A group of us have been playing ITM for many years now. Recently a young man came to our session and, after listening to the tune and realizing he didn’t know it, he opened Tunepal as we were playing, found the dots, and attempted to play along with us. He was half the age of anybody else at the session. Is this a new direction for the tradition? Not to be a curmudgeon, but….
I found this objectionable on many levels. But I am curious to know how other players feel about this. I don’t think it is something that old-timers would have done, even if they had the technology twenty years ago. And does it matter what Micho, Bobby Casey, Chris Droney, et. al., would have done? Is this an expansion of the tradition or a minimizing of it?
Looking forward to your responses. Thanks in advance.
I would at least consider it rude, if he didn’t even ask if he can join in. And I wonder how much of a musical gnius one must be, to even be able to play a tune from the dots and not mess everything up, when playing it for the first time. It’s one thing to use an app to even find out what a tune was – but – why not just ask the people playing it? And then go home and practice it and ask, if you can join in next time. That’s what I’d have done. But so far I never even played at an Irish session just at a session in a blues-bar years ago. There mostly everybody could join in but of course the number of musicians was limited by the number of equipment on stage and people had to ask, in case they wanted to use the amp of somone else or even the guitar.
That wouldn’t fly at any of the several sessions in my area (once they ramp back up).
Even if the person was so accomplished with recording and doing Tunepal searches that he could get the dots on the phone by the second playthrough and join in, how would he know it was the same setting the group was playing? Settings can vary drastically between sessions. He’d also have to be really good at transposing on the fly with tunes that are often found in different key settings.
Even if it worked perfectly, there is the wider issue of being the lone outlier reading sheet music while everyone else has has made the effort to memorize tunes and play by ear, which facilitates group interaction. I’ve seen “sessions” where everyone plays off sheet music and that seems to work (for them, not me), if imperfectly compared to an ear session. However, use of sheet music by just a few people within an otherwise ear-playing group just doesn’t work in my experience. Either the readers can’t keep up with the tempo and smooth shifting of tunes within a set, or the group is inevitably asked to wait while someone finds the dots. Mixed sessions like that just don’t flow. It kills the music.
If I was leading the session mentioned, I would encourage this person to record the tunes being played, and practice at home until they’re memorized. That keeps his phone relevant. If he still wants to read the dots, encourage him to find a different group.
I think it’s an unskillful use of the technology, and I think my position can be defended in that both you and Sedi have found it rude straightaway; it’s as if to say that there is no demonstrable use for memory or expression anymore. But if so, then what is the point of it? What, then, is there that is sociable about it when we’re reduced to focusing on our apps rather than each other? Is all of that to be consigned to the ash heaps of history as being obsolete? I seriously think not. When you take away the wonders of technology - and that is a possibility to be weighed - at the end of the day we live in meatspace, in which case we must rely, as ever, on our original wiring. There is nothing passé about memorizing, and since that is the very marrow of ITM performance, I think that the tech approach will have many, many years, if at all, to catch up. Some things are beyond the reach of convenience and tricks.
If you don’t know the tune, then record it on your fine smartphone - I think that’s acceptable - go home and learn it, come back to the session, and trot it out unencumbered by training wheels. Whether on paper or pixels, dots is dots, not mastery.
I’m relatively young (37) and have been playing ITM for 1.5 years now. My personal feeling is that this kills much of the spirit of all this. Yes, you get to know the tune title almost instantly and you can even play along, but you miss the chance to get in touch with the others and to make the tune your own: what’s the hurry? Playing this music from the dots seems to me like telling a joke by reading it.
Extremely rude of the fellow - at the very least, he should have asked if it was OK to join in - but to try & play a tune he so obviously had no idea about, that is just plain ignorant!
The problem here is not dots, but the particular use of them. Dots are useful, ears are useful, and musical ears are vital when one doesn’t match the other, but the real issue is clumsy, graceless gatecrashing of the session.
And of course you’re right. Dots aren’t a problem in and of themselves; it’s when you do it that matters. I don’t think that the edgy novelty of a smart device is any more to be excused than a sheaf of paper being rifled through while one tries to play catch-up. I mean, how fulfilling is that? If all you want is to lay claim to sitting in at sessions so it makes your CV look good, might as well just recognize your vanity for what it is and get a couple of rocks to clack together. Don’t need the dots for that, either.
I suppose I’m sounding crabby. But I’m wondering more why it matters so much that one would demean themselves by going such a route.
