Instruments that 'irk' you?
- NicoMoreno
- Posts: 2100
- Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2001 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: I just wanted to update my location... 100 characters is a lot and I don't really want to type so much just to edit my profile...
- Location: St. Louis, MO
- Pat Cannady
- Posts: 1217
- Joined: Mon Oct 15, 2001 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 10
- Location: Chicago
- Nanohedron
- Moderatorer
- Posts: 38239
- Joined: Wed Dec 18, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: Been a fluter, citternist, and uilleann piper; committed now to the way of the harp.
Oh, yeah: also a mod here, not a spammer. A matter of opinion, perhaps. - Location: Lefse country
- Lorenzo
- Posts: 5726
- Joined: Fri May 24, 2002 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Oregon, USA
Luckily, I was just passing by at Folklife in Seattle, years ago, when I saw this strange and cockamamie recorder player join a session. I've never had the fine opportunity to enjoy such a fumblistic experience, myself. That would be a hard row to hoe.Pat Cannady wrote:Lorenzo: sounds to me like this recorder playing nitwit needs to meet your pal, Mr. Taser.
I'd yell a few choice words and tell him to get the Fermanagh Ulster Connacht Kerry out of your session and never return.
I was so astonished by his blustrification--looking so goshblustrified and everything--that it left me feeling dumfungled and has provided me with ample nightmares ever since.
- NicoMoreno
- Posts: 2100
- Joined: Tue Jun 26, 2001 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: I just wanted to update my location... 100 characters is a lot and I don't really want to type so much just to edit my profile...
- Location: St. Louis, MO
One time a flute (boehm system) player showed up at the local session, and I have been hearing about him for a while now...
(I guess he showed up numerous times, but I had the blessed misfortune to only be their for one suh lucky occurance)
Anyway, this guy is a jazz and classical player primarily and he had decided to come and play ITM "just for fun" since it didn't really take "a lot of effort".
Anyway, he somehow thought that ITM was like jazz: everything is improv, so you just "jam" with everyone, right? So he is sitting their, blasting away, sounding like crap, and doesn't have a clue.
(ok so, this was quite some time ago, and I didn't have much of a clue either, except that I knew he was too loud, and not really playing the tune...)
I find out later (recently) that he has since been trying to "write" or learn some trad music in Ab. He thought that would be dandy I guess....
Anyway... Very iritating...
(I guess he showed up numerous times, but I had the blessed misfortune to only be their for one suh lucky occurance)
Anyway, this guy is a jazz and classical player primarily and he had decided to come and play ITM "just for fun" since it didn't really take "a lot of effort".
Anyway, he somehow thought that ITM was like jazz: everything is improv, so you just "jam" with everyone, right? So he is sitting their, blasting away, sounding like crap, and doesn't have a clue.
(ok so, this was quite some time ago, and I didn't have much of a clue either, except that I knew he was too loud, and not really playing the tune...)
I find out later (recently) that he has since been trying to "write" or learn some trad music in Ab. He thought that would be dandy I guess....
Anyway... Very iritating...
- Tak_the_whistler
- Posts: 568
- Joined: Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Japan
Nico, this is in fact one of the many temptations cross-genre (typo?) musicians have to face, especially those formerly or presently acquainted with jazz music, and they must fight it whenever it comes. I myself have a hard time having to figure out if the tune I'm playing is the same one as the one the others are playing A jazz fan with no interests for ITM can go on improvising in the 'jam' to the end of a set without even realising it's an ITM session... Being able to get away with improvisation in a session is what many jazz advocates tend to believe before they are baptised...NicoMoreno wrote:Anyway, [this jazz flutist] somehow thought that ITM was like jazz: everything is improv, so you just "jam" with everyone, right? So he is sitting their, blasting away, sounding like crap, and doesn't have a clue.
<><
Tak
---------------------------------------
<b>"Nothing can be yours by nature."</b>
--- Lewis
Tak
---------------------------------------
<b>"Nothing can be yours by nature."</b>
--- Lewis
-
- Posts: 911
- Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2003 12:01 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Bridgton, Maine
Tak, If you're not sure you're playing the same tune as the rest of everybody, just say that it's the East Clare setting, or the Middle East Galway version that you know etc....
