What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
What makes Irish Traditional Music different from English and Scottish traditional music? Given that much of the repartoire and instrumentation is found in all the traditions and that the populations have been mixing for generations it must be in the way it is played. To my fairly tone deaf ear in the broadest sense ITM is fast and full of twiddly decorations (at least what I hear being played in England), ETM is slower, more emphasis on the rythmn and limited decoration whilst STM is somewhere between the two.
So what do you think stylistically makes ITM different from ETM and STM (and I guess there is probably as much variation within ITM as there is between ITM, STM and ETM)?
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I don't know anything about English and Scottish trad, though we do have a few players here who do. We have lots of players here who do know the difference, and some of them are too busy having their idea of fun to answer your honest question, I'm afraid, she said pointedly, looking meaningfully at certain regular posters.
In fact, I can't help you much here at all, though I can tell you which is which when I hear them. I just thought it might be nice if someone showed willing.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Keep the heid, Zeens. We have had this discussion before, in several places, at least as far as the differences between Scottish and Irish music are concerned.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well - there are obviously different types of tunes that are popular in each. For example Hornpipes played in the Northumbrian style.....Dow - Dow!?? Hello - where are you? You are needed!
And Scottish tunes are played differently, much straighter and more single bowing and they play strathspeys and stuff and English music....um - seems to me to be slow kind of waltzes and hornpipes and stuff like that. I could be wrong though.....its just that every time I hear people playing that type of music I go brain dead cause its so boring. Uhuh - gotta duck now!
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
It's quit simple Compo all the tunes started out English and then migrated to Scotland and Ireland in the 16th and 17th century along with most of their instruments.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ha - luckily the irish also developed a small thing called taste. Cause if thats true PP then its a case of stealing tunes and making them a trillion times better
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
The tunes simly did what most emigrants do - moved to a much better place and began a new life where they would be fostered, live long and, er, prosper.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Hi.
Coming out of "lurk mode".
I'm very interested in the differences of Irish and Scottish trad music, but as I've looked at the discussion here, and the discussions at the URLs given, I don't see anything near the discussion I'd like to see. Not cracking knuckles, just telling you what I'd like to learn, and was hoping this discussion would be.
I am looking at some music from Co. Fermanagh in the "Hidden Fermanagh" book. I do not remember the pieces at which we were looking, but what I do remember is this - one piece sounded distinctively Scottish to me, another distinctively Irish, and another the reaction I had was that it was Ceilidh Band music. These were gut level reactions based, probably, on music I've heard over the last few years.
So, what I'd like to know, is what made those tunes sound Scottish, or Irish or Ceilidh Band-ish. I think it has something to do with the melodies, the "turns" (not the embellishment kind) the melodies take, etc., rhythmic figures, and of course the general rhythm/beat, but I don't know enough to be able to say "This tune sounds like Scottish because...." and I'd like to be able to do that.
So, is that possible, and is anyone here able and willing to tell me this info? I'd even take the recommendation of a book.
Maybe it's not possible to describe what I'm asking to know.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I'm not sure it *is* in fact possible, Rick. The ethnomusicologists tell us that the reels came to Ireland by way of Scotland, and then disappeared there, and then came back to Scotland by way of Ireland (Alisdair Frasier says that if you want to hear how reels *used* to be played in Scotland, you have to listen to the old Cape Breton players who had no outside influences), so my guess is that it's rather hopelessly confused.
The *way* it's played is often key, but I know what you mean about the structure of the tune. As I've said before, if I can easily imagine a set of highland pipes skirling it's way through a tune (with all that implies about the way the warpipes are built and their limited scales and keys), then I generally assume it's Scottish.
On the whole though, I try to just get on with playing the tunes as I come across them.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"Omigod! I soooooo cant believe you just said that! No Doctor cause everyone knows you can only get pregnant by sitting in someone elses bath water"
Where the heck is Dow - I mean - godsakes its bloody 5am in the morning in Australia - the lazy sod!
What the hell is WTM anyways? Is it Welsh Traditional music?
Holy Moley -I think I may have just wasted 3 paragraphs - noooooooooo.......aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee. Will I get in trouble from the angry banjo player now?
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Zina makes an excellent point here, that the music has been influenced by all three traditions for so many centuries, and not just from migrating in one direction, but back and forth across borders repeatedly. Some of the initial distinctions are no doubt long eroded away.
It’s pretty nigh impossible to satisfactorily answer the question without listening to examples. I would love to hear a good audio presentation on the subject.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ooh, hugs!! I love hugs. . .
Sorry, internet doesn't allow us to be as facetious as I need it to be.
Bob - I know that an acronym is a word formed from initials, initialism is just a form of an acronym that doesn't spell an actual word. Like FBI, CIA, ITM, STM, ETM, etc. etc. etc.
Like I said it was driving me nuts and now onto the hugs. . .
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Hmm, my dictionary says that initialism is a type of acronym. But I'm really not trying to fight or pick a fight or anything. I thought you were being sarcastic and humourous and I was joining in, sorry. . .
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Fellas, Is it a full moon tonight?? Has anyone else noticed all the strange comments coming out of the wood work??? Can I please have a hug too - I think I'm about to have a stroke or something.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I think that Scottish jigs swing ore rhythmically than Irish jigs..as opposed to 3 triplets, the Scottish jigs are played more like an 1/8th note followed by 2 1/16th notes, even though they are not written that way..also the Strathspey is synonymous with Scottish fiddling, but there have been some strathspeys that have found their way into the Donegal literature, albeit with somewhat more ammusing names...for instance Miss Lyall in Scotland, is something like Kittys cat ate the Mouse in the hat or something such as that...the Irish names for these tunes are not nearly as drab as the Scottish counterpart.
I don't necessarily think that Scottish reels are all bowed with single bows, but it is all dance music. Even though I play a lot of Scottish stuff, I really prefer the way an Irish reel flows.
Enen the feel of the way the tunes are composed is a lot different. There are a ton of Scottish tunes in F and Bb. I think that Scottish tunes were written more for a different class of people..those that could afford to go to dances and balls, where ae it appears to me that Irish tunes are written by the people for the people.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, I’m trying to break myself of the habit if using the acro…, er, the initials ITM, partly because I never liked the practice and partly to help Danny Mackay control his blood pressure as he enters his geezerdom.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I would have thought it obvious that the difference in the quasi-acronymic initializations under discussion here is that the foremost letter-like portions of each initialized unit are angularly dissimilar. But that's just me, or was anyway.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Thanks to Zina Lee, to Sunnybear, and to anyone else who actually directed their comments seriously to my questions.
If I can take the majority of replies to my questions as an example of the help I can get here, I think I'll log out and find out how to remove myself from membership.
However, if there is any reason for not removing myself fomr membership and continuing asking questions of you all, I'm willing to listen.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Take a breath, Rick. You've just hit a couple of different issues.
First of all, if you're going to participate in threads here, you're going to see hijacks and hijinks going on all the time. If you're going to get offended about it, then you're going to cause yourself needless grief. So the Glee Club got rolling a bit in this thread; a sense of humor is part and parcel of this board. Relax and laugh at the jokes.
Second of all, on occasion a troll gets on here and starts attacking specific members. Zina has been the recipient of such flamebaiting lately. I suspect the person responsible is going to hear from Jeremy soon, and will not like what he hears. But Jeremy is a busy man and you can't expect him to monitor the site 24/7; give him time to respond.
Third, sometimes none of the people who are available within the couple of days after a question gets asked can really answer it. We all have lives outside the yellow board, and not all of us are able to visit it every day. Those who can visit it regularly often do their best to answer, and some of them (like Will and Zona) pour really inordinate amounts of time into trying to help other people with their questions. Not getting the answer you want doesn't mean you should stomp off in a huff. It just means that this time the answer you wanted wasn't within easy reach. So climb down out of the boughs and start playing a tune; life's too short to get shirty so easily.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"If I can take the majority of replies to my questions as an example of the help I can get here, I think I'll log out and find out how to remove myself from membership."
Sorry, we've got you now -- there's no escape. Bwahahahahaha
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
OK, so I was a bit flipant. But it's just too big a question to ask. In fact, it's not really a question at all, it's a myriad of questions, each of which we have already mulled over endlessly here, and probably will continue to do so.
It's not like asking, what's the difference between English and American football. There are no rules to mark the differences.
Try to be a little more specific, and you'll garner less flipancy
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Part of the problem here is that no one can tell from a single post, or even many posts, exactly how experienced any poster is, what they know, what they might not know. (Nor can you tell from any given thread what is going on over the entire board; there's always stuff that might slop over from one thread into another, or even from one week to the next, etc.)
