Musical couples?

I don’t know if this has been discussed before, but here goes. I have become increasing convinced over the years that Richard and I are kind of unique in that we both play the same kind of music. (Interestingly, we weren’t playing any kind of music when we met although we had both played at one time -- Richard rock-n-roll, myself classical. We discovered Irish music after we were married.) We know a few other couples who both play Irish music, but it seems like the vast majority of our music friends are either single people or people with non-playing spouses or with spouses who play some other kind of music. So, I’m kind of curious. How many of you out there have a spouse/partner who also plays ITM, and for those of you who do not, how do you deal with the inevitable conflicts that arise?

Aimee

Pete decided that I was having far too much fun without him, so he went through a period of buying every cheap instrument he thought at all remotely attractive on E-bay until he settled on a bouzouki. Naturally, I was ecstatic because I love bouzouki backing, but of course he wants to play melody. *sigh*

Aimee, I’ve been meaning to ask how you and Richard deal with the “inevitable conflicts” that arise because you both *do* play the same music. I mean, at least Rose lets me play whatever tunes I want, since they all sound the same to her. 🙂

Seriously, she played calssical violin from childhood through college, and about twice a year she sits in on one of our slow sessions, but she’s quite vocal about not being as interested in the tchunes as I am. Nonetheless, we’re a musical family, always listening to and playing music, from Irish to punk, Sibelius to Sum 41. So mere preferences for a certain genre don’t cause much conflict here.

We also do nearly everything else together, rarely spend an evening apart, so my occasional solo sortie out for an extended session is tolerated (Rose appreciates a break from me as much as I enjoy time to focus on the tunes 🙂.

Back to my original question--do you and Richard ever argue over tune choices? I know there are some fiddle tunes that don’t land too well on keyless flute (all those Gm reels)--so how do you work that out? To Richard’s credit, he knows a bunch of tunes, not limited to just the typical flute repertoire--I really get a kick out of it when he barrels right into Fox Hunter’s Reel in Amaj on his Olwell.

…er, “classical.” Gawd, my typing’s as bad as my intonation 😀

The wife plays the box. Sometimes she plays The Bucks on her box… haha. She’s pretty new to it and I’m currently more psycho about the music than she is. But she’s doing amazing well. She’s also big into the set dancing and teaches a class here in town. So, a pretty good catch, overall.

And, from what Kevin says, a pretty good right as well.

I used to go out with a banjo player and we had way different ideas from everything from tunes to sessions. Often we’d go to different sessions on the same night. Its hard because either youre at the same level, or one is more advanced than the other or one likes very different tunes or they dont play at all. If youre going to go out with someone that plays I think either you have to be comeplety understanding and supportive or they have to be at a similar level to you. Its hard to say isnt it because I went out with someone once who had no interest in tunes and couldnt understand why it is all I ever did and thought about. catch 22@

Well, in my case, partly. My wife does set dancing, and I play the fiddle. We have an agreement: she doesn’t try to play the fiddle, and I don’t attempt to dance - I have a keen sense of the proprieties 🙂

At a session tonight at The Duke of York in Bristol we had a lovely visiting couple from Dublin - Marion (aka Muireann) and Brendan. Both played a variety of fretted instruments, Brendan also played the harmonica with the guitar, and both sang together. We thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated their company and their excellent musical contribution to the session.
Trevor

In reply to Will’s question re tune conflicts, it just so happens that Richard also plays guitar! Basically, we tend to learn tunes on our own, but we tend to like the same tunes. If Richard learns a great tune, he will ask me to learn it, and vice versa. If we are playing in public, he will sometimes accompany me on the guitar -- for those g-minor tunes and any others that he claims are not “flute” tunes. So we don’t have too many conflicts in that regard.

Aimee

Ah, so next time we’re in the same taproom, we’ll have to do a whole set of g-min tunes and let him uncase the guitar….

So Aimee, at risk of leading you two down the road to marital counseling with Dr. Phil 🙂, is there a pecking order between you and Richard? You seem very well matched to those of us outside the marriage, both in temperment and musical abilities. But like Bridie says, it’s unusual to find a mate at basically the same level of interest and talent. And to keep progressing evenly…we’ve struggled a bit with that just within our local session circle. More than once I’ve been grateful someone else gave me the benefit of the doubt while I played catch-up, and vice versa. (Just ignore my whole post here if you’d rather not air your laundry for the whole e-world to ogle 🙂.

Will, by the way, what are some good G-minor reels or other tunes in G minor? I scrolled through several pages of the “tunes” section on this site and didn’t find any.

Thanks, Carol

Carol, we’re probably using G minor as shorthand here for tunes in both G minor and G dorian. The point is, with F nats and B flats (and e flats too, in the case of G minor), these tunes don’t fall under the fingers too easily on a trad keyless flute. But fiddlers love ’em. Aimee brought this up in an email asking me if I knew “In Memory of Michael Coleman” (which I’ll try to learn before we get to play together again).

