Print

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

[Sandy Flett]

I remember being told many years ago that you should play tennis with someone who is a better player than you, but not so good as to systematically thrash you every game. This way you can learn things from them that you can aspire to emulate rather than just feel "I'll never be any good at this". I have applied the same principle to my box playing over the years, and even setting my standards as high as I dare there are still a number of top players whom I have decided I cannot learn from them because I really do not have an idea of how they are achieveing their technical brilliance - Mairtin O'Connor was the first to make me realise this, and I am afraid I have also now added John Kirkpatrick. So for the likes of them I just listen and enjoy.

I also recall once saying to a very good box player "You sound just like Bob Cann on that, or just like so-and-so on the other" to which he replied "Yes, but I wish I had my own style like you do".

I think my overall message is to keep aspiring to play better, but don't beat yourself up because you are not as good as the few really top players.

[Theo]

The long musical road is right, but travelling that road can be an frustrating but also enlightening journey.  Small steps and all that.

[Howard Jones]

there are still a number of top players whom I have decided I cannot learn from them because I really do not have an idea of how they are achieveing their technical brilliance

As well as listening to good players it helps to see them perform live.  Whenever I go to see someone whose playing I want to learn from, I try to sit as close to the front as possible, where I can watch what they're doing.

It can also help to isolate specific aspects of their playing you want to emulate - taken as a whole their playing can all seem a bit overwhelming, but if you can identify a particular element and focus on that it's easier to pick out how they're achieving it.  You can then move on to the next thing.

[Pat.]

The difference is is that generaly the top players do it for a living while the rest of us do it as a hobby it would be the same for them if they done our jobs/ proffesions.

[Rob2Hook]

Oh, I don't know...  Twice at last night's gig our concertina player picked up the wrong box - sounded a bit weird when the rest of us joined in!  Shouldn't have teased him with the one-row in C -he greatly prefers his G/C to his G/D.

Rob.

[Gary P Chapin]

Oh, I don't know...  Twice at last night's gig our concertina player picked up the wrong box - sounded a bit weird when the rest of us joined in!  Shouldn't have teased him with the one-row in C -he greatly prefers his G/C to his G/D.

Rob.

I did that once.  Picked up an A/D box, instead of the G/C.  Took me one entire time through the first tune to figure out what was wrong.  And it was, indeed, WRONG.  Not even close enough for jazz.

[Hello]

If you're playing something that someone else has written, then if you don't play what they wrote then technically it isn't correct, regardless of what notes in question are involved.  They wrote it and it's not what they wanted.

If you're playing a tune in any other context, or don't particulary wish to follow the notation of the an author, then if the note you play is the one you intended, then it is correct.

Presumably, unless you are a Les Dawson fan, you won't deliberately play notes that sound horrible, so I think this approach bypasses the debate of whether dots are better than the ear and avoids any reference to intervals deemed classically unacceptable.

[Theo]

If you're playing something that someone else has written, then if you don't play what they wrote then technically it isn't correct, regardless of what notes in question are involved.  They wrote it and it's not what they wanted.

I think this highlights my main concern in this area that playing something different from the "correct" version should be a deliberate decision, not just an excuse for sloppy playing, or smoothing out the more difficult parts of a tune.  Therefore I always strive to learn the "correct" version first, even if I then decide to play it differently sometimes.  In fact if playing the same tune more than once in a session or gig I'll purposely not play it the same each time, though the differences might not be huge.  I think this it is especially important for a tune with an author other than trad or anon.

[george garside]

, then it is correct.

  and avoids any reference to intervals deemed classically unacceptable.

pardon my ignorance but ar they when one  is supposed to quaff ones ale?


   interval      interval     etc

george

[Eric Barker]

Here is another fine can of worms looking for a good can opener.  Is it possible to come up with a "more correct" version of  a composed piece of music than that of the writer?  In particular, if the writer composes on the one-row box with all its limited glory, and someone else comes along with a two row and crosses rows 4 times (to smooth out the difficult part with all the bellows waggling) and uses "better" chords- is one version more correct that the other?  ( I suppose one could introduce the tune by crediting the original and quickly discussing the difference between the 2 row and the 1 row before playing the piece)  Thank you!  eric in montana

[xgx]

...on another forum someone complained about a Scott Skinner tune being played at the wrong speed ...

turns out that it was Scott Skinner himself doing the playing...

whatever it is there's always some (insert word of choice ) with an opinion....

