Recently at a session a whistle player started the jig Dusty Windowsills to be greeted by silence and quiet mutterings of "it's a bad tune". I weighed in because while it's not the geatest tune in the world, frankly I've played worse, much worse. What makes a "bad tune" ?
We don't play Dusty Windowsills every week, but it comes up at our local session, and I always enjoy playing it. Maybe the whistler was in an awkward key for the others? Maybe they don't know the tune? Maybe he wasn't in tune to the rest of the circle? Maybe gusts of his garlic-tuna sandwich lunch were emanating from the end of the whistle pointed into the circle? Maybe they just don't like the tune....
More often than not it's been played to much & people are bored with it. Othertimes (especially with new tunes) the melody is contrived & doesn't flow so nicely. Sometimes the melody just doesn't do a thing for you. Another thing that can ruin a good tune is when you hear a real hack screw up the tune week after week; even if you hear a brilliant setting of it you can't help but think of the accumulated hours of torture associated with that tune. Some people can be like parrots & hear someone say "this is a bad tune" & they go around mindlessly reciting that even though they never gave the tune a fair chance.
ps
I personally like The Dusty Windowsill although I could see how it could get played out to certain people. I personally could live without hearing the "Foxhunter's Reel" for a little while. I know it's good, but I'm just sick playing it (especially when someone yells out "one more" after the eight time through) It's a great tune that I'm just tired of at the moment.
I like the dusty windowsill as well, and Im totally sick of the foxhunters) I think I get sick of tunes rather quickly cause when I first learn a particular tune it is all I ever want to play. And as brad said - if you have to hear a real hack play it every week, thats a great way to help lose interest in a tune.
I would be fine if I never heard the Dusty Widowsill again but I certainly wouldn't mind. It comes up and we play it. Some tunes you learn out of self defence, others you learn because you really like them. Once upon a time I really enjoyed The Dusty Windowsill.
We do FoxHunter's when we get on a roll and start playing those decent pieces that we abandoned because of over play. I believe that they pop out once every few months just for kicks. It is joined with the other standards just as Gravel Walks and Farewell to Erin. You get the Idea.
I have a great friend who is still alive because he is a lovable big grown up hippy. When he pulls his concertina out, people run. He has irreparably broken a few tunes for me. Just hearing the name, "Rocks of Brae", makes me wince. There - I just did it.
Good for you, Niall. I wonder what else was going on under the surface of the water? Maybe it's really that they don't like the whistle player? ;) I've heard some fab renditions of Dusty Windowsills. I agree with Will's first shot across the bows (har har har), it's the player's own lack of ability if they can't make the tune into something interesting...if it was truly a "bad" tune, no one at all would play it. Though of course everyone's entitled to their own musical tastes.
If you'd like breath some new life into the Dusty Windowsill, listen to Skip healy's rendition of it on his CD 'THe Return Home.' Although it is a chicago tune, doensn't seem to be overplayed here in the windy city. I enjoy the tune quite a bit. Has an interesting history to it too (as the comments about this tune on this site attest...)
To give some credit to the boys who slagged Dusty Windowsill, this must be one of the least recorded tune in the world. Aside from the six or so recordings posted on this site, I can't find a single version of it in my collection. Never the less, I like the tune and plan to put it under the fingers this week. I have no idea why this tune would be reviled by some people as it seems to be.
Until now I wasn't familiar with Dusty Windowsills; it isn't played all that often in sessions in my area. Anyway, I've just downloaded it and played it through on my fiddle.
I think I can see the problem, which is in the 3rd part. The 3rd and 4th bars of the 3rd part, in particular, are awkward to play on the fiddle in comparison with the 1st and 2nd parts of the tune, so I can understand why fiddle players could have been reluctant to pick it up after the whistle player. Was it originally a whistle or box tune?
The solution, I believe, is to ditch the 3rd part. The 1st and 2nd parts flow and stand well on their own, but the 3rd part, with its leaps and completely different style, destroys the flow, as well as being technically more difficult.
I like the tune (without the 3rd part) and am including it forthwith in my tune-list.
Mac I couldn't disagree more. The third part *makes* the tune what it is. Yes, it's trickier to play (on fiddle at least) than the other two parts, but well worth the effort to master it. In fact, you'll know you've got it when the third part doesn't "destroy the flow" but instead takes the flow to a higher level precisely because of those "leaps."
My god, think of all the great tunes out there that would be nothing if we all decided to just not play the "tricky" parts!