And for this particular subject matter, it's like putting matches to dry paper not to know how much someone might know. For instance, if I said something really really basic about Scottish trad to, say, Jamie Smith, as if I was giving him some kind of new pearl of wisdom, he'd think I was mad, or at least incredibly rude and ignorant. (Although in my personal experience and in the experience of others I know who know him personally, he might not, because he seems a decent bloke.) But it might in fact BE some kind of pearl of wisdom for someone who knows nothing about Scottish trad.
Not that I could, I'm not so foolish to think anything I've figured out about Scottish trad (especially since I'd come to it from the perspective of an Irish fiddler) would be particularly wise.
Each of the traditional musics has very very specific differences -- once you get to a certain point of knowledge about each of them. It's partially why people who make a pet study out of one of them get SO bent out of shape with things like "Celtic Music" being used as an umbrella term.
Does that help explain some of the flippancy and such? As Michael says, it's tough to answer such a broad question, so sometimes it's easier not to try.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Thanks for your replies.
Yes, it is a broad question - or a series of broad questions. I just wanted to get something started about it, and it seemed to relate to what Compo asked. I'm trying to answer these questions because I've never heard them addressed, and that may be because I've not been in the right place at the right time - or it may be that no one has talked about it in thses terms. Don't know.
And I realize not having specific names of the tunes doesn't help. Just thought someone might know some of this in general from just having been around the music longer than I have. I think I could come up with the specific tunes later on in the week, if that would help. Maybe then, having specific tunes to discuss the characteristics of, someone could say something that would help me understand why the tunes elicit such a different reaction from me.
What I'll do is start a new thread concerning the three tunes, and see what happens.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, if I lived in Kiwiland, I'd deffo use ITM for materials to pen me sheep in, or build me a shed. Or if I was in the mechanised murder industry (euphemisticly known as Defence), I'd think about ETM for their system provision. Maybe I should consider publishing in future with STM...but WTM seems like the most lucrative avenue as they are in collaboration with with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, Since my answer doesn't seem to be any stoopider than anybody else's.....
The only way to truly tell the difference is to release dancers into the mix. Then watch their hands. If the hands go to the sides and stick there, you got eye-ty em, If one hand goes overhead, it's essty -em, If the hands sprout hankies and bell it's eetee em.
I only spelled it out because I distrust tri-graphs.
I keep telling you that it all came from Avalon, Hy Bressail and the other Western Isles ( the real ones) and have been devolving ever since.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
OK then, I'll try and be helpful ...
It's not really about the tunes themselves. It's more of a style thing. A lot of the same tunes are played both in Irish styles and scottish styles. Sure, some tunes sound more Irish and some sound more scottish, but if you hear a good scottish player playing a very Irish tune, you'd think it was a scottish tune, and vice versa. But this in itself is too simple. You have to consider regional styles also. Donegal fiddle music is closer to lowland west Scottish fiddle music than Kerry music. This is obvious. And Shetland fiddle music is closer to some Norwegian music. This is obvious.
Some style differences? You don't tend to hear slow rolls in Scotland, you generally hear snappy short rolls, on the beat. But then if you don't yet know the difference, then this is lost on you anyway. Bowing tends to be more flowing in Irish music, more slurring, less staccato, but not everywhere. It's generally agreed that you can get away with less accuracy in Irish music, but this is only because variation is more to the fore. Accuracy is actually down to taste.
Does this all help? Probably not. And I hope it doesn't really. What anyone who listens/plays diddley/diddly music (diddley = whiskey ... diddly = whisky) has to do is to find it out for themselves. You can't be told the differences any more than you can be told the difference between red and blue. The only way is to learn the difference through familiarity.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
The thing is Rick that Zina got it right when she said:
"I'm not sure it *is* in fact possible . . ."
Sure, you can pick individual things like Michael does above, but they aren't exactly hard and fast rules and anything you say about Scottish music you can find in Irish music and vice versa.
That's why he says he hopes it doesn't help. Look, if you look up "jazz" in the dictionary you'll find that the "definition" fits bluegrass just as well as it does jazz. So how do you know the difference? Well, you do, just because, well, you do. You can *hear* it.
But you could disect them both with a microscope and stopwatch and never, ever be able to formulate a definition that lets you know what either one is exclusive of the other. Despite their obvious distinctiveness to the ear they are far too closely related for that sort of thing.
And Irish, Scottish and English music are even more closely related than that.
So one must fall back on the old jazz answer:
"If ya gotta ask, ya ain't ever gonna know."
Frankly, I think Owell has the answer closest to the truth.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Omigawd Michael! youre becoming all nice and helpful with big friendly posts and me being the sneering cynic nipping in now and again, to sting here and there. What's going on?
My detestation for the acronyms, or whatever....initialised condensation of 4 nations' music into12 letters, will never waver, I'm afraid. I'm even more gobsmacked because we're not dealing with a Sun-reading group here...most folks who post are intelligent, inquisitive etc...and to make the excuse: oh, so I have to type out "Irish Traditional Music" every time? is a bit lame to me, from people whose hobby is brought about largely by using their fingers!
What's so wrong with just saying "the music"? or you can capitalise the initial letters just to make an emphasis -- "The Music". This **TM thing is a dirty habit picked up off this site. Worse than picking your nose, because it's all out in public and you can't eat your endeavours. But not as bad as smoking, I'll have to admit, at least you don't *really* harm anyone else by your dirty habits.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I thought we discussed the acro-whatsit before and decided that because the intro to the site talks of Traditional Irish Music we should speak of "TIM". Even though it's sounds even worse.
I had a look at the French (Irish Music) site and they use "MTI"!
I only just got to read this thread through from the beginning and it looks as if there has been a little deletion happening. Hard to follow the sequence of some of the postings.
As regards the difference between Scottish and Irish music: I heard Celtic Fiddle Festival where they play "Farewell to Erin" sort of like as a Strathspey. I thought to myself that's a nice Scottish tune (but it had a familiar ring to it). Then Burke some in playing the tune as a reel and all of a sudden it became obvious what the forst bit was. - yeah I know I am a bit slow on the uptake.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yeah, we lost a, well, umm, a friend along the way due to excessive attack on the integrity of Zina's character (we voted him off the island and sent him down to play shakey eggs and ukulele for the CWM group on the Rio Grande) and the posts now don't make as much sense as they did . . . if they ever made any sense at all . . . and then everything dissolved into a hug fest until we were dragged back on topic where you find us struggling along now. . .
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Never.
Wasn't so much an attack on my character as someone perhaps thinking that I was attacking them, I think, and retaliating to a perceived attack. As usual, that sort of thing just goes from bad to worse. It's the nature of Web groups, I think.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
A good reminder (making note to self) to think twice and re-read before you hit the "post" button, and to not take things so personally.
I like Michael and KFG's recent posts above--right to the heart of the matter, really. The parallel to Kevin's quote is: "If I have to explain it, you won't understand."
Although I bet Tomás O'Canainn could do a fair job of clearing this up so that we'd all understand.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
My posts about initials/acronyms may have been a bit flip and seemed off topic, but what I was doing was arguing about language in same way we argue about music.
"No, no, that thing there is just a subcatagory of the other thing and those are just letters/notes, whereas this is a word/phrase, so it's different really. . ."
And so on.
When you're talking about spoken and written language you can do it in spoken and written language. You remain within the context of the field.
But music is it's own language, and it doesn't have words. It has notes and phrases and the only definitive way to "discuss" it is by playing it.
"Scottish music goes like this, but Irish music goes like this. Hear the difference?"
Talking about music with words is like talking about words with pictures. It can be done, after a fashion, but it isn't exactly the ideal. The contexts are foreign to each other.
And notice something about the whole initial/acronym thing. The difference is whether it is pronouncable as a word, so, just to the tell the difference between an initialism and an acronym we are plunged into the whole field of linguistics. Just what is a pronouncable word anyway, and why? And what if it's pronouncable in one language, but not another? What is it then?
It never ends. The more you dig the deeper the hole gets.
All very interesting stuff too, if you're into that sort of thing, but sometimes it's just better to sit down and write a post/play a tune.
All the definitions are retrofitted after the fact anyway. It's the essay/tune that are the reality of the thing, not the definition.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I'd much rather just play a tune right now but I am at work unfortunately.
Language is fascinating but when having a discussion or argument it's best to not worry about definitions unless they are causing confusion or adding to the argument un-necessarily.
