Grey Larsen on ornamentation... Really?

[lesl]

And to carry on from what Peter says, you really have to spend a lot of time listening.

Get one of those free sound editors like Audacity (someone I'm sure will have the link for you) and take a tune you want to try and slow it way way down to listen. Try out the melody.

Then slow it down even more and see if you can hear those cuts and taps too. Listen for which notes they appear in front of. It takes some listening to start recognizing what you are hearing. For years I wondered how does player x make those chirpy whooping sounds? Finally I heard what it was and where. You will too.

Start with some simple clean solo renditions of tunes, I think this is what most of us do.

[OnTheMoor]

From reading the forums, I get a sense that many here are steeped in ITM. I am not. I can listen to a tune and really enjoy it, while a "steeped in ITM" person says that it's crap. Is that just ITM snobbery, or is there something to it?

There's something to it. It might be frustrating at first to hear people talk down about music that you really enjoy, but it seems to me, more often than not, posters on these forums do end up making some sort of progression from the big names like Lunasa, the Chieftans, Danu and alt-celt stuff, to what you might see the "snobs" say they listen to and enjoy. It is all about how serious you want to get, how much time you want to spend and how much cash you want to shell out for material.

You can be perfectly happy listening to the really popular bands, but if you have a real interest beyond that, sooner or later you might find that you have become a snob. So approach it with an open mind. If you're serious about it, listening to a "snob" can open up a whole new frontier.

Brian

[Jason Paul]

Well, I'm still in the stage of having such little exposure to ITM that I haven't even heard of many bands mentioned here on the forums. However, I know I like Planxty and The Bothy Band, and The Clancy Brothers are fun.

It's not easy to determine if you like a band based on a 30-second clip.

Jason

[johnkerr]

From reading the forums, I get a sense that many here are steeped in ITM. I am not. I can listen to a tune and really enjoy it, while a "steeped in ITM" person says that it's crap. Is that just ITM snobbery, or is there something to it?

Depends on what your goal is. If your goal is to listen to (or play) ITM for what it is (traditional music of the Irish folk culture), then you need to be steeped in it, either from years of listening or years of playing. There is no short cut. But if your goal is just to listen to or play something that "sounds nice" to yourself and hopefully others, then there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't advertise yourself as an ITM player or enthusiast. It's like this: I can appreciate a Ferrari as a nice ride without knowing a damn thing about how it's designed or what goes on inside. But if that's all I know about it, I'd better not go buying a bunch of them and opening a dealership, because then I'd soon be exposed as nothing but a rube.

The comment above about "just wiggle your fingers", and another comment of, "This is peasants' music, just play it!" tells me that just playing what you feel is good.

What these comments should be telling you is that once you have become steeped in the tradition through years of listening, you will know what is good and then need only figure out how to make your playing match what you know to be good.

How do I know that what feels good and sounds good to me isn't sloppy playing that would get me kicked out of a session?

You become steeped in the tradition. This takes time but in the modern world is not impossible even for people who have never been or may never even go to Ireland. Recordings are readily available via several excellent Internet-accessible dealers (my favorite is Celtic Grooves Imports http://celticgrooves.homestead.com/CGhome.html), good instruments are readily available as well - although there may be waiting time involved (which can be used to steep oneself further in the tradition). Instruction is a bit more hard to find, depending on where you live, but internet forums such as this one enable you to at least establish communication with players who are further along than you are, most of whom are more than happy to dole out advice. And as long as it's done in a respectful and non-overwhelming fashion, I've yet to meet a traditional player who would rebuff anyone who approached him/her and asked for a few tips.

BTW, one of the things you will learn as you become steeped in the tradition is that it is impossible to be kicked out of a session. You may find yourself removed from a session (or a session may remove itself from you), but the process is much too subtle to be characterized as a "kicking out".

I guess my question is; where is the line between sloppily hammering out a tune that sounds good to me, and good traditional playing. I ask because I've heard some tunes that to me sound too busy with ornamentation, but seem to be accepted as good traditional playing.

