Trying to move away from classical

Im a classically trained violinist. I’ve been play fiddle for about a year now. I can’t seem to get away from the classical sound. I feel like I stick out like a sore thumb in sessions. I play the notes right, and put emphasis on the right beats and do bowing patterns and all sorts of thigns that should work, but I still sound so boring. I dont know what Im doing wrong. I’ve grown up around folk music so I know how it should sound, I just can;t seem to make it sound that way. I dont sound bad, but I dont sound great like I went to either. Any advice would helps thanks.

Hey, wanna get together tomorrow, Anna? ;)

You might also try going to Jean (who fiddles for Colcannon?) -- she specializes in helping classical players play folk music of all kinds.

yeah
Id love that zina! The guitar guy from colcannon is my neighbor, maybe he can give me her number.

You need alcohol! (Disclaimer: When it’s safe and legal for you in Colorado of course). A few pints always helps you loosen up.



I know some classical players who still sound stiff and boring after years fiddling, but you are starting quite young so I reckon you will “get into the groove” before too long. A year is not very long in terms of playing traditional music.

hehe, thanks for the advice. Wonder how that would go over with my dad “I was just trying to sound less like a classical violinist!” He brews beer. Note to anyone whose from boulder he loves giving it away so stop by my house sometime, and he’ll give you a cold one.

hey, Anna -- if you call them up, say hi to them for me. I used to work with Mick at The Denver Center Theatre Company -- I never knew he was a singer back then, oddly enough, and I didn’t play the fiddle back then, but I knew Mick was a great storyteller. I rarely see them these days, although I see their bass player round at sessions fairly often.

I sent you my “real” e-mail address via the e-mail function, if you didn’t get it, let me know.

thats if your over 21 anyways

Hmmmm. Hall, Hall, do I know your dad? Sounds like a good reason to hold a session at your house. ;)

I got it zina thanks

my family would love that!

I would too . .

Well, then, we’ll just have to manufacture an excuse. 🙂 See you tomorrow!

At a very small, very local little veggie type coffeehouse a couple of weeks ago two girls on college break showed up for open mic. One had a violin and the other a silver flute.

Their set consisted of St. Anne’s Reel and Ashokan Farewell (of course).

They were obviously classicaly trained and I kept wanting to grab the violinist’s left hand during the reel to stop all the damned vibrato, other than that I can’t say they were exactly boring, but they were, well. . . “pretty.”

Even when up the neck past e’. (What she was doing up there in the first place I have no idea. Her version of Ashokan certainly bore little resemblance to Jay’s. Jay’s a local and Ashokan is just down the road from me apiece. Great trout fishing and a nice little Zen retreat. Jay was Artist in Residence there for awhile).

This isn’t pretty music. This is music that’s supposed to make your spine twist into a trinity knot when it hits the E string. Make your hair stand on end, like when you’re out in the bog alone late at night (don’t ask me what I was doing there) and a banshee sneaks up behind you and lets loose with a wail to wake the dead, while at the same time vibrating every neuron in your brain’s pleasure center at 20 Ghz so you’re stuck on the razor’s edge between fight or flight and having a spontaneous ecstatic orgasm.

This is *exquisite* music.

But no. They were “pretty.”

I think the violinist might still be saved, but she’d have to have a clue for that. My gut feeling is that the flautist is already too far gone.

You wouldn’t be goin’ and being pretty, would you?

Lemme ask ya another question; is all ya got yer violin, or have ya got a second, cheapass fiddle that’s ok to just throw in the back of the car, or take to parties, or whatever?

KFG

Have a look at this thread: https://thesession.org/discussions/3814

Man, if ye came that close to of Them….

Yer dead already.

"Man, if ye came that close to of Them….

Yer dead already."

Nah, I have a working relationship with the Sidhe. I don’t bother them, they bother don’t bother me, except maybe for the guitar pick thingy.

The Kavanaugh I was out there with isn’t looking too good these days though, but he’s a drummer, so it’s not like he’s good for anything anyway.

KFG

I just felt obliged to actually go through my Sidhe provided picks, and one of them actually says “Cheap Trick” on it. It seems The Good People and I share a perverted sense of humor.

KFG

hehe KFG your funny. Thats something I love out these discussions some of you are hilarious, a bit nutty, but I love ya all the same.
I have a “crappy” fiddle as you call it, and a nice violin. Funny thing though, I play the crap one in my school orchestra, and the nice one at sessions.

And that’s the way it should be.. :P

Let the music sing!

-Padraig

same goes for the bows, My bow at school is plastic, my bow at home is really expensive and pretty.

indeed

Hmmm… Well surely either can’t be as bad as mine… ;) considering it sounds like the belly and the ribs and the back are all cardboard. :D

-Padraig

can’t say I’ve ever heard a cardboard fiddle, note to self: look for one on ebay, anyways you enjoy it all the same though right??

thankyou slainte. The link was helpful

Considering it’s all I have until I have about 1K… yes, I do … I must. :D 🙂

Oh, yes… and to head off the inevitable micheal gill….

Listen listen listen!

That’s what I’ve been doing… and I think it’s been helping a sma’ bit. ;)


-Padraig

yeah nice instruments are expensive, Im glad I inherited mine

Ah, jealous am I… 😉

Yes, I do know a bit of IrishGaelic…. not much, though.

thats cool, I would love to be fluent some day. Not that it would be of any use to me, It would just be cool.

“hehe KFG your funny.”

The “G” part of KFG that seems to draw everybody’s attention is actually a French name that means “entertaining and amusing.”

“. . .a bit nutty. . .”

A *bit*? You insult me, girl. I’m crunchy, and proud of it.

“I have a ”crappy“ fiddle as you call it. . .”

Now, now. Don’t go putting words in my mouth. I said “cheapass,” not “crappy.” I have a cheapass fiddle who’s my sweetie, and I wouldn’t dream of calling her crappy.

If only because I’d be sleeping alone for a week, and have to buy her some pearl inlay if I didn’t want to make it two.

“My bow at school is plastic. . .”

Well, it would be better if it were something that a 6 year old Chinese slave girl had whittled out of a 2x4 and haired with something she plucked from a thorn tree after a herd of wild asses had stampeded through, but plastic will do.

So, here’s what I want you to do. Take your cheapass fiddle and put a set of crappy carbon steel strings on it. The OEM strings from a $100 Chinese fiddle ought to do, especially if they’re a little corroded. Super Sensitives are really too good for this, but will do in a pinch, just leave them out in the rain for a few days first.

Now, on the next night that weather permits (anything over 40 degrees) and the moon is vaguely full take your cheapass fiddle, crappy strings and all, and your plastic bow, and throw them in the back of the car. Or on the back of your bicycle. Whatever. And head out of town. Find a nice big, solitary meadow type thing. Maybe you have a favorite one of those already.

Take your cheapass fiddle, your plastic bow and strip down to your skivvies. Now run wild through the meadow. Cavort, hoot, holler, wave your fiddle and bow around in the moonlight, spin like a dervish until you fall down.

When you catch your breath howl at the moon. At least three times.

Now! . . . Play an air.

It won’t be pretty; and your remission from classical will have begun.

KFG

Some wonderful creative suggestions here, but how about a couple of dull ones. Playing in front of a mirror and making sure you look like a fiddle player, not a violinist.
As an exercise, play some jigs and reel with your right elbow to your side. To make that work you’ve probably got to drop your left elbow down by your side too.

For what it’s worth, here’s my experience.
I play classical piano. I have a Steinway baby grand. I enjoy classical music, but have made a few attempts at playing popular music, and it doesn’t sound right. For example, “I got rhythm” (Gershwin) I play correctly and it sounds OK but it still lacks something.
I wanted to play Celtic music, so I decided that I needed to move right away from the piano, so I started with the bodhran. I now play that moderately well, and it sounds Celtic! I’ve moved to the tin whistle, and find that I can produce a Celtic sound with that too, but I have to be careful or it starts to sound “correct” rather than “right”.
Some people have mentioned beer. Damn it, they’re right! If I have one beer I can’t play the piano. If I have one beer my whistle and drum playing improves, and two is better. After three or four, it starts to degrade again, but then I can’t drive home either, so that puts a limit on things!

Banana512, don’t shun your classical training whatever you do! Use it to help develop your Irish style - the two styles are not mutually exclusive, only some peoples’ attitudes are. (*not* referring to anyone in this thread!!)