Brad raises an interesting point--that tunes fall into disfavor simply by being played "too much," by being loved to death. But when you reach "too much" is a highly subjective thing. Some of us no doubt play the same 50 tunes every week because that's all we know. And I see nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, despite the infinite variety of tunes available, the point behind playing together at sessions is to play lots of tunes everyone knows--the more the merrier. So necessarily we end up playing mostly the same tunes over and over. In my mind, this doesn't make them "bad" or "boring" at all, but old friends. In other words, if you play Foxhunters every week for ten years and wake up one day to find that you're bored with it, I'd suggest it's your attitude toward the tune that's changed, not the tune itself.
I wonder if this boils down to how we think about repitive routines. Swinging a hammer to bang in a million nails can either be incredibly boring or incredibly rewarding, depending on what you're building. Playing tunes allows certain repeated patterns to become familiar until you slide into the groove, and to me that's rewarding. Yeah, I can toss variations into and old warhorse like Drowsy Maggie right and left, but I still enjoy playing it once or twice through as simply as the day I learned it, just to zone in on the rhythm and pulse.
A band I used to play in recorded dusty windowsills years ago. But we only did it on the low whistle. It really is a whistle/flute/pipes tune and I just couldn't do it justice.
I've since found a way round the cross bowing on the third part though. The bit where it rolls on the A and crosses to the G and Fsharp is straight forward enough, but the next bit rolling the G and crossing to the E and the D? Play the E with your pinky on the A string. Loads easier.
I think it's a great tune
St. Michael--what a disappointment!!
I'm surprised that nobody mentioned that fact that it was not very polite to make that comment about the tune at all. Tunes develop histories in circles that play together a lot. I started Gravel Walks one time--I wasn't exactly a newcomer to that group, but also wasn't a founding father, so to speak. The guys there cracked up. Then one of them said, "It's OK--he isn't here..." and they played with me. I knew I had committed a faux pas, but to this day, don't know what, exactly, was "wrong" with that tune.
Another newer visitor started the same tune months later, and again, the other players laughed, but joined in. In the nearly 3 years I've been attending that session, those are the only 2 times that tune has ever been played. Weird, huh?
I know plenty of players who don't care for certain tunes, but I've never heard any of them call them "bad" tunes. It sounds snobby and condescending.
I'm fond of Dusty windowsills, but I've only ever heard myself play it. I can understand why some people don't want to play it. But it isn't a "bad tune". I think maybe that session had some history with it or someone who played it.
If you get tired of a tune, try calling it by another name - the chances are it's got a few names anyway. Dusty Windowsills is also called The Trip to the Highlands.
Trip to the highlands is dusty windowsills as a 6/8 march.
Infact, if you get bored with any jig, you could always give it a go as a 6/8 march. Completely different.
As for changing the names? doesn't work as well when you hardly know the names of any tunes anyway.
I can understand why someone might think Dusty Windowsills is a 'bad' tune, in that it's defined by that 'gimmicky' third part, but I always quite liked the sound of it. I've heard that same criticism levelled at other tunes as well. The Convenience is one that springs to mind. Someone once told me they didn't like it because it sounded more difficult to play than it actually was, so it was used a lot by mediocre fiddlers who wanted to sound 'flash'. But I think it's a cracking tune if it's played well.
Heh. Well, Cassie, Gravel Walk is one of Shannon's pet peeves (or at least that was true a year ago or so), she really doesn't like playing the tune much because she says it's not a good flute tune. Dirk says much the same, that it's quite difficult to play well on his pipes, although he still plays it quite well (as, of course, does Shannon). It's really more of a fiddle tune, I guess, and I suppose a box tune as well.
Sounds like your sessionmates are good joes for playing it anyway with the newbies who aren't in on the private joke yet. Did you ever find out who it was who doesn't like the tune?
Geez, I really like Dusty Windowsills....it's on my "wish list" of tunes to learn. I hear it every once and a while and it sounds great. I especially like the C part which seems rather unique. But ask me in a few years, I might also grow tired of it.....
I wonder if Dusty Windowsills was originally a 2-part fiddle tune, and perhaps a whistle or box player added the C part.
