I started playing ITM only two years ago, and I need some advice from experienced players.
I currently spend much of my whistle time working on ornamentation. I'm rather confident that my rhythm is good; I've asked my friends and got thumbs up. (I've been playing music for 30 years after all.) What I lack is a long tune list: I currently have 30-some tunes embedded in my fingers.
I wonder whether I should concentrate on learning more tunes, rather than making my cuts and rolls more crisp.
How difficult do you find it to learn new tunes? If you find it pretty easy, then surely you can work on ornaments in the context of any tune, so why not get on with it? Also, there is a lot more to technique than ornamentation....
Also, I hope you are listening to the style in which various players use ornaments and execute them. Being able to imitate is very useful, even if you choose not to.
By learning new tunes your technique will improve on its own because of the way the brain works in terms of finger memory for certain patterns of notes. Build up your repertoire by learning a few hundred tunes over the coming months and then reassess your technique.
Dow,
I doubt if goccia or anyone else would be able to make the leap from thirty to a few hundred tunes in just a few months! I'm not sure that technique would necessarily improve either, although you're right in suggesting that this will assist in memorising finger patterns. This, in turn, will aid the learning process.
Many people here would argue that it's preferable to know and play 30 tunes really well than a few hundred really badly. However, there's a happy medium too. I love finding, hearing, and trying out new tunes but there's always just so many of them that I can play reasonably well at any one time.
So, my advice is to do both things simultaneously. Try a few new tunes as and when you find them(or they find you) while continuing to practise your technique etc especially on your favourites.
Are you playing out at sessions? That'll tell you a WHOLE lot of what you need to do next. Among other things, you'll much more quickly learn new tunes, since you'll be hearing them as you listen to the tunes you don't know, and you'll easily discover the ones that you'll need to know to get along well in your home session.
Anyway, at some point you have to learn more tunes, but it's different for everyone depending on how fast you learn tunes and where you are in your playing abiilities, and impossible to know what's right for you just from a description online.
Anyway, nothing wrong with having patience with yourself. If you want to work on your technique over repertoire, that's not really a big problem so long as you know that you won't be playing on as many tunes of an evening. If you want to work on rep over technique, know that you will need to come back to that sooner or later. Personally, I agree with Kris -- no reason you can't work on both, but it'll depend on what you're comfortable with.
Years then. Give it say 5 years. Technique comes with time. Tunes absorb themselves with time. You can only be patient and wait. As it is, you've identified a weakness - that you don't have a big enough repertoire. So that's what you have to concentrate on and see what happens...
I pick up tunes quite easily if I listen to them - and I listen to ITM all the time, it's sort of a pet obsession I try to learn styles ranging from the basic & nice noise of the Dubliners to the outstanding virtuosity of Brian Finnegan, Mike McGoldrick and the like. Intimidating, to say the least!
Incidentally, last time I went to our local session a whistler I know joined in for the first time. He can play ornaments beautifully, I mean, crisp and lean cuts & rolls & cranns. Too bad he was playing off beat and off key, a fifth higher than the fiddler! He obviously got looks.
This taught me once again that there's much more to ITM than just ornamentation. Back to the tune lists then!
If you learn too many tunes before you've mastered your technique you'll be sorry when you realize you have to go back and rework them all to bring them up to snuff. Take it from someone who's made that mistake.
You should be learning technique all your life - don't concentrate on technique at the expense of tunes.
You will enjoy your sessions more if you can play 200 tunes with no ornaments (and be working on the technique), than play 30 tunes with ornaments.
Learn one new tune a week and work your ornamentation practice on it. In a year you'll have more than doubled your repertoire and gotten in a lot of ornamentation practice to boot, and done it in a way that that'll larn ya how to fit the ornamentations into new tunes.
The thing I don't understand is how you can separate what you call "tune" and "ornament". Quite simply, the tune is not the tune without the rolls etc. BegF seems to be the only one here who realizes this.
geofwright says " You will enjoy your sessions more if you can play 200 tunes with no ornaments". I'm sorry, but this is just the kind of daftness that makes me hopping mad. You might as well bring your computer to the session and get the bloody midi thing to rattle out tunes off its database.
I'm not deliberately trying to disagree with you here, Michael. However, would you not agree that not every musician will play the same tune in exactly the style using exactly the same ornamentation?
Surely then, every tune must have a "bare bones" version? Or each could be "stripped down" to this effect.
Also, if you've picked up a tune from somewhere without the ornamentations, how do you know where and when to add these. I'd argue it was a matter of taste and maybe even trial and error but would you suggest seeking out the "definitive version or setting" of the tune first(We've discussed this before and we both agreed that there's no such thing!)?
As I say, I'm not trying to contradict you here and I can see what you're getting at. It's just that there's so many styles and settings. I know you wouldn't necessarily accuse every player who played a tune differently from yourself as "being wrong". However, I'm sure you'll concede that each tune can be played with different ornaments.
Then again, we're back to the "fitting in" scenario or is it the "there's too many tunes already" situation?
but this is the whole point about not being able to write diddley down. Sure, you can write down a skeleton, you can even just play the skeleton if you want, but it's not the tune. It only becomes the tune when it has all the elusive intangible loveliness.
And how do you know where do you put all this elusive intangible loveliness? By listening
Of course, you listen. I agree with that. It's "your tune" though and it might not(probably isn't) be the same one as e.g. Peter, Kathryn, Freddie or whoever might play. You wouldn't suggest that they had learned it wrongly, though?
I want to engage people in the dicotamy that the tune is not the tune without the rolls etc. even though the rolls and the loveliness etc should go in different places every time.
It's the acceptance that it can and should vary, while remaining definative
Our resident cynic, Michael, is talking about "elusive intangible loveliness!" Sounds positively mushy!
Will wonders ever cease--can we call it a Christmas miracle?
I think that one of course has to learn the bare bones version first, then add the "make it your own" stuff...that is how I have to do things anyway...because when I make them my own I don't think that anybody else would want them...
I don't stop at just trying to learn the skeleton because there is so much more than that..it would be pretty boring stuff if all there were to a tune were just the 3 notes to a jig type of stuff
Being very new to both ITM and learning to play the mandolin, repertoire and technique are in rather early stages of development with me. Since I am pretty isolated, and haven't the advantage of listening to others playing at sessions, I'm presently restricted to learning tunes from radio, CDs, MIDIs, and the like. Problem is that sound files and notation are skeletal, at best, and much recorded stuff is so awesomely intricate and fast that hearing and training the old "new" ear to isolate the technique and ornamentation is really difficult. Could of you good folks recommend some CDs/sources of ITM that might help bridge the gap between where I am now, and where I want to be? It's been fifty-years since I was seriously into playing an instrument. I've got much catching-up to do to, and probably don't have another fifty-years to do it in, so I guess I'm looking for some training-wheels 'till I get up and running.
The foundation of good playing is solid tone and rhythm, and a fine sense of timing. Focusing on these qualities will get you farther, faster than worrying over the twiddly bits or how many tunes you know.
But it's certainly possible to work on all of it. Why not learn by listening to good players whose style is fairly plain--Micho Russell springs to mind. Mike Rafferty also gets great lift and life in his music without twiddling every note. Listening closely to how they play will teach you loads about tone and timing, and you'll also pick up some essential nuances in how to articulate notes, whether with cuts, rolls, cranns, or more subtle techniques (e.g., glottal stops, diaphragm pulsing, leaning into a note with your breath, etc.).
Meanwhile, you can also keep listening to Finnegan and McGoldrick, and as you progress, follow your bliss--if you're drawn to a "busy" style with lots of cuts and rolls, go for it. The foundation of tone, rhythm, and timing will still be there.
here we go again with the same misconception. You have trouble isolating the technique and ornamentation because it cannot be isolated. It IS the tune, it IS the music.
It's this crazy thing I've heard said where you maybe spend time practicing the "ornamentation". It's just plain daft. Please please stop thinking of rolls etc as "decoration" to the tune. They are just as much an inherent part of the tune as the fairy lights are a part of the christmas tree. Without the fairy lights, it's just a tree.
Will's right. "essential nuances in how to articulate notes". This is waht I'm talking about. The essetial essence of the music is in the articulation. The phrasing. Everything that isn't on the piece of paper
You're going a bit overboard, there, Michael, I think, although the point is well taken. It's certainly possible for a musician to work on just ornamentation, or to learn the bones of a tune knowing that you'll be playing around with things like ornamentation and variation later -- we all do it, and you know it. (Granted that the ideal is the way you're talking about.) We all even have our favorite, almost automatic places and ways of ornamenting, phrasing, and all the rest.
If someone is a decent musician already (although I realize that's an assumption based on goccia's 30 years of playing music figure, and of course we all know length of playing time doesn't necessarily mean a thing), then what they really need to do is listen. Actually, that's true for everyone, of course, whether a decent musician yet or not. Listen to all the really good players they can, get out to their local session and hear how they play there, make some judgements about what styles you like and don't.
As they get a sense of what style they want to play and form a judgement basis for their tastes in this stuff, they can keep working technical stuff and learning tunes -- although of course they also need to, these days, do some research on the tunes they're learning and where from, so they don't learn them in un-session or un-instrument friendly keys, given the way people tend to record in weird keys for the fun of it these days.
