Young players

[Cayden]

I am wondering here did my remarks in another thread, the future face of Irish music, prompt this discussion.

The whole thread made me think of it. Between Dale’s introduction and wombat and your comments, I started to think of modern music and ITM. ITM (and fife music for that matter) amazes me in the fact that in one room there will be children adults and teens all interacting with each other. In modern society it seems that people try to find any chance they can get to drive a wedge between people of different ages. I think that this interaction keeps the music lively.

I think it's this what gives traditional music (and I use 'traditional' in it's original sense, referring to how it's handed on) it's particular flavour.
I realise it's very hard to bring across what I mean if you haven't actually seen it at work but the whole social interaction, the relations etc is part and parcel of this music. I was afraid I sounded unduly negative in Dale's thread and I didn't want to knock it on the head but what Iheard (in the one track I listened to) was a bunch of kids who put a lot of work into learning the tunes and playing well. But there was also a lot I didn't hear that I do hear in at least some young players here, what I heard was more a 'performance' while the music I am used to is part of something bigger.

A long time ago I quoted an experience here with one of my piping students, she's Brid O Donohue's eldest daughter and has played the whislte since she was 4 (she was 12 at the time). I am teaching her the pipes and at the time I gave her the West Wind, pretty straight forward three aprt reel in G from the playing of Willie Clancy (who in fact is a relation of her). The way it works is I play the tune while the student picks it up by ear. First time around she was picking out the bones, the important notes, filling out the tune as we were going along. She basically had the tune second time around but going through the third part she didn't have it as I had it but filled in around the important notes as she went along what came out was a variation folding back both the melody and the rhythm and it was utterly brilliant, pure music worthy of willie Clancy himself. It knocked my socks off, it was totally wonderful. and above all it was totally unself conscious, in fact she didn't know what she was doing at all, it jsut came out. It's that sort of being inside the music I am referring to, that instinctive understanding of structure and melody that only comes from being around it a very long time while interacting with all sorts of players from all generations.
I can think of other examples, 14 year old Anne Ruth Benagh playing the Dear Irish Boy on the whistle as she learned it from her grandfather Tommy McCarthy, I have seen Edel Fox honing her skills since she was 11 or 12 (twenty two now), Paddy Canny grandchildren and loads and loads more.
I see it in my own son who has a head full of tunes, and if only he'd work at it he could bring them out too. But I remember finding him discussing cocnertinas with Jackie Daly in the local supermarket when he was 8, he goes to Noel Hill for his classes and is comfortable enough to sit down with Kitty Hayes for a tune.

You get the picture, before I ramble on too long. I seem to come back to the same point, learning by example, by absorbtion. I don't think you can beat it in music.

[SteveShaw]

I have Glenn Gould's early interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations and I have versions by others too. He does play fast and loose by the usual standards (only profound scholarship of the sort I'm not prepared to undertake will tell me whether he's "legit" or out of order!), but his playing is supremely good and he's obviously committed to Bach with love and enthusiasm. I've always professed to reject the playing of Alfred Brendel on the grounds that it's rather musty and didactic. But the other day I switched on Radio 3 part-way through a Beethoven piano recital and was moved by the performance. It wasn't till the end that I found out that it was Brendel (of course!). Open your mind and predigest nothing!!

I'm a bit worried by the modern trend in "commercial" ITM towards the speed-and-slickness culture of the young bucks, personified by the likes of McGoldrick, Lunasa and the rest. They are technically supremely proficient (nowt wrong with that...) and play with superb fearlessness and panache. But if you ask me whether I'd rather listen to them, or a couple of old boys scraping away slightly out of tune and with a few bum notes, yet with that indefinable "heart and soul," I know what my answer would be. But maybe they were young bucks themselves once upon a time!

Steve

[Wombat]

I see two interwoven themes here. One is the theme of youth and the affect of aging on music. The other is the importance of time and place.

I suppose it's a bit of a cliche that musicians tend to start out as flashy and technically proficient when they are young and acquire depth with age and experience. This is true enough as far as it goes. But some people are technically proficient when young and stay shallow all their musical lives. My guess is that the musicians who acquire depth later in life by and large recognise it when they are young. Just being alive won't give you depth; you have to be on a quest.