I’ve got a few clips on my site where I play the same tune straight (some might liken it to ‘classical’ style), then played in an Irish style, just for the purpose of showing different bowing patterns, and emphasis on rhythm. It’s by no means the only way to bow, but I think it demo’s the point about rhythm and ‘feel’ - note the emphasis on the off-beat by the down-bow.

Hope these help.

http://www.worldfiddlemusic.co.uk/video/classicalprettymaggiemorrissey01.wmv

http://www.worldfiddlemusic.co.uk/video/irishprettymaggiemorrisseynormal01.wmv

http://www.worldfiddlemusic.co.uk/video/irishprettymaggiemorrisseyslow01.wmv

Jim

http://www.worldfiddlemusic.co.uk

Celtic, huh? Hmmm, I am reminded of a story my dad likes to tell about the great Welsh actor Sir Richard Burton…

Sir Richard was at a party someplace fancy, when he was approached by a southern oil tycoony Texan-type, who drawled something along the lines of “Why Mr Burton, you and I have something in common! I too am a ‘Selt’.”

To which Sir Richard replied, “You are mistaken. I am a *Celt*. And you, sir, are a sunt.”

LOL, Q!

Jim

I think the key is still listening. And moving away from sheet music for a while, learning purely by ear. The purpose of the latter is to develop and sharpen your listening skills, increasing the details you consciously or unconsciously are able to pick up. This will increase the level at which you are listening at. You’ll also pick up an innate sense of how things should sound from more exposure.

Having somewhat recovered my composure after reading Q’s wonderful story about Richard Burton, I suggest learning and playing a different trad instrument instead for a while so as to give your violin fingers a chance to “forget” the classical style. The whistle seems to be the obvious choice – simple, not too difficult to learn (probably the “easiest” of all), and inexpensive. When you are reasonably proficient on the whistle try the fiddle again at sessions.
In Bristol there is a superb Irish fiddle player who trained as a professional classical violinist (she has played with some of the UK’s top pro orchestras in a busy career) and then a lot later switched to playing Irish music. She said it took her a good two years to “forget” her classical playing as far as playing Irish was concerned (she took a post-grad degree in Irish music at Limerick Uni on the way), but she still plays classical when required – it’s a bit like being fluently bilingual. So it can be done. Obviously, the younger you are the easier it is to be able to do both, but you’ve still got to put in the time on the trad music, there’s no shortcut. It needs as much time and (pleasurable) work to get to a proficient standard in trad as it does in classical.
BTW, it’s worth noting that many of the younger generation of up and coming fiddle players have a solid training in classical as well - they learn both.
Trevor

Whistle isn’t easy! I’m really fed up with this common misconception. And as somebody suggests in a different thread, if you love the fiddle, don’t waste time for whistle.

I agree, Slainte.

Jim

Well, if you have a lot of free time and are interested in whistle, you can try it: it will help as Trevor suggested.

Zina, when did you work at the Denver Center? My dad’s brother Tim is the facilities manager there, has been for years.

And, Anna, I’ll reiterate what’s been writ here… as a classical player myself, I can say there are really only three things that you need to do to feel more at home with the diddly:

1) Listen
2) Listen
3) Listen some more

Good luck!

DK

Well, tell you what. I can’t say that I sound particularly ‘authentic’ (somebody like Geoff or Will or one of the other members here who’ve played with me can tell you what I sound like, hopefully in private to spare my feelings), nor that I’m any particular authority on what sounds “right” (a dicey term, that), but after the session today I’ll tell you what I think, if you like.

But you’ll have to ask me to tell you, because it’s not really on to tell somebody what you think they ought to do about their playing or give them a critical assessment of their style unless they ask you to do so. ;)

Although I’m guessing that the Charlie Lennon CD I’m listening to right now is probably about as “authentic” and “right” as they come…

Darin -- I worked there in 1983-85 or so -- Tim Kelly? Sounds vaguely familiar -- hmmmm -- a rather small thinnish man with dark hair and glasses? (Well, dark in the 80’s, maybe.) You ought to come out for a famiily visit and we’ll fete you about town. 🙂

Sorry to digress, but Slainte’s comment on the whistle not being easy (I agree) prompts me to pontificate.

Whether an instrument is hard or easy to play depends on your starting point and your destination as well as the raw talent and anatomical advantage you bring to it. If you’ve never played any instrument, then your first hump is always how to play the notes. With the piano, the notes are right there in front of you. You poke a key and the note plays. You poke the white keys and now you’re playing a scale. So is the piano easy to play? Well that first hump is easy, but if your goal is to play “Gaspard de la Nuit”, you’ve probably got a long and humpy road ahead.

With the fiddle, that first hump is pretty hard for most of us. The notes are hidden and the bowing arm has to be trained like a dancer and it takes a while before anybody can stand to hear you practice. So there you’ve got at least two big humps to get over before you can play a musical sounding scale. But once you’ve accomplished that, how hard is it to play simple tunes? Harder than the whistle? Harder than mandolin? Maybe, maybe not. What about playing advanced tunes and then adding ornaments? Different humps on different instruments. Different trajectories.

Even though I’ve played guitar a thousand times as much as fiddle, fast tunes and ornaments come more easily for me on the fiddle. “Everybody” plays guitar, but how many have mastered it? Basic guitar playing is easy, advanced guitar playing is very hard. Basic whistle playing is easy, advanced is very hard.

Personally, I find the concertina impossible to play.

And btw, I’m not an advanced guitar player.

Zina--- thinnish, yes; small, no. Tim runs about 6‘4" or so… at that time he might have been the stage manager at Boetcher Hall, before he took on far more responsibiity than he ever wanted. I last was in Denver in ’95 or so… hung out in LoDo and had, er, *a couple* of pints at the Wyncoop brewery…. good times, that.

DK

Oh yeah, Darin, the smashed potatoes with garlic at the Wynkoop were the BEST, always. Didja know we elected the owner our mayor not too long back?

I’m sure I’ve met Tim Kelly, though I doubt he’d remember me and he’s a vague memory to me at this point, Jaysus, was that really two decades ago? I worked with Opera Colorado their first two seasons, and I’d have met him then -- I was a wardrobe the first season, but a stage manager the second, so for sure I’d have dealt with him while working that one.

Come on out again -- we’ve got lots more pints to put down you, we’ve one of the highest per capita incidence of micro-breweries in the country.

“I’ve got a few clips on my site where I play the same tune straight (some might liken it to ‘classical’ style)”

Unfortunately Jim these clips only serve to further illustrate the problem. When you play an Irish tune straight it still sounds Irish. I assume that when you play classical music it sounds classical and would continue to sound classical even if you added Irish style ornaments to it. Your brain is making some subtle adjustment. Except for the vibrato the girl I mention above actually had a very nice style (which is one of the reasons I think she could be saved), but still sounded pure classical.

Your Ragtime Annie is delightful, but for an Arakansan you make a great Scotsman. I can tell in just a few notes of Arkansas Traveler that you didn’t learn that one anywhere near the Appalachians.

Long, tall and Yellow points out that she’s playing all the right notes. She’s got “style.” She doesn’t have “sound.” The issue here isn’t simply one of style, but that undefinable, untranslatable *feel* that one puts into the music.

“The notes are hidden. . .”

Ah, yes. Have you, by any chance, ever stopped to wonder *why* the notes are hidden, why they don’t just put frets on the damn thing? The answer to this question is ontopic.

““Everybody” plays guitar, but how many have mastered it?”

None of them, albeit a few are closer than others

KFG

Thanks for all the comments everyone. I really apprecitate it. so heres what Im gonna do,
1) Im going to listen more
2)Im going to practice more specifically on trad
3) Im going to continue my whistle playing (I got one for xmas, and have done tid bits with it here and there. It really is pretty sounding. Plus I got through it in my back pack when I got hiking etc . .)
4) Im going to record myself playing more so I can hear how I sound in comparison to what I want to sound like.
5) Im going to re potty train myself so that I dont need “the sheets” as much.
so yeah I think thats a good starting point. I will let you guys know how I carry on.

KFG you win the blue ribbon.

““Everybody” plays guitar, but how many have mastered it?”
None of them, albeit a few are closer than others"

Let’s see, this is like that harp joke, right?