Was that funny feeling just there a double hug from Zina and musicfan - ooooh that was nice.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Wow! I wasn't expecting so many posts (especially about acronyms, initialisation and the like - I wasn't intentionally trying to upset anyone, more like have a short, snappy head line that would attract interest).
Thanks for the thoughts about the differences. Like others have said I can hear a tune played and think that sounds Irish, Scottish or English but sometimes I'm wrong. Being fairly illiterate musically (I play a DG melodeon for gawd's sake!) I was just asking to see if I any of the contributers here could explain why a tune commonly played in all three traditions could sound so different from each other.
Perhaps I'll take the advice of several contributers and stop worrying about it and just sit back and enjoy!
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Are there any musicologists reading this (Chris?) who might point us to relevant literature? Surely there's been some sort of careful analysis done to determine if there are characteristics that tend to differentiate tunes that originate in the different cultures.
A study I'd like to see would be something like the following:
Take a well-respected, scholarly collection of tunes from each culture, say Scotland and Ireland, since I'm not too familiar with the others. Say Breathnach CRE and The Simon Fraser Collection. Take a random selection of maybe a hundred tunes from each. Prepare "bare bones" versions of these tunes so as to eliminate clues as to performance practice and concentrate on structural aspects of the melody and implied harmony. Present these tunes to a bunch of traditional Irish and Scottish musicians who read music and ask them to label each tune as either fitting within their own tradition or foreign to their tradition.
First, one could study how well the results correlate with the collection the tunes came from. Do the Irish players fairly consistently identify the Breathnach tunes as Irish and the Simon Fraser tunes as foreign and vice versa? Or is it closer to what you'd expect if they were just guessing?
Next, one could look at tunes where the musicians were in substantial agreement:
1) Tunes considered Irish by nearly all Irish musicians and foreign by nearly all Scottish musicians; and
2) Tunes considered Scottish by nearly all Scottish musicians and foreign by nearly all Irish musicians.
Assuming that there would be some tunes in both categories, (if there weren't, that would also be very interesting,) one could then analyze these tunes. What are the distributions of their keys and modes? What range do they have? What are the frequency distributions of the notes used? What are the frequency distributions of the intervals used between adjacent notes? Which of these measurements, if any, differ noticeably from one group of tunes to the other?
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yeah, that's the problem though. I have a feeling that if you took all the songs/tunes from the Western world (since Eastern music is based on a different scale pattern it is being excluded) and strip them down to the bare bones that people would be shocked by how alike the tunes/songs are. What makes the tunes/songs different is how they are treated via ornaments, harmony, rhythmic pulse and other psuedo intangibles and so if you strip those away the tunes/songs aren't going to be that different.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I'm sorry Gary, but may I continue to find holes in your method:
"Present these tunes to a bunch of traditional Irish and Scottish musicians who read music". That excludes a very important section of traditional musicians does it not?
"What are the distribution of keys". OK so you'd get more tunes in A in the scottish side. But what if you get the same tune in G? I bet it would sound more irish. I often play scottish tunes that are normally played in A a tone lower. It's more flute freindly and it's easier to roll your A than your B. But it's still the same tune.
And how can you say a particular tune came from anywhere anyway. Are you asking where it was composed? Or where it settled into the tradition? And what does composed mean anyway? Composed by a Scot in Ireland? Composed by an Englishman in Edinburgh? I could write a reel, but I didn't invent the form, I didn't invent the 12 tone scale that the modes are all derived from. And I certainy wasn't the first person ever to count to four.
I'm afraid such analysis would amount to nothing more than giving some useless musicologist a dodgy PHD
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Seems to come down to two things:
1) The tune itself is, let's say, Scottish. As Michael says, the keys might be different (a setting of Miss McLeod's in A), but is there anything about the way the tune is structured that would mean it's intrinsically Scottish?
2) The way the tune is played changes what it is. So does someone play something like Red-Haired Boy (Danny Pearl's Favorite) or St. Anne's in ALL the styles it's currently played in and tell us how you play them differently in each of the traditions?
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Joseph McDonald in his "A Complete Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe" circa 1760 Illustrates (with 2 examples) quite clearly that the differance between a "Pipe" and "Violin" Reel is that the former is played strait and the latter played dotted. The very doted nature of madern piping only goes back to the early part of the last century.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Another misnomer I think Zina:
I just can't seem to come to terms with the concept of a tune being something separate from when it is played. This is the whole thing about writing them down that I have the issue with. A tune is what it sounds like, not the markings on a sheet that can only be read by someone who knows what the markings mean. (And I don't mean people who can read music, but people who can read music and transfer their knowledge of the music to the blank canvas of said dots.)
So how can playing a tune change what it is? When what is is is a tune being played? Do you get my drift?
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
To attempt to fill some of the holes:
Of course ability to read music excludes important musicians. But how else can you eliminate cues to the source that are inherent in the playing rather than the compositional style? I think we're all agreed that many (most? all?) Irish tunes can be made to sound Scottish and vice versa by adjusting ornamentation, key, etc. But that doesn't alter the underlying tune.
OK, I take back the part about keys. That's performance practice, not composition.
And regarding where the tunes came from originally, I'm not really so concerned with that. It's a question of whether people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music or people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music would be able to reliably identify which tunes appear in a collection made in Ireland and which tunes appear in a collection made in Scotland. These collections are probably fairly representative of what the collectors' sources were playing at the time. Sure, there's going to be some overlap - maybe even quite a bit - but there'll also probably be plenty of tunes that didn't cross the sea. I'll bet those tunes would sound kind of foreign to someone on the other side (unless they're already familiar with the other tradition).
A few days ago, I was playing through some English traditional tunes in a book by Brian Peters. Each and every one of them seemed foreign to me. And they're bare bones versions, so it's not just ornamentation that makes them different.
Johnny Cunningham once said that Irish tunes were the most complex, then Scottish. And he called English tunes "baby music". Of course, Johnny was good at making things up and putting one over on you, so I don't know whether he actually believed that.
I'm working on putting together a mini version of the experiment I described. If I can figure out how to implement it as a web survey, I may post a link to it here and use you all as guinea pigs. I think it will have twelve traditional single reels, six from Breathnach and six identified as Scottish in one of Jerry Holland's books. I'll ask people to decide which comes from which book, whether or not they recognize the specific tune. I'll also ask some background questions about the musician. We'll see what happens.
I've tried to choose obscure tunes to cut down on the chances that people will know them. Of course, people could cheat and try to look them up, so I'll have to trust you to just sight read them.
And I've just seen Michael's reply to Zina that came while I was writing this. Surely the tune has to be something separate from all the instances of it's performance. If it weren't, it would be impossible for two people to play the same tune, or even for you to play the same tune twice. There must be some abstraction (though certainly not just a bare bones sequence of notes, since even without considering ornamentation there are many bare bones versions of the same tune) that represents all performances of all versions of a tune. I don't know how to represent such an object, but a bare bones version comes pretty close. It provides enough information so that someone who knows a version of the tune and who knows the notation can recognize it.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
...and therefore Michael is hoist by his own petard. That's how. Because once you get into this stuff, you DO know that the tune isn't what's on the paper, and that it's ALWAYS different every time depending on who is playing it, when they're playing it, and who they are while they're playing it.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"It's a question of whether people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music or people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music would be able to reliably identify which tunes appear in a collection made in Ireland and which tunes appear in a collection made in Scotland."
You're missing any number of points, the most obvious of which is that in order to make this test you'd have to be able to identify the origin of the tune in advance, and, for the most part, this can't be done.
The tunes have traveled too widely and through too many hands to do that although any number of dodgy doctoral thesis have been based on the attempt.
What's actually much easier to do is identify what *instrument* it was composed on.
But here's an illustration of the main point you're missing, which is that it isn't about the tunes, it's about The Music.
When I first heard Jim Doran's recording of Arakansas Traveler, an Ozark tune, my very first reaction was:
'Yer Scottish, ain'cha?"
And lo and behold, he is!
Jim and I could play that tune together *in unison* and I would sound American and he would sound Scottish.
It's about the accent.
Trying to figure out which country a tune came from by looking at the arrangment of just the notes on paper is like trying to figure out which English speaking country the sentence "How now brown cow" came from by looking at the words.
But if an American and a Scot *speak* the sentence you know which is which right off the bat, even though they speak exactly the same words.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Another flaw with the plan is that most musicians who can read music can also hear the song in their head so they'll be mentally adding their own ornamentations as according to their accents. Especially if they've played the tunes before. Then the tunes are already in their heads and the notes will be a mental prompting and will remind them of what they know.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
If the tune is different each time, why do we use the same title for it? There must be some essence that we associate the title with. Of course each time it's a little different, but not so much that we can't recognize it for what it is (usually).