Another thing is that certain very gifted musicians seem to be highly expressive from their first flowering. Some get more so with age but occasionally really young people seem to have a talent for it.

Another thing that actually seems at odds with these observations is that we often remember musicians best by the music they make in their first flowering. That might be in their teens, is usually in their twenties but could be later for those discovered late. I don't mean that first records are best although often they are. I mean that the first peak is often best remembered. People like Coltrane, Miles Davis and Dylan rather cheated this tendency by reinventing themselves several times. I don't think this is necessarily at odds with the idea that we improve in depth with experience. People have often been preparing for years for their first real recording and the outpouring of energy and novelty of sound is maybe something they won't quite repeat. (A lot of jazz musicians are really grumpy that people only buy their first great records: 'I play much better then that now.'

Now think of the influence of time and place. It makes sense that people born into societies that still retain quite a bit of their traditional structure tend to have a better early understanding of the depth of the music of that culture. I think Peter was describing this and the way it intersects with young people already sensitive to depth. I think African music is so vibrant today because so many societies still have a strong sense of tradition.

Unsurprisingly, places that involve a mixing of ethnic groups and cultures seem particularly suitable for producing new styles. New Orleans, New York, parts of Brasil, Liverpool in the early 60s are obvious examples of places where exciting new musics have developed. If you grow up in that kind of place, you are very well-placed to fuse ideas from an early age; but only if you can sense what is worth fusing with what, you still need that sense of being able to recognise and seek depth. Growing up in post WWII-Melbourne was like this both musically and in terms of literature, art and scholarship.

Just a final remark about the smooth facile styles as against the rougher traditional styles. This isn't just happening in ITM, it is happening in a big way in old-timey mountain music. Compare a not-terribly-old record like the Watson Family CD with a recent offering by say Tim O'Brien or Alison Krauss. What really strikes me about these younger people is a smoothing out of the intonation, mainly in the singing but to some extent in the playing as well. Now, it wouldn't surprise me if an album like Songs From the Mountain would have bombed completely commercially if O'Brien had a real backwoods yelp in his voice. It might have sunk without trace. But I'm familiar with the originals of those songs and I miss the funky intonation. I guess to modern ears the old stuff just sounds out of tune. But what do folks in the mountains think of the sanitised versions of their music popular today? What's bad, I think, is not that smoother versions exist and are popular, although I wonder how many Uncle Dave Macon or Doc Boggs albums will be sold on the basis of them. What bothers me is that people will come to think of the earlier rougher modal versions as inferior, as crude approximations to something better, rather than as wonderful expressions of the very best a time and place had to offer and as perfect performances in their own terms.

[Cayden]

What bothers me is that people will come to think of the earlier rougher modal versions as inferior, as crude approximations to something better, rather than as wonderful expressions of the very best a time and place had to offer and as perfect performances in their own terms.

I agree with you things are too complex to catch easily and the examples I gave work in Irish music because of it's social contexts etc but may not apply everywhere. I imagine they would apply in old time music.

It is a worry that some styles become to be seen as inferior. It's worse even when the players themselves start feeling they are in fact less proficient than the younger generation and get discouraged to an extend they down instruments. A few of us still remember Micho Russell trying to learn rolls off us as he was made to feel his playing wasn't up to scratch without them. I played at a concert with Kitty Hayes some a few years ago, Noel Hill was on after us and whiel he was doing his Bucks of Oranmore Kitty leaned over and said to me 'I am glad we have our bit done, I wouldn't have dared playing after that, I would have looked a right fool'. While really, both Kitty and Micho's music is so rich in little rhythmical complexities and musical spirit, I'd take it over most of today's virtuosos any time.

On the other hand we must remember there's a cycle to these things, while some younger crowds are still going towards more complexity and fusion already there's a movement looking towards the players past for inspiration.

[Joseph E. Smith]

On the other hand we must remember there's a cycle to these things, while some younger crowds are still going towards more complexity and fusion already there's a movement looking towards the players past for inspiration.