How long does it take to tune a harp?
Nobody knows.

Sorry, one more opinion. I think ITM and classical music are different not just in terms of techniques but in some other respects.

I think the performance of classical music is supposed to be more or less impersonal because the music itself should *ideally* express beauty, dignity, agony, or such kind of noble ideas and concepts in the purest form. On the other hand, ITM never claims universality: it’s just the folk music of a small island. Funnily enough, there’re several regional varieties, and the musicians from the same county play in their own individual styles.

So, I’ve been thinking many classically trained musicians are struggling to find their own personal styles or sounds. I sometimes find fiddlers with some classical background tend to idealise one particular fiddler and to see his or her style as the only authentic Irish fiddle style. Not really, of course. Tons of other great fiddlers play in totally different styles.

Good luck, Anna. I’m also struggling to develop my own style of playing.

>““Everybody” plays guitar, but how many have mastered it?”

>None of them, albeit a few are closer than others

Tony McManus is so close he scares me. Playing triplets with the thumb is way out of bounds.

Ah, yes. Have you, by any chance, ever stopped to wonder *why* the notes are hidden, why they don’t just put frets on the damn thing? The answer to this question is ontopic.

I always figured it was to keep guitar hacks like me from polluting the fiddle pool. What’s the other reason?

KFG, I tried your little excercise and all I got was frostbite and a free night’s accomodation in the drunk tank. My fiddling sounds the same except that I lost a pinkie so some of my third finger rolls are a little dodgy.

Anna banana, in my opinion the element classical players of all stripes (piano, flute, violin) are not catching onto is attack. That first nano-second of sound out of your fiddle ought to be that screeching, biting, toneless scrapy noise you’ve spent all these years learning how not to make. (And, if you’re a flute player, you ought to make a bunch of short, enthusiastic blasts of air that would horrify your classical instructor). (And, if you’re a piano player, you ought to be slamming into the keys with reckless abandon and little regard for which specific notes you might chance to hit).

Then again, it depends what you’re aiming for. If you want to sound like Martin Hayes, you don’t have a lot of work ahead of you. Not compared to if you wanted to sound like, say, Liz Doherty or Kevin Burke.

Another elusive concept for “violin” players (as opposed to “fiddle” players) is that there are all kinds of notes between the notes that aren’t classically true. (KFG hints ar this above, the tease). I just took a workshop with Patrick Ourceau, who spent a while discussing the careful and intentional flattening and sharpening of various notes. He demonstrated with a little B C sharp D run in an E dorian tune, and low and behold, when he played a “true” C sharp it sounded terrible. When he played something about five eighths of the way between C and C sharp, it sounded “right”.

So how do you know which notes to screw up on purpose? Listen, listen, listen. Especially to things other than the fiddle. Listen to pipes, banjos, concertinas, and flutes and try to mimic what they are doing with your wn instrument. Your training will be a handicap if you are listening to fiddlers (I’m guessing) because you will be making all kinds of assumptions about what they must be doing based on your background, and your assumptions (probably) will be wrong.

IMHO, sounding classical or not has little to do with tone, instrument, or even ornaments - it’s in the rhythmic feel and the constant variation. Rhythmic feel goes beyond just tending to emphasize off-beats in reels, but has to do with how long individual notes are and whether the melody notes tend to be placed before, behind,or on the beat. Pay attention to how your bow feels - listen to the differences between up and down strokes [almost every bowed instrument player tends to play upbows slightly shorter than downbows - fiddle players are less likely to have had that beaten out of them] - listen for the minor give in take in tempo at various parts of the tunes in good players. Try to play passages differently every time you approach them - develop a suite of solutions to be applied on the fly rather than a set method for playing a tune. I don’t buy that you have to have a worse machine [fiddle] or a bad tone (or be drunk, gods!) to sound like a folk musician - it’s a matter of paying attention to the right minutae and of letting go at the right times.

Kerri - intonation - classical players have to change pitches all the time too to make them sound in tune. I bet when he played it “true” he was up in C# leading tone range (for D, of course). Sixth scale degree in dorian is definately going to want to be on the flat side, so I’m sure the difference was pretty remarkable. It’s not playing out of tune, it’s just understanding that intonation is flexible in a theoretical sense - and also culturally.

In my previous post I didn’t say the whistle was “easy”, I said it was probably the “easiest” – in quotes. All musical instruments are hard, for the beginner. Some instruments remain “hard” for some while before it starts to feel “easy”; for the whistle, the beginner’s progress is quicker, and therefore more satisfying and encouraging, than on many other instruments, although it will still take years to reach the advanced stages. But as for the uillean pipes …
If you get some facility in playing the whistle then the keyless flute is an obvious next step, although that has its own set of problems to master. Remember that a number of very good fiddle players also play the whistle/flute.
Trevor

OK flatland. I’m sure you’re right, but I understood nothing you said. Without getting too theoretical about it, Patrick was playing that particular note “flat”, according to what the majority of musicians would consider the word “flat” to mean - (ie, your electric tuner’s little red arrow on the left is urgently flashing at you).

Jim, Siobhan and Django both use two fingers. And I didn’t actually lose one. I’m just a big dirty liar and I was making stuff up.

Ha! The fiendish electric tuner – invention of the Devil himself. Makes your ears lazy and marmalizes your intonation.
All you need is to take an A off a fixed reed instrument – I prefer the concertina – or use an A440 tuning fork if there’s no fixed reed, and do the rest with your ears.

Trevor

“Jim, Siobhan and Django both use two fingers.”….Kerri, either my video clips are too small or you need your eyes tested. I use all four fingers. 🙂 🙂

KFG - “Your Ragtime Annie is delightful, but for an Arakansan you make a great Scotsman.”…..I am a Scotsman!!! Honest!! 🙂

Jim

Trevor - “The fiendish electric tuner….”….good point, but I think your comment only applies when one person is playing / tuning up…when “the session” is tuning up amidst the pub noise, tuners can be invaluable!

Jim

Try tuning my hammered dulcimer without one, Trevor, then tell me how devilish they are. (I don’t really use it with the fiddle. Honest. Four strings? That’s baby stuff!)

(Whoops, Jim, sorry, my mistake. ;^)

“KFG, I tried your little excercise and all I got was frostbite and a free night’s accomodation in the drunk tank. My fiddling sounds the same except that I lost a pinkie so some of my third finger rolls are a little dodgy.”

Ah Kerri. I’m sorry. That exercise was a custom job not intended as generic advice. I wouldn’t have expected you to do it, but I *did* mention that it should be over 40 degrees out.

“I understood nothing you said. . .”

I did.

“I’m sure you’re right. . .”

No, the flatlander isn’t. I’m afraid this is one case where I shall have to refer you to the poster’s bio so that you may take the opinion with the appropriate grain of salt. He/she/it is a flatlander for starters (in my neighborhood that says it all), an American Midwesterner with 20 years of classical training and only 4 years of involvent with ITM. Not only classical, but *viola* for God’s sake ( how do you get 12 viola players in tune together? For God’s sake man, what would you want *12* viola players for?)

I’m sorry flatlander, I’m really not trying to insult you in any way and if we were having a converstaion about music over a pint we’d be chatting away at each other in a very friendly manner, I’m sure. It’s this damned means of international communication through essay format that’s getting me.

Although modern ITM (how’s that for an oxymoron) is built loosely around the equal tempered scale it *is not* equal tempered or even modal. It is microtonal. Like Indian music. Indian music is not “wrong.” If you’re playing the notes “right” you are playing them wrong. This is one of the reasons it’s so hard to play airs on whistle. It’s a nominally fixed pitch instrument and you have to partial hole much of it, and not partial whole to a perfect sharp or flat either. On a fretted intrument like guitar you often have to apply a very subtle amount of bend to hit the right note. This isn’t an “ornament,” it’s necessary to play the right note.

It can’t really be done on a piano (although you can fake it with the right attack as Kerri suggests), but a good keyboardist who knows how to use his pitch wheel can. This is why synths are actually more traditional than piano.

“I don’t buy that you have to have a worse machine [fiddle] or a bad tone. . .”

If you believe I claimed, or even suggested, anything of the sort, you are mistakn. Note that I did *not* suggest that the Banana Babe take her cheapass fiddle to sessions. It told her to take it to a field. It was an *training exercise* to break the classical mindset of tone and rythym. That’s why I specifically said play an air, not a reel or a jig.

