Will Harmon
I'd rather be playing tunes (and I usually am). But I've met some great folks through this forum, and enjoyed some engaging discussions about the music here.
Been playing Irish traditional music since 1975. I play mostly fiddle, and some mandolin, flute, and a bit of penny whistle. (Also other styles of music on guitar and 5 string banjo.)
I'm a session player (gigs only now and then). I like the informality, serendipity, camaraderie of a good session.
Here's my "box" file where I put sound clips of tunes now and then. The current files aren't how I play at sessions, just teaching clips for my music students. http://www.box.net/shared/pgcbfpr79h
Some lists of my best guesses at the "most widely played" session tunes, with help from other sesh.org members:
Reels: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/18036
Jigs: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/18049
Hornpipes: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/18069
Polkas:
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/18087
Slip jigs: http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/18120
Here are some of my own tunes, not necessarily keepers.
A Duck Walks into a Pharmacy http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/7316
Bang Your Frog on the Sofa http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/371
The Bellangare Races http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6208
Dick Harmon's http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/126
The Dreary Plains of Toil http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/300
Emma's Single (But I Can't Marry Her) http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/4285
Evan's Slip http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/5178
The Freudian (slip jig) http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/627
Letting the Ranch Go Fallow http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/7159
Raise the Ceiling, Drop the Floor http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/11387
The Road to Frustration http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/301
The Roof Thatcher's Daughter http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/6356
The Winter Queen http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display/4979
A few more of my own tunes:
X: 1
T: Walking Mary Home
C: Will Harmon
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
K: F
FAc dcA|FGA GFD|CDF Adc|AGF G2D|
FAc dcA|BAG AFD|CA,C DFA|1 GFE F2D:|2 GFE FGA||
~B3 Bcd|cAF GFD|CDF Adc|AGF D2A|
~B3 Bcd|cAF GFD|CA,C DFA|1 GFE FGA:|2 GFE F2D||
X: 1
T: Bear in the Bog, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
C: Will Harmon
K: Dmix
FAd fed|cAB cGE|FAG FDB,|CDE =FAG|
FAd fed|cAB cGE|FAG FGE|ED^C D2E:||
DA,D FED|EAB cGE|DFA dfa|ged cAG|
~F3 AFD|EAB cGE|DFA cAG|AFE D2E:||
X: 1
T: Trip to Yellowstone, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
C: Will Harmon
K: G
E|DB,D G2D|EDB, DEG|ABG A2B|cBA BGE|
DB,D GED|EDB, DEG|cBA BGE|DB,D EFG:||
Bdd edB|cBA BGE|DGG FGA|~B3 ABc|
Bdd gdB|cBA BGE|DB,D EGB| 1 AGF G2A:|2 AGF G2E||
X: 1
T: Murphy's Walking Cap
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
C: Will Harmon
K: D
E2F EDC|DFE DFA|~B3 AFA|dAF GFD|
~E3 EDC|DFE DFA|~B3 Bcd|1 AGF E2D:|2 c2d ecA||
d2e fed|efd cde|gBB BcB|Acc cde|
~f3 fed|efd cde|gBB BcB|1 BAA Afe:|2 BAA A3||
T: Queen of the Summer Moon
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
C: Will Harmon
K: G
D/E/F|:GDB,D GBAB|cBAG =FAdc|Bdge (3=fgf eg|=fdcA F2 dc|
BGAF GDB,D|GBAG FAdc|Bdge (3=fgf dc|1 B2 G2 G2 D/E/F:|2 BGDB, G,A,B,C||
D/D/D B,D GDB,D|(3GAG FG BdcB|AG=FE DCDE|=FEFG ABcA|
BGDB, GDB,A,|G,B,DG BdcB|A2 =FA cAFA|1 dcAF GAGE:|2 dcAF G2 D/E/F||
And below are a couple of scribbling little rambles of mine about (1) the relative merits of ear learning vs. the dots, and (2) the value of playing music with a mentor, whole-heartedly:
On the Relative Merits of Learning Music From Notation vs. Learning Music by Ear (Specifically for Irish Traditional Music)
As best as the musical historians can tell, Irish traditional music stems from a distinctly aural tradition, where for generations tunes have been composed directly on the instruments at hand. The tunes were only infrequently written down, almost never by the composer (and all too often by someone from outside the tradition who would impose formal music conventions on the tunes). This is in stark contrast to Beethoven sitting at his piano with lined paper, ink, and pen, scratching notes onto the staves as the motifs came to him. Also, in Irish traditional music, the tunes typically are passed from one player to the next by ear -- by playing them, usually slowly, often phrase by phrase, until the other player has a grasp. And it is not unusual for experienced players well-immersed in the music to pick up tunes by ear at dance or session tempo -- to learn them “on the fly.”