I'm perfectly aware that each time something is played it's different. Even to the extent that each time you listen to the same recording of something you perceive it slightly differently.
Of course there are many sentences spoken in common, but differently, in different countries. But there are also some that don't transfer easily.
Consider the two questions:
When is Custy's open?
What are Custy's opening hours?
Which one sounds more Irish? Could one of them be composed by an American who has some knowledge of Irish idiom? Certainly. But by and large there are differences in compositional style that can suggest (not definitively) origin. I think KFG is right about the instrument being a (the?) key factor. But surely the predominance of certain instruments in certain cultures helps define that culture's music as belonging to that culture.
I have a neighbor who is a classical violinist. He came to my house concerts a few years ago to hear Liz Doherty, Josephine Marsh, Frankie Gavin, Beolach, etc. He was instantly hooked and started learning "Celtic" fiddle. Very quickly, he fell under the influence of the Boston Scottish Fiddle Club. His repertoire is heavily biased toward Scottish, though he knows a few dozen Irish tunes. I know a few dozen Scottish tunes. When we get together for tunes once in a while, it's quickly apparent that not only do we not have many tunes in common, but the tunes we like are quite different in their melodic structure. Maybe it's the instrument they were composed on. But it's probably not ornamentation or style of playing. I find that I'm not interested in learning the tunes he has.
I once played a Jennifer Wrigley tune for Josephine Marsh. She instantly sensed that it wasn't Irish and asked where it was from. It was, of course, composed on fiddle, but I played it on accordion. Maybe someone could make it sound Irish, but I'm not so sure. On the other hand, Joe Ryan took a Shetland wedding march and turned it into an Irish barndance. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Why?
A few years ago, a fiddler came into our session with a new tune. It didn't sound like any style I had heard before, though it was certainly in a traditional dance form. So I asked her if she wrote it. She had. It certainly wasn't ornaments or playing style that clued me in, since I had heard her play lots of different types of music for several years.
I don't completely understand KFG's argument about needing to identify the origin of the tunes. Did I say anything about where the tunes come from originally? I thought I was saying something like: try to identify tunes that are found in Ireland that sound foreign to Scottish musicians and tunes that are found in Scotland that sound foreign to Irish musicians. If you can actually find such tunes, then you can look at structural differences. Who cares where they actually originated? What matters is who plays them and who thinks they're totally strange.
So what if a tune travels from one culture to another and sounds different when it does. So what if a hundred tunes do. What about the thousands that don't?
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I don't see musicfan's objection as a flaw. If someone knows the tune already, they're supposed to say so, so that can be factored into the analysis. If they are able to add ornamentation to make it sound like it belongs to their culture, even if it doesn't yet, that's ok, too. It would help prove me wrong. I'd be willing to be proved wrong. But I'm looking for evidence, not theories.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Part of the problem of talking about the differences is the meager vocabulary available for describing the details. It’s hard enough to talk about the differences in speech dialect, but at least there we can refer to the Scottish aversion to diphthongs or the English aversion to ah’s… er, I mean R’s. We don’t have very many words for describing the subtle details of diddley/diddly.
So, if somebody defines and catalogs enough arcane terminology to actually categorize the music, who will understand it? Who will bother to try? Will it come back around to “Listen to this … Now, listen to this”?
I think analysis is possible, but then how do you translate it back to conversational speech?
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, take Bob's advice and learn by doing.
You'll find answers, but you'll also find the questions increase exponentially with the number of answers you find. The more you know the less you find you know, because every single answer you find raises a plurality of questions.
Dig the hole deep enough and sooner or later you'll end up knowing everything about nothing.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well durn Sisyphus just doesn't have that great of a ring to it . . . though his story is pretty cool . . . ah the futility of it all. Including this whole debate . . . from initialistic acronyms to trying to separate the playing style from the tradition in order to define the tradition . . . chaff on the wind.
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
That's "Hakuna Matata". According to the Lion King it means "No worries" in Swahili (I think). In isiXhosa, the african language from the area where I was born and grew up, it translates to "no way, daddy-o"
What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
What makes Irish Traditional Music different from English and Scottish traditional music? Given that much of the repartoire and instrumentation is found in all the traditions and that the populations have been mixing for generations it must be in the way it is played. To my fairly tone deaf ear in the broadest sense ITM is fast and full of twiddly decorations (at least what I hear being played in England), ETM is slower, more emphasis on the rythmn and limited decoration whilst STM is somewhere between the two.
So what do you think stylistically makes ITM different from ETM and STM (and I guess there is probably as much variation within ITM as there is between ITM, STM and ETM)?
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Compo
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
ETM, IMT, MTM?? bloody hell for christ sake. there is no difference. They are all acronyms
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by ...
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
MR.McKAY !!!! MR.McKAY !!!!
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Kenny
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I don't know anything about English and Scottish trad, though we do have a few players here who do. We have lots of players here who do know the difference, and some of them are too busy having their idea of fun to answer your honest question, I'm afraid, she said pointedly, looking meaningfully at certain regular posters.
In fact, I can't help you much here at all, though I can tell you which is which when I hear them. I just thought it might be nice if someone showed willing.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Keep the heid, Zeens.
We have had this discussion before, in several places, at least as far as the differences between Scottish and Irish music are concerned.
Here's one which you contributed to yourself :
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display.php/1539/comments#comment26146
You included a link to a previous post here :
http://thesession.org/discussions/display.php/176
I also took part in a similar discussion at “Chiff & Fipple” last year here :
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=26902&highlight=scottish+irish+difference
Hope this helps, "compo". I wouldn't feel knowledgeable enough to comment on English traditional music. Others will have to help you there.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Kenny
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well - there are obviously different types of tunes that are popular in each. For example Hornpipes played in the Northumbrian style.....Dow - Dow!?? Hello - where are you? You are needed!
And Scottish tunes are played differently, much straighter and more single bowing and they play strathspeys and stuff and English music....um - seems to me to be slow kind of waltzes and hornpipes and stuff like that. I could be wrong though.....its just that every time I hear people playing that type of music I go brain dead cause its so boring. Uhuh - gotta duck now!
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
*smirk* That was very helpful, Kenny, thank you.
Brides, you are EVIL. Evil evil evil. LOL
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
It's quit simple Compo all the tunes started out English and then migrated to Scotland and Ireland in the 16th and 17th century along with most of their instruments.
PP
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Pied Piper
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ha - luckily the irish also developed a small thing called taste. Cause if thats true PP then its a case of stealing tunes and making them a trillion times better
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Taste -- it's all in your mouth.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
The tunes simly did what most emigrants do - moved to a much better place and began a new life where they would be fostered, live long and, er, prosper.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Conán, that explains it all -- we're all on another PLANET!!! No *wonder*!
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Hi.
These were gut level reactions based, probably, on music I've heard over the last few years.
Coming out of "lurk mode".
I'm very interested in the differences of Irish and Scottish trad music, but as I've looked at the discussion here, and the discussions at the URLs given, I don't see anything near the discussion I'd like to see. Not cracking knuckles, just telling you what I'd like to learn, and was hoping this discussion would be.
I am looking at some music from Co. Fermanagh in the "Hidden Fermanagh" book. I do not remember the pieces at which we were looking, but what I do remember is this - one piece sounded distinctively Scottish to me, another distinctively Irish, and another the reaction I had was that it was Ceilidh Band music.
So, what I'd like to know, is what made those tunes sound Scottish, or Irish or Ceilidh Band-ish. I think it has something to do with the melodies, the "turns" (not the embellishment kind) the melodies take, etc., rhythmic figures, and of course the general rhythm/beat, but I don't know enough to be able to say "This tune sounds like Scottish because...." and I'd like to be able to do that.
So, is that possible, and is anyone here able and willing to tell me this info? I'd even take the recommendation of a book.
Maybe it's not possible to describe what I'm asking to know.
Thanks.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by RickD
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Strange the variety of topics we discuss here
http://www.itm.co.nz/index.html
http://www.etm-inc.com/
http://www.stm-assoc.org/
http://www.wtm.com/
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Rudall the time
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Oh, yeah, we've just had loads of disscussions about this subjet that some of us are mucking about. Maybe do a search in the past posts.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I'm not sure it *is* in fact possible, Rick. The ethnomusicologists tell us that the reels came to Ireland by way of Scotland, and then disappeared there, and then came back to Scotland by way of Ireland (Alisdair Frasier says that if you want to hear how reels *used* to be played in Scotland, you have to listen to the old Cape Breton players who had no outside influences), so my guess is that it's rather hopelessly confused.