As for “bad tone” that is the classical player in you talking. That scratchy sound is not “bad tone.” It is good tone because it is the proper tone for the music. Classical tone in Irish music is bad tone and calling the scratchy sound of an Irish fiddle bad tone makes no more sense than saying a krumhorn has bad tone because it doesn’t sound like a silver flute.

Let me try to put it in classical player terms. If you are not playing with at least a bit of a scratchty sound you are ignoring the composers markings. They are *written* that way.

Classical period ideas about music are not, not, not “correct”, no matter how much training you have had to think of it that way. Classical is just another genre of music and its rules are only correct within the genre.

(Please note that I studied classical piano with composer Esta Blood and in my youth had at least a smattering of classical training on flute and violin. I am not speaking as some sort of outraged “folkie” or traditionalist defending his ballywick against the ivory tower long hairs. I’ve got long hair. And a ponytail. A greying one)

Get thee hence to a museum with a good early Baroque musical instrument collection, and pick up some music of the period that hasn’t been corrupted by the piano ( the damned piano has corrupted everything)

What’s this? The music has written E sharps and B sharps in it, and the harpsichords have keys to play them.

The violin has no frets specifically to allow the playing of such “wrong” notes at will, instead of having to stop and move the frets around like on a viol, when the singers change keys.

You’re absolutely right about the rhythm issues though, but the rhythmic issues are only one part of the whole puzzle that makes up the picture. You can’t put it together and see what it looks like with only 10% of the pieces.

“(or be drunk, gods!)”

And you and I are absolutely, 100% together on this one. When I said a pint I meant a pint of Jamaican Blue Mountain. In this room I think it’s going to be just you and I over in the corner together, so I hope, despite the tenor of this post, we end up friends.

Ah Jayzus, I feel a longass post coming on (this is a short one, believe it or not) and I don’t have time. Maybe you guys will get lucky and the feeling will go away before I return home.

“intonation - classical players have to change pitches all the time too to make them sound in tune.”

Well, sure, if they have 20 years experience in viola that’s to be expected. 🙂 (and I might point out that Kerri has a classical background as well)

Ah well, I’m outta here before I make myself look like an even bigger jerk. I’m not really. I’m very silly. Just look at my posts above. Like I said, it’s this damned medium.

KFG

“. . .or use an A440 tuning fork if there’s no fixed reed”

I can just sing the 440. Nobody here should think that I’m in any way agin being well trained and I even practice intonation, both fiddle and voice, with a tuner.

But I’m very careful not to let that hurt my playing or singing. Being able to hit a perfect 440 at will is *not* the same thing as being *unable* to hit a perfect 443.796 at will.

KFG

KFG

thank again guys for the advice.

“Ah well, I’m outta here before I make myself look like an even bigger jerk.”

Ok, I lied. Looks like me and Kerri have to go sit over in the prevaricator’s corner.

KFG

Was fun having you at the tune learning session, Anna! We’ll have to play Toss the Feathers and the Cuil Aodh at a session at your house sometime soon. 🙂

Kerri, I heard a recording of a jazz pianist on the radio documentary some months ago and, according to the presenter, the highly chromatic ornamentation that pianist was using was an attempt to make it sound as if he was bending the notes as a trumpet, sax or fiddle would – quite successfully, I thought (willing suspension of disbelief, and all that). Sorry, I don’t remember his name.
BTW, I must confess that I hadn’t thought of the hammered dulcimer when it comes to tuning. They’re rare in my area and I’ve seen one played at a session only on two or three occasions, by the same lady. I did ask her about tuning, and she said it stayed in tune quite well, and she always tuned it at home anyway (she lives close to the session pub in question).
Trevor

Anna, one thing that’s just occurred to me – as a classical player how easy is it for you to control your vibrato? Can you slow it down or speed it up, or widen or reduce the amplitude, at will? Because if you can I think it would be a good idea to kill your vibrato completely for a time while playing Irish trad. I think that would help you to get more into the music.
Eventually, when you are relaxed and fluent with the Irish music you can occasionally introduce just a little bit of vibrato as an ornament - this is how it was used centuries ago in baroque music, from which many Irish tunes are descended.
I’d suggest that if vibrato isn’t under full control then what I have said in my previous sentence wouldn’t yet be an option.
Trevor

Mine has 122 strings and I need to fine-tune it every single time I play. Plus, I’m one of those people who always fidgets with any instrument long after the tuner is satisfied.

KFG, you’re awesome. I don’t think you look like a jerk at all. Maybe that’s just because I agree with you. Careful bandying about comments like “Kerri has a classical background as well”. It’s embarassing how completely I failed to absorb anything after all those lessons. I used to get in trouble constantly for ignoring dynamics, tempo, and occasionally changing the parts around or playing too many or too few repeats. And I terrified my teacher by coming to the lessons with stuff I’d composed myself. (“Ummmmmmm, OooooKaaaay” flip, flip, flip “uuuuhhh, let’s do some scales first, then we’ll work on your Chopin and then, if there’s time at the end, we can have a look at this.”) I’m scared if you let the word out that I have “a classical background” people will start expecting me to be able to sight read and play vibrato. Yikes!

Can we get pints in this “prevaricator’s corner”, by the way?

sounds like a plan zina

trevor,
no worries about the vibrato, I haven’t been playing vibrato lately because of an injury. Its something I have to consciously think about to add to a piece, unlike before my injury, where I would have been a great vision along side kfgs vibrato duo

I can verify that Anna doesn’t play with any. 🙂

Kevin Burke’s early training was classical. let’s ask him how he moved away from it.

Kevin Bernhagen (San Francisco) was a classically trained violinist, and so was Dana Lyn (now in New York).

See? now here I thought he started out as a fiddler and took a few classical lessons to improve his intonation or something. Shows you what I know.

KFG, classical violin playing isn’t equal tempered either. Sorry, as a pianist you play a fundamentally out of tune instrument. In any genre there are good and bad tones for that particular style of music. There are tones that fit the setting, and tones that do not.
I’m rather entertained that the bulk of your argument came out of my bio rather than the content of my post. You’ve neither heard my playing nor any more developed arguments on my part, which saves me loads of time as I know you won’t really read what I say here either. I’ve no time for your sort.

I probably told this story before, but I’ll never get sick of it.

I once got a lesson from a girl who advised me to practice tunes with an electric tuner. When I showed up, she said “What do you want to learn?” and I, taken aback because I had taken her for a fiddler, being as that’s how she made her living, said “Well, what is it you teach?” She nonchalantly tossed her hair and said “Oh, I can teach anything”. So I said “Anything, eh? How about you show me how to play a really nice slow air?” First I had to explain to her what I meant by “slow air”, then she said “You can just take any tune and play it really slowly… with your electric tuner.”

She also had about 4 years of ITM experience and 20 years of classical training. I shudder to think the damage she’s doing to traditional music by passing herself off as a teacher.

Not that I’m assuming you’re anything like her, flatland, but I think a lot of traditional players have had similar run-ins with classical players who believe they have it figured out but are in fact clueless, so maybe KFG’s just being cautious. I’m sure it’s nothing personal.

Kerri, there’s never a shortage of poor teachers in any subject, to be sure. KFG made a similar error to this teacher when he assumed himself to be an expert on what I know and do after hastily reading a half-dozen sentences. It may not be personal, but it is thoroughly ignorant. I appreciate your peacemaking gesture.

Kevin Burke’s website gives the scoop on how he started playing this stuff.

Lots of players have taken classical lessons to work on a solid grounding in techniue, some very famous players of this stuff, too. Nothing wrong with that!

Wow. What a lovely site. And a good story too. I guess it’s a tie:
“Jessie Christopherson was giving me Violin lessons and at the same time I was learning about the Fiddle at home from my parents’ record collection and from family friends.”

Banana, my immediate reaction is to say that you need to concentrate on the bowing. The notes will take care of themselves. The rolls will take work, but moreso with the bowing. Do listen to other instruments. The pipes are a great place to start, like with Paddy Keenan or Seamus Ennis. Listen to accordion or concertina for rhythm, especially for polkas and slides. And I agree with an earlier comment. It is important to keep in mind that the dance tunes are not meant to be “beautiful”. They are meant to motivate dance, to excite the feet and soul. Listen intently to the music, experience it directly through concerts and sessions. And listen to a fair amount of the old music. Don’t just get CDs from current recording artists. Mix and match.

