Stirring the pot on the Unspoken "Forum Rules"

[highland-piper]

I know 'traditional music' is difficult, perhaps impossible, to define, but can we at least accept the fact that there are people who like to listen to traditional music, and like to play traditional music?

Sounds like a catch 22!

My definition of traditional goes something like this: "Someone else did it that way and mostly people don't remember why"

But it's clear reading the threads here that many people have the impression that some of the Irish "traditions" they adhere to are really fairly modern. Things like session playing, and using bodhran.

[Mr.Gumby]

My definition of traditional goes something like this: "Someone else did it that way and mostly people don't remember why"

But it's clear reading the threads here that many people have the impression that some of the Irish "traditions" they adhere to are really fairly modern. Things like session playing, and using bodhran.

That doesn't show great understanding of what 'tradition' implies, if you ask me.

If you narrow it really down to this context I would suggest 'tradition' above all supplies an general sense of aesthetic. In my experience all good musicians are very well aware of that aesthetic and know perfectly well why they do or don't apply certain things in their playing.

Ofcourse 'tradition' in a cultural and environmental sense encompasses much more but I don't think it's very useful to draw all that into this thread.

[MarkP]

but also a mode of transmission or a way of doing/becoming, musical traditions are as much relational concepts as they are about sounds, things like the relationships between learners and teachers, practitioners and composers, players and listeners or dancers. The differences and hierarchies are wildly different between different musical traditions, as well as the criteria about what sounds 'right'.

[Mr.Gumby]

I was deliberately ignoring the socio cultural angle, out of sheer laziness I suppose. Been there, done that here in the past.

[MarkP]

Point taken, back to the tunes...

[Ben Steen]

I'm flattered for the credit but the quote's from Kipling http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1866.html .
Cheers!

[tin tin]

Thanks for the link to the Liz Carrol interview! Here are some compelling ideas from the ever thoughtful Martin Hayes: http://journalofmusic.com/focus/traditi ... aspiration

In our understanding of developments in music we have to take the visionary spirit and the creative imagination of the artist more seriously than the end product of their creativity.

[ytliek]

Thanks for the link to the Liz Carrol interview! Here are some compelling ideas from the ever thoughtful Martin Hayes: http://journalofmusic.com/focus/traditi ... aspiration

In our understanding of developments in music we have to take the visionary spirit and the creative imagination of the artist more seriously than the end product of their creativity.

And thank you for posting the Martin Hayes article about Tradition and Aspiration. Another must read.

[Feadoggie]

And thank you for posting the Martin Hayes article about Tradition and Aspiration. Another must read.

Yes, thanks for that link.

Listen to the brief comments Martin Hayes offers from about 3:50 through 4:25 min into this NPR Tiny Desk Concert video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5hg3iuoJoM

Feadoggie

[Mr.Gumby]

Maybe it's time to recommend The Living Note for a change. The book leans, in Peter woods' fiction, very heavily on the Martin Hayes story. And there's Christy Mac's photos to enjoy too.

I just realised the book is nearly twenty years old now (I remember the launch in Ennis) but I assume it's still available somewhere.

[ytliek]

Just finished the Martin Hayes, The Journal of Music reading on Tradition and Aspiration.

Martin Hayes, "as an artist, unless one is reaching forward or deep within, there isn’t life in what you do. The tradition can move forward without mimicking the past, while at the same time actually emulating it in as many personal ways as there are people playing it."

[MarkP]

Maybe it's time to recommend The Living Note for a change. The book leans, in Peter woods' fiction, very heavily on the Martin Hayes story. And there's Christy Mac's photos to enjoy too.

I just realised the book is nearly twenty years old now (I remember the launch in Ennis) but I assume it's still available somewhere.

$110 on EBay, £11.50 on Amazon, take your choice

[MarkP]

Since reflecting on music is more fun than discussing metal tubes, I enjoyed testing the last paragraph of Martin Hayes' musing whilst listening to this eventing's West Wind...

"My father used to say, ‘That music has no tradition…’, or ‘This music does…’, and I often felt it was a very naïve way of expressing it, but he was entirely accurate. For him, tradition was defined, not by whether a person played in a definable traditional manner, but merely whether the echo of that feeling, that emotion, that content, that melancholy which gives it meaning, was contained in the music or not. If the music didn’t have some of those qualities, it wasn’t traditional music at all."
http://journalofmusic.com/focus/traditi ... dJfRj.dpuf

Hence, probably the nicest comment on our local gathering was 'Not too fast and played with feeling'
http://thesession.org/sessions/1383


...the forum 'rules' might suggest we go back to discussing the tubes now

[Mr.Gumby]

There was an occasion, Séamus Ennis giving a recital for a bunch of pipers. He did his usual spiel about his (notoriously heavily leaking) bag, how his father designed it and had it made and all the bits and the decorations and whatnot. In the middle of it a voice from the back shouted 'but if don't hold the air they're not worth a f... Séamus!'.

Isn't the same true about whistles? If you have no music or can't play them, they're nothing, they're just things without a use.

[highland-piper]

That doesn't show great understanding of what 'tradition' implies, if you ask me.

If you narrow it really down to this context I would suggest 'tradition' above all supplies an general sense of aesthetic. In my experience all good musicians are very well aware of that aesthetic and know perfectly well why they do or don't apply certain things in their playing.

I think we're not talking about the same thing really. Musical traditions are evolutionary processes. People experiment with stuff, and if it's good it sticks, altering the tradition. Take polkas as an example. I bet most Irish traditional musicians, even the really good ones, don't know the historic facts that led to polkas entering the tradition. That's OK though, because music history isn't part of the tradition.

I'm sure any musical tradition does supply a general sense of aesthetic, but there's a lot more to it than that. I have a general sense of the aesthetic of Irish music just from hearing CDs, but that doesn't make me part of it. I am part of the Scottish Highland piping tradition, as a result of taking lessons for many years, and participating in various cultural activities. I have a very specific sense of the aesthetic. Still not as well developed as my teacher's though. Perhaps never will be. And I don't have the sort of credibility, for lack of a better word, that it takes to make real changes to the tradition. Although if I had a really good idea, someone with cred might take it and run with it.