The *way* it's played is often key, but I know what you mean about the structure of the tune. As I've said before, if I can easily imagine a set of highland pipes skirling it's way through a tune (with all that implies about the way the warpipes are built and their limited scales and keys), then I generally assume it's Scottish.
On the whole though, I try to just get on with playing the tunes as I come across them.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"Omigod! I soooooo cant believe you just said that! No Doctor cause everyone knows you can only get pregnant by sitting in someone elses bath water"
Where the heck is Dow - I mean - godsakes its bloody 5am in the morning in Australia - the lazy sod!
What the hell is WTM anyways? Is it Welsh Traditional music?
Holy Moley -I think I may have just wasted 3 paragraphs - noooooooooo.......aiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee. Will I get in trouble from the angry banjo player now?
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Zina makes an excellent point here, that the music has been influenced by all three traditions for so many centuries, and not just from migrating in one direction, but back and forth across borders repeatedly. Some of the initial distinctions are no doubt long eroded away.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Will Harmon
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Because, Graham, your English, grammar, or knowledge doesn't matter so much as the fact as that you're behaving like an *ss.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Graham, Zina didn't waste your time--you did. If you don't want to spend your time this way, please feel free to not read what's posted here.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Will Harmon
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Welcome to The Session, Graham. Hope you will enjoy your *short stay* here.
If it all comes to blows, I know whose side I'll be on. So does she.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Johnny Jay
Dancing about architecture again?
It’s pretty nigh impossible to satisfactorily answer the question without listening to examples. I would love to hear a good audio presentation on the subject.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Someone's going to get a 'special email' very soon.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Hey Eochracha - why not give it a rest ?
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by BegF
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"If you haven't got an answer Zina why waste our time with three paragraphs."
If you haven't got anything to add to the discussion, Eochracha -- why post at all?
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"ETM, IMT, MTM?? bloody hell for christ sake. there is no difference. They are all acronyms"
No they're not. They're abbreviations.
KFG
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
If we want to get picky they are examples of initialism which is a type of acronym formed from the abbreviation of initial letters. . .
And all the initialisms are getting to me. . .
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Amen to that!
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Why can't we all sing songs hold hands and be friends? I feel a community hug coming on.....
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
An acronym is a *word* formed from initials.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ooh, hugs!! I love hugs. . .
Sorry, internet doesn't allow us to be as facetious as I need it to be.
Bob - I know that an acronym is a word formed from initials, initialism is just a form of an acronym that doesn't spell an actual word. Like FBI, CIA, ITM, STM, ETM, etc. etc. etc.
Like I said it was driving me nuts and now onto the hugs. . .
*HUGS*
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
". . .they are examples of initialism . . ."
Indeed they are, although initialisms are simply a subtype of abbreviation.
". . .which is a type of acronym . . ."
But this is not correct. An initialism is only an acronym if it is formed as a word, such as scuba.
"If we want to get picky . . ."
Isn't that what the thread is about? I'm not posting off topic. The argument seems entirely apropos to me.
KFG
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Hmm, my dictionary says that initialism is a type of acronym. But I'm really not trying to fight or pick a fight or anything. I thought you were being sarcastic and humourous and I was joining in, sorry. . .
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"Acronym" can be broken up into "a crony m" which rhymes with Boney M. That must mean we're talking about music again. Phew!
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Anyone for hugs form an orderly queue behind Ms Musicfan. Anyone for drugs..... you're on the wrong thread.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Fellas, Is it a full moon tonight?? Has anyone else noticed all the strange comments coming out of the wood work??? Can I please have a hug too - I think I'm about to have a stroke or something.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Hey... I'm all for hugs and such, but I'll have to ask my wife first before we can start stroking.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I think that Scottish jigs swing ore rhythmically than Irish jigs..as opposed to 3 triplets, the Scottish jigs are played more like an 1/8th note followed by 2 1/16th notes, even though they are not written that way..also the Strathspey is synonymous with Scottish fiddling, but there have been some strathspeys that have found their way into the Donegal literature, albeit with somewhat more ammusing names...for instance Miss Lyall in Scotland, is something like Kittys cat ate the Mouse in the hat or something such as that...the Irish names for these tunes are not nearly as drab as the Scottish counterpart.
I don't necessarily think that Scottish reels are all bowed with single bows, but it is all dance music. Even though I play a lot of Scottish stuff, I really prefer the way an Irish reel flows.
Enen the feel of the way the tunes are composed is a lot different. There are a ton of Scottish tunes in F and Bb. I think that Scottish tunes were written more for a different class of people..those that could afford to go to dances and balls, where ae it appears to me that Irish tunes are written by the people for the people.
Have at me... these are just my observations.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Sunnybear
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"even"..sorry for the typos
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Sunnybear
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, I’m trying to break myself of the habit if using the acro…, er, the initials ITM, partly because I never liked the practice and partly to help Danny Mackay control his blood pressure as he enters his geezerdom.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Strange.... I never had to ask your wife before we could start stroking
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Conán McDonnell
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I would have thought it obvious that the difference in the quasi-acronymic initializations under discussion here is that the foremost letter-like portions of each initialized unit are angularly dissimilar. But that's just me, or was anyway.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by ∅
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yes? And?
They're called "trolls", Beebs.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Uh oh - I'm almost afraid to ask...what joke?
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yeah, c'mooooon, David, inquiring minds and all that...
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
After which the flasher considered retiring, but decided to stick it out a little longer.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ugh
Well....I asked!
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by bb
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ewwwwwwwwww....I'm telling Kate on you! LOL
And as for YOU, Bob... *smirk*
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Sorry! I've OD'd on dark chocolate today and can't be trusted to control myself.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
That reminds me of a joke I heard last night about an Irishman's visit to the proctologist's office.
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Bet it was funnier when she told it, David. *smirk*
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
". . .my dictionary says that initialism is a type of acronym"
Yes, but you seem to have failed to look up acronym.
Which brings up my favorite definition:
Recursive; see recursive.
"I thought you were being sarcastic and humourous and I was joining in. . ."
Oh, but I was. Thank you for joining in. Laitch seems to have gotten into the spirit of things as well with his brilliant observation.
KFG
# Posted on January 23rd 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
ITM, STM, S&M....whatever...
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Sunnybear
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Thanks to Zina Lee, to Sunnybear, and to anyone else who actually directed their comments seriously to my questions.
If I can take the majority of replies to my questions as an example of the help I can get here, I think I'll log out and find out how to remove myself from membership.
However, if there is any reason for not removing myself fomr membership and continuing asking questions of you all, I'm willing to listen.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by RickD
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Take a breath, Rick. You've just hit a couple of different issues.
First of all, if you're going to participate in threads here, you're going to see hijacks and hijinks going on all the time. If you're going to get offended about it, then you're going to cause yourself needless grief. So the Glee Club got rolling a bit in this thread; a sense of humor is part and parcel of this board. Relax and laugh at the jokes.
Second of all, on occasion a troll gets on here and starts attacking specific members. Zina has been the recipient of such flamebaiting lately. I suspect the person responsible is going to hear from Jeremy soon, and will not like what he hears. But Jeremy is a busy man and you can't expect him to monitor the site 24/7; give him time to respond.
Third, sometimes none of the people who are available within the couple of days after a question gets asked can really answer it. We all have lives outside the yellow board, and not all of us are able to visit it every day. Those who can visit it regularly often do their best to answer, and some of them (like Will and Zona) pour really inordinate amounts of time into trying to help other people with their questions. Not getting the answer you want doesn't mean you should stomp off in a huff. It just means that this time the answer you wanted wasn't within easy reach. So climb down out of the boughs and start playing a tune; life's too short to get shirty so easily.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by sara g
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
you are welcome..I tried, but in the end, acquiesced into silliness as well...great lots of information, and foolishness to be had here...
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Sunnybear
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"If I can take the majority of replies to my questions as an example of the help I can get here, I think I'll log out and find out how to remove myself from membership."
Sorry, we've got you now -- there's no escape. Bwahahahahaha
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
ZINA, that should have been. Really need better light over this keyboard.
(And btw, Rick, I didn't answer your question myself because I don't have the necessary knowledge.)
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by sara g
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
OK, so I was a bit flipant. But it's just too big a question to ask. In fact, it's not really a question at all, it's a myriad of questions, each of which we have already mulled over endlessly here, and probably will continue to do so.