... and I have faith (and pray a little too) that there always will be these young ones looking back.

[Wombat]

It is a worry that some styles become to be seen as inferior. It's worse even when the players themselves start feeling they are in fact less proficient than the younger generation and get discouraged to an extend they down instruments. A few of us still remember Micho Russell trying to learn rolls off us as he was made to feel his playing wasn't up to scratch without them. I played at a concert with Kitty Hayes some a few years ago, Noel Hill was on after us and whiel he was doing his Bucks of Oranmore Kitty leaned over and said to me 'I am glad we have our bit done, I wouldn't have dared playing after that, I would have looked a right fool'. While really, both Kitty and Micho's music is so rich in little rhythmical complexities and musical spirit, I'd take it over most of today's virtuosos any time.

On the other hand we must remember there's a cycle to these things, while some younger crowds are still going towards more complexity and fusion already there's a movement looking towards the players past for inspiration.

I agree entirely. I think it's terrible when people like Kitty and Micho come to doubt themselves but it's great that they appreciate what's good about the younger players. It's great when the older styles and the newer styles can coexist. It's great when younger people want to preserve the older styles. People shouldn't regard this attitude as reactionary or snobbish; nobody is saying that the smoother styles aren't fun or don't have a right to exist. It just seems important, and only fair, to admit that what they gain in fluency and flash, they lose in depth. Oh, and I think that people who like the smoother modern styles should have a better understanding of where that music comes from and how it got to where it is. A third or seventh played a bit flat means something, it isn't a bum note.

I wonder if this has happened in the past in ITM. Were the Ceilidh bands thought to be a threat to the tradition? One hears many people say that the Irish tradition was in very poor shape in the 50s and 60s. A friend of mine who grew up in Drogheda in the 60s and 70s and who knew Seamus Ennis who visited his father regularly told me that, when he was growing up, he heard almost no ITM in Drogheda but plenty when on holidays in Kerry every summer.

[djm]

I have read that when recordings of Coleman and Morrison made their way back to Ireland that it caused a sweeping change to the way ITM was played. Players who had performed in isolation, knowing only one local style, or the style that one itinerant music teacher introduced into an area, was transformed by hearing a style that they thought was superior to their own. I guess it would be the first effect of mass media. And what about the effect of uilleann pipes or fiddles? Surely these were the electric guitars and synthesizers of their day?

So I don't think the current evolution is anything new or strange. It has probably been happening throughout the life of ITM, and the stuff we may cling to as the "golden days" may itself have been considered new and flashy in its day. Change is the only constant.

djm

[Wombat]

I have read that when recordings of Coleman and Morrison made their way back to Ireland that it caused a sweeping change to the way ITM was played. Players who had performed in isolation, knowing only one local style, or the style that one itinerant music teacher introduced into an area, was transformed by hearing a style that they thought was superior to their own. I guess it would be the first effect of mass media. And what about the effect of uilleann pipes or fiddles? Surely these were the electric guitars and synthesizers of their day?

So I don't think the current evolution is anything new or strange. It has probably been happening throughout the life of ITM, and the stuff we may cling to as the "golden days" may itself have been considered new and flashy in its day. Change is the only constant.

djm

Exactly what you are describing here as the effect of recordings on ITM happened in blues and regional styles gave way to people following their favourites, wherever they were from.

But the blues is dead now as a living, evolving, music. Or, at the very least it is deeply comotose. I suppose that is the kind of change we wouldn't want to see in ITM.

[djm]

I don't know that the blues are dead, but the socio-economic situation that created the blues has evolved. What really has changed, though, is that there are now "experts" on the blues, so that anyone who calls their music the blues are immediately tested for "authenticity", something that never existed while the blues were first evolving. I can't think of anything that would strangle the growth of any type of music more than that.

People in Ireland are no longer living in desparate isolation, any more than people in the US SE are, so one would expect that the music will evolve, perhaps into something else entirely. I am grateful that so much was recorded before it was lost. It is something to value, this snap-shot of what was, and I think we should treasure it. But recreating ITM of an earlier time is no different than, say, groups who are reconstructing baroque music. I don't bemoan change, but I know what I like, and if that means that the ITM we try to reproduce today is a reconstruction of music past, then I try to keep it in that perspective.

djm

[LeeMarsh]

Great discussion and some good points have been made. I'd like to comment on a couple.