Re intonation:

Based on the accumulated results of last semester’s research in intonation (which is ongoing, by the way,) I would say that that is not what is making you sound “classical.” In analyzing recordings of fiddle masters, I’ve found that there are plenty of fiddlers whose intonation on most intervals is close equal temperament, and at least 3 who are close to just. There _is_ a wide range of _accepted_ sizes for various intervals, which comes down to differences between personal and regional styles. These range from almost 1/4 tone flatter than just to almost 1/4 tone sharper than equal. But the point is that a large number of well-known ITM fiddlers use intonation that is more than acceptable from a classical point of view.

The take home message for you: I really doubt that intonation is really your problem as far as why you feel that you sound too classical. Conversely, if you tried to use more inflections, you might like how that sounds in itself, but it will not solve the original problem that made you dissatisfied with your playing.

So what is it? I would put my money on rhythm, which really goes along with what Jode mentions above about bowing and listening. The last few days I’ve really gotten into researching that, and I’ve actually succeeded in writing out the true rhythm of a couple of different players’ performances of reels and hornpipes. There is a fairly good range of possibilities for acceptable rhythms (next project: try to define the outer limits of acceptable rhythms,) but it is a very definite range that once outside it, it’ll never sound like ITM for real. For example, a dotted quarter-eighth pair for a hornpipe, which is a 3:1 ratio (the long note is 3 times as long as the short note,) is completely unacceptable, as is a 1:1 ratio (all notes exactly the same length.)
This research is so new that I haven’t yet applied it to teaching, but in thinking it over I’ve decided that it since I’ve managed to define specific ratios for the length of long notes to short, it should help to tell the ratios to someone who’s working on getting this just right. I’ve seen other threads where people will try to explain the rhythm as “Kind of dotted quarter eighth, but not really, more of a Dah-di dah-dii…” So since people do try to define exactly how long and short the notes should be, why not do it precisely?
Well. I still haven’t found a way to put the sheet music or the sound clips up, but I can email them as attachments (which means I need your email address!) if anyone wants to see. But I’ll tell you, Banana (Anna?), give these rhythms a try and see what happens:

For hornpipes: 3:5 as the proportion of SHORT notes to LONG sounds great. This means that the short notes are 3/5 or 60% the length of the long notes. I’ve notated this rhythm with the long notes as an eighth tied to a 32nd (equal to 5 32nd notes) and the short notes as a dotted sixteenth note (equal to 3 32nd notes.) I can email sheet music and sound file if wanted. You can also understand this by counting “1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3” over and over again and clapping on the ones. The faster you go the harder it is to keep track of the counting--and it needs to go pretty fast with that subdivision (quarter equals 165)--but in combination with listening to the sound file and the original recording it was transcribed from, it should get you well on your way.

For reels, try the proportion 13:20. This one is a little more counterintuitive. It reduces to 3.25: 5. This translates to a eighth tied to a 32nd (5 32nds, again,) for the long note, and a sixteenth tied to a 128th note for the shorts (which equals 3.25 32nd notes.) This one you’re going to have to do some hardcore listening on, but it may be a comfort to know why reels are so frickin’ difficult to grasp the rhythm of!

Oh my… have you ever? I think I’m going to… this is just… taxi!

no, I just have to say it. So, the answer is, set your metronome on something like, I don’t know, “4” for starters, then count to twenty for the first eighth note, then thirteen for the second, then twenty, then thirteen - in fact, you should really have *two* metronomes - one to keep your counting in time and one to keep the beat of the tune. so, in other words, one metronome ought to click 33 times for each click of the other. Then all you need is to wire up your electric tuner so you don’t drift past that magic 1/4 flat or sharp and you’ll be sounding Irish in no time!!

(With all due respect to the tremendous amount of effort you’ve put into your research, feathers, I really think she’s better off taking KFGs advice.)

“no, I just have to say it.”

If somebody was going to I guess it had to be you. I have now been officially rendered speachless on the subject and shall just mosey off into the corner and play a bit, taking care to hit all my 13:20 ratios, of course.

“Can we get pints in this ”prevaricator’s corner“, by the way?”

No problemo, but I’ll maintain my preference that they contain coffee, or, at least, *mostly* coffee.

KFG

What about speechless?

“What about speechless?”

That would be just peechy two.

KFG

Hey…thanks for humoring a crazed geek fuled by lack of sleep, sugar, and cigarettes! Once my new semester starts I’ll be buried under a thick pile of classical music and unable to inflict this on y’all…if that’s any comfort! And I totally agree with KFG about it not being “pretty” music. Yuck! That kind of thing is probably even more rampant among harp players. But I might have a different take on how to make it “not pretty.”

My real, practical advice for banana (and others in her position) would be not to worry about the intonation foremost, since there are many excellent fiddlers who would be considered “in tune” from a classical perspective (and there are fixed pitch instruments like box and piano accordion that are more than accepted in ITM.) Instead, concentrate on getting the right rhythm, through listening and working with your bowing to try to produce what you hear. Which is the same thing that lots of other people will (and probably have) told you, on these boards and elsewhere. I really think that If you don’t have the rhythm, no amount of microtonalism will give you that gutsy sound you’re looking for.

Also, I didn’t mean to suggest that someone should try to clap the 13:20. The hornpipe ratio, 3:5, is more practical and might be useful for someone whose learning style slants that way…but as for the other, it more than anything proves the absolute necessity of careful listening, listening, listening, because the rhythm is so complex.

Regardless, though, it’s pretty cool to me just to be able to _know_ what’s going on, and that it is specific and quantifiable. I’ve seen a lot of approximate ratios, 1:3 for hornpipes and 1:2 for both hornpipes _and_ reels, and knew it wasn’t perfect or intended to be, that it was more complex than that. So I wanted to figure it out, and share it, on the theory that if inexact ratios are somewhat helpful, so too could exact ones be, perhaps more so.


By the way, the 13:20 ratio is also far from the only acceptable rhythm; it just happens to be my favorite. It comes from the playing of Frankie Gavin on his Fierce Traditional album. Another good rhythm is a 4:5 ratio, which comes from the playing of Kevin Burke on his album Sweeney’s Dream. It’s straighter, which some may prefer, and it’s more practical to count: 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4, clapping on the ones. Again, getting it fast enough is difficult, and possibly impractical as well, but it might help to wrap your mind around the rhythm in combination with listening. In notation, it would translate to an eighth tied to a 32nd for the long note (5 32nds) and an eighth note for the short note (4 32nds.)

I’m going to put the notation for these--including the 13:20 reel--in front of some of the best classical pros I can get my hands on and see what they make of it. I would just get the biggest kick out of it if they could read that and have it sound right…real Twilight Zone stuff! They may have some better suggestions for notating it to make it easier to read and more intuitive, anyway, and I would like to know how they would go about figuring it out if they had to just based on the notation. I’ll let you know how it turns out!

“My real, practical advice for banana (and others in her position) would be not to worry about the intonation foremost”

Please note that I never suggested that the poquita Chiquita should do anything even vaguely like this.

“Instead, concentrate on getting the right rhythm. . .”

This agrees with the flatlander.

“. . .there are fixed pitch instruments like box and piano accordion that are more than accepted in ITM.”

I think you need to go try your pitch measurements against these.

“Regardless, though, it’s pretty cool to me just to be able to _know_ what’s going on. . .”

Actually, I find it interesting. Not terribly useful, but interesting.

“I’ll let you know how it turns out!”

KFG

The above should have ended with:

Please do.

“. . .a crazed geek fuled by lack of sleep, sugar, and cigarettes!”

It’s lack of sleep, coffee and cavendish here. Yeah, I’m a geek too. Even crazed. My formal education is as a physicist, so I understand the need to know just to know.

KFG

Anna, I see you’re having sessions with Zina. You couldn’t be in better hands. Just keep listening and playing and it’ll all come together.
Trevor

I’m dying to hear what the best classical players make of accurately notated sheet music. (How to you say “give it some stick”) in Italian? I’ll wager it will still stink, myself. I’ve heard plenty of players who believe the path to figuring out how to inject life into their playing is the vivisection of the music of lively players and they all stink, without exception. It’s obvious to me when music is coming from the heart and when it’s purely intellectual. But still, please please please send me an MP3 when you finish your experiment. It should be good for a hearty chuckle.