Just because you don't like playing scales doesn't mean playing scales isn't useful to someone else.
Ornamentation is integral to the tune. You can't leave out all the crans in a tune like "Humors of Ballyloughlin" just because you find crans difficult - they are part the tune, and the tune is diminished without them.
The main thing when practicing a tune with ornamentaion is to practice it SLOWLY and steadily. Play along to a recording with slow down software and put in every last twiddly bit at a very slow tempo. If you trip up, slow down the recording even more. If you have to take it down to 20 bpm, then take it down to 20bpm and don't get a complex about it or think that you're an idiot because you have to do this. The real idiots are the people who plainly need to go to this kind of extreme yet think that they don't.
Well said. Just because you may well be able to recognise the Humors of Ballyloughlin without the crans doesn't mean it's the tune. And why on earth would you practice crans and scales when you can play the Humors of Ballyloughlin instead?
"Ornamentation" is only integral to the tune when you're trying to sound authentic and accomplished (whatever that means). If you're in the early stages of learning the music and/or your instrument, there's nothing wrong with learning the basic melody and working on the cuts, cranns, rolls, triplets, etc. on the side, to combine them all later.
Case in point. I've played Irish fiddle for decades, so when I took up tenor banjo I had a large "instant" repertoire of tunes. Of course, I started out trying to play triplets in all the places I would typically play bowed triplets on fiddle. But it wasn't working, no matter how slow I played the tune. I simply didn't have workable plectrum triplets. In fact, my plectrum technique overall was pretty bad.
I found I made much better progress if I just relaxed into playing the tunes without any ornamentation. It didn't take long to get the groove and tempo going on jigs and reels. Meanwhile, I kept working on triplets, using little phrases from tunes as practice exercises and gradually working back up to whole tunes with some triplets embedded. Now I have workable triplets (on a good day), *and* a relaxed picking hand, so when I put triplets in, they don't disrupt the lift. Having tried it the other way, I'm convinced that I'd still be struggling (well, more than I am *smirk*) if i hadn't isolated out the components of playing this music on banjo and worked on each separately.
This experience also gave me a new appreciation for how well some tunes can stand on their own, without a bunch of cuts and rolls and triplets. You can do a lot with simple rhythmic and melodic variations.
I'd go so far to say that it's even common practice among the best trad players to "leave out all the cranns in a tune like the Humours of Ballyloughlin"--or at least most of the articulations--the first time through the tune, and then layer stuff in as they repeat the tune. That's how you build surprise and interest into an otherwise repetitive sixteen bar figure.
All that said, whistle, flute, and pipes obviously rely more on cuts, rolls, and cranns not just as ornaments but as essential ways of articulating notes--of separating two notes of the same pitch, for example, or giving rhythm to one long held note. If I play the B part of Last Night's Fun on whistle or flute without any cuts or rolls on those dotted quarter fs, it will sound like elevator Irish trad. So the articulation techniques are more "built in" to the wind instruments. The B part of Last Night's Fun makes a great piece for practicing your f rolls. But that doesn't mean that you can't meanwhile play other tunes that don't require rolls.
I'd wager that if the first time Michael ever straps into a set of uilleann pipes, he won't be playing cranns in the Humours of Ballyloughlin. He--or anyone else--will be lucky just to get the bellows and bag pumping coordinated while getting choked goose noises out of the chanter.
It's interesting that you should mention the banjo, pipes, and different instruments, Will. I don't think you would necessarily want to use the same ornamentation for a tune on every instrument. For example, I'd probably play more triplets(I do, in fact) on the mandolin and banjo.
To prove this to myself, I actually listened to a few CDs today and the ornaments varied depending on the instrument played, even although they although played the same tune. Of course, it was all well played and "fitted in" but it's not unusual to have more, less, different, or even none depending on the circumstances.
Some technique and ornamentation is essential to making a tune sound like a tune, at least with pipes. Maybe it's different with a fiddle. But I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to play a tune like the Humours of Ballyloughlin or Fraher's Jig without crans and make it still sound sort of decent. I guess you can just sit on that bottom D, but that probably doesn't do anything nice for the rhythm.
Anyway, I work on technique within tunes. More fun that way. If you play a tune with A rolls at a slow pace and say, "I am going to take care to nail those stupid A rolls of doom," then you're practicing your technique. I can play a tune over and over again until I get it right (if I'm in the mood), whereas playing a gazillion (insert ornamentation technique here) in a row gets old quick. And might or might not help with other things like rhythm since you kinda need to be able to play them within the rhythm of the tune.
Go with what seems to work for you. Everyone I've ever met, regardless of whether they have two or twenty years of experience, has opinions how best to practice this stuff. And they all totally contradict each other. My theory is that if you are having fun and seem to be getting better, than keep doing what you're doing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if you're stuck and frustrated, then try all the different (and contradictory) things people suggest. Everyone is wired differently. No one learns anything -- be it Irish trad or anything else in the world -- the same way.
John, I wasn't suggesting using the same ornaments in the same places on different instruments. Merely using triplets on banjo as an example (because there aren't as many other options for how to articulate a dotted quarter note, say). And obviously, we can and do use bowed triplets and picked triplets in many of the same places--quarter notes, dotted quarters, chromatic triplet runs leading to a strong note, etc.
Michael, I just hope no one else was within earshot! LOL. No wonder they've outlawed learning pipes in public in your neck of the woods....
I am starting to somewhat agree with Michael on this issue. I used to think, learn the bones of the tune first, and then flesh them out with 'ornaments." But what I find is that, the earlier tunes I learned still tend to sound stripped down. And when I play the whistle, I even (close your eyes if you are squeamish) use my TONGUE very percussively on some of those older tunes, because I was taking what I had heard and played on a fife, and applied it to the whistle. They are Irish tunes, but they sound pretty darned American that way. I am starting to come around to the thinking that it is better to learn a tune with ornamentation as part and parcel of what you are learning--and if it takes longer to get it up to speed, so be it. Now I just need to force myself to be disciplined enough to take that approach....
And taking this more disciplined approach will probably stand in between me and my ability to add a few hundred new tunes to my repetoire in the next few months (I had to laugh when I saw that, I am a "one or maybe two new tunes a month" type of guy).
A lot of folks learning ITM will ask me, "How long before I can join a session?" This is part of the problem with ITM as it relates to sessions. Ideally you want to be able to 1) Play an instrument 2) know a load of tunes so you can be playing instead of just sitting there 2) have your tunes sound good with all the style and ornamentation understood and under control. To accomplish all of that takes many years, and when someone has their sights set on the session target right at the beginning it becomes a daunting proposition.
I've seen people cram to learn tunes so that they could complete #1 and #2, but without having #3 established end up just knowing a bunch of Irish-like melodies. Sometimes they will accomplish #3 over the next several years, but others will continue playing just the melodies without ever getting to the music.
When people come to me for help, if they're often too hung up on #1 and #2 and become frustrated because I want to concentrate on #3 before moving on to new tunes. The reason I like to concentrate on #3 so much is because it seems to me like a good idea to establish your repertoire on a firm foundation.
So -- to answer the query of the thread -- technique before repertoire. Don't be in such a blasted hurry to be in sessions. You can still enjoy participating in them with a limited repertoire because when you do you'll be more satisfied with your music if it has the style intact. Rather than playing a lot of Irish melodies poorly, you'll be playing the tunes the way you hoped you would.
I think is too much emphasis on how many tunes you can play and how much technique you have and how much you force/put into a tune. Not enough emphasis is put in style.
Perhaps you might do some investigating on how you'd like to sound as a player. Do you want to be run of the mill and able to freely take part in sessions or do you wanna play like some of the greats like Kieran Collins, Deirde Collis, Mary Bergin, Willie Clancy (who is one of the best whistlers in my book) and anyone else who comes to mind. Maybe you might pick a regional style or try to learn how to play jigs with 1234 56 as some of the older players did, ie Kieran Collins.
Tunes will come and as the phantom button says you'll regret it if you rush into things. It's hard to sit at session without playing much at first but if you can fight the paranoya of not being involved you might even find that you enjoy listening, maybe even more than you might enjoy playing.
Jaysus, imagine my shock of hitting "post" to see nearly my own words (stress nearly) written before me, under the phantom button. What's the world coming to....
Did you enjoy Kevin Burke's sermon the other night? I think you were in the jax for most of it.
I think some of us are talking about different stages of learning here, in part because we can only guess at goccia's actual abilities with the tunes and whistle. And in part because how you learn this music depends a bit on what instrument you're playing (and also the obvious point that we each come to music with different strenghts and weaknesses and learning approaches that work best for us).
For most people learning whistle, the basics of tone and rhythm aren't too tricky, so it's relatively easy to quickly move into learning tunes complete with cuts, rolls, and whatever else.
Still, it's amazingly common to run into newbie whistle players whose tone and rhythm suck, yet they're twiddling their fingers like mad to get all the cuts, rolls, and whatever in. A bit like Michael's Christmas tree, with an infestation of lights all strobing madly in a random array.
If you can learn it all at once, then by all means go for it. But then you're pobably not the type to write to a discussion board asking for help.
