are constantly getting told off for playing too fast, even when it's not our fault. Sometimes I think that the older generation just wants to keep us in our places.
# Posted on May 21st 2005 by alison kale
Re: Put Downs
"It's not my fault I'm playing too fast"
?
# Posted on May 21st 2005 by Dow
Re: Put Downs
I meant that during a session, after a particularly fast set of tunes, the younger musicians will sometimes get unfairly blamed for how speedy they were.
Sorry for being unclear. Is that better?
# Posted on May 22nd 2005 by alison kale