The tunes (reels and jigs) I’m thinking of are:

Eileen Curran
The Bunch of Keys
Tommy’s Tarbukas
Farewell to Milltown
Fairhaired Molly
The Glen Reel (by Ed Reavy)
Splendid Isolation (Brendan McGlinchey)
Terry Crehan’s (Terry Crehan)
Banshee Wails Over the Mangle Pit

Also, some East Galway and Clare fiddlers are well known for putting tunes into G min/G dor/B flat. Star of Munster, Morning Star, Castle Kelly, The Blackthorne, etc.

My other half is a guitar player, but he is only beginning to learn trad. He is a good inspiration and we have played tunes together all over the world. Mostly though these tunes tend to be The Pogues, Christy Moore to Jonathan Richman, to surf punk stuff and all kinds of random nonsense - some of which I hate. He also wants me to improvise stuff all the time - which just doesn’t come naturally to me. But at the same time - to an extent I enjoy it - I guess I am just greatful to play. I also get to play the odd slow air, a handful of reels and some Michael McGoldrick stuff, which he likes. It’s also hard if we are playing in public to get a chance to get the Irish stuff in - as it’s sometimes just the wrong thing to play - and also loses it’s effect without the rest of the instruments.

It is frustrating though - he wants me to improvise stuff with him, yet he reckons it’s too hard for him to sit down and learn how ITM works. He won’t try and understand it. He plays the Pogues and somehow that seems a little bit acceptable!

On balance it is good. I must add there are no sessions where I am at the moment. In fact I haven’t been to session since June 2002, so I am probably more frustrated by the fact that I can’t just go somewhere and play tunes I want to play and adhere to the rules I like!!

I wouldn’t be without him though, regardless of what music we play - where ever we do start playing music another few musicians crawl out of the woodwork and a great party follows!!

Thanks for the tunes, Will. I too like G minor. That tune I mentioned that I composed, on that other, infamous thread, is in G minor. Not by design. It just came out that way.

Carol

“and also loses it’s effect without the rest of the instruments.” ??? Heh. Don’t go starting up THAT one again…

My wife was perfectly happy playing American traditional and contemporary folk music on Appalachian dulcimer (with occasional forays on mandolin and guitar), and then a mutual friend and I led her down the primrose path to the wicked world of ITM and pub sessions -- and she wound up playing in our band, besides!
More importantly, she and I developed our own little personal repertoire of songs and tunes that we can still play together on those all-too-rare occasions when she does get out the instruments. It’s funny: I never had thought “back then” that we were spending all that much time on music, but I guess we were.
I’m hoping that, before too long, she’ll be able to retrace her steps back to the music, as I’ve sought to do these past few years. It’s great to have a shared activity -- well, other than raising children and keeping house -- that you can do just among yourselves, or with varying numbers of people. And I’d like to add to that aforementioned repertoire.

Will, although Richard does play guitar, he really prefers to play the flute in sessions -- he likes playing the melodies. And yes, I think we are very well matched in terms of temperment, musical ability, etc. As I mentioned, we did not play music when we met; it was astronomy club that brought us together. We have lots of mutual interests, but interests & hobbies of our own as well. (For example, I don’t bowl, and he doesn’t knit!) Fortunately, where ITM is concerned, we have the same tastes and philosophies. Our repertoires ovelap a great deal, but each of us knows some tunes the other doesn’t play. I play a lot of Donegal stuff that Richard claims are not “flute tunes.” 🙂

Aimee

I consider myself to be eternally lucky to be married to a man who loves ITM and is more happy to not only come along to the odd session, but also seems to enjoy my endless practicing!

On our recent road trip through Ireland Martin (hubby) was happy to do all the driving whilst I played the hours away in the seat beside him (which in my opinion makes him a prime candidate for sainthood! 🙂

As Martin is a sax player we don’t get to play together that often, and when we do it’s usually with me on trumpet. Still I think musically we have a pretty damn good relationship 🙂

Cheers,
Morgana

I have a musical spouse who doesn

I’m a single/unentangled guy (so what would I know?) but I have watched my parents. My dad plays I/STM with my brother and I, and my mom sings quite well. She throws her all into making my dad successful. She holds him up on bad days, medicates him through the ageing pains, remembers what he was playing, on what instrument, and smiles through it all. He encourages her to sing and provides backing and a constant fan-club. Here’s to the two of em!

W.J.

one of the many things i love about having him around is I can learn his tunes while he learns them.. and him me too, meaning,, when a person is learning a tune they are usually slow and methodical, exploring, and quite emotive too I think,, so all those searching notes travel through teh house and the other person picks up the tune effortlessly,, its amazing and wonderful.. double the flavour double the fun…

other things.. of course the tolerance we have for each other,, I mean honestly who else but another musician could possibly tolerate their spouse sitting for three hours slaving over a couple of dots on a page, when meanwhile the metaphorical grass needs to be metaphorically cut?

uh,, one more thing,, not that this is good, or bad, it just is we have five kids, three fulltime two partime none of ’em are “ours in the biological sense, theyre ”his or “mine”… (they all want to live with us I think the kids like the musical mood, and so they always want to *groan* ,, be here… and there is Nothing we want more than to do a year long road trip AWAY from them… , now if i can just keep my health until im 60… yes we had our kids “late” another factor of being a musicialn maybe, anyway,, i said way enough,, thx richard and aimee for this thread,,