Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Curamach]

I think Bobby Gardiner says he learned that from the concertina playing of Mrs. Crotty (was her name Elizabeth?) I love that version, but it is different enough from what most people play to throw them off in a session. I can't imagine anyone not recognizing it as good playing, however.  Dan

[Ebor_fiddler]

Surely a "Celtic" session is a gathering of rough Glasgow football supporters?

mselic: Your man seems to be talking out of the wrong part of his body. Tradition moves and is not frozen!

Chris B.

[george garside]

quite right!  all it takes is somebody to make a mistake or two which than turns into a new ''arrangement''  which might also happen to be played with a slightly, or more, different rhythm and phrasing which is then copied by those who are ignorant of the fact that is is at odds with so called 'tradition' and lo and behold a 'new'  tradition is invented as of yesterday!

an extremely famous box player once and maybe more than once said '' every time I play a tune I play it the way I want it!''   
george

[george garside]

have just come across a youtube of a nice bit of 'straight' playing of ITM.  Venessa Millar (all Ireland button box champion 2011)  playing the High Level Hornpipe. Presume its on a BC but could be other tuning

george

[playandteach]

I envy hardcore traditionalists with a dash of pity thrown in. Or should that be pity hardcore traditionalists with a dash of envy.
Either way, I feel it's like each man achieves his own personal summit, and decides that no-one should be able to go any further.

[deltasalmon]

have just come across a youtube of a nice bit of 'straight' playing of ITM.  Venessa Millar (all Ireland button box champion 2011)  playing the High Level Hornpipe. Presume its on a BC but could be other tuning

george

Link

[Bobtheboat]

I won't go as far as to say I despise hardcore traditionalists, but..... It's like they take a thing as it was in a brief period of its development, decide that's what's 'correct' and dismiss any deviance  as corruption of 'the way'  Bob.

[Thrupenny Bit]

There were exact parallels in the Morris.
When I started, late '70's, anything not directly out of the Black Book ( Morris 'bible' of source material ) was deemed by some as almost heretical. We have even been challenged for daring to change something slightly when dancing out.
Thankfully some of us ignored such dogma, encouraged by the teachings of Roy Dommett ( who could give chapter and verse on how it *had* changed over they years through manuscript evidence ) and helped the Morris evolve so that ideas are worked within the tradition. It never stood still, so why stop it after Cecel Sharpe discovered it?

A similar situation sounds like is going on in ITM, where some want to crystallise it in a form they remember, and others are happy to change it as ideas and styles change.
I'd support the evolution of ideas.
Q

[JimmyM]

an extremely famous box player once and maybe more than once said '' every time I play a tune I play it the way I want it!''   
george

Having followed this thread for a day or two, I was going to comment and then read this. Pretty much sums up my view.

[Julian S]

an extremely famous box player once and maybe more than once said '' every time I play a tune I play it the way I want it!''   
george

Having followed this thread for a day or two, I was going to comment and then read this. Pretty much sums up my view.

Me too. Can't say I'm an expert on ITM, but I.M.H.O. this applies to all kinds of 'traditional ' music. Whilst I wish we did value our musical (and dance) heritage more in England -as is the case in Ireland, Scotland -and from my experience Brittany, a rigid view of what style of playing is 'correct' - and sometimes what tunes can be played and on what instruments, has so many problems. Traditions can (and I think should) evolve and develop, taking in other influences and cultures, and if that doesn't happen the traditions we value will become even more marginalised. Certainly a difficult balance.
And if sessions become too rigid, aren't welcoming and don't encourage new participants...how long will they last ?

[george garside]

it is not only style of playing , whatever that means,  but giving a tune a 'purpose' or 'function' whenever it is played that makes all the difference to its efficacy!

For example  many 6/8 tunes can be played as a march, two step, jig or waltz. slow waltz,   air etc. Similarly 4/4' can be played for a veriety of 'purposes' and many can be played as 3/4 waltzes with the 'conversion' being done on the hoof!

The giving a tune a purpose is particularly relevant in a session  and depends very much on the person starting the tune providing the 'purpose' and others following closely.