Also, to get the most out of your experiment, make sure you choose a player who has no interest in trad, doesn’t play it, and preferably has never heard it played.

hey KFG…

I think maybe we basically agree, then. I like your ideas on the mindset behind the music a lot, and will definitely look at some fixed pitch instruments as well…I assumed they were tuned in equal temperament, but obviously until I check it out, can’t say so for sure. You don’t happen to know for sure that they’re not equal, do you? And sorry for apparently implying that you made a lousy suggestion regarding intonation. Of course you have a very valid point that rhythm is only part of the picture, and that inflection has an important place in the tradition; I would just put rhythm at a little more than 10%. But I’d really go nutty trying to break “the elements of ITM” into percentages, and even I can see that that’s kind of ridiculous. (Although the adjudication sheets for the fleadh do just that, with a “suggested point breakdown”…but a lot of adjudicators tend to ignore those, anyway. There’s just not time, usually, unless you’re really trying to find something to break a tie.) So anyway, rhythm might be what I would prioritize for the moment, but not at the expense of the bigger picture. Scrolling back up, it sounds like you and Banana had it pretty well under control before I couldn’t leave well enough alone, anyway.

Maybe I’m coming at this too much from a harp player’s point of view. Harp players tend to have TREMENDOUS rhythm problems that drive me up the wall. I think it’s almost gone so far as to be an accepted part of the modern harp tradition, which freaks me out. So if I could fix one thing about somebody’s playing, that’s generally what I tend to go for. Harp players can also create the illusion of inflection, by the way, especially with trying to mimic vocal ornamentation and pitch bends in slow airs, though again, there’s not many who think about that.

I think that getting started on any other instrument besides the harp automatically get you away from being influenced by faulty ideas, since a lot of what is tolerated in the harp community would probably
be looked at with disbelief by the rest of the ITM community. I consider myself lucky to have come up in the music surrounded by non-harp ITM peeps, who were not only cracking players but not shy with their opinions where music was concerned. But that’s another thread…

Glad you found the research interesting. And I bet there are more geeks here in the woodwork too…where there are musicians seems like there is
usually a smattering of physicists, mathematicians and such too. I’m just an amateur geek with too much time on my hands…

Hey Kerri, I’ll definitely send you the file. I can send you the file of the computer doing it anytime, if you want. It might take a week or two for the results of this. I don’t expect the classical players to produce anything resembling a musical performance… just to reproduce the rhythms on the page accurately, to see just how far that actually takes it towards sounding like Irish music. I think I’ll give it in two ways: one no slurs, and one with slurs put in by a fiddler, and see how much of a difference that makes, if any. What instruments would you want to hear try it? Just flute and fiddle, or maybe bassoon? I’m going to try to recruit professors at my school for it, many of whom are principal players with a major orchestra or concert soloists. If you have any other ideas, tell me!
As far as a heartfelt vs. intellectual performance, I’m with you on that one. A heartfelt way of playing is something that can’t be taught, just nurtured. When I teach, I try to help people with the nuts and bolts of their playing as a means to expressing what they want to while staying true to the tradition. All this technique stuff may be the easy part; trying to get someone to develop as an individual, that can be hard. I played and taught ITM for years before I ever got into playing classical music or doing research on music of any kind, so maybe I’m not appreciating the potential damage I’m doing to aspiring ITMers. Maybe I should have loaded it up with disclaimers, but those are boring to read and I was just to darn enthusiastic about discovering something. I guess the rhythm research partly is about whether you can translate this whole wierd thing into any kind of terms a classical player or musicologist’s mind can grasp. So we’ll see how the tests go, anyway. Maybe it’s all bs, but the rebel in me likes to thumb my nose and say “See, it can actually be notated, even if it’s utterly useless and ridiculous!!”

Fair play to you, feathers. I guess you’re stuck with the fiddle, because I’m assuming your research group would be unable to play the other instruments capable of producing decent ITM (concertina, uilleann pipes, whistle or blackwood flute). I guess you could throw in a classical guitar player or two.

Test the u/p if you’re looking for “fixed pitch” instruments that are not in tune. And to get the most bang for your buck, analyse some older fiddlers without classical training (Micheal Coleman, John Doherty, Jean Carignan). The process Zina is talking about - IT musicians seeking classical methods to improve their playing - has had an influence on the flavour of ITM and what is considered acceptable.

I’ll see if what I can do…It’s cool that you’re interested in how this turns out, motivates me to actually get it done! Fiddle should be easy; I hadn’t thought of classical guitar, but could give that a try. There are people who use silver flute for ITM, so for these purposes that should be good enough. Maybe I should give it to some really goofy instruments as well just to see what they’d do. Trombone, that would be hysterical.

And I’m really curious about the pipes. Are they really fixed pitch? I have no clue about anything to do with them, really. I wonder if all those free reed instruments will have anything in common as far as intonation. And of course I’ll have to check out the older fiddlers as well, which I was planning on doing as soon as I retrieve some recordings from storage. I did notice an interesting phenomenon among some of the “newer” fiddlers, which is a tendency to play some intervals, especially thirds, quite sharp. No idea where that comes from…

Are pipes fixed pitch? Hmmm - well… does that mean it doesn’t change from day to day? Or only that you really don’t have much choice what kind of pitch you get out of them?

I’ve just spent the last five minutes laughing my head off -- Anna, just so’s you know, very little of this stuff has much to do at all with giving you advice, and mainly illustrates that players who can’t play tunes with each other will pick pick pick a subject to death just for the crack of it! ;)

“The process Zina is talking about - IT musicians seeking classical methods to improve their playing - has had an influence on the flavour of ITM and what is considered acceptable.”

Actually, I consider not so much an effort to “improve” playing but a necessary effort not to injure themselves. Players who don’t know a proper technique for playing (as opposed to playing in a classical style), whether they use it or not, are at a much greater risk for harming themselves by playing.

Anna doesn’t need to worry about that much, because after having played classical for so long, I’m sure a great deal of technique is ingrained in her body at this point.

The best advice for Anna (and any of our lurkers who have the same concerns) so far has been to listen listen listen, to recordings and at concerts and while you’re playing with other people locally. (Trev, you’re a hero -- not because of me, of course, but because you’re the only one who apparently caught that and actually gave good advice based on that information. Because the first questions for anyone seeking a good style and sound should *always* be: who are you playing with and who do you listen to and do you sound like them and how do you not sound like them and how do you figure out exactly what you want to sound like?.)

You guys are hilarious!

BTW, Anna, I only just realized - “the guitar guy” from Colcannon is Brian Mullens, Steve Mullen’s brother -- Steve owns the coffeehouse that you played at yesterday with us. Brian’s girlfriend/wife, last I checked, is/was Emily Bowman -- if it’s still Emily, please please please tell her that she and I need to get together and have a few tunes.

Emily is one of the best viola players I’ve ever heard in my life and was playing in a very impressive up and coming quartet last I talked to her. But she was picking up some Irish tunes on the fiddle, and I’d love to see if she’s still kept it up.

It’s a small world aaaaafter alllllll….

I like to play reels in “pie:5” with nice a nice buttery crust, easy on the shortening. I guess that’s why I do not like playing with a metronome at the feis.

Banana…while you are listening, also realize to whom you are listening. If you are used to hearing “clean” and “beautiful” music, it may be difficult to jump into some of the older music that is available on recordings.

Morrison, Doherty, Padraig O’Keefe, Fred Finn, Michael Gorman, Bobby Casey and many others may not sound “clean” enough for you, but you have to spend some time with them, and get to know and love the rhythm and intricacies of their playing.

This is warm and fuzzy music without the curves lopped off by squared bowing (technique?). Some of it may sound roughly bowed, a bit scratchy, but the rhythm and lilt are there, as are the wonderful tunes.

