Fluters Vs Fiddlers

[Cayden]

Great fluteplaying, or great playing on anything is great. Nobody is looking down on the flute. Less can be more at times.

[Nanohedron]

Nobody is looking down on the flute.

*Whew* I'm glad that's cleared up.

[Azalin]

Nobody is looking down on the flute

No one is even talking about the whistle. That's a badddd sign!

[Eldarion]

Match any fluteplayers rhythm to that of Martin Rochford or Paddy Canny's fiddle playing. It'll be a hard task if at all possible.

That's one of my personal goals!

[talasiga]

OK, I've had enough; I'll put in my $.02. For me, the broadest palette of expressiveness in ITM is best demonstrated in airs and slow reels, but is best kept to a level of taste where classically-derived cholesterol and dipping into the mawk-pot are at a bare minimum. Subtlety wins the day. That being said:

Expressiveness is always bound within the confines of the instrument and the capabilities of its player, so range isn't necessarily germane, at least IMO. The uilleann pipes, which have no volume control, can be most expressive playing airs and hornpipes, and the fiddle cannot match the nuances of drop-dead pipering. This limitation works both ways, of course. The fiddle cannot render an air in the same language that the flute can, nor can the flute match the fiddle's dialect. Why should they? But the suggestion that the flute is least capable of expression leaves me scratching my head. I just don't get that. Airs on flute needn't be limited to bland honkings.

Now as for dance tunes, it's all about the rhythm and lift. As a flute player, I find that the barks and simmering, etc. that help to accentuate the rhythms are quite expressive, and are about helping to raise the excitement, joy, or intensity inherent in a tune's structure, and, by extension, the emotional lift of the dancers/listeners.

The flute is not incapable, say I.

This be sheer music Nano!
No clip needed.

Every humbling flute
has her soaring Muse.

[Caj]

Perhaps what it comes down to is that a lot of musicians aren't really happy with the instrument that they play, or at least they like to say so a lot (ex. Tony MacMahon).

And yet, Tony MacMahon is one of those musicians to whom I could listen for hours and hours, rather than minutes. An' he's also showed the world that you don't need an instrument with pitch bend to play a lament properly.

I agree that the fiddle is simply a more capable instrument than others. There are things all instruments can and cannot do, but the fiddle balances those capabilities quite well.

Caj

[talasiga]

......There are things all instruments can and cannot do, but the fiddle balances those capabilities quite well.

Hmmm.... this is alacrity.
A master touch. Very nicely made point.

Yes, in the other tradition that I "provacative"ly mentioned,
their fiddle has traditionally been the first choice for vocal
accompaniment.
Of all the instruments, the human vocal range (and variety) and subtletly
is most readily available on the fiddle. It can be achieved on other instruments but not as easily.
In that tradition, we could perhaps pose the fiddle virtuosity
as a surrogate for the vocal standard.

However, I cannot see how the Irish fiddle could stand up as some surrogate standard/measure/yardstick for ITM flute
because it does not do everything that is done in ITM with flute
and until it does it cannot serve as such.
(Incidentally, I do consider that it needs too be the standard, anyway)


Please consider.

[djm]

I can't see that either fiddle or flute in ITM attempt to mimic any aspect of human vocals, even when playing slow airs. Both instuments seem more to attempt piping effects for both dance music and airs. That's not to say that they couldn't do more to replicate human vocals, they just don't in ITM. It doesn't seem to be part of their mandate for the roles they play.

Now, if you want to talk about what a flute or fiddle could do to replicate the human voice, the flute would get my vote any day. When I think of what a fiddle would do in trying to imitate the human voice, it makes me think of the justification for wife-beating.

djm

[talasiga]

I can't see that either fiddle or flute in ITM attempt to mimic any aspect of human vocals, even when playing slow airs. Both instuments seem more to attempt piping effects for both dance music and airs. That's not to say that they couldn't do more to replicate human vocals, they just don't in ITM. It doesn't seem to be part of their mandate for the roles they play.........

Exactly.
ITM doesn't have a human vocal standard as a yardstick for its instrumentation. I think I said this earlier.
(Or should I say, does not appear to?)

I was earlier querying whether ITM instrumentation has any such standard VERSUS the instruments setting (or rather, evincing) their own. Each her own and thus their special allure?

Are you now suggesting that the pipes may be a candidate?
Interesting suggestion .......

[talasiga]

......
Now, if you want to talk about what a flute or fiddle could do to replicate the human voice, the flute would get my vote any day. When I think of what a fiddle would do in trying to imitate the human voice, it makes me think of the justification for wife-beating.

Hey! Jest a minute!