Today, however, many musicians, trained or experienced in classical and other “formal” genres, bring to this music their fondness for (and often dependence on) written notation. Which raises several questions: Are the dots a valid and reliable source for this music? Are there disadvantages (to the player) of relying on dots as a beginner in an aural tradition? Are there disadvantages to the tradition when many newcomers are dot dependent? Are there advantages to using the dots? Are there disadvantages to using your ears? What exactly are the advantages to using and developing your ears? In short, what are the pros and cons of both written notation and learning by ear?
Pros of Learning From the Dots
- Live music is fleeting, ephemeral. The dots relatively permanent. You can come back tomorrow and look again at the sheet music. The ink will still be there. So notation is a handy storage device (particularly if you don't have a sound recording).
- If you understand the mechanics of how to read the dots -- and you have enough listening of this music in you -- then you can recreate the tune, without an mp3 player, tape recorder, or other mechanical device. You can sight-sing the tune right from the page. Or you can play it on your instrument. No batteries required.
- Notation (especially abcs) is portable. It’s digital footprint is relatively small and light. It can be easily shipped, via mail, email, txt, etc.
- Notation allows us to visually pore over the structure and elements of a tune as slow as we want, with no need to hie to the actual tempo of the piece if it were being played. For detailed analysis, this can be handy.
- Similarly, notation allows us to quickly compare/contrast two or more settings of a tune simultaneously.
Pros of Learning by Ear
- Music is wholly and fundamentally aural. The more we use our ears, the better we get at it, and the more adept we become at listening to and making music. The musician who does not listen is no better off than a person who cannot hear. We can’t play music without ears and activated aural centers in our brains. (Yet plenty of people play music just fine without functioning eyes.) For the aspiring musician, time spent really listening is never wasted.
- Learning to listen accurately, comprehensively, and with genuine understanding is how we grow the synapses and neural pathways that shape our brains into truly musical brains (instead of, say, painter brains or wine-tasting-connoisseur brains). The more you listen and play, the more musical your brain becomes, the better a musician you become. Studies show that even without formal training, just listening to music (especially the music that most calls to you) makes an enormous contribution to developing musical competency. In fact, listening is so powerful, it is equivalent, all by itself, to formal music training for developing many musical abilities.
- When you learn by ear, you readily hear the important intervals and phrasings, the sounds that make a tune raise the hair on your neck, that make "this" tune different from "that" tune. Ink on paper is mute. Even for really adept sight-singers, the dots are a poor second to the immediacy and emotional power of hearing music.
- Learning by ear is expected in this music. All of the experienced players of this music can give you tunes by playing them. But many of them can't (or won't) write them out for you. Learning by ear is integral to this tradition. Sight reading notation is not. Becoming adept at learning by ear is like earning a membership card to the club. It gives you credibility. It demonstrates at least some understanding and respect for the tradition. It enables you to take advantage of nearly every encounter with veteran players.
- Learning by ear leads to playing by ear, which is how this music works, whether in sessions or in performances. You cannot fit in with other traditional players unless you can play by ear. Unlike in formal music where a player or ensemble follows a score (and often a conductor), this music is played without a script. In this music, the one essential skill that enables us to "play well with others" is an ability to listen and play responsively to what we hear.
- When you're good at it, learning tunes by ear is far quicker and more complete than any other way of acquiring tunes.
Cons of Learning by Dots
- Notation cannot capture all of the qualities and nuances (timing, pulse, tone, articulations, phrasing, etc.) of music that make it music, not Muzak.
- Notation lacks the immediacy and emotional power of sound waves bouncing off our ear drums.
- Notation often contains mistakes. Without an aural source, it can be difficult to recognize such mistakes and to suss out a viable correction. Notation also shoe-horns the music into measures and note lengths and other conventional formats that do not accurately represent the actual music. (Aural sources can contain mistakes, too. But a steady diet of listening to this music makes us adept at sorting the mistakes from the music.)
- All the notation and reading skills in the world add up to nothing if you don’t know how the music is supposed to sound. The world is already chock full of alleged musicians who've learned a few Irish tunes from the dots yet who clearly have no idea how this music actually sounds. (Yikes! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w65438PCGM)
- Good sight readers often err by relying on their visual skills to the neglect of their aural abilities. This does not a musician make. If visual arts are your passion, take up painting, graphic design, or sculpture. Yes, we are strongly visual animals. The mere presence of notation encourages our visual bias. Visual stimulus to the brain tends to override our ears. That's exactly wrong for learning to make music.