Once you're steeped in the tradition, you'll know where that line is. Actually, though, you'll know that there is no such line. But for the many years you'll be playing before you can quit saying to yourself that your playing is crap (I've been at it 15 years now, listening even longer, and I still think my playing is crap more often than not), you'll at least be able to say to yourself that it's crap because it's crap, not that it's crap because it's not traditional.

[Denny]

Audacity

Trains well doesnt' he!

[OnTheMoor]

However, I know I like Planxty and The Bothy Band, and The Clancy Brothers are fun.

Ain't nuttin' wrong with that!!!

[shadoe42]

From reading the forums, I get a sense that many here are steeped in ITM. I am not. I can listen to a tune and really enjoy it, while a "steeped in ITM" person says that it's crap. Is that just ITM snobbery, or is there something to it?

There's something to it. It might be frustrating at first to hear people talk down about music that you really enjoy, but it seems to me, more often than not, posters on these forums do end up making some sort of progression from the big names like Lunasa, the Chieftans, Danu and alt-celt stuff, to what you might see the "snobs" say they listen to and enjoy. It is all about how serious you want to get, how much time you want to spend and how much cash you want to shell out for material.

You can be perfectly happy listening to the really popular bands, but if you have a real interest beyond that, sooner or later you might find that you have become a snob. So approach it with an open mind. If you're serious about it, listening to a "snob" can open up a whole new frontier.

Brian

But there is a way to go about being 'steeped' in a tradition and NOT being a snoot about it. There are some in every walk who come across as being 'holier than thou' then there are others who are quite nice and patient and informative with the 'noob'. It happens in everything be it ITM to computer programming. I try to look past the attutude on posts unless it is very plain the person means to be snooty. Being that this is a text medium we loose so many nuances of communcation. No body language no inflection etc. But sometimes after a bit some people (myself on more than one occasion I am sure) come across as being snobbish. Only thing you can really do is ignore that person and concentrate on those you feel are giving you good info. Or sort the good info from the snobbery and just take that

kk enough rambling for now.

On a lighter side I guess I am still stuck in the noob mode of liking bands like Lunasa, Flook, and the alt-celt stuff(gazes at his mp3 player hehe)
VIVA la whatever it is I should Viva at this point......

[straycat82]

Don't get discouraged by snobby folk. Everyone is going to have their opinion be it humble or self righteous. I have little patience myself for people who spend more time talking about playing and talking about who they've played with, who they listen to or how long they've been playing than they spend actually playing. Besides that, I've found that a lot of what people say is just regurgitated information that they heard from a person they either look up to or someone who is even more of a snob than them. Snobbish type folk who come across as higly opinionated and stubborn in their ways are often assumed to know what they're talking about simply because of the fact that they are so confident and pushy. Not everyone is going to have the same taste. Most of us are here because we like ITM. A lot of people don't. Along with that, there are those of us here who only like certain brands of ITM or specific styles of whistle playing. Don't not listen to a band because somebody says it's crap. There's nothing wrong with someone who's steeped in ITM listening to the Chieftains, Lunasa, etc. If it wasn't for these bands half the world would have no idea about ITM. If it wasn't good music, the Chieftains wouldn't have made over 40 albums. People will argue about "only the first 8 were listenable" or "they've always been crap" but you should decide that for yourself (I'm not an advocate for the Chieftains, I just use that as an example becuase it's well known). Bottom line is, when I come to these forums looking for advice, I don't listen to the posters who are negative or up in airs; I watch for the ones who are genuine and kind and want to help others out and keep the music alive instead of the ones who are trying to show off how much they think they know, looking for an ego boost from a bunch of internet posters you will probably never meet. If making the music stops being fun to you, you're doing something wrong. Not that we don't all have moments of frustration and whistler's block but overall this is one hobby/ lifestyle that should bring you joy. Learn what you can from your your elders and the veterans of the music but don't take everything you hear as fact.
*steps down off soapbox*

Cheers,
Johnny

[Bloomfield]

I thought Grey did a good job at explaining that he's an outsider to the tradition and thus brings an outsider's perspective; I don't think he ever claims that his way is THE way to do it.

You are so exactly right about a beginner needing to have a firm starting point.

...