I’m not very good at reading dots, but I’m even worse at learning by ear. If I found myself in a similar position to this young man, in a session with a smartphone and a tune I wanted to play, I could see myself doing this: call up the dots on the smartphone and read along silently to myself while everyone else is playing, using my eyes to observe the dots, and my ears to tell me what the dots mean. I can then take the dots home and use them as a memory aid to recall the tune I was hearing, and practice the tune until I’ve learned to play it (play it without the dots, that is). Then maybe the next time it comes up in a session, I can join in and play along.
The OP also posted this discussion on "thesession.org, receiving 49 replies. : https://thesession.org/discussions/46224
Interesting overall differences in opinions, I’d say, with the other website replies meandering off into an entirely irrelevant discussion of “Zoom” sessions.
I sometimes play in a session (not an Irish session) where some people play from music, either printed out and kept in a binder, or on an electronic device. It’s a session where people announce the name of the tune in advance. It’s not disruptive, but I think it’s not that helpful for the people with the music, because they usually spend a lot of time locating the music, and then figuring out where in the tune we are by the time they’ve found it. Then they are usually not people who sight-read well, so they have a hard time getting going, and by the time they figure out what is going on, the tune is over.
As I said, it’s not disruptive, so other people don’t really care about it, but as a strategy for participating in a session, it doesn’t seem to be very productive.
It’s a bit rude to go up to a stranger and start giving them unsolicited advice about how they ought to run their life, so things stay the same.
There are also people who like to sit around together, all playing tunes out of a book, which can be enjoyable, but I think that’s a different thing than a session.
As a beginner I was really hesitant to respond to this thread but after getting feedback from close friends I felt it necessary. I am a senior and decided to take up this lovely Irish flute wind instrument about 14 months ago. I have loved this flute to listen to since my teens. I’ve played the mandolin for several decades but never had any experience playing any wind instrument. It is this welcoming and friendly chat group that gave me the stimulus and confidence to proceed to purchase a NICE flute (used Windward, thanks for all the advice).
COVID prevented me from access to the traditional “learning the flute” approach. Physical access to the local masters of the flute traditions was impossible.
I sought different, contemporary ways and means of learning. Internet, zoom classes, recording software, slowdown software with looping capabilities, notation software, complemented by the traditional dots on printed music notation. While learning what an embouchure was, how to efficiently seal those holes in my Windward and prevent dizziness and being frustrated to moving from lower D to higher G I had to learn and use unfamiliar and contemporary tools of learning.
I was left to discover how the younger folk have an INCREDIBLE AND DIVERSE range of learning tools which was simply unavailable or even conceivable to my generation. Wow! What is out there is incredible! Rather than being criticized it should be embraced and used by all. Access to much of it is free to to any person of any country, any ethnicity and socioeconomic and handicapped group. We also have the opportunity go beyond and more easily share and exchange artistic cultural expression which I believe will benefit mankind through sharing, understanding and compassion.
I recently listened to a Podcast of one of the world’s most respected flutists who discusses how he learned in the traditional way and how this tradition should be passed on. He then goes on to say how “frightening it is to see the level of musicianship and technical ability in the younger folk”. Frightening as it may be to the die hard believers of how things should be, learning and access to it is rapidly changing whether we like it or not. Acceleration of this change has been forced upon us by the present world epidemic. Now that I have been exposed and enlightened to different ways of learning (which was a learning project one its own to say the least!) I feel comfortable to say I don’t think the younger person referred to in the original post was trying to insult anyone. I am confident that simply taking the time in a welcoming manner to explain the personal and cultural community based ethics of a session maybe all that is needed to smooth out such a situation. This musician may be the young master of his instrument you are looking for and counting upon to perpetuate your tradition to future generations. This youngster has probably been brought up with the hardware and internet connection in his hands just like the tools I am presently using to write up this post with spell checking in the background helping me out. I am not Irish so maybe I am not qualified to add anything of value to this thread but after being coaxed through discussion with friends of my generation I felt I had to say something. Don’t get me wrong, as a senior I still prefer face to face personal social interaction I am so accustomed to.
I look forward to all of us getting safely vaccinated to enable me to join in a real session! I am Zoomed out as most of us claim to be. Hopefully I will be allowed to maintain some of the modern learning methods without too, too much criticism. For me this has been an incredible awakening and I feel I better understand how young prodigy’s are taking music to levels never seen before. I see two sides to the coin: “frightening and threatening” and “magical and enlightening”. I am sure you can readily see on which side of the coin I stand!