I see two interwoven themes here. One is the theme of youth and the affect of aging on music. The other is the importance of time and place ...
Another thing is that certain very gifted musicians seem to be highly expressive from their first flowering. Some get more so with age but occasionally really young people seem to have a talent for it.
...

"Occasionally young people seem to have a talent for it"... I think this is something that needs to be nurtured. If you grow up in an accepting environment, where that expression is felt to be valid, it grows quickly in depth and range. Children don't know which emotional expressions are not 'polite'. They quickly learn which things make adults uncomfortable, it is usually something they steer away from in childhood as they learn boundries, and steer towards in adolescence as they test the validity of those boundries. I think Peter's example of the learning process with Brid's daughter is an example of that nurturing. She played differently and found acceptance and support. On an emotional level, it means its okay to feel differently and find expression for those feelings.

It is this type of encouragement that leads to the risk taking necessary to pursue your music. If music is expressing our essence from within, then seeing that essence accepted or at least respected is vital. I may not agree with my daughter emphasis on anger in her music; but, if I respect it; then, her music is free to grow with her inner emotional life. It is really scarry to put yourself out in the open, playing with spirit or heart or feeling does this. I believe it is in our nature to do this, to seek connection with others; so, children do it often without thinking of the consequences.

For example, a child plays a particularly spritely jig, hesitantly, with a since loss. The teacher in discussing the tune afterwards finds it the favorite tune of Uncle John, who always played for the child, but past away last year. This puts the playing of the jig in a different light, marginal play seems transformed into exceptional. When Peter campaigns for the importance of growing up in the music, these are things that occur naturally. Learning the tune from Dad, or Mum, or neighbor, around a kitchen table, means everyone knows it was Uncle John's Jig, and sees how much the child misses the bit of joy lost. They share the unique connection the child has with that tune and in so doing reward the child for the risk taken in playing such an emotion laden tune. Also, a teacher who fails to recognize the social context is likely to find themselves corrected; perhaps by a gentle nudge or reminder that it was Uncle Johns Jig; perhaps by quick smack to the back of the head by a mum seeing her child hurt by an insensitive lout.

...
But the blues is dead now as a living, evolving, music. Or, at the very least it is deeply comotose. I suppose that is the kind of change we wouldn't want to see in ITM.

Wombat, I don't think it's dead. I think you might find it very much alive. However, you'd have to be looking in the right places. Blues seems to me a mix of regret, hopelessness, and resignation as well as sadness. Many of the hotbeds of blues in the past may still have the sadness and a bit of regret, but are no longer resigned that these must be inevitable. It seems that it is the success of the blues in communicating to the wider world, that has spawned social changes of the past decades. The civil rights movement and the war on poverty, while they may not have been perfect; they still have produced change and the hope of change.

The blues has changed because the social context that spawned them has changed. Perhaps the next "Blues" will be coming out of third world countries that are still overwhelmed by poverty, injustice, and loss. Instead of lyrics in english with a delta dialect, we might find them in a Huto, Ethiopian, or Slavic dialects.

This is not to say there are not blues in the US, good people still go bad, lovers are still lost, good friends are still betrayed. The blues out of the Delta this year will be about flood and wind, about families displaced, homes lost, a spitefull lady named Katrina and an impotent man in FEMA.

I guess these both fall under themes mentioned above.

I see two interwoven themes here. One is the theme of youth and the affect of aging on music. The other is the importance of time and place.

[Cayden]

The blues has changed because the social context that spawned them has changed.

Another point not to be neglected is the shift from playing music to express something within a context or for the amusement of yourself and your friends to playing music to perform on a stage. Things inevitably get lost in that transition.

[Wombat]

Thanks for joining the discussion, Lee. I'll just comment on one of your interesting points.