And if learning it all at once seems a tad overwhelming, then take solace in realizing that their are many tunes that work very well on whistle with a bare minimum of articulations--a few cuts or strikes. Learning these while solidifying your tone, rhythm, and timing will pay huge dividends later in having a good foundation to work from when adding rolls, cranns, etc. You can certainly work on rolls etc. on a few tunes, but there's not much point in adding dozens of tunes to your repertoire if your cuts or rolls aren't working yet.
The same goes for fiddle. It's not unusual to hear fiddlers 6 years into their journey who play oodles of rolls in every tune, yet they can't do a decent cut note. That makes no sense, and the dim quality of their rolls proves it. If they'd spent some time playing tunes without rolls and working on their cuts instead, they'd be ahead of their own game.
Some people learn by synthesis--they glom onto the whole and go for it. Others learn by breaking skills and concepts down into their parts and then reassembling them. Some people do both. Some ridiculously complex skills beg to be learned piece by piece--I hope most heart surgeons practice doing sutures on oranges and poke around the chest cavaties of a few cadavers before moving on to snipping arteries on a living patient.
Michael may have *attempted* cranns on pipes the first time he tried playing the octopus, but unless he's the child prodigy he sometimes professes to be, I seriously doubt that he actually *played* cranns, not the sort I'd want to hear in my session at any rate.
I'm afraid I'm with Michael on this issue. I'm all for viewing the tune as a changeable, abstract whole, without separating the idea of "ornamentation" from the tune itself. Ornamentation is primarily a rhythmic device to make the tune more danceable anyway, rather than a melodic device for "prettifying" the tune. It's because of this that you should approach the music tune-by-tune, i.e. take one tune at a time and just be patient. Ornamentation and rhythmic technique are all the same thing really. They'll come with time if you just learn the tunes by doing a lot of listening to CDs and live music including sessions. Don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important and that you can get away with a handful of tuens "if your ornamentation sounds good". That's rubbish. Trust me, you have a lot of tunes to learn so get cracking now.
Hahaha Dow, these two points in your post seem to be arguing with each other.
“You should approach the music tune-by-tune, i.e. take one tune at a time and just be patient.”
“Don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important and that you can get away with a handful of tuens "if your ornamentation sounds good". That's rubbish.”
First you’re suggesting that one should carefully go about learning the tunes one by one and be “patient”, and then you seem to be saying that a careful approach is “rubbish” and people should just start learning tunes willy-nilly, warts and all, and not be satisfied with patiently working on one tune at a time.
I think Dow means that you should be doing both -- working on tunes and repertoire. You shouldn't let rhythm and technique turn into a train wreck because you're cramming 7482723402 tunes into your head, nor should you be like, "Well, I play these dozen tunes incredibly well, but maybe not as well as I'd like so I'm gonna work on playing them exactly like Willie Clancy (weird variations and all) and not work on any other tune." It's a balance.
Some people (piper) on intermediate level do something else: They play one tune ie daily for 15 minutes over a year. You can start on a basic level and then add more and more variations and ornamentations. The essential is you learn the tune 120% like that
It might be you dislike after the year.....
Is it better to have one more person playing Irish-lite tunes or to have one more person give up the quest?
Some people learn to play the-skeleton-of-an-Irish-tune-not-to-be-confused-with-the-real-tune and never learn a proper ornament. Some don’t know any better but some just don’t have the dexterity to do a decent roll or cran.
Should they be
a) discouraged from continuing?
b) encouraged to keep playing, but don’t join in with people who play the-real-tune?
c) euthanized?
Outside of a public session, how would you treat this person? Would you play a few tunes with them? Explain, however politely, that they are not doing it right? In short, what is their place in the world?
This question belies an assumption that there's some sort of end destination when it comes to learning technique.
There is no point at which the magic ornamentation fairy is going to come along and decree that you have mastered technique and are entitled to then do whatever you want.
This notion of mastering technique in a fixed quantity of time is a load of hooey. You will never get 'there', because the more you learn and develop, you will start to understand that there is no 'there. The target is always moving. It's stops moving when you stop working at it, and you certainly won't be 'there'.
Learn tunes because you like playing them, not because you think you should know them. There are alot of sh*t tunes out there. Instead of spending your time trying to master ornamentation, spend that time listening to recordings.
I like that Steph, The fluidity of it all is important.
Somebody mentioned something about learning a tune then moving on to learning the next one. This is not how it works. At any given time you may have loads of tunes you recognize but don't know well enough to play, tunes you can just play in the company of those who play them well, tunes you play well, tunes you think you know inside out and back to front, etc etc.
But what I like about this is that tunes never necessarily move seamlessly up this ladder. Often they take steps back as you realize there is more to them than you thought. It's just such a lovely process of constant learning and re-learning and reassessing and improving
One of the things I really really love to do is to sit out a tune I love to play and just hear what my brilliant mates do with it.
Aye, YOUR "brilliant mates" Michael. MY "brilliant mate" got insulted by you 20 odd years ago when you had the arrogance to tell him he wasn't using enough grace notes. MY 'brilliant mate' was/is a true original. I'd bet a pound to a penny he knows AND understands more tunes than you do 20 years on. AND he didn't try to make the big time by forming a god awful 'Folk Rock band' doing embarrassing p*ss poor impersonations of Moving Hearts.
Oh yeah! While I'm at it Jeremy, do the decent thing and find a way of uploading the database here on to a decent bulletin board, so we can rip the crap out of each other without your prissy censorship. Anyone with a tad of sense can see we're being used as an example of your wonderful site designing skills.....
Oh my, oh my - isn't it just grand when someone new joins us? Don't you just love it when a new friendly face pops in to say a big cheery 'Hello', with a big smile on their face & a kind word to say about everyone, especially at this time of year. Aye it warms the cockles of my heart to see that, so it does.
Let's all welcome Bill Price to this site.
He's obviously a decent sort.
Altogether now:
For He's a jolly good fellow
For He's a jolly good fellow
For He's a jolly good fe.........llow
Which no........................................................................................
Yeah c'mon Jeremy why don't you spend your precious time changing your site completely for the benefit of our new friend Bill? He did ask you ever so nicely after all.
Jack you totally misunderstood my last post, but I can't be arsed to explain it to you. Like other Anglo players, I know you have difficulty understanding complex objects and concepts. So I'll just let it go...
“You should approach the music tune-by-tune, i.e. take one tune at a time and just be patient.”
“Don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important and that you can get away with a handful of tuens "if your ornamentation sounds good". That's rubbish.”
First you’re suggesting that one should carefully go about learning the tunes one by one and be “patient”, and then you seem to be saying that a careful approach is “rubbish” and people should just start learning tunes willy-nilly, warts and all, and not be satisfied with patiently working on one tune at a time.
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First of all, taking tunes one by one doesn't necessarily mean that you should block out all other tunes and focus on one only, and I want you to listen to what I'm saying here and not misunderstand me. The way I've always done it is to go to lots of sessions and absorb the repertoire until my head's stuffed with different tunes each week. I'll then go home and maybe look each tune up, maybe get a name for it, and look at some dots to get the odd bar I haven't picked up at the session. I would say that I approach the tunes "patiently", but not particularly "carefully". As in, I'm taking the tunes as I pick them up in my head, but I'm not dissecting every little bit of ornamentation I hear and analysing it in great detail at the expense of the tune itself.
I've never suggested that people learn tunes willy-nilly. Where did you get that from?! I said "don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important." It *is* important. If you want to play at a decent session you need a lot of tunes. It's by learning those tunes that you get the experience necessary to be able to assess your own technique in an informed way, and decide what needs work. In an ideal world we'd all be able to absorb tunes without giving them consideration, but in reality they require a bit of effort. You have to listen properly. You can turn up to a session every day with the intention of "absorbing" the tunes by osmosis, but if you're not listening properly you'll not learn them.
It all depends on whether or not you want to be any good. In my opinion, if you don't want to be any good at playing the tunes, then what's the point? Pack it in and take up fishing or something.
If you *do* want to be able to play, then you have to realise you need to get your arse in gear and learn the repertoire. Too many people are under the impression that you can get away with a handful of tunes, as long as you play them nicely with all the pretty lah-di-dah twiddly bits. When you first start playing you think you're doing okay, and you're like: "these things are good about my playing", but then you listen to a recording of yourself a few months/years later and it sounds effing awful. The only way to get round that is to sit it out and learn the tunes and listen to the way they're played properly. If you have the rhythm in your head and you have the tunes in your head, the ornamentation will sort itself out. Like Michael said, the ornamentation *is* the tune - it's a part-whole relationship or whatever you call it, not optional extras added for effect. If you're not ornamenting your tune, then you're not creating crisp articulation and therefore you're not playing the tune, therefore you have to go away and learn it properly.
'Kay Jack now I'm ::hic:: drunk right I'ave had ::hic::far too much alcohololical bever-bloody-ahzhe tonight but :: hic:: you lllook me in the oiye right now and tell me that you :: hic:: don't think people should leanr the fookn repertoire. I mean you, yeah, you're always ::hic:: moanin' on about how you don't think people do their homework before they ::hic:: come to your fookn high-class sessions, yeah, you anglo playing monster... well bloody hell all I'm saying is people should get off their bloody arses and ::hic:: learn a few tunes and oo, surprise surprise you disa- ::hic, hic, hic.... hic:: -gree, right, so shut up, hic, ye..f'n b'rd..ye....