Sheesh, I don’t have time to post for 2 days and look what you-all get up to without me!
Anna, based on my experience, Trevor has it exactly right. I’d like to add that while you are in the process of learning to play by ear as opposed to playing from dots, you really really REALLY need to wean yourself from playing the dots “as written”. I’m still in that process myself, and I’ve been having my nose rubbed in that issue. I recently started having little twice-a-month get-togethers with an elderly friend who plays classical vioin, and it has *sandbagged* my fiddling. Even my husband, not known for his connoisseurship of trad music, can hear it. I’m trying to figure out how to break it to her that I’m not playing classical with her anymore. An hour of reading music with her and I have to listen to fiddle cds for 2 days, without playing, to get back such trad style as I’ve developed. (I’m not exactly great, but according to a whistler friend who has 30 years of trad under his belt, I’m improving. I don’t have the nyah yet, but neither do I have the blah anymore.)
Oh, and everyone who told you to listen should be listened to. ;)
And you’re in fine hands with Zina!

How can you be so sure, Sara? *grin* You’ll have to hear me first before you can decide that, wouldn’t you say? Sound like a good excuse for one of us to get where the other one is? ;) (You’re not taking Will’s word for it, are you? *smirk*)

Jode, thinking about it, I’m not sure that just telling someone to listen to a player that they’re not ready to listen to really works. Thinking back, I was *not* ready to listen to, say, The Brass Fiddle for a couple of years. I tried, I really did, but it just grated on my ears and I couldn’t learn a thing from it. These days, I can sit there glued to the speaker. Maybe you have to be ready to do that. Just a thought, a theory, not something I’ve set in stone.

I know Zina, just working on the subliminals. I couldn’t do more unless she moved in with me. Wait, my wife does keep talking about hiring a nanny!

*chuckle*
Zina, I’ve been reading (and following, where applicable) your advice since I started lurking here something like a year and a half ago. Anyway, since well before I joined. I spent an eternity living in the state of Misery -- er, pardon, Missouri --- one year and I know how to tell when I’ve been shown!

(For those of you not in America, Missouri calls itself the show-me state. I think it should be the Lethal Pollen Allergy state, but that’s just my bias.)

OTOH, Z, a good excuse for getting you somewhere within my transportation-impaired orbit would b ewelcome… ;)

God, are you telling me anyone takes anything I say seriously? Yipes!

hehehe -- I gotta go get ready to go do my OTHER job. One of my other jobs.

lol! Well once again I want to say thankyou from the bottom of my heart for all the lovely advice I have been given. I must say much of it was amusing, and of all the things this ciscussion has done for me besides confuse me, (dont worry it helped alot too) it gave me a good laugh , and made me realise that you guys are my people. Lets just hope you guys never lose your charm. I love you all!
-Anna

Are you trying to tell me that you think Jack has charm? Really? I’m going cross-eyed here trying to see it…. *snort*

How did I get into this discussion?

https://thesession.org/discussions/5608#comment119132 Besides, it’s just fun to pick on you, Jack. ;)

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but…

hehehehe

Thanks Zina. I think she was going to slag me Jack, but thought you the easier target. Zina’s nice. Now, if it were Kerri, she would have just slagged me.

But see, I’ve never met you, Jode. Jack knows when I’m kidding. And when I’m not. Bwah hahahahaha…..

I’m off to work. The other work. One of the other works. My life sucks!

Don’t worry about Kerri… she’s about to get the big slag, she just hasn’t realized it yet. *evil laugh*

Yes, Zina, If you manage to bring yourself into fiddlemouse’s orbit, then it’s likely I’ll be about as well… ;)

who know’s… I might pick up a little nyah.. :D

-Padraig

oh my, are you playing with photoshop again, Jack? You know, I still have all kinds of stock “bod” photos of Michael Flatley I could stick your head on

…better watch your back.

Do I slag you too much Jode? I haven’t even been trying!

Not at all!! I just didn’t want you to feel left out.

(not saying anything)

I might have to do a bit of unilateral pre-emptive self-defence.

Maybe we’ll both pick up some nyah from Zina, Padraig --- I hear it’s conagious. ;)

That would be contagious.
&*%^$*#$^#% keyboard….

Nah, that’s headcolds, Sara, that you’re thinking of there. Hey, if the Harmons make it out, then I may have to come out for a visit at the same time, with you two! 🙂

The Rogue Valley…would never be the same again. *evil grin*

(Actually, that’s probably a good thing…)

Sorry, Padraig, that should be “The Rogue Valey and points nearby”. I know Grass Pants doesn’t count as part of the valley. ;)

I think my wireless keyboard needs a new battery, it’s skipping characters.

Man, we are the valley! We even got the little bloody sign that says … It’s the Climate! 😉

The only problem… I might actually have to play something! Oh no! 😛

-Pádraig

No, no, just arrange to have cut your hand prepping chicken that morning… ;)

Heh… I would… but they took our knives away … 🙁 😉

Oh well… I might learn how to play a roll thaht’s not on the open strings… 😀

“You don’t happen to know for sure that they’re not equal, do you?”

No, what I know for sure is that if you pay attention to Kerri and analyize *older* players without modern training (as opposed to your postulated “accepted” players) you’ll find that these particular “fixed pitch” instuments are anything but.

Good Lord man, just apply the knowledge you already have. What “fixed pitch” metal reed instrument has become the heart of the blues specifically because of it’s lack of fixed pitch?

“And sorry for apparently implying that you made a lousy suggestion regarding intonation.”

Well, let me go over the thing again. I made no suggestions as to intonation, rhythm, quality of fiddle for actual playing or, in fact, any suggestion *at all* as to how go about playing.

In point of fact, what I suggested was an exercise of a purely *pychological* nature designed to short circuit the ingrained ideas in the brain as to just what intonation, rhythm and tone quality actually are so she would be free to hear and play with a beginner’s mind and a full soul, as opposed to with the training she’s had from the time her age was in the single digits. It is an asocial, arhythmic and atonal exercise, not a recommendation to actually play music asocially, arhythmicly and atonally.

It is a *prelude* to listening and playing. All the listening in the world won’t do a lick of good if the brain just converts it into what it wants to hear. The brain is very good at that sort of thing, especially those things learned in childhood.

First learn barance, Daniel san. (Yes, I just yesterday assigned watching The Karate Kid as an exercise to a guitar student. I think *he* needs it)

Thus I consider my suggestion to be quite within the “practical” range, and despite the obvious levity was made seriously. I think she should do it.

Yes, then she should do a lot of listening. Very, very careful listening, but some such sort of exercise as the one I suggested (there are other ways of going about it too) will make her listening much more effective and she’ll get where she wants to go quicker and with less pain.

I don’t like to see my students struggle. For one I feel for them. For another I consider it a failure on my part as a teacher. My *role* is to help them grok it as quickly and easily as possible and I will be as inventive and nontraditional as I possibly can to achieve this. Even if I’m teaching classical.

So she should listen, to the *right people.*

All the listening in the world won’t do you a lick of good if you’re listening to the wrong thing.

Or making precise measurements of the wrong thing. Methodology is 99% of the research. If you don’t have the right methodology, it’s crap.

“I would just put rhythm at a little more than 10%.”

I got that particular figure by a process we physicists call by the technical term; “Pulling it out of your ass.” I needed a number. I just grabbed one that happened to be handy as a pure placeholder. I offer the opportunity to refine it to 10 decimal places to you as doctoral thesis project, free of charge.

“But I’d really go nutty trying to break ”the elements of ITM“ into percentages. . .”

Yeah, that’s what usually happens to people working on a doctoral thesis. That’s one of the reasons why when you look at most of them closely it turns out they’re ridiculous prima facie.

By the way, the best classical players don’t “play the dots” any more than ITM players do. They use the dots to learn what the notes are supposed to be but play what what they hear, hear in their heads and feel, from memory (maybe with the dots there as a reminder, because a lot of classical music is longass pieces), just like “we” do and cannot really properly play a piece they haven’t heard before. Please think about this and bear it in mind during your experiments. The idea that classical players should be playing the dots is one of the most damaging in all of music, and it’s a myth. For some instruments (like horns) it’s virtually impossible to sight read a new piece (except for those really sharp people who have trained themselves to actually “hear” the dots). You have to hear it first. You need an ear, and know how to play by it. A classical player is actually supposed to be *trained* to do this.

But the world is full of hack teachers who turn out hack students who become hack teachers who. . . there’s a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza.

KFG

“A classical player is supposed to be actually ”trained“ to do this.”