Wombat, I don't think it's dead. I think you might find it very much alive. However, you'd have to be looking in the right places. Blues seems to me a mix of regret, hopelessness, and resignation as well as sadness. Many of the hotbeds of blues in the past may still have the sadness and a bit of regret, but are no longer resigned that these must be inevitable. It seems that it is the success of the blues in communicating to the wider world, that has spawned social changes of the past decades. The civil rights movement and the war on poverty, while they may not have been perfect; they still have produced change and the hope of change.

The blues has changed because the social context that spawned them has changed. Perhaps the next "Blues" will be coming out of third world countries that are still overwhelmed by poverty, injustice, and loss. Instead of lyrics in english with a delta dialect, we might find them in a Huto, Ethiopian, or Slavic dialects.

This is not to say there are not blues in the US, good people still go bad, lovers are still lost, good friends are still betrayed. The blues out of the Delta this year will be about flood and wind, about families displaced, homes lost, a spitefull lady named Katrina and an impotent man in FEMA.

What I meant was that a style of music, with a specific form and special social place within the African American community, stopped evolving around the 70s and got replaced by other forms. (Arguably, it stopped evolving earlier.) I think that is true.

There are several things I didn't mean by this. I didn't mean we no longer have music from that community that expresses similar emotions and serves a very similar function. And I don't mean that the blues, as a sensiblity, not a form, appears in folk musics all over the world. Early rembetica is Greek blues, fado is Portuguese blues. It's interesting that you mention Ethiopia. In the 70s, Addis Ababa produced a staggering amount of wonderful music that fused American soul with black African and Arabic styles. Listen to vintage Mahmoud Ahmed for a truly amazing experience, he's one of the great singers of our time, and, for a slightly watered down but still affecting CD, the first album by American expatriate Aster Aweke.

Another thing I didn't mean is that nobody makes good blues records any more. What I mean is that people, both black and white, play pretty much in older styles. I don't mean that the best performers don't play well nor do I mean that they haven't forged personal styles. I just mean that the music has largely moved from the local theatre and juke joint to the museum. I realise that it can still be heard in its natural habitat but I think taht, in that form, it is very much a minority music for mainly older African Americans.

[rh]

I just mean that the music has largely moved from the local theatre and juke joint to the museum. I realise that it can still be heard in its natural habitat but I think taht, in that form, it is very much a minority music for mainly older African Americans.

I also wouldn't say blues as a living music is dead, but it is certainly on the endangered list. On the South side of Chicago, you can still hear a lot of younger musicians who play blues, it is still around as an art form though definitely not a majority. The other place that springs immediately to mind is New Orleans, with generations growing up in the music, Mardi Gras tribes, funerals, etc. But Katrina might have dealt a death blow to that, only time will tell.

[LeeMarsh]

... Another point not to be neglected is the shift from playing music to express something within a context or for the amusement of yourself and your friends to playing music to perform on a stage. Things inevitably get lost in that transition.

I agree. I'd point to the social context, from small group play to playing for larger and larger communities. Here I would also add the technology factor that makes playing for millions a possiblity. Those audiences aren't going to know Uncle John's Jig. The best the musician can do is to introduce the tune with comments on the social context from which it is drawn; but, even these fall short of creating the connections you find in smaller groups.

Part of why I hold more hope for Irish traditional music and Irish-American traditional music is that it has a small audience venue available: the pub session. Other genre's have 'jam' sessions but they are often simply small performances that visiting musicians can sit in on. Irish sessions are more often musicians playing with and for each other. Its the group of 4-10 folks connecting to one another through the music. Even when they are sitting out some tunes, they are still attentive and connected to the music. The main thing to gaining entrance to the group is your connection to the music and the need to let it find expression through your limbs and lungs. Other traditional forms, such as blues with its juke joints, have lost many of their small intimate venues.

Some of IR(A)Trad sessions survival is thanks to pub owners that see the market for letting their patrons be voyeurs of the intimacy the session creates. They support the intimacy be resisting the urge to mike the session through out the establishment. They appreciate the irish flavor of the session culture and it affect on the establishment.