I've learnt 8 tunes while this ::hic:: thread's been going, and I work weekends too so it can't be that difficult, if you luv it, you'll learn it, and that's ::hic:: that's it and all about it so shut up.
"Am I talking to people who don't think sessions are important?"
Could well just be person. After all, the 99% of people who keep the tradition of Irish music alive but don't go to sessions might well not be attracted to board titled "The Session."
Irish music was around before sessions. It'll be around long after the current session fad is dead. Sessions only mean squat to people who want to take part in sessions.
They have nothing, nothing at all, to do with "The Music."
"They have nothing, nothing at all, to do with "The Music."" A little overboard, there, Kevin. If that were COMPLETELY true, there wouldn't be any of the stuff played at sessions.
Move to Buffalo! Here we have nice gatherings where people enjoy playing tunes with one another and good music is made playing together. Then, if you need some variety, you can travel east to Rochester, where they also have these very nice gatherings. Or if you're feeling frisky and have a suitable knit cap and scarf, you can travel north to Toronto, where they also have these very nice gatherings, with the added benefit that they hand you a donut and a Labatt Blue at the door.
It's a communal sort of thing we call a 'session' - which seems to be a different animal than the tortuous viper pits you all seem to have to venture to in order to play your music.
For feck's sake - here is the GOLDEN RULE:
IF A SESSION IS MAKING YOU MISERABLE - DON'T FECKING GO! MOVE AWAY OR HAVE SOME CHILDREN AND START YOUR OWN.
Of course I'm forgetting that a significant portion of the world's population seems to enjoy being miserable, and even moreso, enjoys incessantly bitching about how miserable they are. They seem gravitated toward posting on this board.
I'm curious to know what things will look like when the "current session fad" is dead. Will we all be holed up in our houses, sipping endless cups of tea, playing tunes to ourselves?
"If that were COMPLETELY true, there wouldn't be any of the stuff played at sessions."
As so elevators are about The Muzac and whorehouses are about Ragtime.
". . .HAVE SOME CHILDREN AND START YOUR OWN."
Yes, that is one other branch of the tradition.
". . .a significant portion of the world's population seems to enjoy being miserable. . ."
Doesn't describe me at all. Happy pretty much no matter what is closer to the mark. Able to transfer that happiness to others as well. What gets me is all the bitching I see around here about Harvest Home. How one can be unhappy while playing that is beyond me. If it makes you miserable, well, then don't play it, but it smacks of a dead soul to me.
". . .seems to be a different animal than the tortuous viper pits you all seem to have to venture to in order to play your music."
What the hell are you talking about? "My" session is full of perfectly lovely people, nor do I have to venture anywhere at all to play my music. Sessions are not The Music.
"Will we all be holed up in our houses, sipping endless cups of tea, playing tunes to ourselves?"
There are many branches of the tradition. If that's one that rows your boat, have at. If it doesn't do sumpin' else.
But the lone fiddler/piper/whistler is certainly the central core of the tradition. That's why when in ensembles we play in unison.
Wow. I almost always have a lovely time at any session, (which seem to be stuffed full of people having a good time and sharing the music; perhaps we don't play The Music, then, with capital letters), actually, it's rare that I don't, and when I don't, it's usually me, not anyone else in these "viper pits" whether they're at home or in public.
It's enough to make you wonder why either of you bother to post here, since you don't seem to care for the other people who post here, or agree, in Kevin's case, with even the whole idea and philosophy behind the thing and...say, why DO you bother to post here?
I make no argument against the idea that solo playing is part and parcel of the tradition.
I do however believe that the thing that is made when playing with one or more other people is powerful enough that this modern machination of 'session' isn't going to go way. And it is traditional. If Seamus Ennis and Willy Clancy could sit down together in Willy's kitchen and have some tunes, that's as traditional as I need it to be.
At least in my opinion, that shared experience is part of what makes The Music what it is.
I've come across the occasional player with an enviable repertoire but unfortunately not with a technique to match - which rather tends to spoil the effect. Technique isn't just being able to play a tune with appropriate ornamentation; it includes playing in tune (fiddles and flutes/whistles in particular), controlled bowing, controlled breathing, control of rhythm, accentuation and speed, coordination, application of lift where required - for starters.
All this doesn't come at once; acquiring technique begins when you take an instrument into your hands for the first time, and for most people you're talking about at least five years before you can consider yourself anywhere near technically proficient - as a previous post has pointed out. It is, anyway, a process that continues (or should continue) for as long as you are playing.
I belong to the school that believes you should aim for a technique a little in advance of what you normally do, and then you're less likely to get nasty surprises - but then I come from a background that expects that approach, so perhaps I'm biassed.
ooooh? 20 odd years ago eh? I had the arrogance to insult your mate when he wasn't using enough grace notes?
Probably, and there is a little conjecture here, because it was so long ago, I had the arrogance to insult your mate when he wasn't using ANY rolls.
I don't recall the exact place and time. I don't know who you are. But I admit it has been a bug bear of mine for many years. If you don't play rolls. you ain't playing the tune. I hope I was being constructive in my criticism/insult, but I admit that it may well have come across as pure insult. I make no apologies for that as, by the sound of your reactionary attitude, your mate was "performing". And as for "knowing" more tunes? ...... I refer you to the above.
However, "god awful 'Folk Rock band' doing embarrassing p*ss poor impersonations of Moving Hearts" was, at the very least, still good diddley music. OK, so it wasn't the best band in the world, but we played diddley like it is, in the thick of it, all be it too loud. OK so it was heavy metal. But the tune was still king.
"I make no argument against the idea that solo playing is part and parcel of the tradition."
Then you and I have no argument. In fact, if you go back and read my original post you'll discover I didn't even disagree with the bit of what Dow wrote that I quoted.
"At least in my opinion, that shared experience is part of what makes The Music what it is."
Ah, well, see, there's our argument. That is what makes The Music what it is *for you,* but it is not the measure of whether or not you are playing The Music or whether the extent of your repertoire achieves some sort of minumum quantity for a Traditional Seal of Approval.
And to borrow an argument from the popcorn muncher, it is insulting to all the great solo players to suggest that it is.
*If* you want to participate in a session and play all or most of the tunes, *then* you will need a repertoire to match the session, *but* participation in sessions is not an essential element of being in the tradition. It is merely one branch of the tradition.
Nor is supporting the solo tradition in any way saying that there is something wrong with your prefering session playing, although it is interesting that some people seem to take it that way.
I don't care if you only like to play with a tuba quartet standing up to your necks in a vat of whipped cream, but if you begin to argue that there is something essential about doing so, well, we'll have a quibble.
Going back to the original theme of this mail, no-one seems to have pointed out that the way in which any one musician ornaments a tune will change over time (or even from one performance to the next).
We each develop an armoury of ornamentation which develops over time, from which we select as we go, depending on our mood, the speed that we find ourselves playing the tune, and litining to what others around us are playing.
(In a session he best rule is probably "less is more" - a large number of musicians all playing different ornaments can jar - save your fancy bits for the tunes when no-one else joins in.)
Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I started playing ITM only two years ago, and I need some advice from experienced players.
I currently spend much of my whistle time working on ornamentation. I'm rather confident that my rhythm is good; I've asked my friends and got thumbs up. (I've been playing music for 30 years after all.) What I lack is a long tune list: I currently have 30-some tunes embedded in my fingers.
I wonder whether I should concentrate on learning more tunes, rather than making my cuts and rolls more crisp.
What do you suggest?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Guidus
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
How difficult do you find it to learn new tunes? If you find it pretty easy, then surely you can work on ornaments in the context of any tune, so why not get on with it? Also, there is a lot more to technique than ornamentation....
Also, I hope you are listening to the style in which various players use ornaments and execute them. Being able to imitate is very useful, even if you choose not to.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by kris
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
By learning new tunes your technique will improve on its own because of the way the brain works in terms of finger memory for certain patterns of notes. Build up your repertoire by learning a few hundred tunes over the coming months and then reassess your technique.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Dow,
I doubt if goccia or anyone else would be able to make the leap from thirty to a few hundred tunes in just a few months! I'm not sure that technique would necessarily improve either, although you're right in suggesting that this will assist in memorising finger patterns. This, in turn, will aid the learning process.
Many people here would argue that it's preferable to know and play 30 tunes really well than a few hundred really badly. However, there's a happy medium too. I love finding, hearing, and trying out new tunes but there's always just so many of them that I can play reasonably well at any one time.
So, my advice is to do both things simultaneously. Try a few new tunes as and when you find them(or they find you) while continuing to practise your technique etc especially on your favourites.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Are you playing out at sessions? That'll tell you a WHOLE lot of what you need to do next. Among other things, you'll much more quickly learn new tunes, since you'll be hearing them as you listen to the tunes you don't know, and you'll easily discover the ones that you'll need to know to get along well in your home session.