A tune  being played  as neither fish, flesh or foul  can only finish up as a deadly dirge!

george

[richard.fleming]

The players I prefer play traditional music with a mixture of love and respect for the tunes and for the generations of people who passed them on, and with a wish to bring these tunes back to life every time they play them. If the music changes it should at least be deliberate, and not because people aren't playing it properly

[Winston Smith]

That's all very well, Richard, but who decides what is/was original?
I believe that quite a bit of (what we frefer to as) traditional music, was actually written down by a composer. Nevertheless, I strongly suspect that it was passed down by many other folk who probably couldn't follow written music, and consequently remembered, as best they could, what they'd heard. We all know, surely, that instances and circumstances which have been passed down through an oral tradition aren't to be wholly trusted.
I have personal experience, in that I listen to the Tune Of The Month, then play it (by ear) but when I compare what I've played with the original; it's rarely exactly the same.

[george garside]

I agree that the original version of much so called 'traditional' music is shrowded in the mists of time  and that there are many 'versions' of many tunes  , all claiming to be 'original'.  Both 'way back' and also in more recent times  there have been 'accidental' changes due to faulty memories or deliberate attempts to 'improve' a tune sometimes passed on auraly and sometime wrote down by some bugger as his/her own ''arrangement''.

I can visualise somebody going to a dance in another village, returning home 3 sheets to the wind, getting up the following morning  mit hangover, playing the tune from 'last night' but getting mixed up with A and B parts so playing one of the 'original' and t'other of something else - and then . not being able to remember what it was called so giving the two odd halves a completely different name - and lo and behold we have a new 'original tune!'

But does it realy matter  if somebody hears it, likes it and plays it whatever its age or origin as a good tune is a good tune! - and that is an absolute bugger to both define and reach agreement on!

george

[Thrupenny Bit]

I agree with Ed and George, things evolve through mis-remembering or simple mistakes or by positive change.
To go back to my Morris analogy previously, many Morris dance tunes were 'popular tunes of the day' so they were adapted to fit a dance. Also, as musicians were scarce and sought after/ poached between traditional sides, they had to adapt the new or traditional tune for the new dancers to enable it to fit in their dance tradition ( 'tradition' = style, which is different within each of the Cotswold traditions ).
It all goes to show that there might be a tune 'idea' which then gets subtly changed to fit a new use or changed by innocent mistake.
Q

[TomB-R]

Really nice playing of WtstB mselic, in the way you wanted to play it, but I'm not surprised that Irish session players said, "we don't play like that." It's not about rights and wrongs, they're just not used to playing like that, they'd feel they're falling over all the time. Your version of a reel has quite an "in four" feel, and quite fierce dotting, maybe 3:1 ratio. I guess they'd play a reel in two in a bar and more like a 2:1 "dotting" ratio.

Did you play that tune or another? If you played a tune they knew as a hornpipe you'd all have been closer to agreement I think.
No snobbery, just different.


[Edit] I don't want to sound like I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs etc. Did you get to explain what you're trying to do, as you did to us?

[Andy Next Tune]

have just come across a youtube of a nice bit of 'straight' playing of ITM.  Venessa Millar (all Ireland button box champion 2011)  playing the High Level Hornpipe.

I've no real view on what ITM playing is, but High Level Hornpipe is not a traditional Irish tune, but was written by a Tyneside fiddler.

[Thrupenny Bit]

....called James Hill who to my mind wrote the best hornpipes.
Q

[Gromit]

 '' every time I play a tune I play it the way I want it!''

Not sure if this is a good idea in the sessions I go to - I might get a couple of bars in before everyone joins in with a "standard version" which is what a session is all about, that is playing with other people, it's a bit like playing in a band if everyone is doing there own thing it's going to sound crap.

'Play it the way I want it" is ok for a solo but you'd have to be pretty special for that to be appreciated.

[KLR]

The High Level made it over to Ireland a long long time ago, like so many great tunes.  Fiddlers in Sligo even held on to its original key of Bb, and a terrific 3rd was added on at some point.  So there's some trad dedication and some creativity at the same time.

You could say that how things are played in your locality is a tradition in of itself.  Going against the grain in a big way isn't the point of a session, everyone should strive to blend together, to create music with spirit and lift, that doesn't pin dancers' feet to the floor, even if they're not around, etc. etc.  Playing in a different style makes for solo music, of course.  The field recordings of Joe Cooley display this nicely, he had his own slowish/rubato/wild style that was his alone, but you hear him play fast and fierce and spot on rhythmically for step dancers or with friends, and it's almost like a different musician.