I take Will's point about not ditching the C part. I agree that technical problems per se are not a sufficient reason for cutting bits out of tunes (unless the problem is well-nigh insuperable, of course) but at present I feel that the C part is somehow out of place in the tune. However, I promise I'll work on it. Perhaps in time I'll revise my present opinion!
well, what is a bad tune? dusty windowsill is not a bad tune. not even playing the third part on a fiddle is "bad"
- it is tricky and takes a while to play it fluently with fast swing. Pete Cooper used this tune to introduce "open string rolls on fiddle" with the third part (we had a big discussion about that earlier) and Pete gives nice ornamentations and bowing patterns which make this tune a fiddle gem.... I love it!!! (and if I played it too much, I
Pleased to meet you, Miss Harling. It's always good to know a bit of the history behind a tune - especially straight from the Horse's mouth(if you'll pardon the expression). Do you know anything about the name, Trip to the Highlands. Perhaps than name was given by somebody else - that syncopated third part makes it sound a bit like a modern bagpipe tune. It may not be an old tune, but I think some people would dispute that it is not 'tradtional'. No matter how much certain people like or dislike it, it has spread orally, across seas and oceans, throughout the Irish musical diaspora. Congratulate your dad for me.
I don't know if he retired, but i'm wondering what instrument he played on the day when he composed Dusty Windowsills. See, you thought you had me, huh?
what constitutes a "bad" tune ?
what constitutes a "bad" tune ?
Recently at a session a whistle player started the jig Dusty Windowsills to be greeted by silence and quiet mutterings of "it's a bad tune". I weighed in because while it's not the geatest tune in the world, frankly I've played worse, much worse. What makes a "bad tune" ?
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by Niall L
Re: what constitutes a
Unimaginative players.
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by Will Harmon
Re: what constitutes a
Okay, perhaps also differences in musical taste.
We don't play Dusty Windowsills every week, but it comes up at our local session, and I always enjoy playing it. Maybe the whistler was in an awkward key for the others? Maybe they don't know the tune? Maybe he wasn't in tune to the rest of the circle? Maybe gusts of his garlic-tuna sandwich lunch were emanating from the end of the whistle pointed into the circle? Maybe they just don't like the tune....
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by Will Harmon
Re: what constitutes a
More often than not it's been played to much & people are bored with it. Othertimes (especially with new tunes) the melody is contrived & doesn't flow so nicely. Sometimes the melody just doesn't do a thing for you. Another thing that can ruin a good tune is when you hear a real hack screw up the tune week after week; even if you hear a brilliant setting of it you can't help but think of the accumulated hours of torture associated with that tune. Some people can be like parrots & hear someone say "this is a bad tune" & they go around mindlessly reciting that even though they never gave the tune a fair chance.
ps
I personally like The Dusty Windowsill although I could see how it could get played out to certain people. I personally could live without hearing the "Foxhunter's Reel" for a little while. I know it's good, but I'm just sick playing it (especially when someone yells out "one more" after the eight time through) It's a great tune that I'm just tired of at the moment.
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by B Rad
Re: what constitutes a
I like the dusty windowsill as well, and Im totally sick of the foxhunters
) I think I get sick of tunes rather quickly cause when I first learn a particular tune it is all I ever want to play. And as brad said - if you have to hear a real hack play it every week, thats a great way to help lose interest in a tune.
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by bb
Re: what constitutes a
I would be fine if I never heard the Dusty Widowsill again but I certainly wouldn't mind. It comes up and we play it. Some tunes you learn out of self defence, others you learn because you really like them. Once upon a time I really enjoyed The Dusty Windowsill.
We do FoxHunter's when we get on a roll and start playing those decent pieces that we abandoned because of over play. I believe that they pop out once every few months just for kicks. It is joined with the other standards just as Gravel Walks and Farewell to Erin. You get the Idea.
I have a great friend who is still alive because he is a lovable big grown up hippy. When he pulls his concertina out, people run. He has irreparably broken a few tunes for me. Just hearing the name, "Rocks of Brae", makes me wince. There - I just did it.
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by Mark Cordova
Re: what constitutes a
Good for you, Niall. I wonder what else was going on under the surface of the water? Maybe it's really that they don't like the whistle player? ;) I've heard some fab renditions of Dusty Windowsills. I agree with Will's first shot across the bows (har har har), it's the player's own lack of ability if they can't make the tune into something interesting...if it was truly a "bad" tune, no one at all would play it. Though of course everyone's entitled to their own musical tastes.
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: what constitutes a
If you'd like breath some new life into the Dusty Windowsill, listen to Skip healy's rendition of it on his CD 'THe Return Home.' Although it is a chicago tune, doensn't seem to be overplayed here in the windy city. I enjoy the tune quite a bit. Has an interesting history to it too (as the comments about this tune on this site attest...)
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by Brendan
Re: what constitutes a
To give some credit to the boys who slagged Dusty Windowsill, this must be one of the least recorded tune in the world. Aside from the six or so recordings posted on this site, I can't find a single version of it in my collection. Never the less, I like the tune and plan to put it under the fingers this week. I have no idea why this tune would be reviled by some people as it seems to be.