Anyway, at some point you have to learn more tunes, but it's different for everyone depending on how fast you learn tunes and where you are in your playing abiilities, and impossible to know what's right for you just from a description online.
Anyway, nothing wrong with having patience with yourself. If you want to work on your technique over repertoire, that's not really a big problem so long as you know that you won't be playing on as many tunes of an evening. If you want to work on rep over technique, know that you will need to come back to that sooner or later. Personally, I agree with Kris -- no reason you can't work on both, but it'll depend on what you're comfortable with.
Have fun, though -- otherwise what's the point?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Oh, and Johnny J said the same thing too.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Years then. Give it say 5 years. Technique comes with time. Tunes absorb themselves with time. You can only be patient and wait. As it is, you've identified a weakness - that you don't have a big enough repertoire. So that's what you have to concentrate on and see what happens...
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Hey John J shut up I learnt 5 tunes today. Now if I could do that every day...
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I pick up tunes quite easily if I listen to them - and I listen to ITM all the time, it's sort of a pet obsession
I try to learn styles ranging from the basic & nice noise of the Dubliners to the outstanding virtuosity of Brian Finnegan, Mike McGoldrick and the like. Intimidating, to say the least!
Incidentally, last time I went to our local session a whistler I know joined in for the first time. He can play ornaments beautifully, I mean, crisp and lean cuts & rolls & cranns. Too bad he was playing off beat and off key, a fifth higher than the fiddler! He obviously got looks.
This taught me once again that there's much more to ITM than just ornamentation. Back to the tune lists then!
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Guidus
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
If you learn too many tunes before you've mastered your technique you'll be sorry when you realize you have to go back and rework them all to bring them up to snuff. Take it from someone who's made that mistake.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
You should be learning technique all your life - don't concentrate on technique at the expense of tunes.
You will enjoy your sessions more if you can play 200 tunes with no ornaments (and be working on the technique), than play 30 tunes with ornaments.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by geoffwright
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I'd have to say, personnaly speaking, that I'd enjoy the opposite.
Play 30 tunes with ornaments, than play 200 tunes with
nothing.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by BegF
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
One more vote for hand in hand.
You seem the disciplined sort, so try this:
Learn one new tune a week and work your ornamentation practice on it. In a year you'll have more than doubled your repertoire and gotten in a lot of ornamentation practice to boot, and done it in a way that that'll larn ya how to fit the ornamentations into new tunes.
KFG
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by KFG
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
The thing I don't understand is how you can separate what you call "tune" and "ornament". Quite simply, the tune is not the tune without the rolls etc. BegF seems to be the only one here who realizes this.
geofwright says " You will enjoy your sessions more if you can play 200 tunes with no ornaments". I'm sorry, but this is just the kind of daftness that makes me hopping mad. You might as well bring your computer to the session and get the bloody midi thing to rattle out tunes off its database.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I'm not deliberately trying to disagree with you here, Michael. However, would you not agree that not every musician will play the same tune in exactly the style using exactly the same ornamentation?
Surely then, every tune must have a "bare bones" version? Or each could be "stripped down" to this effect.
Also, if you've picked up a tune from somewhere without the ornamentations, how do you know where and when to add these. I'd argue it was a matter of taste and maybe even trial and error but would you suggest seeking out the "definitive version or setting" of the tune first(We've discussed this before and we both agreed that there's no such thing!)?
As I say, I'm not trying to contradict you here and I can see what you're getting at. It's just that there's so many styles and settings. I know you wouldn't necessarily accuse every player who played a tune differently from yourself as "being wrong". However, I'm sure you'll concede that each tune can be played with different ornaments.
Then again, we're back to the "fitting in" scenario or is it the "there's too many tunes already" situation?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
but this is the whole point about not being able to write diddley down. Sure, you can write down a skeleton, you can even just play the skeleton if you want, but it's not the tune. It only becomes the tune when it has all the elusive intangible loveliness.
And how do you know where do you put all this elusive intangible loveliness? By listening
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Of course, you listen. I agree with that. It's "your tune" though and it might not(probably isn't) be the same one as e.g. Peter, Kathryn, Freddie or whoever might play. You wouldn't suggest that they had learned it wrongly, though?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
of course not. that's not the argument.
I want to engage people in the dicotamy that the tune is not the tune without the rolls etc. even though the rolls and the loveliness etc should go in different places every time.
It's the acceptance that it can and should vary, while remaining definative
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Our resident cynic, Michael, is talking about "elusive intangible loveliness!" Sounds positively mushy!
Will wonders ever cease--can we call it a Christmas miracle?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I think that one of course has to learn the bare bones version first, then add the "make it your own" stuff...that is how I have to do things anyway...because when I make them my own I don't think that anybody else would want them...
I don't stop at just trying to learn the skeleton because there is so much more than that..it would be pretty boring stuff if all there were to a tune were just the 3 notes to a jig type of stuff
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Sunnybear
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
but you have to have a repertoire to learn the technique...why can't they go hand in hand...are you ever done "learning" a tune?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Sunnybear
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Being very new to both ITM and learning to play the mandolin, repertoire and technique are in rather early stages of development with me. Since I am pretty isolated, and haven't the advantage of listening to others playing at sessions, I'm presently restricted to learning tunes from radio, CDs, MIDIs, and the like. Problem is that sound files and notation are skeletal, at best, and much recorded stuff is so awesomely intricate and fast that hearing and training the old "new" ear to isolate the technique and ornamentation is really difficult. Could of you good folks recommend some CDs/sources of ITM that might help bridge the gap between where I am now, and where I want to be? It's been fifty-years since I was seriously into playing an instrument. I've got much catching-up to do to, and probably don't have another fifty-years to do it in, so I guess I'm looking for some training-wheels 'till I get up and running.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by dylandew
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
The foundation of good playing is solid tone and rhythm, and a fine sense of timing. Focusing on these qualities will get you farther, faster than worrying over the twiddly bits or how many tunes you know.
But it's certainly possible to work on all of it. Why not learn by listening to good players whose style is fairly plain--Micho Russell springs to mind. Mike Rafferty also gets great lift and life in his music without twiddling every note. Listening closely to how they play will teach you loads about tone and timing, and you'll also pick up some essential nuances in how to articulate notes, whether with cuts, rolls, cranns, or more subtle techniques (e.g., glottal stops, diaphragm pulsing, leaning into a note with your breath, etc.).
Meanwhile, you can also keep listening to Finnegan and McGoldrick, and as you progress, follow your bliss--if you're drawn to a "busy" style with lots of cuts and rolls, go for it. The foundation of tone, rhythm, and timing will still be there.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
here we go again with the same misconception. You have trouble isolating the technique and ornamentation because it cannot be isolated. It IS the tune, it IS the music.
It's this crazy thing I've heard said where you maybe spend time practicing the "ornamentation". It's just plain daft. Please please stop thinking of rolls etc as "decoration" to the tune. They are just as much an inherent part of the tune as the fairy lights are a part of the christmas tree. Without the fairy lights, it's just a tree.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Will's right. "essential nuances in how to articulate notes". This is waht I'm talking about. The essetial essence of the music is in the articulation. The phrasing. Everything that isn't on the piece of paper
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"There's no lights on the Christmas Tree Mama, they’re burning Big Louie tonight (Sensational Alex Harvey Band)"
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
You're going a bit overboard, there, Michael, I think, although the point is well taken. It's certainly possible for a musician to work on just ornamentation, or to learn the bones of a tune knowing that you'll be playing around with things like ornamentation and variation later -- we all do it, and you know it. (Granted that the ideal is the way you're talking about.) We all even have our favorite, almost automatic places and ways of ornamenting, phrasing, and all the rest.
If someone is a decent musician already (although I realize that's an assumption based on goccia's 30 years of playing music figure, and of course we all know length of playing time doesn't necessarily mean a thing), then what they really need to do is listen. Actually, that's true for everyone, of course, whether a decent musician yet or not. Listen to all the really good players they can, get out to their local session and hear how they play there, make some judgements about what styles you like and don't.
As they get a sense of what style they want to play and form a judgement basis for their tastes in this stuff, they can keep working technical stuff and learning tunes -- although of course they also need to, these days, do some research on the tunes they're learning and where from, so they don't learn them in un-session or un-instrument friendly keys, given the way people tend to record in weird keys for the fun of it these days.
Just because you don't like playing scales doesn't mean playing scales isn't useful to someone else.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Ornamentation is integral to the tune. You can't leave out all the crans in a tune like "Humors of Ballyloughlin" just because you find crans difficult - they are part the tune, and the tune is diminished without them.
The main thing when practicing a tune with ornamentaion is to practice it SLOWLY and steadily. Play along to a recording with slow down software and put in every last twiddly bit at a very slow tempo. If you trip up, slow down the recording even more. If you have to take it down to 20 bpm, then take it down to 20bpm and don't get a complex about it or think that you're an idiot because you have to do this. The real idiots are the people who plainly need to go to this kind of extreme yet think that they don't.