It's not like asking, what's the difference between English and American football. There are no rules to mark the differences.
Try to be a little more specific, and you'll garner less flipancy
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by ...
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"We all have lives outside the yellow board"
We do?
"and some of them (like Will and Zona) pour really inordinate amounts of time into trying to help other people with their questions"
Who's "Zona"?
teeheehee
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Part of the problem here is that no one can tell from a single post, or even many posts, exactly how experienced any poster is, what they know, what they might not know. (Nor can you tell from any given thread what is going on over the entire board; there's always stuff that might slop over from one thread into another, or even from one week to the next, etc.)
And for this particular subject matter, it's like putting matches to dry paper not to know how much someone might know. For instance, if I said something really really basic about Scottish trad to, say, Jamie Smith, as if I was giving him some kind of new pearl of wisdom, he'd think I was mad, or at least incredibly rude and ignorant. (Although in my personal experience and in the experience of others I know who know him personally, he might not, because he seems a decent bloke.) But it might in fact BE some kind of pearl of wisdom for someone who knows nothing about Scottish trad.
Not that I could, I'm not so foolish to think anything I've figured out about Scottish trad (especially since I'd come to it from the perspective of an Irish fiddler) would be particularly wise.
Each of the traditional musics has very very specific differences -- once you get to a certain point of knowledge about each of them. It's partially why people who make a pet study out of one of them get SO bent out of shape with things like "Celtic Music" being used as an umbrella term.
Does that help explain some of the flippancy and such? As Michael says, it's tough to answer such a broad question, so sometimes it's easier not to try.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Thanks for your replies.
Yes, it is a broad question - or a series of broad questions. I just wanted to get something started about it, and it seemed to relate to what Compo asked. I'm trying to answer these questions because I've never heard them addressed, and that may be because I've not been in the right place at the right time - or it may be that no one has talked about it in thses terms. Don't know.
And I realize not having specific names of the tunes doesn't help. Just thought someone might know some of this in general from just having been around the music longer than I have. I think I could come up with the specific tunes later on in the week, if that would help. Maybe then, having specific tunes to discuss the characteristics of, someone could say something that would help me understand why the tunes elicit such a different reaction from me.
What I'll do is start a new thread concerning the three tunes, and see what happens.
Thanks.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by RickD
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, if I lived in Kiwiland, I'd deffo use ITM for materials to pen me sheep in, or build me a shed. Or if I was in the mechanised murder industry (euphemisticly known as Defence), I'd think about ETM for their system provision. Maybe I should consider publishing in future with STM...but WTM seems like the most lucrative avenue as they are in collaboration with with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Hmmm...ITM sounds the best out of all of them...
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Rudall the time
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, Since my answer doesn't seem to be any stoopider than anybody else's.....
The only way to truly tell the difference is to release dancers into the mix. Then watch their hands. If the hands go to the sides and stick there, you got eye-ty em, If one hand goes overhead, it's essty -em, If the hands sprout hankies and bell it's eetee em.
I only spelled it out because I distrust tri-graphs.
I keep telling you that it all came from Avalon, Hy Bressail and the other Western Isles ( the real ones) and have been devolving ever since.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Owell Mabee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
OK then, I'll try and be helpful ...
It's not really about the tunes themselves. It's more of a style thing. A lot of the same tunes are played both in Irish styles and scottish styles. Sure, some tunes sound more Irish and some sound more scottish, but if you hear a good scottish player playing a very Irish tune, you'd think it was a scottish tune, and vice versa. But this in itself is too simple. You have to consider regional styles also. Donegal fiddle music is closer to lowland west Scottish fiddle music than Kerry music. This is obvious. And Shetland fiddle music is closer to some Norwegian music. This is obvious.
Some style differences? You don't tend to hear slow rolls in Scotland, you generally hear snappy short rolls, on the beat. But then if you don't yet know the difference, then this is lost on you anyway. Bowing tends to be more flowing in Irish music, more slurring, less staccato, but not everywhere. It's generally agreed that you can get away with less accuracy in Irish music, but this is only because variation is more to the fore. Accuracy is actually down to taste.
Does this all help? Probably not. And I hope it doesn't really. What anyone who listens/plays diddley/diddly music (diddley = whiskey ... diddly = whisky) has to do is to find it out for themselves. You can't be told the differences any more than you can be told the difference between red and blue. The only way is to learn the difference through familiarity.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by ...
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
The thing is Rick that Zina got it right when she said:
"I'm not sure it *is* in fact possible . . ."
Sure, you can pick individual things like Michael does above, but they aren't exactly hard and fast rules and anything you say about Scottish music you can find in Irish music and vice versa.
That's why he says he hopes it doesn't help. Look, if you look up "jazz" in the dictionary you'll find that the "definition" fits bluegrass just as well as it does jazz. So how do you know the difference? Well, you do, just because, well, you do. You can *hear* it.
But you could disect them both with a microscope and stopwatch and never, ever be able to formulate a definition that lets you know what either one is exclusive of the other. Despite their obvious distinctiveness to the ear they are far too closely related for that sort of thing.
And Irish, Scottish and English music are even more closely related than that.
So one must fall back on the old jazz answer:
"If ya gotta ask, ya ain't ever gonna know."
Frankly, I think Owell has the answer closest to the truth.
KFG
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ha ha, yeah ... Irish music goes ...
"I'm a little teapot, short and stout,
here's my handle,
here's my ... er ... .... .... other handle"
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by ...
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Omigawd Michael! youre becoming all nice and helpful with big friendly posts and me being the sneering cynic nipping in now and again, to sting here and there. What's going on?
My detestation for the acronyms, or whatever....initialised condensation of 4 nations' music into12 letters, will never waver, I'm afraid. I'm even more gobsmacked because we're not dealing with a Sun-reading group here...most folks who post are intelligent, inquisitive etc...and to make the excuse: oh, so I have to type out "Irish Traditional Music" every time? is a bit lame to me, from people whose hobby is brought about largely by using their fingers!
What's so wrong with just saying "the music"? or you can capitalise the initial letters just to make an emphasis -- "The Music". This **TM thing is a dirty habit picked up off this site. Worse than picking your nose, because it's all out in public and you can't eat your endeavours. But not as bad as smoking, I'll have to admit, at least you don't *really* harm anyone else by your dirty habits.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Rudall the time
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
What music?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Phantom Button
You mean Irish music?
Why didn't you say so?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I thought we discussed the acro-whatsit before and decided that because the intro to the site talks of Traditional Irish Music we should speak of "TIM". Even though it's sounds even worse.
I had a look at the French (Irish Music) site and they use "MTI"!
I only just got to read this thread through from the beginning and it looks as if there has been a little deletion happening. Hard to follow the sequence of some of the postings.
As regards the difference between Scottish and Irish music: I heard Celtic Fiddle Festival where they play "Farewell to Erin" sort of like as a Strathspey. I thought to myself that's a nice Scottish tune (but it had a familiar ring to it). Then Burke some in playing the tune as a reel and all of a sudden it became obvious what the forst bit was. - yeah I know I am a bit slow on the uptake.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Donough
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yeah, we lost a, well, umm, a friend along the way due to excessive attack on the integrity of Zina's character (we voted him off the island and sent him down to play shakey eggs and ukulele for the CWM group on the Rio Grande) and the posts now don't make as much sense as they did . . . if they ever made any sense at all . . . and then everything dissolved into a hug fest until we were dragged back on topic where you find us struggling along now. . .
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yeah, somebody bounced twice on the way out. (Thank you, Jeremy.)
I dunno, though, if we have to make sense then I think we're all doomed.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by sara g
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
The only real sense was the bit about the hug - am I too late for one of them?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Donough
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Never.
Wasn't so much an attack on my character as someone perhaps thinking that I was attacking them, I think, and retaliating to a perceived attack. As usual, that sort of thing just goes from bad to worse. It's the nature of Web groups, I think.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
A good reminder (making note to self) to think twice and re-read before you hit the "post" button, and to not take things so personally.
I like Michael and KFG's recent posts above--right to the heart of the matter, really. The parallel to Kevin's quote is: "If I have to explain it, you won't understand."
Although I bet Tomás O'Canainn could do a fair job of clearing this up so that we'd all understand.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Will Harmon
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Donough there are still plenty of hugs to be shared.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
My posts about initials/acronyms may have been a bit flip and seemed off topic, but what I was doing was arguing about language in same way we argue about music.
"No, no, that thing there is just a subcatagory of the other thing and those are just letters/notes, whereas this is a word/phrase, so it's different really. . ."