# Posted on October 4th 2002 by Caoimghgin
Re: what constitutes a bad tune
If you're talking about tunes in the ITM tradition, i don't know, i haven't seen a bad one yet.
# Posted on October 5th 2002 by glauber
Re: what constitutes a
I'd rather hear a tune over and over than a song over and over.
# Posted on October 5th 2002 by SPeak
Re: what constitutes a
Until now I wasn't familiar with Dusty Windowsills; it isn't played all that often in sessions in my area. Anyway, I've just downloaded it and played it through on my fiddle.
I think I can see the problem, which is in the 3rd part. The 3rd and 4th bars of the 3rd part, in particular, are awkward to play on the fiddle in comparison with the 1st and 2nd parts of the tune, so I can understand why fiddle players could have been reluctant to pick it up after the whistle player. Was it originally a whistle or box tune?
The solution, I believe, is to ditch the 3rd part. The 1st and 2nd parts flow and stand well on their own, but the 3rd part, with its leaps and completely different style, destroys the flow, as well as being technically more difficult.
I like the tune (without the 3rd part) and am including it forthwith in my tune-list.
# Posted on October 6th 2002 by Trevor Jennings
Re: what constitutes a
Mac I couldn't disagree more. The third part *makes* the tune what it is. Yes, it's trickier to play (on fiddle at least) than the other two parts, but well worth the effort to master it. In fact, you'll know you've got it when the third part doesn't "destroy the flow" but instead takes the flow to a higher level precisely because of those "leaps."
My god, think of all the great tunes out there that would be nothing if we all decided to just not play the "tricky" parts!
# Posted on October 6th 2002 by Will Harmon
Re: what constitutes a
I'm not sure, but Will, isn't there also a fourth part to Dusty Windowsill somewhere out there?
# Posted on October 6th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: what constitutes a
If there is, Zina, I haven't heard it (maybe because it's too difficult for anyone to play....just KIDDING
# Posted on October 6th 2002 by Will Harmon
Brad raises an interesting point--that tunes fall into disfavor simply by being played "too much," by being loved to death. But when you reach "too much" is a highly subjective thing. Some of us no doubt play the same 50 tunes every week because that's all we know. And I see nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, despite the infinite variety of tunes available, the point behind playing together at sessions is to play lots of tunes everyone knows--the more the merrier. So necessarily we end up playing mostly the same tunes over and over. In my mind, this doesn't make them "bad" or "boring" at all, but old friends. In other words, if you play Foxhunters every week for ten years and wake up one day to find that you're bored with it, I'd suggest it's your attitude toward the tune that's changed, not the tune itself.
I wonder if this boils down to how we think about repitive routines. Swinging a hammer to bang in a million nails can either be incredibly boring or incredibly rewarding, depending on what you're building. Playing tunes allows certain repeated patterns to become familiar until you slide into the groove, and to me that's rewarding. Yeah, I can toss variations into and old warhorse like Drowsy Maggie right and left, but I still enjoy playing it once or twice through as simply as the day I learned it, just to zone in on the rhythm and pulse.
# Posted on October 6th 2002 by Will Harmon
Re: what constitutes a
A band I used to play in recorded dusty windowsills years ago. But we only did it on the low whistle. It really is a whistle/flute/pipes tune and I just couldn't do it justice.
I've since found a way round the cross bowing on the third part though. The bit where it rolls on the A and crosses to the G and Fsharp is straight forward enough, but the next bit rolling the G and crossing to the E and the D? Play the E with your pinky on the A string. Loads easier.
I think it's a great tune
# Posted on October 6th 2002 by ...
Re: what constitutes a
And
I refuse to be drawn in on the negative aspect of this posting
# Posted on October 6th 2002 by ...
Re: what constitutes a
St. Michael--what a disappointment!!
I'm surprised that nobody mentioned that fact that it was not very polite to make that comment about the tune at all. Tunes develop histories in circles that play together a lot. I started Gravel Walks one time--I wasn't exactly a newcomer to that group, but also wasn't a founding father, so to speak. The guys there cracked up. Then one of them said, "It's OK--he isn't here..." and they played with me. I knew I had committed a faux pas, but to this day, don't know what, exactly, was "wrong" with that tune.
Another newer visitor started the same tune months later, and again, the other players laughed, but joined in. In the nearly 3 years I've been attending that session, those are the only 2 times that tune has ever been played. Weird, huh?