Good luck
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Hanley
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Well said. Just because you may well be able to recognise the Humors of Ballyloughlin without the crans doesn't mean it's the tune. And why on earth would you practice crans and scales when you can play the Humors of Ballyloughlin instead?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Aargh -- you're hopeless, Michael Gill! LOL
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
At least he's got lights on his Christmas tree.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"Ornamentation" is only integral to the tune when you're trying to sound authentic and accomplished (whatever that means). If you're in the early stages of learning the music and/or your instrument, there's nothing wrong with learning the basic melody and working on the cuts, cranns, rolls, triplets, etc. on the side, to combine them all later.
Case in point. I've played Irish fiddle for decades, so when I took up tenor banjo I had a large "instant" repertoire of tunes. Of course, I started out trying to play triplets in all the places I would typically play bowed triplets on fiddle. But it wasn't working, no matter how slow I played the tune. I simply didn't have workable plectrum triplets. In fact, my plectrum technique overall was pretty bad.
I found I made much better progress if I just relaxed into playing the tunes without any ornamentation. It didn't take long to get the groove and tempo going on jigs and reels. Meanwhile, I kept working on triplets, using little phrases from tunes as practice exercises and gradually working back up to whole tunes with some triplets embedded. Now I have workable triplets (on a good day), *and* a relaxed picking hand, so when I put triplets in, they don't disrupt the lift. Having tried it the other way, I'm convinced that I'd still be struggling (well, more than I am *smirk*) if i hadn't isolated out the components of playing this music on banjo and worked on each separately.
This experience also gave me a new appreciation for how well some tunes can stand on their own, without a bunch of cuts and rolls and triplets. You can do a lot with simple rhythmic and melodic variations.
I'd go so far to say that it's even common practice among the best trad players to "leave out all the cranns in a tune like the Humours of Ballyloughlin"--or at least most of the articulations--the first time through the tune, and then layer stuff in as they repeat the tune. That's how you build surprise and interest into an otherwise repetitive sixteen bar figure.
All that said, whistle, flute, and pipes obviously rely more on cuts, rolls, and cranns not just as ornaments but as essential ways of articulating notes--of separating two notes of the same pitch, for example, or giving rhythm to one long held note. If I play the B part of Last Night's Fun on whistle or flute without any cuts or rolls on those dotted quarter fs, it will sound like elevator Irish trad. So the articulation techniques are more "built in" to the wind instruments. The B part of Last Night's Fun makes a great piece for practicing your f rolls. But that doesn't mean that you can't meanwhile play other tunes that don't require rolls.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I'd wager that if the first time Michael ever straps into a set of uilleann pipes, he won't be playing cranns in the Humours of Ballyloughlin. He--or anyone else--will be lucky just to get the bellows and bag pumping coordinated while getting choked goose noises out of the chanter.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Wager lost
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
The first time I strapped on a set of pipes it was "ooh, think of a tune with loads of crans in it."
Sounded awful of course, but the point was, that right from the start, try everything at once.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
It's interesting that you should mention the banjo, pipes, and different instruments, Will. I don't think you would necessarily want to use the same ornamentation for a tune on every instrument. For example, I'd probably play more triplets(I do, in fact) on the mandolin and banjo.
To prove this to myself, I actually listened to a few CDs today and the ornaments varied depending on the instrument played, even although they although played the same tune. Of course, it was all well played and "fitted in" but it's not unusual to have more, less, different, or even none depending on the circumstances.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Some technique and ornamentation is essential to making a tune sound like a tune, at least with pipes. Maybe it's different with a fiddle. But I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to play a tune like the Humours of Ballyloughlin or Fraher's Jig without crans and make it still sound sort of decent. I guess you can just sit on that bottom D, but that probably doesn't do anything nice for the rhythm.
Anyway, I work on technique within tunes. More fun that way. If you play a tune with A rolls at a slow pace and say, "I am going to take care to nail those stupid A rolls of doom," then you're practicing your technique. I can play a tune over and over again until I get it right (if I'm in the mood), whereas playing a gazillion (insert ornamentation technique here) in a row gets old quick. And might or might not help with other things like rhythm since you kinda need to be able to play them within the rhythm of the tune.
Go with what seems to work for you. Everyone I've ever met, regardless of whether they have two or twenty years of experience, has opinions how best to practice this stuff. And they all totally contradict each other. My theory is that if you are having fun and seem to be getting better, than keep doing what you're doing. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But if you're stuck and frustrated, then try all the different (and contradictory) things people suggest. Everyone is wired differently. No one learns anything -- be it Irish trad or anything else in the world -- the same way.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
John, I wasn't suggesting using the same ornaments in the same places on different instruments. Merely using triplets on banjo as an example (because there aren't as many other options for how to articulate a dotted quarter note, say). And obviously, we can and do use bowed triplets and picked triplets in many of the same places--quarter notes, dotted quarters, chromatic triplet runs leading to a strong note, etc.
Michael, I just hope no one else was within earshot! LOL. No wonder they've outlawed learning pipes in public in your neck of the woods....
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Will, I realised what you meant. Also, that you can use them in the same places too.
By the way, did you read my comments in the other thread? I take that you'd recommend Goldtone banjos.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Johannes J
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I am starting to somewhat agree with Michael on this issue. I used to think, learn the bones of the tune first, and then flesh them out with 'ornaments." But what I find is that, the earlier tunes I learned still tend to sound stripped down. And when I play the whistle, I even (close your eyes if you are squeamish) use my TONGUE very percussively on some of those older tunes, because I was taking what I had heard and played on a fife, and applied it to the whistle. They are Irish tunes, but they sound pretty darned American that way. I am starting to come around to the thinking that it is better to learn a tune with ornamentation as part and parcel of what you are learning--and if it takes longer to get it up to speed, so be it. Now I just need to force myself to be disciplined enough to take that approach....
And taking this more disciplined approach will probably stand in between me and my ability to add a few hundred new tunes to my repetoire in the next few months (I had to laugh when I saw that, I am a "one or maybe two new tunes a month" type of guy).
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by AlBrown
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
A lot of folks learning ITM will ask me, "How long before I can join a session?" This is part of the problem with ITM as it relates to sessions. Ideally you want to be able to 1) Play an instrument 2) know a load of tunes so you can be playing instead of just sitting there 2) have your tunes sound good with all the style and ornamentation understood and under control. To accomplish all of that takes many years, and when someone has their sights set on the session target right at the beginning it becomes a daunting proposition.
I've seen people cram to learn tunes so that they could complete #1 and #2, but without having #3 established end up just knowing a bunch of Irish-like melodies. Sometimes they will accomplish #3 over the next several years, but others will continue playing just the melodies without ever getting to the music.
When people come to me for help, if they're often too hung up on #1 and #2 and become frustrated because I want to concentrate on #3 before moving on to new tunes. The reason I like to concentrate on #3 so much is because it seems to me like a good idea to establish your repertoire on a firm foundation.
So -- to answer the query of the thread -- technique before repertoire. Don't be in such a blasted hurry to be in sessions. You can still enjoy participating in them with a limited repertoire because when you do you'll be more satisfied with your music if it has the style intact. Rather than playing a lot of Irish melodies poorly, you'll be playing the tunes the way you hoped you would.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Sorry, I just re-read that and I put a "2" twice in the first paragraph. The second one is a "3" of course... sorry. Feck!
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I think is too much emphasis on how many tunes you can play and how much technique you have and how much you force/put into a tune. Not enough emphasis is put in style.
Perhaps you might do some investigating on how you'd like to sound as a player. Do you want to be run of the mill and able to freely take part in sessions or do you wanna play like some of the greats like Kieran Collins, Deirde Collis, Mary Bergin, Willie Clancy (who is one of the best whistlers in my book) and anyone else who comes to mind. Maybe you might pick a regional style or try to learn how to play jigs with 1234 56 as some of the older players did, ie Kieran Collins.
Tunes will come and as the phantom button says you'll regret it if you rush into things. It's hard to sit at session without playing much at first but if you can fight the paranoya of not being involved you might even find that you enjoy listening, maybe even more than you might enjoy playing.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by JackMurphy
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Ok, who are you, and what did you do with Jack Murphy?
Just joking... welcome back to the session.org, Murhpy.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Jaysus, imagine my shock of hitting "post" to see nearly my own words (stress nearly) written before me, under the phantom button. What's the world coming to....
Did you enjoy Kevin Burke's sermon the other night? I think you were in the jax for most of it.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by JackMurphy
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I think some of us are talking about different stages of learning here, in part because we can only guess at goccia's actual abilities with the tunes and whistle. And in part because how you learn this music depends a bit on what instrument you're playing (and also the obvious point that we each come to music with different strenghts and weaknesses and learning approaches that work best for us).
For most people learning whistle, the basics of tone and rhythm aren't too tricky, so it's relatively easy to quickly move into learning tunes complete with cuts, rolls, and whatever else.
Still, it's amazingly common to run into newbie whistle players whose tone and rhythm suck, yet they're twiddling their fingers like mad to get all the cuts, rolls, and whatever in. A bit like Michael's Christmas tree, with an infestation of lights all strobing madly in a random array.
If you can learn it all at once, then by all means go for it. But then you're pobably not the type to write to a discussion board asking for help.
And if learning it all at once seems a tad overwhelming, then take solace in realizing that their are many tunes that work very well on whistle with a bare minimum of articulations--a few cuts or strikes. Learning these while solidifying your tone, rhythm, and timing will pay huge dividends later in having a good foundation to work from when adding rolls, cranns, etc. You can certainly work on rolls etc. on a few tunes, but there's not much point in adding dozens of tunes to your repertoire if your cuts or rolls aren't working yet.