Cons of Learning by Ear
- In the beginning, learning solely by ear may feel difficult (especially for people adept at sight reading). But it’s absurd to complain that this is "too hard" before you've spent any time to nurture and develop the skill. Anything that is unfamiliar feels hard. We learn by doing. The more you do, the more familiar the skill becomes, the easier it is. Learning to listen is no harder (and likely much easier) than learning to decipher the arcane, near-mystic hieroglyphics of notation.
- Learning to listen tends to turn people into aural sponges. It becomes harder to ignore the bombardment of canned crap piped throughout malls, grocery stores, radio, etc. The solution is to avoid those places and make your own music.
I've said nothing yet about how being able to read notation gives a person access to all the many written sources for this music -- all the old written collections (O’Neill’s, the Roche collection, Bunting, etc.), and today’s innumerable online sources for sheet music and abcs. It's true: the ability to read music opens up vast libraries of tunes. But please don't confuse mere access with the real ability to play those tunes and play them well. Consider this: being able to read the written word gives us access to loads of information and ideas. But being able to read books does little or nothing to enhance our ability to speak. Music works in much the same way.
For me, it boils down to this: Written notation can be a useful tool, and knowing how to read it is a welcome skill, for certain things, in certain circumstances. But neither the tool nor the skill is necessary for playing this music and playing it well. On the other hand, using your ears is necessary, even essential. I am not anti-dots. I learned to read notation at the age of 7, some 45 years ago., and I’m fluent with standard music notation, abcs, and tablature. For some genres of music, being able to play from notation is a crucial skill. In general, sight reading is a handy knack for any musician to have. So go ahead -- learn how to read. Just not at the expense of developing your ears. And not as your point of entry into this music.
Another rant:
Dabbler or Impassioned Player? Find a Face-to-Face Mentor
Seems to me that Irish traditional music works at large much like a festival session. There's an inner circle of core players who know what they're on about and who have the music from the players and mentors before who have their respect. And then there's outlying concentric circles of wannabes and dabblers and finally clueless eejits with djembes and 12-string guitars. Naturally, the outer rings are always larger than the core.
The popular media amplifies this trend. While there are more brilliant players today, there are also exponentially more dabblers and eejits. YouTube breeds them like ticks on a basset hound. And they in turn breed cds of themselves like the Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever virus in ticks.
Maybe I'm just waxing wishful, hoping against all odds that a slice more of the wannabes and dabblers would come to this music with genuine wonder, curiosity, and interest about the traditions and culture and *people* behind it, instead of stopping at the first cool modal chord. And it wouldn't bother me if we all took a pause and thought about relating more to the humans making this music, rather than to the recording and play-back machines and their sound files.
I spent many years in the early stages of learning this music while living in the boondocks, with no mentors and no one to play with. So I've gone through phases of relying on radio, recordings, and even scanning the dots in hopes of learning *something.*
To be clear: I've lived both in hotbeds of this music (sessions in Philadelphia at John Vesey's house), *and* isolated far from it. I've spent more than 30 years in Montana, USA, for pete's sake (sorry Pete). But I still found ways to at least occasionally connect with great players, either on my travels or when their travels brought them near.
So I empathize with people who don't have easy access to mentors. I sure lament all the years that went by when I didn't have a mentor. So I also know from first-hand experience how limited some of the more indirect tools (recordings, dots) can be, and what a powerful difference it can make to find a face-to-face mentor. Even if just for infrequent, periodic tutoring. You can absorb a lot in a day or two or a week at music camp, and then have ideas to woodshed on for years afterward.
I think it all boils down to what Kevin Burke said at my first lesson. There are players and dabblers. The difference is in how obsessed you get with the music, and where that obsession takes you--maybe to seek out authentic sources, say.
If you're happy being a dabbler, fine. Just don't expect a session to cater to your sluggish, dumbed-down, square-rhythm attempts at Drowsy Maggie. And don't presume that you know more or can play better than the person who's spent thousands of hours listening, playing, learning, and developing a deep understanding of this music. Yes, you there, with the Guinness celtic knotwork bodhran and tweed walking cap? I *am* talking to *you.* :-)
But if you're a beginner, a newcomer, who can't breathe without lilting, who wants to know how a single jig is distinct from a slide, what pedal bowing is, and who has no inkling who Paddy Canny or Johnny Doran is but desperately wants to find out, then by all means, come down to the local session and play us your sluggish, dumbed-down, square-rhythm attempts at Drowsy Maggie. We'll play along. And then ask for and absorb all the insights and help you can get from the more experienced players. And come back next week with a few cuts added to Drowsy Maggie, or the bowing sorted out, or at least a little more lift to the rhythm. And you'll be encouraged and helped and maybe slagged a little bit and welcomed.
Works for me.
P.S. Llig knows what he's talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPZ7FiXQeUU
Tunes in Will Harmon's tunebook: 0