[Anahata]

Here is another fine can of worms looking for a good can opener.  Is it possible to come up with a "more correct" version of  a composed piece of music than that of the writer?  In particular, if the writer composes on the one-row box with all its limited glory, and someone else comes along with a two row and crosses rows 4 times (to smooth out the difficult part with all the bellows waggling) and uses "better" chords- is one version more correct that the other?

There's another question embedded in that one: did the composer write the chords too? Probably not if they started with a 1-row. In folk music, the tune's the thing, while chords are a matter of playing style. In many other kinds of music like jazz standards, chords are part of the composition.

I'm not too rigid about this. If you can play the tune in a different way, and make it convincing musically, that's fine. Even the composer may not be consistent: famously, there are several recordings of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring conducted by the composer himself, made over a period of many years, and they are completely different from each other. How can you even pretend to make a judgement about whether someone else's interpretation is "correct"? You just have to decide whether it makes sense musically in it's own terms.

When you write a tune or song, to some extent you have to accept that fact that like children it will leave home and develop a mind and life of its own. The best you can hope for is that changes are made for the best reasons. In a way it's a mark of a good tune that it can be turned to many purposes.

[pikey]

Strongly disagree.........See separate topic about what is Folk music.......

If we all slavishly copy every note and every nuance from a composed piece or arrangement (Andy Cutting, Squeezy), then

a) it's not 'folk' music
b) we kill the tradition
c) we stifle innovation

Innovation doesn't mean making the tune more complicated, it can equally apply to making it more simple.  I have been inspired many times by old field recordings of 'traditional' musicians, who seemed to have re-worked the difficult bits of original tunes to make something with even more beauty and simplicity. qv the original recordings of Albert Farmer, and Stephen Baldwin.

Incidentally, next time I see Stephen, I'll tell him that his version of Winters Night Scottische is 'wrong' because he has simplified all the difficult bits....
 

[Rob2Hook]

I once had the temerity to play a tune when the composer was in the pub (marvellous what a few beers can do).  I heard him say "I don't play it like that" and he watched and listened before joining in - the variations worked as counterparts.  I only mention it because his attitude was to consider variations, perhaps to be used in his own performance.  Strangely, the dancers didn't seem to notice any difference!

Rob.

[xgx]

(...)  Strangely, the dancers didn't seem to notice any difference!

more worms anyone 

[Simon]

I heard a great response to that at Sidmouth many years ago when an enthusiastic person rushed up to the artist who had just performed and told him he'd played the Dark Island wrong and that it didn't go like that. The artist replied "thank you very much for pointing that out to me I must remember to tell my grandfather next time I see him that he plays it wrong as well".

Since it was written for a BBC thriller only about 50 years ago I guess in this particular case there could be a 'right' version. 

[george garside]

Those of us who prefer to play mostly or entirely by ear,  may well play a tune 'wrongly '  as a process akin to 'chinese whispers' takes place & it depends who you heard playing it in the first place, who he heard playing  it    and then who hears you  & in turn who hears him etc etc.  Many traditional tunes ( that presumably must have been thought up by somebody  somewhere  are likely to have been passed on in this way before eventually somebody wrote down the 'correct' version!!!!

A basically similer process can take place with classical/orchestral written stuff  as conductors make there mark by  'arranging'   tunes i.e. changing them hre and there when compared to what the composer wrote down or what other conductors change the composers dots to!

Similary tunes can and are  changed   by altering note lengths and pauses to make athem suite a particular purpose, a simple example Waltzing Matilda can by played as a ballad or as a polka, Loch Lomond 4/4 can be played as a waltz 3/4 but in the process grows some long notes that would throw a would be singer.

On the basis of the above I take the flexible view that a tune is 'correect' if it is recognisable as what it is supposed to be. That doesn't mean I have to like each anad every version, but thats a completely different debate.


george

[Thrupenny Bit]

Sounds like time for an experiment:
Form a line along Sidmouth seafront from Jacob's Ladder to the Ham.
One person end plays a tune then after x 2 through, they stop and the next starts....... and see what comes out the other end!
A melodeon based Chineese Whispers?
 

[Ebor_fiddler]

Is this instead of our (not-completely-successful-in-2011) Melnet gathering? 

[george garside]

Sounds like time for an experiment:
Form a line along Sidmouth seafront from Jacob's Ladder to the Ham.
One person end plays a tune then after x 2 through, they stop and the next starts....... and see what comes out the other end!
A melodeon based Chineese Whispers?
 

Does this mean we would all have to play chinese boxes!

george