The same goes for fiddle. It's not unusual to hear fiddlers 6 years into their journey who play oodles of rolls in every tune, yet they can't do a decent cut note. That makes no sense, and the dim quality of their rolls proves it. If they'd spent some time playing tunes without rolls and working on their cuts instead, they'd be ahead of their own game.
Some people learn by synthesis--they glom onto the whole and go for it. Others learn by breaking skills and concepts down into their parts and then reassembling them. Some people do both. Some ridiculously complex skills beg to be learned piece by piece--I hope most heart surgeons practice doing sutures on oranges and poke around the chest cavaties of a few cadavers before moving on to snipping arteries on a living patient.
Michael may have *attempted* cranns on pipes the first time he tried playing the octopus, but unless he's the child prodigy he sometimes professes to be, I seriously doubt that he actually *played* cranns, not the sort I'd want to hear in my session at any rate.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Will CPT
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Kevin Burkes show was brilliant, and it's a little-known secret that anything that happenes on that stage sounds better in the jax.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I'm afraid I'm with Michael on this issue. I'm all for viewing the tune as a changeable, abstract whole, without separating the idea of "ornamentation" from the tune itself. Ornamentation is primarily a rhythmic device to make the tune more danceable anyway, rather than a melodic device for "prettifying" the tune. It's because of this that you should approach the music tune-by-tune, i.e. take one tune at a time and just be patient. Ornamentation and rhythmic technique are all the same thing really. They'll come with time if you just learn the tunes by doing a lot of listening to CDs and live music including sessions. Don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important and that you can get away with a handful of tuens "if your ornamentation sounds good". That's rubbish. Trust me, you have a lot of tunes to learn so get cracking now.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Hahaha
Dow, these two points in your post seem to be arguing with each other.
“You should approach the music tune-by-tune, i.e. take one tune at a time and just be patient.”
“Don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important and that you can get away with a handful of tuens "if your ornamentation sounds good". That's rubbish.”
First you’re suggesting that one should carefully go about learning the tunes one by one and be “patient”, and then you seem to be saying that a careful approach is “rubbish” and people should just start learning tunes willy-nilly, warts and all, and not be satisfied with patiently working on one tune at a time.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I think Dow means that you should be doing both -- working on tunes and repertoire. You shouldn't let rhythm and technique turn into a train wreck because you're cramming 7482723402 tunes into your head, nor should you be like, "Well, I play these dozen tunes incredibly well, but maybe not as well as I'd like so I'm gonna work on playing them exactly like Willie Clancy (weird variations and all) and not work on any other tune." It's a balance.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Some people (piper) on intermediate level do something else: They play one tune ie daily for 15 minutes over a year. You can start on a basic level and then add more and more variations and ornamentations. The essential is you learn the tune 120% like that
It might be you dislike after the year.....
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by swisspiper
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Is it better to have one more person playing Irish-lite tunes or to have one more person give up the quest?
Some people learn to play the-skeleton-of-an-Irish-tune-not-to-be-confused-with-the-real-tune and never learn a proper ornament. Some don’t know any better but some just don’t have the dexterity to do a decent roll or cran.
Should they be
a) discouraged from continuing?
b) encouraged to keep playing, but don’t join in with people who play the-real-tune?
c) euthanized?
Outside of a public session, how would you treat this person? Would you play a few tunes with them? Explain, however politely, that they are not doing it right? In short, what is their place in the world?
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Bob himself
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Send them to the "A Piece of my mind" thread.
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
This question belies an assumption that there's some sort of end destination when it comes to learning technique.
There is no point at which the magic ornamentation fairy is going to come along and decree that you have mastered technique and are entitled to then do whatever you want.
This notion of mastering technique in a fixed quantity of time is a load of hooey. You will never get 'there', because the more you learn and develop, you will start to understand that there is no 'there. The target is always moving. It's stops moving when you stop working at it, and you certainly won't be 'there'.
Learn tunes because you like playing them, not because you think you should know them. There are alot of sh*t tunes out there. Instead of spending your time trying to master ornamentation, spend that time listening to recordings.
Bleeeaaaahhhhhhh!
# Posted on December 16th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I like that Steph, The fluidity of it all is important.
Somebody mentioned something about learning a tune then moving on to learning the next one. This is not how it works. At any given time you may have loads of tunes you recognize but don't know well enough to play, tunes you can just play in the company of those who play them well, tunes you play well, tunes you think you know inside out and back to front, etc etc.
But what I like about this is that tunes never necessarily move seamlessly up this ladder. Often they take steps back as you realize there is more to them than you thought. It's just such a lovely process of constant learning and re-learning and reassessing and improving
One of the things I really really love to do is to sit out a tune I love to play and just hear what my brilliant mates do with it.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Aye, YOUR "brilliant mates" Michael. MY "brilliant mate" got insulted by you 20 odd years ago when you had the arrogance to tell him he wasn't using enough grace notes. MY 'brilliant mate' was/is a true original. I'd bet a pound to a penny he knows AND understands more tunes than you do 20 years on. AND he didn't try to make the big time by forming a god awful 'Folk Rock band' doing embarrassing p*ss poor impersonations of Moving Hearts.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Bill Price
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Oh yeah! While I'm at it Jeremy, do the decent thing and find a way of uploading the database here on to a decent bulletin board, so we can rip the crap out of each other without your prissy censorship. Anyone with a tad of sense can see we're being used as an example of your wonderful site designing skills.....
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Bill Price
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Oh my, oh my - isn't it just grand when someone new joins us? Don't you just love it when a new friendly face pops in to say a big cheery 'Hello', with a big smile on their face & a kind word to say about everyone, especially at this time of year. Aye it warms the cockles of my heart to see that, so it does.
Let's all welcome Bill Price to this site.
He's obviously a decent sort.
Altogether now:
For He's a jolly good fellow
For He's a jolly good fellow
For He's a jolly good fe.........llow
Which no........................................................................................
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Ptarmigan
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I want to hear more about this dodgy Moving Hearts band Michael was in.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Yeah c'mon Jeremy why don't you spend your precious time changing your site completely for the benefit of our new friend Bill? He did ask you ever so nicely after all.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Jack you totally misunderstood my last post, but I can't be arsed to explain it to you. Like other Anglo players, I know you have difficulty understanding complex objects and concepts. So I'll just let it go...
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Cop out!
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Okay slavva, here goes:
----------------------------------
“You should approach the music tune-by-tune, i.e. take one tune at a time and just be patient.”
“Don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important and that you can get away with a handful of tuens "if your ornamentation sounds good". That's rubbish.”
First you’re suggesting that one should carefully go about learning the tunes one by one and be “patient”, and then you seem to be saying that a careful approach is “rubbish” and people should just start learning tunes willy-nilly, warts and all, and not be satisfied with patiently working on one tune at a time.
-----------------------------
First of all, taking tunes one by one doesn't necessarily mean that you should block out all other tunes and focus on one only, and I want you to listen to what I'm saying here and not misunderstand me. The way I've always done it is to go to lots of sessions and absorb the repertoire until my head's stuffed with different tunes each week. I'll then go home and maybe look each tune up, maybe get a name for it, and look at some dots to get the odd bar I haven't picked up at the session. I would say that I approach the tunes "patiently", but not particularly "carefully". As in, I'm taking the tunes as I pick them up in my head, but I'm not dissecting every little bit of ornamentation I hear and analysing it in great detail at the expense of the tune itself.
I've never suggested that people learn tunes willy-nilly. Where did you get that from?! I said "don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important." It *is* important. If you want to play at a decent session you need a lot of tunes. It's by learning those tunes that you get the experience necessary to be able to assess your own technique in an informed way, and decide what needs work. In an ideal world we'd all be able to absorb tunes without giving them consideration, but in reality they require a bit of effort. You have to listen properly. You can turn up to a session every day with the intention of "absorbing" the tunes by osmosis, but if you're not listening properly you'll not learn them.
It all depends on whether or not you want to be any good. In my opinion, if you don't want to be any good at playing the tunes, then what's the point? Pack it in and take up fishing or something.
If you *do* want to be able to play, then you have to realise you need to get your arse in gear and learn the repertoire. Too many people are under the impression that you can get away with a handful of tunes, as long as you play them nicely with all the pretty lah-di-dah twiddly bits. When you first start playing you think you're doing okay, and you're like: "these things are good about my playing", but then you listen to a recording of yourself a few months/years later and it sounds effing awful. The only way to get round that is to sit it out and learn the tunes and listen to the way they're played properly. If you have the rhythm in your head and you have the tunes in your head, the ornamentation will sort itself out. Like Michael said, the ornamentation *is* the tune - it's a part-whole relationship or whatever you call it, not optional extras added for effect. If you're not ornamenting your tune, then you're not creating crisp articulation and therefore you're not playing the tune, therefore you have to go away and learn it properly.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"I said "don't listen to anyone who says that repertoire's not important." It *is* important. If you want to play at a decent session. . ."
However, playing sessions is not important.