And so on.
When you're talking about spoken and written language you can do it in spoken and written language. You remain within the context of the field.
But music is it's own language, and it doesn't have words. It has notes and phrases and the only definitive way to "discuss" it is by playing it.
"Scottish music goes like this, but Irish music goes like this. Hear the difference?"
Talking about music with words is like talking about words with pictures. It can be done, after a fashion, but it isn't exactly the ideal. The contexts are foreign to each other.
And notice something about the whole initial/acronym thing. The difference is whether it is pronouncable as a word, so, just to the tell the difference between an initialism and an acronym we are plunged into the whole field of linguistics. Just what is a pronouncable word anyway, and why? And what if it's pronouncable in one language, but not another? What is it then?
It never ends. The more you dig the deeper the hole gets.
All very interesting stuff too, if you're into that sort of thing, but sometimes it's just better to sit down and write a post/play a tune.
All the definitions are retrofitted after the fact anyway. It's the essay/tune that are the reality of the thing, not the definition.
KFG
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I'd much rather just play a tune right now but I am at work unfortunately.
Language is fascinating but when having a discussion or argument it's best to not worry about definitions unless they are causing confusion or adding to the argument un-necessarily.
Was that funny feeling just there a double hug from Zina and musicfan - ooooh that was nice.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Donough
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Wow! I wasn't expecting so many posts (especially about acronyms, initialisation and the like - I wasn't intentionally trying to upset anyone, more like have a short, snappy head line that would attract interest).
Thanks for the thoughts about the differences. Like others have said I can hear a tune played and think that sounds Irish, Scottish or English but sometimes I'm wrong. Being fairly illiterate musically (I play a DG melodeon for gawd's sake!) I was just asking to see if I any of the contributers here could explain why a tune commonly played in all three traditions could sound so different from each other.
Perhaps I'll take the advice of several contributers and stop worrying about it and just sit back and enjoy!
Cheers!
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Compo
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Are there any musicologists reading this (Chris?) who might point us to relevant literature? Surely there's been some sort of careful analysis done to determine if there are characteristics that tend to differentiate tunes that originate in the different cultures.
A study I'd like to see would be something like the following:
Take a well-respected, scholarly collection of tunes from each culture, say Scotland and Ireland, since I'm not too familiar with the others. Say Breathnach CRE and The Simon Fraser Collection. Take a random selection of maybe a hundred tunes from each. Prepare "bare bones" versions of these tunes so as to eliminate clues as to performance practice and concentrate on structural aspects of the melody and implied harmony. Present these tunes to a bunch of traditional Irish and Scottish musicians who read music and ask them to label each tune as either fitting within their own tradition or foreign to their tradition.
First, one could study how well the results correlate with the collection the tunes came from. Do the Irish players fairly consistently identify the Breathnach tunes as Irish and the Simon Fraser tunes as foreign and vice versa? Or is it closer to what you'd expect if they were just guessing?
Next, one could look at tunes where the musicians were in substantial agreement:
1) Tunes considered Irish by nearly all Irish musicians and foreign by nearly all Scottish musicians; and
2) Tunes considered Scottish by nearly all Scottish musicians and foreign by nearly all Irish musicians.
Assuming that there would be some tunes in both categories, (if there weren't, that would also be very interesting,) one could then analyze these tunes. What are the distributions of their keys and modes? What range do they have? What are the frequency distributions of the notes used? What are the frequency distributions of the intervals used between adjacent notes? Which of these measurements, if any, differ noticeably from one group of tunes to the other?
Does anybody know of studies of this type?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yeah, that's the problem though. I have a feeling that if you took all the songs/tunes from the Western world (since Eastern music is based on a different scale pattern it is being excluded) and strip them down to the bare bones that people would be shocked by how alike the tunes/songs are. What makes the tunes/songs different is how they are treated via ornaments, harmony, rhythmic pulse and other psuedo intangibles and so if you strip those away the tunes/songs aren't going to be that different.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I'm sorry Gary, but may I continue to find holes in your method:
"Present these tunes to a bunch of traditional Irish and Scottish musicians who read music". That excludes a very important section of traditional musicians does it not?
"What are the distribution of keys". OK so you'd get more tunes in A in the scottish side. But what if you get the same tune in G? I bet it would sound more irish. I often play scottish tunes that are normally played in A a tone lower. It's more flute freindly and it's easier to roll your A than your B. But it's still the same tune.
And how can you say a particular tune came from anywhere anyway. Are you asking where it was composed? Or where it settled into the tradition? And what does composed mean anyway? Composed by a Scot in Ireland? Composed by an Englishman in Edinburgh? I could write a reel, but I didn't invent the form, I didn't invent the 12 tone scale that the modes are all derived from. And I certainy wasn't the first person ever to count to four.
I'm afraid such analysis would amount to nothing more than giving some useless musicologist a dodgy PHD
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by ...
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Seems to come down to two things:
1) The tune itself is, let's say, Scottish. As Michael says, the keys might be different (a setting of Miss McLeod's in A), but is there anything about the way the tune is structured that would mean it's intrinsically Scottish?
2) The way the tune is played changes what it is. So does someone play something like Red-Haired Boy (Danny Pearl's Favorite) or St. Anne's in ALL the styles it's currently played in and tell us how you play them differently in each of the traditions?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Joseph McDonald in his "A Complete Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe" circa 1760 Illustrates (with 2 examples) quite clearly that the differance between a "Pipe" and "Violin" Reel is that the former is played strait and the latter played dotted. The very doted nature of madern piping only goes back to the early part of the last century.
PP
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Pied Piper
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Modern, sorry.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Pied Piper
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Another misnomer I think Zina:
I just can't seem to come to terms with the concept of a tune being something separate from when it is played. This is the whole thing about writing them down that I have the issue with. A tune is what it sounds like, not the markings on a sheet that can only be read by someone who knows what the markings mean. (And I don't mean people who can read music, but people who can read music and transfer their knowledge of the music to the blank canvas of said dots.)
So how can playing a tune change what it is? When what is is is a tune being played? Do you get my drift?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by ...
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
To attempt to fill some of the holes:
Of course ability to read music excludes important musicians. But how else can you eliminate cues to the source that are inherent in the playing rather than the compositional style? I think we're all agreed that many (most? all?) Irish tunes can be made to sound Scottish and vice versa by adjusting ornamentation, key, etc. But that doesn't alter the underlying tune.
OK, I take back the part about keys. That's performance practice, not composition.
And regarding where the tunes came from originally, I'm not really so concerned with that. It's a question of whether people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music or people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music would be able to reliably identify which tunes appear in a collection made in Ireland and which tunes appear in a collection made in Scotland. These collections are probably fairly representative of what the collectors' sources were playing at the time. Sure, there's going to be some overlap - maybe even quite a bit - but there'll also probably be plenty of tunes that didn't cross the sea. I'll bet those tunes would sound kind of foreign to someone on the other side (unless they're already familiar with the other tradition).
A few days ago, I was playing through some English traditional tunes in a book by Brian Peters. Each and every one of them seemed foreign to me. And they're bare bones versions, so it's not just ornamentation that makes them different.
Johnny Cunningham once said that Irish tunes were the most complex, then Scottish. And he called English tunes "baby music". Of course, Johnny was good at making things up and putting one over on you, so I don't know whether he actually believed that.
I'm working on putting together a mini version of the experiment I described. If I can figure out how to implement it as a web survey, I may post a link to it here and use you all as guinea pigs. I think it will have twelve traditional single reels, six from Breathnach and six identified as Scottish in one of Jerry Holland's books. I'll ask people to decide which comes from which book, whether or not they recognize the specific tune. I'll also ask some background questions about the musician. We'll see what happens.
I've tried to choose obscure tunes to cut down on the chances that people will know them. Of course, people could cheat and try to look them up, so I'll have to trust you to just sight read them.
And I've just seen Michael's reply to Zina that came while I was writing this. Surely the tune has to be something separate from all the instances of it's performance. If it weren't, it would be impossible for two people to play the same tune, or even for you to play the same tune twice. There must be some abstraction (though certainly not just a bare bones sequence of notes, since even without considering ornamentation there are many bare bones versions of the same tune) that represents all performances of all versions of a tune. I don't know how to represent such an object, but a bare bones version comes pretty close. It provides enough information so that someone who knows a version of the tune and who knows the notation can recognize it.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"The same tune is never the same tune twice."