Corin
Corin
Last edited by meemtp on Sat Jan 24, 2004 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- Wombat
- Posts: 7105
- Joined: Mon Sep 23, 2002 6:00 pm
- antispam: No
- Location: Probably Evanston, possibly Wollongong
Good jazz improvisers, or even barely competent improvisers, listen very carefully to what the other musicians are playing and tailor their improvisations to fit. Very little jam session jazz involves polyphonic improvisation so if someone turned up to a session and noticed that everyone else was playing in unison it would become quickly evident that they were not meant to improvise a counterpoint. Since individuals would not be taking solos, it would quickly become evident that individual soloing was not a part of the music. The conclusion that you would draw immediately is that you have no business playing unless you know the tune.
Musicians behaving in the insensitive way described above would be no more welcome at a jazz jam session than they would be at an ITM session. The inclusion of an improvisatory element in a music makes listening to others more important, not less important. Any musician who thinks that you can turn up at a jam session of any kind and just noodle without regard for stylistic compatibility and group chemistry is a complete dork.
Good ITM players do improvise accompaniments and variations but always within the tight constraints recognised by the tradition and always with the proviso that they listen to, respect, and attempt to enhance what the others are doing.
Musicians behaving in the insensitive way described above would be no more welcome at a jazz jam session than they would be at an ITM session. The inclusion of an improvisatory element in a music makes listening to others more important, not less important. Any musician who thinks that you can turn up at a jam session of any kind and just noodle without regard for stylistic compatibility and group chemistry is a complete dork.
Good ITM players do improvise accompaniments and variations but always within the tight constraints recognised by the tradition and always with the proviso that they listen to, respect, and attempt to enhance what the others are doing.
- Tak_the_whistler
- Posts: 568
- Joined: Sun Feb 02, 2003 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Japan
Thanks for the tip! That might work, actually...(thinking of giving a shot at the next session..)meemtp wrote:Tak, If you're not sure you're playing the same tune as the rest of everybody, just say that it's the East Clare setting, or the Middle East Galway version that you know etc....
<><
Tak
---------------------------------------
<b>"Nothing can be yours by nature."</b>
--- Lewis
Tak
---------------------------------------
<b>"Nothing can be yours by nature."</b>
--- Lewis
- ChristianRo
- Posts: 526
- Joined: Wed Jun 27, 2001 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: Germany
- Contact:
Aahh, an Erhu!! Beautiful, beautiful - if you know how to play it. I am sure it will compare favourably to a fiddle in a slow air competition.Tak_the_whistler wrote:
"Niko"; a Chinese violin.
http://www.ishibashi.co.jp/webshop/niko/index.htm
I guess anything will irk you when it's not properly played (or not kept silent).
I have a very fine one myself. I promised myself to seriously start learning it on my 40th birthday (in 5 years, that is...)
Christian
- whistlegal
- Posts: 184
- Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2004 10:48 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Contact:
- SteveK
- Posts: 1545
- Joined: Sun Dec 02, 2001 6:00 pm
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 1
- Location: London, Ontario
Get an Elderly Instruments catalogue. It has an amazing variety of stuff that you could use to annoy people at the session. Boomwhackers, which would be used similarly to the cow bones ought to do admirably. They're advertized as "colorful, noisy fun." Apparantly they're tuned because you can get different scales. There's all kinds of shaky stuff. Shaky eggs and Remo fruit and veggie shakers. I guess my favourite is the Zydeco necktie. It's a necktie made of corrugated metal. Just wear it to the session and whip out your thimbles and you're a star.whistlegal wrote:We once had a vet who brought two large cow bones (femurs, I think) and banged those together.
Or maybe you could just whistle. http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/whistlintom
Steve
Steve
- fancypiper
- Posts: 2162
- Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2003 1:08 pm
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 12
- Location: Sparta NC
- Contact:
I love Elderly Instrument's wooden egg. I use it a lot with the band when we do our funky stuff.
I was surprised at the work it took to get the sound I wanted out of it though, as they are sensitive to movement. I found the sidewise shake similar to playing the bones works the best without the starting off-beat stuff you get if you go up and down like I have seen rock groups do with it.
I was surprised at the work it took to get the sound I wanted out of it though, as they are sensitive to movement. I found the sidewise shake similar to playing the bones works the best without the starting off-beat stuff you get if you go up and down like I have seen rock groups do with it.
- oleorezinator
- Posts: 1625
- Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2003 1:21 am
- antispam: No
- Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
- Tell us something.: I love uilleann pipes I love tin whistles I love flutes I love irish music I love concertinas I love bodhrans
- Location: Behind the anthracite and shale curtain.
the topic lp "the lark in the clear air" has some tracks by the wright brothers playing jigs and reels on jews harp. they make it work.
Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love.
Love is not music. Music is the best.
- Frank Zappa
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love.
Love is not music. Music is the best.
- Frank Zappa