KFG
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by KFG
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
This should be good (relaxes with some popcorn) *munch munch munch*
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Did I just write all that when I could have been having some of this popcorn? Am I talking to people who don't think sessions are important?
Arrrgh
I think you're all crazy. You're all just ::rolls eyes:: ::hic:: crazy you are.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
'Kay Jack now I'm ::hic:: drunk right I'ave had ::hic::far too much alcohololical bever-bloody-ahzhe tonight but :: hic:: you lllook me in the oiye right now and tell me that you :: hic:: don't think people should leanr the fookn repertoire. I mean you, yeah, you're always ::hic:: moanin' on about how you don't think people do their homework before they ::hic:: come to your fookn high-class sessions, yeah, you anglo playing monster... well bloody hell all I'm saying is people should get off their bloody arses and ::hic:: learn a few tunes and oo, surprise surprise you disa- ::hic, hic, hic.... hic:: -gree, right, so shut up, hic, ye..f'n b'rd..ye....
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I've learnt 8 tunes while this ::hic:: thread's been going, and I work weekends too so it can't be that difficult, if you luv it, you'll learn it, and that's ::hic:: that's it and all about it so shut up.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"Am I talking to people who don't think sessions are important?"
Could well just be person. After all, the 99% of people who keep the tradition of Irish music alive but don't go to sessions might well not be attracted to board titled "The Session."
Irish music was around before sessions. It'll be around long after the current session fad is dead. Sessions only mean squat to people who want to take part in sessions.
They have nothing, nothing at all, to do with "The Music."
KFG
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by KFG
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"They have nothing, nothing at all, to do with "The Music."" A little overboard, there, Kevin. If that were COMPLETELY true, there wouldn't be any of the stuff played at sessions.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Move to Buffalo! Here we have nice gatherings where people enjoy playing tunes with one another and good music is made playing together. Then, if you need some variety, you can travel east to Rochester, where they also have these very nice gatherings. Or if you're feeling frisky and have a suitable knit cap and scarf, you can travel north to Toronto, where they also have these very nice gatherings, with the added benefit that they hand you a donut and a Labatt Blue at the door.
It's a communal sort of thing we call a 'session' - which seems to be a different animal than the tortuous viper pits you all seem to have to venture to in order to play your music.
For feck's sake - here is the GOLDEN RULE:
IF A SESSION IS MAKING YOU MISERABLE - DON'T FECKING GO! MOVE AWAY OR HAVE SOME CHILDREN AND START YOUR OWN.
Of course I'm forgetting that a significant portion of the world's population seems to enjoy being miserable, and even moreso, enjoys incessantly bitching about how miserable they are. They seem gravitated toward posting on this board.
I'm curious to know what things will look like when the "current session fad" is dead. Will we all be holed up in our houses, sipping endless cups of tea, playing tunes to ourselves?
The future is very much here today at my house.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"If that were COMPLETELY true, there wouldn't be any of the stuff played at sessions."
As so elevators are about The Muzac and whorehouses are about Ragtime.
". . .HAVE SOME CHILDREN AND START YOUR OWN."
Yes, that is one other branch of the tradition.
". . .a significant portion of the world's population seems to enjoy being miserable. . ."
Doesn't describe me at all. Happy pretty much no matter what is closer to the mark. Able to transfer that happiness to others as well. What gets me is all the bitching I see around here about Harvest Home. How one can be unhappy while playing that is beyond me. If it makes you miserable, well, then don't play it, but it smacks of a dead soul to me.
". . .seems to be a different animal than the tortuous viper pits you all seem to have to venture to in order to play your music."
What the hell are you talking about? "My" session is full of perfectly lovely people, nor do I have to venture anywhere at all to play my music. Sessions are not The Music.
"Will we all be holed up in our houses, sipping endless cups of tea, playing tunes to ourselves?"
There are many branches of the tradition. If that's one that rows your boat, have at. If it doesn't do sumpin' else.
But the lone fiddler/piper/whistler is certainly the central core of the tradition. That's why when in ensembles we play in unison.
Out of many, one.
KFG
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by KFG
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Wow. I almost always have a lovely time at any session, (which seem to be stuffed full of people having a good time and sharing the music; perhaps we don't play The Music, then, with capital letters), actually, it's rare that I don't, and when I don't, it's usually me, not anyone else in these "viper pits" whether they're at home or in public.
It's enough to make you wonder why either of you bother to post here, since you don't seem to care for the other people who post here, or agree, in Kevin's case, with even the whole idea and philosophy behind the thing and...say, why DO you bother to post here?
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I make no argument against the idea that solo playing is part and parcel of the tradition.
I do however believe that the thing that is made when playing with one or more other people is powerful enough that this modern machination of 'session' isn't going to go way. And it is traditional. If Seamus Ennis and Willy Clancy could sit down together in Willy's kitchen and have some tunes, that's as traditional as I need it to be.
At least in my opinion, that shared experience is part of what makes The Music what it is.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by _Steph_
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
*munch munch munch*
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
I've come across the occasional player with an enviable repertoire but unfortunately not with a technique to match - which rather tends to spoil the effect. Technique isn't just being able to play a tune with appropriate ornamentation; it includes playing in tune (fiddles and flutes/whistles in particular), controlled bowing, controlled breathing, control of rhythm, accentuation and speed, coordination, application of lift where required - for starters.
All this doesn't come at once; acquiring technique begins when you take an instrument into your hands for the first time, and for most people you're talking about at least five years before you can consider yourself anywhere near technically proficient - as a previous post has pointed out. It is, anyway, a process that continues (or should continue) for as long as you are playing.
I belong to the school that believes you should aim for a technique a little in advance of what you normally do, and then you're less likely to get nasty surprises - but then I come from a background that expects that approach, so perhaps I'm biassed.
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by lazyhound
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Got me, David, it kinda gives me the creeps, if you know what I mean.
Obsessive? About what bit? And does A-R have hyphen? (20 points to whoever actually knows the correct answer to that last question.)
# Posted on December 17th 2005 by Zina Lee
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
No it has an ampersand. Now gimme my 20 points.
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by Q
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
oh wait, you weren't talking about music. I don't think Freud's first English translators used a hyphen, no. Now gimme my twenty points.
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by Q
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
*munch munch munch* popcorn? *munch munch*
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by Phantom Button
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Sure. I'll have some.
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by TheSilverSpear
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"I'm familiar with the usage, but 'The Music'? "
That would be an ecumenical matter.
KFG
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by KFG
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
ooooh? 20 odd years ago eh? I had the arrogance to insult your mate when he wasn't using enough grace notes?
Probably, and there is a little conjecture here, because it was so long ago, I had the arrogance to insult your mate when he wasn't using ANY rolls.
I don't recall the exact place and time. I don't know who you are. But I admit it has been a bug bear of mine for many years. If you don't play rolls. you ain't playing the tune. I hope I was being constructive in my criticism/insult, but I admit that it may well have come across as pure insult. I make no apologies for that as, by the sound of your reactionary attitude, your mate was "performing". And as for "knowing" more tunes? ...... I refer you to the above.
However, "god awful 'Folk Rock band' doing embarrassing p*ss poor impersonations of Moving Hearts" was, at the very least, still good diddley music. OK, so it wasn't the best band in the world, but we played diddley like it is, in the thick of it, all be it too loud. OK so it was heavy metal. But the tune was still king.
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
"I make no argument against the idea that solo playing is part and parcel of the tradition."
Then you and I have no argument. In fact, if you go back and read my original post you'll discover I didn't even disagree with the bit of what Dow wrote that I quoted.
"At least in my opinion, that shared experience is part of what makes The Music what it is."
Ah, well, see, there's our argument. That is what makes The Music what it is *for you,* but it is not the measure of whether or not you are playing The Music or whether the extent of your repertoire achieves some sort of minumum quantity for a Traditional Seal of Approval.
And to borrow an argument from the popcorn muncher, it is insulting to all the great solo players to suggest that it is.
*If* you want to participate in a session and play all or most of the tunes, *then* you will need a repertoire to match the session, *but* participation in sessions is not an essential element of being in the tradition. It is merely one branch of the tradition.
Nor is supporting the solo tradition in any way saying that there is something wrong with your prefering session playing, although it is interesting that some people seem to take it that way.
I don't care if you only like to play with a tuba quartet standing up to your necks in a vat of whipped cream, but if you begin to argue that there is something essential about doing so, well, we'll have a quibble.
KFG
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by KFG
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Jeez I didn't realise what a foul mouth I have when I'm drunk. Sorry 'bout that folks.
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by Dow
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
ha ha,
# Posted on December 18th 2005 by llig leahcim
Re: Technique vs. repertoire: which one first?
Going back to the original theme of this mail, no-one seems to have pointed out that the way in which any one musician ornaments a tune will change over time (or even from one performance to the next).
We each develop an armoury of ornamentation which develops over time, from which we select as we go, depending on our mood, the speed that we find ourselves playing the tune, and litining to what others around us are playing.
(In a session he best rule is probably "less is more" - a large number of musicians all playing different ornaments can jar - save your fancy bits for the tunes when no-one else joins in.)
OTT
# Posted on December 25th 2005 by timbrooks