Yes, Gary, that *is* what Michael is saying.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Will Harmon
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Very Zen.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
...and therefore Michael is hoist by his own petard. That's how. Because once you get into this stuff, you DO know that the tune isn't what's on the paper, and that it's ALWAYS different every time depending on who is playing it, when they're playing it, and who they are while they're playing it.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"It's a question of whether people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music or people who identify themselves as Scottish musicians who know little about Irish music would be able to reliably identify which tunes appear in a collection made in Ireland and which tunes appear in a collection made in Scotland."
You're missing any number of points, the most obvious of which is that in order to make this test you'd have to be able to identify the origin of the tune in advance, and, for the most part, this can't be done.
The tunes have traveled too widely and through too many hands to do that although any number of dodgy doctoral thesis have been based on the attempt.
What's actually much easier to do is identify what *instrument* it was composed on.
But here's an illustration of the main point you're missing, which is that it isn't about the tunes, it's about The Music.
When I first heard Jim Doran's recording of Arakansas Traveler, an Ozark tune, my very first reaction was:
'Yer Scottish, ain'cha?"
And lo and behold, he is!
Jim and I could play that tune together *in unison* and I would sound American and he would sound Scottish.
It's about the accent.
Trying to figure out which country a tune came from by looking at the arrangment of just the notes on paper is like trying to figure out which English speaking country the sentence "How now brown cow" came from by looking at the words.
But if an American and a Scot *speak* the sentence you know which is which right off the bat, even though they speak exactly the same words.
KFG
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Gopher it, Gary.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Another flaw with the plan is that most musicians who can read music can also hear the song in their head so they'll be mentally adding their own ornamentations as according to their accents. Especially if they've played the tunes before. Then the tunes are already in their heads and the notes will be a mental prompting and will remind them of what they know.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"Gopher it, Gary."
That's so 1980s.
KFG
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
If the tune is different each time, why do we use the same title for it? There must be some essence that we associate the title with. Of course each time it's a little different, but not so much that we can't recognize it for what it is (usually).
I'm perfectly aware that each time something is played it's different. Even to the extent that each time you listen to the same recording of something you perceive it slightly differently.
Of course there are many sentences spoken in common, but differently, in different countries. But there are also some that don't transfer easily.
Consider the two questions:
When is Custy's open?
What are Custy's opening hours?
Which one sounds more Irish? Could one of them be composed by an American who has some knowledge of Irish idiom? Certainly. But by and large there are differences in compositional style that can suggest (not definitively) origin. I think KFG is right about the instrument being a (the?) key factor. But surely the predominance of certain instruments in certain cultures helps define that culture's music as belonging to that culture.
I have a neighbor who is a classical violinist. He came to my house concerts a few years ago to hear Liz Doherty, Josephine Marsh, Frankie Gavin, Beolach, etc. He was instantly hooked and started learning "Celtic" fiddle. Very quickly, he fell under the influence of the Boston Scottish Fiddle Club. His repertoire is heavily biased toward Scottish, though he knows a few dozen Irish tunes. I know a few dozen Scottish tunes. When we get together for tunes once in a while, it's quickly apparent that not only do we not have many tunes in common, but the tunes we like are quite different in their melodic structure. Maybe it's the instrument they were composed on. But it's probably not ornamentation or style of playing. I find that I'm not interested in learning the tunes he has.
I once played a Jennifer Wrigley tune for Josephine Marsh. She instantly sensed that it wasn't Irish and asked where it was from. It was, of course, composed on fiddle, but I played it on accordion. Maybe someone could make it sound Irish, but I'm not so sure. On the other hand, Joe Ryan took a Shetland wedding march and turned it into an Irish barndance. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Why?
A few years ago, a fiddler came into our session with a new tune. It didn't sound like any style I had heard before, though it was certainly in a traditional dance form. So I asked her if she wrote it. She had. It certainly wasn't ornaments or playing style that clued me in, since I had heard her play lots of different types of music for several years.
I don't completely understand KFG's argument about needing to identify the origin of the tunes. Did I say anything about where the tunes come from originally? I thought I was saying something like: try to identify tunes that are found in Ireland that sound foreign to Scottish musicians and tunes that are found in Scotland that sound foreign to Irish musicians. If you can actually find such tunes, then you can look at structural differences. Who cares where they actually originated? What matters is who plays them and who thinks they're totally strange.
So what if a tune travels from one culture to another and sounds different when it does. So what if a hundred tunes do. What about the thousands that don't?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I don't see musicfan's objection as a flaw. If someone knows the tune already, they're supposed to say so, so that can be factored into the analysis. If they are able to add ornamentation to make it sound like it belongs to their culture, even if it doesn't yet, that's ok, too. It would help prove me wrong. I'd be willing to be proved wrong. But I'm looking for evidence, not theories.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"That's so 1980s."
That's when my mind stopped developing. Haven't had a new thought since then.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Part of the problem of talking about the differences is the meager vocabulary available for describing the details. It’s hard enough to talk about the differences in speech dialect, but at least there we can refer to the Scottish aversion to diphthongs or the English aversion to ah’s… er, I mean R’s. We don’t have very many words for describing the subtle details of diddley/diddly.
So, if somebody defines and catalogs enough arcane terminology to actually categorize the music, who will understand it? Who will bother to try? Will it come back around to “Listen to this … Now, listen to this”?
I think analysis is possible, but then how do you translate it back to conversational speech?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well, take Bob's advice and learn by doing.
You'll find answers, but you'll also find the questions increase exponentially with the number of answers you find. The more you know the less you find you know, because every single answer you find raises a plurality of questions.
Dig the hole deep enough and sooner or later you'll end up knowing everything about nothing.
KFG
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
I've noticed that myself. The longer I'm in school the less I know. . .
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
It only gets worse with age, Kendra, believe me.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Gee thanks Zina . . . and I've only got grad school to look forward too. . . does this mean tht I'm in doubly damned?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
No more so then the rest of us, I'm afraid.
Still, the more you forget, the less worried you have to be, right?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Ahkuna Matata - right?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
If you have any plans of going for a Doctorate you might just as well start calling yourself Sisyphus now and avoid the rush.
Doctor: The craftiest of men, forever damned to start over.
KFG
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"Ahkuna Matata" is that irish or scottish?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by full measure
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Well durn Sisyphus just doesn't have that great of a ring to it . . . though his story is pretty cool . . . ah the futility of it all. Including this whole debate . . . from initialistic acronyms to trying to separate the playing style from the tradition in order to define the tradition . . . chaff on the wind.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
That's "Hakuna Matata". According to the Lion King it means "No worries" in Swahili (I think). In isiXhosa, the african language from the area where I was born and grew up, it translates to "no way, daddy-o"
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Q
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
"Ahkuna Matata - right?" -- er...who?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Sorry for spelling it wrong, I didn't look it up. Just pretend that it was pronounced with a Texas accent and that'll make up for it I promise. . .
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Exactly Zina!
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Sisyphus was great at starting up sessions.. you could always rely on him to get the ball rolling.
...thwadonk disshhh.
It's his sister, Sussurus, who nobody liked. Always whispering behind people's backs like that.
Thank you, thank you... I'm here all night.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Q
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
owwwwww.... Matt, you're fired! *smirk*
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and two drums and a cymbol fell of a cliff. . .
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Careful Matt, don't open Pandora's box.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
... and what's with all this hiding behind a pseudonym anyway?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
... or is it an acronym?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
It's initialism.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
It's my superhero name.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Q
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
What color's your cape?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Q stands for ... I suppose?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quaddy?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quasi?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Matt, you are obviously hanging out with the wrong class of people entirely. :D
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
No cape...and I don't wear my underpants on the outside. (exceptforthatonetimeandIdon'twanttotalkaboutitokay?)
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Q
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Actually, it *was* Quasi, but that was about 10 years ago now, when IRC was the dogs bollox. Did I tell you that?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Q
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
That it was Quasi, or that IRC was the dog's?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Probably. I don't know any more words beginning with Q anyway
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
You, Mr. Google, have run out of words? Someone call the papers.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Querulous?
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Just a person
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quirky.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Will Harmon
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quite.
KFG
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by KFG
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quotidian, yet quaint.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Oops.
# Posted on January 24th 2006 by Will Harmon
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quintessentially Q.
# Posted on January 25th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quirky.
# Posted on January 25th 2006 by musicfan
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
My god, David. Now I have a headache. ;)
# Posted on January 25th 2006 by Zina Lee
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
QUIET!!!
# Posted on January 25th 2006 by GaryAMartin
Re: What differentiates ITM from STM, ETM (and possibly) WTM
Quo vadis?
# Posted on January 25th 2006 by Bob himself