I know plenty of players who don't care for certain tunes, but I've never heard any of them call them "bad" tunes. It sounds snobby and condescending.
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by woman of the house
Re: what constitutes a
I'm fond of Dusty windowsills, but I've only ever heard myself play it. I can understand why some people don't want to play it. But it isn't a "bad tune". I think maybe that session had some history with it or someone who played it.
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by Davetnova
Re: what constitutes a
If you get tired of a tune, try calling it by another name - the chances are it's got a few names anyway. Dusty Windowsills is also called The Trip to the Highlands.
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: what constitutes a
Trip to the highlands is dusty windowsills as a 6/8 march.
Infact, if you get bored with any jig, you could always give it a go as a 6/8 march. Completely different.
As for changing the names? doesn't work as well when you hardly know the names of any tunes anyway.
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by ...
Re: what constitutes a
I can understand why someone might think Dusty Windowsills is a 'bad' tune, in that it's defined by that 'gimmicky' third part, but I always quite liked the sound of it. I've heard that same criticism levelled at other tunes as well. The Convenience is one that springs to mind. Someone once told me they didn't like it because it sounded more difficult to play than it actually was, so it was used a lot by mediocre fiddlers who wanted to sound 'flash'. But I think it's a cracking tune if it's played well.
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by Ottery
Re: what constitutes a
Heh. Well, Cassie, Gravel Walk is one of Shannon's pet peeves (or at least that was true a year ago or so), she really doesn't like playing the tune much because she says it's not a good flute tune. Dirk says much the same, that it's quite difficult to play well on his pipes, although he still plays it quite well (as, of course, does Shannon). It's really more of a fiddle tune, I guess, and I suppose a box tune as well.
Sounds like your sessionmates are good joes for playing it anyway with the newbies who aren't in on the private joke yet. Did you ever find out who it was who doesn't like the tune?
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by Zina Lee
Re: what constitutes a
Most really easy tunes are good tunes, and most really difficult tunes are not so good.
Draw your own conclusions
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by ...
Re: what constitutes a
You might say that a good tune, no matter what it's complexity, is by definition 'easy' because it is memorable and it makes you want to play it.
# Posted on October 7th 2002 by Ottery
Re: what constitutes a
Geez, I really like Dusty Windowsills....it's on my "wish list" of tunes to learn. I hear it every once and a while and it sounds great. I especially like the C part which seems rather unique. But ask me in a few years, I might also grow tired of it.....
Joyce
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by JMH
Re: what constitutes a bad tune
I wonder if Dusty Windowsills was originally a 2-part fiddle tune, and perhaps a whistle or box player added the C part.
I take Will's point about not ditching the C part. I agree that technical problems per se are not a sufficient reason for cutting bits out of tunes (unless the problem is well-nigh insuperable, of course) but at present I feel that the C part is somehow out of place in the tune. However, I promise I'll work on it. Perhaps in time I'll revise my present opinion!
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by Trevor Jennings
Re: what constitutes a
Yeah, good description.
I've certainly laboured pointlessly in the past learning tunes just because every one else knew them
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by ...
Re: what constitutes a
well, what is a bad tune? dusty windowsill is not a bad tune. not even playing the third part on a fiddle is "bad"
- it is tricky and takes a while to play it fluently with fast swing. Pete Cooper used this tune to introduce "open string rolls on fiddle" with the third part (we had a big discussion about that earlier) and Pete gives nice ornamentations and bowing patterns which make this tune a fiddle gem.... I love it!!! (and if I played it too much, I
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by crannog
Re: what constitutes a
Pleased to meet you, Miss Harling. It's always good to know a bit of the history behind a tune - especially straight from the Horse's mouth(if you'll pardon the expression). Do you know anything about the name, Trip to the Highlands. Perhaps than name was given by somebody else - that syncopated third part makes it sound a bit like a modern bagpipe tune. It may not be an old tune, but I think some people would dispute that it is not 'tradtional'. No matter how much certain people like or dislike it, it has spread orally, across seas and oceans, throughout the Irish musical diaspora. Congratulate your dad for me.
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: what constitutes a "bad" tune
I shall write out 100 times "I must read the tune comments before posting my own."
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by Trevor Jennings
John Harling
I wonder what instrument he played.
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by glauber
Re: what constitutes a
Why, has he retired?
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by Ottery
John Harling
I don't know if he retired, but i'm wondering what instrument he played on the day when he composed Dusty Windowsills. See, you thought you had me, huh?
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by glauber
Re: what constitutes a
Hmmm, nice one...
# Posted on October 8th 2002 by Ottery