Historically, wasn't it women who first beat the bodhran?
Did the fiddlers drive them to it?

The first fiddlers were men.

[djm]

Traditionally, all instruments in ITM were played by men, or at least, that was what the cultural tradition stated. Singing was for women. Women only really started to pick up instruments in the last century, and as I understand it, this was somewhat looked askance at. Like women wearing pants, etc. Trad Irish culture was nothing if not very prudish (at least on the surface). I never heard of women playing bodhrán. It is a recent development as far as I know.

We could argue niceties, of course. Certainly men sang. Many songs were composed by men. But I think the tradition as it was rescued from the disintigrating rural Ireland in the isolated and impoverished western parts of the country probably came with cultural baggage of those same people. If you go farther back in time to a point where Irish culture was less threatened I'm sure you would find differences again.

Playing song airs on UPs is a tradition in itself, and the basis of judgement there is supposedly to sound as much as a singer as possible, but in reality the presence of piping ornamentation is unmistakable. The definite lack of dynamics in piping (a physical limitation), and the way other instruments try to copy piping styles, may be the factor that has determined the lack of dynamics in ITM fiddle and flute to some extent.

The same piping ornamentation is undeniable in ITM fiddling and fluting. When a fiddler adds a bit more technique beyond the piping ornamentation, and does it successfully so that it augments, as opposed to conflicting with, what comes from piping, that fiddler is hailed as a master. Flautists don't seem to have gone beyond piping effects so much as fiddlers have, IMHO.

djm

[talasiga]

Traditionally, all instruments in ITM were played by men, or at least, that was what the cultural tradition stated. Singing was for women. Women only really started to pick up instruments in the last century, and as I understand it, this was somewhat looked askance at. Like women wearing pants, etc. Trad Irish culture was nothing if not very prudish (at least on the surface). I never heard of women playing bodhrán. It is a recent development as far as I know........

I like what this lady Janet says,


[quote="in Nicholas Driver's "Bodhran and Bones Tutor"
published by Hobgoblin Music, Janet E McCrickard"]
Precisely why the bodhran is so poorly documented is itself an interesting question, particularly when its survival in the wren tradition indicates that it must have had a place in pre-Christian culture. Indeed, such ritualised use of the drum is typical of frame drums. This raises the possibility that, like so many frame drums, the bodhran was in its earliest days played by women only. As women's business and part of the life of common folk, the chroniclers of history may have never seen it in use, let alone have considered it worth mentioning. [/quote]

Humph!
Not only did these men fiddle with bows,
they fiddled with history too, it seems .....

[Cayden]

You guys have disappeared into uninformed lala land if I may say so.

Since when is slow air playing NOT supposed to be an instrumental rendition of thesean nos singer's songs? has DJM ever compared Ennis' air playing to singers Ennis knew like Sorcha ni Ghuairim? I suppose not. You'd be amazed and you wouldn't have said what you said.


Wasn't the bodhran mainly in the realm of the wrenboys and rarely used in dancemusic anyway?. It was brought into mainstream music by Sean O Riada during the fifties. This is not at all as undocumented as the quote suggests.

[talasiga]

.......Playing song airs on UPs is a tradition in itself, and the basis of judgement there is supposedly to sound as much as a singer as possible, but in reality the presence of piping ornamentation is unmistakable. The definite lack of dynamics in piping (a physical limitation), and the way other instruments try to copy piping styles, may be the factor that has determined the lack of dynamics in ITM fiddle and flute to some extent.

The same piping ornamentation is undeniable in ITM fiddling and fluting. When a fiddler adds a bit more technique beyond the piping ornamentation, and does it successfully so that it augments, as opposed to conflicting with, what comes from piping, that fiddler is hailed as a master. .........

This is exquisite stuff, djm.
A pleasure to read
(though I reserve the right to disagree later
if I need to )
The late Professor Platt of the University of Sydney
Music department
was known to declare that all music is derived from the drone.
This is certainly true of most, if not all, modal traditions
such as the plainsong traditions of Europe and Asia Minor
and the Indian tradition.
The Professor even extended the comprehension of his statement to harmonic music.

Yes, all music derives from the drone
and STRIVES for the voice.

[talasiga]

You guys have disappeared into uninformed lala land if I may say so. .......
Wasn't the bodhran mainly in the realm of the wrenboys and rarely used in dancemusic anyway?. It was brought into mainstream music by Sean O Riada during the fifties. This is not at all as undocumented as the quote suggests.

Very fonny!


I don't think the quote was about the fifties
but about olden times, my dear.
What have you been doing with your pipes?
Smoking them?

Read the quote again.
Better still, buy the book.