Well, depends on what sort of training they receive. A classical player who is expected to be a soloist, yes; a classical player who is expected to be one of the faceless mob in the orchestra pit, no. At least nowhere I ever played. Only the soloists are allowed leeway from what the conductor prescribes, except in rare instances. I had a variety of teachers, some hacks, some not, and played in a Junior Symphony for 3 years. In every instance, the soloist was expected memorize the piece, however long, and play it interpretively; the orchestra member was expected to follow the dots exactly, and was sometimes even discouraged *by the conductor* from learning passages by heart because the correct details of volume, tone, etc were not being memorized uniformly.

That’s one of the blessed differences between classical and ITM; in ITM we’re all encouraged to interpret.

Ah, well, I’m afraid I was discounting the people in the orchestra pit (Note that I said “the best classical players”). They’re just cattle and don’t count.

Ok, more seriously, if there are teachers out there who take 5 and 6 year olds and train them to be dot reading orchestra pit monkeys from the start, they’re hacks. You have no idea with a new student whether you’re training the next Jascha Heifitz or a third violin and likely won’t know for a few years, by which time such training should already be well underway. And why on earth shouldn’t a third violin still have decent musical training? Maybe they’d *enjoy* being able to play to the limit of their abilities, even it’s only at home hiding in the closet where no one can see them simply having a good time.

KFG

Fully granted --- my first two teachers were hacks, and I was trained as a “pit monkey”. By the time I got a good teacher (7 years in), I had a lot of bad habits it was hard to break. I wish I’d had my third teacher, or better still my fourth, from the get-go. Oh well; 20-20 hindsight and all that.

Hmmm…sounds like I touched a nerve. I think it might be useless to try to explain through this medium what I’m on about, in a more general sense, but I’ll try. So here goes:

I’ve said that the only way to really learn is to listen, but I maintain that not only does it matter who you’re listening to, you have to know what you’re listening for. I just a couple days ago ran across a quote from Maire ni Chathasaigh, harper extraordinaire and winner of the TG4 Irish Traditional Music Award for Musician of the Year 2001: “People are being bombarded with what they’re told they should be listening to. Very often, that just confuses things. Once I explain to people [what] the essence of what traditional music is and what you should be listening for, it changes their approach to music making utterly.” She mentions that her inspirations for this approach in teaching were her teachers at the Pipers Club in the early 70’s: “Their whole approach to playing and their ideas about what you should be listening for and [what] about it was valuable was so important for them. They did it out of altruism, out of the feeling that ‘this music is beautiful and I want people to understand it.’ That animates me to a large degree as well.”

As it does me. And it works. And once a student has basically got it, sometimes there is just one note in a phrase that is throwing it off somehow. They understand the general idea all right, but they can’t tell exactly what’s wrong with it. If you can identify that one problem note and put it right, you’re not only making it sound better, you’re further ingraining the sound and feel into their mind and fingers, and getting on to what they want to say with it all the sooner. This is what the job of a teacher is. And this is what I’ve noticed working with adults, or even kids with an extensive classical background. The kids with no classical background soak it up extremely quickly by imitation, once you show them exactly what to imitate. And then they just always do it. It’s quite amazing.

My other point is simply that while you can’t lose track of the big picture, in general the single biggest problem that people tend to have is rhythm. It’s not that they are dumb--these rhythms are not so easy, and it’s for a reason, a more concrete reason than “something in the potatoes.” That may be the real take-home message about the measurements. They also show a wide range of acceptable rhythms in Irish music, and that some of the ones that are especially exciting to listen to are actually mathematically more complex, while still definable,
even though conventional belief is that they’re impossible to define. I want people to understand it. The computer playback proves to my satisfaction and to that of some other professional Irish musicians that I’ve since showed it to that once the rhythm is there, you are well on your way. Not finished by any means, but on your way. It makes the experiment with actual classical musicians largely superfluous, except to check the notation’s practicality, which I do want to know about out of curiosity. I will go ahead and do it, though, and I can send the midi file right now (to an actual email address, as an attachment.)

As far as how classical players are trained, the people I was thinking of asking for the experiment are soloists or principal players with a major orchestra. To get a job as a principal, you have to have individuality and personality and are often a soloist as well. I wanted them to approach it as they would a contemporary piece with no available recording, and see how far just getting the rhythm alone took it towards sounding like Irish music.

I can vouch that we are all expected to be able to hear the dots in our head, even atonal music, and are trained to do this. But the overemphasis on “exactly what the composer wrote” is an issue of performance practice. It’s a relatively new phenomenon (late 20th cent.) I have a really good article that explains how and why classical music has gotten to this point; it’s part of the modernist philosophy of music in general and a backlash against Romanticism. I am lucky to have an amazing teacher who doesn’t buy into this at all. Harpists in general are trained as soloists from the beginning, which often leads to needing to catch up in ensemble skills; but maybe it’s worth having to catch up, to not have a bad mentality thrust on us from square one. I’ve realized in the last couple of years that when I know a piece, playing it feels just the same as playing tunes. It’s coming from the same place, once the technical part is there, and is going to be different every time--you can do whatever you want with it. It’s a great feeling. Any musician should be able to experience this, third violins included. But fortunately, there’s still room in classical music for those who don’t go along with bs fads in performance practice, and while subscribing to the fads might be required to win a competition, it won’t get you a great career or make you a great artist.

Okay everybody, it’s ya favorite boy….GRY. Now I usually start my own posts and they are let’s say “other music” oriented. But this time I have to cut on my field. Rhythm in ITM. Everyone knows I’m a bodhran player. And I know that means very little in terms of playing tunes and knowing how they go etc. But that’s not the point here. I have been in many sessions and heard someone playing a reel but to the rhythm of a polka or vice versa…and the list goes on. It’s fine for the people who don’t know how it goes….but it’s being played wrong. And let’s face it. A tune is composed of a melody and a rhythm. Without both at top notch the tune does not sound how it was intended. This bodhran players can hear well….we are trained to do this, and it’s how we even know what to play. So once you’ve got the right notes, rhythm is the most imporant thing. I could always tell the rhythm was not simple, too, and now I can know why. So don’t insult somebody’s work when it’s obvious they know what they’re talking about. Why won’t you admit this could be very important for ITM. And if you disagree do the work and tell us why.

PEACE
GRY

“. . .getting on to what they want to say with it all the sooner. This is what the job of a teacher is.”

We’re completely on the same wavelength here.

“And if you disagree do the work and tell us why.”

Who on earth said I disagree with his work? And any one of my students can probably give the “rhythm is king, you can drop whole phrases of notes and the audience might not even notice, but make one little bobble in rhythm and they’ll sit bolt upright in shock, yada, yada, yada” speech.

“So don’t insult somebody’s work. . . ”

When two scientists “insult” each other’s work they are not insulting *each other.* It is criticism and a necessary part of the profession. Technical works are often attacked quite viciously by the best of friends, the *work* is not the person. It is not at all the same thing as insulting someone’s art, which is inherently personal.

And I haven’t said a damned thing about his *music.*.

KFG

Thanks everyone, glad to see my discussion was of such an interest to some, it helped me thanks
love anna

Hey KFG…we’re cool, I know where you’re coming from 🙂 And Anna, glad you found the discussion useful. Good luck!
For the record, I’m actually a she, and as I may have mentioned before, and an undergrad in college (harp performance.) Sorry about my lack of a profile. I do have a good reason for that, though.

“And Anna, glad you found the discussion useful.”

Ditto.

“ For the record, I’m actually a she. . .”

Forgive my use of the inappropriate pronoun then, although for the record it makes no nevermind to me.

“. . .and as I may have mentioned before. . . ”

Forgive me again, I’m new here.

“. . .harp performance.”

I love harp. When I worked for an opera company I was Mr. harpist helper. Why do so many tiny little women chose to play such a large “portable” instrument anyway?

“Sorry about my lack of a profile. I do have a good reason for that, though.”

Ditto, so I understand that too.

KFG

Oh, a harp mover! Say no more. Most of us seem to choose it because we like piccolo jokes, actually. Though among my friends, struggling student freelancers without the luxury of a harp mover, most of us toss those harps around by ourselves, and get it down to a science. We always charge extra for cartage, too, so it’s worth it.

I have the exact opposite problem. I’ve been playing fiddle for years, and just recently got into a chamber music group and am trying to play classically. I told them when I got there that I played fiddle, not violin, and they asked what the difference was - I told them no one minds if you spill beer on a fiddle.

They may pick on me for not being able to do vibrato, but when a song came up with double stops in it, I politely handed their asses to them.