One of the things that worked against traditional music is the wider stage that technology presents. The vast array of musical expression available to the musician has an impact. First in drawing away musicians to the other forms that may seem more relevant to the sense of now. Second in diluting the tradition with influences from other forms.

This influence from outside has always been part of the tradition. The introduction of flutes, banjo, and other instruments could be seen as examples of diluting the tradition, though now they are fairly well accepted. A music historian could probably come up with more accurated details; but, the point is that through these the tradition has grown and matured. The threat today, is that there are so many influences so widely available, that the essence of the traditions could be lost.

And here is one of the challenges to teachers and folks handing down the tradition. How to keep it relevant and vibrant with out diluting its form and substance into the celtic-rock-hip-hop-blues fusion that would homogenize it out of all recognition.

Perhaps the secret for drawing the young is the session. That intimate grouping appeals well to the psyche of youth with it need to belong. The session, not being a performance, gives it an independence from the expection of the community and focuses on the expectation of peers. These are the milestones that adolescence and young adults seek to master. The small group, click, gang, fraternity/sorority, posse, team is the domain of youthfull interest. The session facilitate the small group interaction skills on which kids thrive. I wonder if even the lack of popularity doesn't also feed the need to find individual expression, of establishing the sense of identity, finding the path less traveled.

So, to get back to Peter quote above. I agree, it is the small group playing together and not the performance venue, that is the vitality and roots of traditional music. Blues, IRTrad, Old-Time, Blue Grass, Cajon, or any of the other traditional genre are dependent on providing the opportunities for folks to intimately share the tradition. I'd go further to propose that the more these small group cross generations the more stable the essence of the tradition will remain while continuing to grow and mature.

For me, I think there is something cool about handing down tools that lets young folks express stuff inside that is uniquely them. Cool that that expression is accepted and validated in the community of elders as well as peers. Each generation finds sources for its dominant emotions, dread, regret, joy, and sorrow, some different and some the same. To share a common expression across all the sources binds us together in ways that no cross generational dialogs can accomplish. In talking to the young it is easy to find differences; but, music can be vehicle to bind us together in things common.

Young and old, across social context sharing how you ...

[LeeMarsh]

Wombat,
Cool examples of blues (small b) genres in other ethnic traditions. I'm not a ethno-musicologist; and wish I had more education in that area. My background is in sociology and technology. (BS Social Work in the 70's, BS in Computer Science in the 80's, Yep, I know, lotsa BS). So to find examples in recent history of things that my socioligical background said should be there is a pleasant affirmation.

I think it fitting that blues as you define it "a style of music, with a specific form and special social place within the African American community," died at the same time segregation died. My point is integration had an impact on the genre as well as the economic, social, and politcal opportunities of it's originators. The Blues influences became more fully accepted into other genres, in the rise of R&B, Hip-hop, Rock, Pop. It also absorbed influences from the influx of musicians bringing their own social context to the genre. It seems lately, I've heard a lot about preservation efforts to save artifacts and venues. I've seen a number of documentaries on older Blues greats Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters to name a few. Also some specials on efforts to preserve some of the venues like the Subway Lounge. I think those preservation efforts will help consolidate the genre and focus on some of the essential traditions.

The Blues may be dying, but I think it is more likely that it has and is going through a growth cycle of divergence and consolidation. The 80's and 90's seemed like a period of divergence and dillusion. Perhaps, with the new century, we're seeing a distillation and consolidation. The Blues is just peripheral interest for me, I've been more interested in Irish-American and Old Time over the past decade. Still, the sociological cycle of cultural development is a tempting rational for hoping the blues genre is revitalized.

If the Blues was an Afro-American response to oppression, perhaps, the new integrated society is waiting for the next source of oppression. Maybe technology or religious intolerance will emerge as the oppression of the new century; or maybe, it will something completely different.

Hmm... Technology as the evil oppressor, I could see some of that ...

My Underwood 'cepted me true,
she never did put me down,
for spellin I couldn't do,
Nor Capitals I'd through around.

You know its goin' to happen to you,
Them Microsoft Word typin' blues,
them Microsoft Word typin' blues,
Evil Microsoft causin' them blues.