Best to all from an old beginner from Canada
I have no fundamental disagreement with any of this. I think the basic thrust of this thread is how best to deal with breaches of etiquette to the benefit of all parties, and I agree that a light touch is to be preferred. But sometimes nothing gets done or said beyond an uneasy truce with the offended stewing in their irritation, and the offender likely being left none the wiser - a situation that I consider to be unfortunate because it’s a stalemate, and as such is unconstructive. What to do? There’s the rub. Maybe nothing needs to be done, and living with it is acceptable; OTOH, I’ve seen corrective measures making no dent at all. Once again, you live with it if you insist on showing up.
Sometimes masters (let us include mere technicians in that category) are offenders, and the rest of us, for whatever reasons, have no recourse but to lick our wounds and steer clear as best we can. I’ve known cases where masters lead a pretty lonely life outside of sessions and their loyal inner circle, because they can’t help transgressing. Sometimes you have to remember that talent does what it can, whereas genius does what it must. How well you brave the flames is up to your constitution.
I’m not sure what your point is. I am also an older player. But I have been playing ITM for over 50 years, the flute for over 30. I learned a lot of my music when I lived in Ireland in the 80s and 90s, from various workshops and sessions I attended over the years. I am of the generation that put a thumb on the turntable to slow the music down to learn the tune. There are better ways of learning today but it is essentially the same process. Just easier, faster, and not as clumsy today as it was in the past.
I often use Tunepal to identify a tune by playing the first few notes. If I can locate the music in my iTunes I move the file to The Amazing Slowdowner. I slow it down to the point where I can play along… just as I did fifty years ago. I will often look at the dots to explicate a point in the music that I don’t understand. I do this on my own time, not in public. This is very different than reading the dots from an iPhone in an attempt to play the tune with other musicians at a session. Just as learning some of a tune from the dots, in private, is very different than bringing sheet music to the session. As Nano said above, using an iPhone to accelerate participation in a session is a misuse of the technology.
The young player has taken my words at face value (he’s a very good player). He is still coming to our session and is writing down the names of “essential” tunes, to learn on his own.
It’s not about “new” learning techniques or the use of technology during practice. No-one here has expressed any issue with that. I strongly suspect none of the people in this thread have any issues with that as long as people are learning from good sources.
Thank you for you quick responses. I am really glad to hear the young fellow is coming to those sessions. As a musical player I have experienced situations where the younger folk have been made to feel very uncomfortable to the extent of embarrassment with the result being staying away. It makes me feel better knowing their is compromise. Thanks for the clarification.
I had been playing ITM for a few months when I went to my first session in Chicago at the Bistro. Bear in mind, I spent many years sight-reading for a living- broadway show books, orchestra pieces, jazz charts, etc… The session was being led by Sean Gavin and Devin Shepherd. I was having an awesome time and actually knew a few of the tunes they were playing. Sean started playing a tune I’d heard but didn’t know- I think it was Limestone Rock. I got TunePal out, pulled up the dots, propped the phone up on the bar table and started playing along (quite well if I do say so myself). Next thing I know, Sean hooks the table with his foot and yanks it so hard my iPhone went flying!!!
Very relieved to hear you were able to have a face to face conversation with him and he’s encouraged to keep coming. I think that’s the most important thing.
Is reading music at a session a total buzzkill? yes. It’s the session leader’s responsibility to set boundaries and keep everything in line.
Do we want new players joining us in learning the tradition? yes.
I try to worry less about the “what is this world coming to??” line of thinking, and focus my attention instead on how to address the awkward moments that inevitably arise when new faces show up at a session.
When a new person shows up, usually they’ve mustered a lot of courage and decided what they’re going to do before they come sit down. They’re likely nervous, or at least uncertain, and looking for direction. Unfortunately not everyone knows how to just say, “I’m a new player and I’m learning Irish music. Is it ok if I join you?” But also not everyone knows how to say “Hey, if you don’t already know the tune, it’s better to just listen than to try to stumble through it. Write down the name of the tune and learn it for next week. And I do hope to see you here next week”
A little direct communication goes a long way. And it’s far better to keep the gates open to younger players than to shoo them away for not automatically knowing the unspoken session etiquette.
caveat - I’m a youngish player (34), and I’ve only been at it a handful of years. I’ve probably unintentionally ruffled a few feathers in my learning process.