I don't know what the "literature of whistle tutors" is that he got wrong---I'll take your word for it. But I just can't get the "narrowness" thing. Maybe it is like Lattimore smelling of the classroom or something? Grrrr. Maybe you don't care for the book, fine, but I don't think thoroughness is a sign of "academia envy"---sheesh!!!!

Think about the label "traditional" music. Tradition, of course, means "handing on, passing down" (from Lat. tradere, to transmit, pass over, entrust): the process of transmission defines the music. In practical terms, this means that the way the music is learned is part of the music and inseparable from it. Sure a well-trained classical musician can come in and learn to play an Irish tune easily, they just need it explained and hear the lilt etc, but if they are serious about the music they will steep themselves in the tradition. All the stories about who got what tune from whom and when, they are part of the music and something will be ultimately missing from the playing without the player's grasp for these things. This is part of what John means by "there are no short cuts."

And here is where Grey's fundamental shortcoming lies: He writes a book about traditional music that isn't about the process of tradition, but about technical training. Why do people like the back best, with the humbly-written pieces about great players? Because that is what the tradition is all about. You learn to play by finding out about Sean Reid and Micho Russel, and so forth.

The interesting thing is that Grey gets it wrong in subtle ways. After all, he does cover the old players, he does talk about stylistic differences, he does admonish people to listen. But there is a fundamental contradition in writing a non-traditional book on traditional music, and it carries on in many levels. For example, Grey refers to cuts as "pitched" articulation, but then introduces his silly new notation system that makes it impossible to represent the element of pitch in a cut (grace-notes do that beautifully). I wish I could tell from Grey's transcriptions what fingers were used for the cuts ---- it's not there. I like the distinction he draws between articulation and ornamentation, but that's one helpful insight not pages and pages of text and a new notation system. What Grey says about classical music is wrong, or at least criminally abbreviated: there are many ways of playing grace notes and how ornaments have been executed in "classical" music has changed over the centuries. I know plenty of musicians who perfectly capable of playing a grace note differently in Shubert, Purcell, or Di Lasso, even though the grace note is notated the same way. The reason for his new notation system (and frankly for the whole approach to the book), is Grey's 30-yrs experience teaching Irish music to poorly trained classical musicians, who are simplistic enough to think that one symbol means always the same thing.

To put it bluntly: Grey's book caters to those who are not interested enough in the music to actually listen to what a cut sounds like and what it does in a tune. This means that all his protestations about the element of tradition in the music, the importance of listening, the differences in style, are extraneous to his enterprise and are likely to fall on deaf ears. This is also the danger (and frankly the potential harm to the music) that a book like Grey's entails: producing players who can do the technical bits but have no understanding for the music, no musical intelligence. When Jack Coen says to "just twiddle the fingers a bit," he is not saying that it doesn't matter what you do, he is saying that there are two steps involved: Understanding the music and the ornament first by listening, really listening, and then figuring out how to do it. the first step is the harder one. Taking the second step before the first one is a bad idea.

It never occurs to Grey to ask why the real players are so apparently wishy-washy and reticent about the technical aspects. They want to hear you play first, and if there is enough musical intelligence there, then they'll take you to the side and they'll say "don't do it this way, do it that way." The first step has been taken, and the time is ripe for the second one. Every good player has stories of apparently cryptic bits of advice offered by experienced players that over years turn out to be gold nuggets to which the learner returns time and again.

And what does Grey do instead? He talkes about Casadh's, as found in Geraldine Cotter's tutor, calls her explanations unclear and confused and states that he hasn't found mention of casadhs anywhere else "in the literature." And he dismisses Geraldine Cotter. Now, I don't know whether Geraldine got it right or not, but the approach Grey takes and his tone is antithetical to the spirit of learning this music. Then I see that he's included himself among the greats of Irish traditional music in the back of the book, and I am happy to put the book down.

So it comes back understanding how the music is learned. That only works through listening. Perhaps explanations can help, but they cannot replace listening. But the music is an acquired taste and you only understand what you are listening for after you have been listening and playing. A friend of mine (flute player) once said, "the more I learn about this music, the more I realize that there is to learn." I daresay everyone feels that way about the music; everyone, that is, except those who use Grey's tutor to learn the music: they know that they just have another 137 pages of ornaments to work through. (A corollary problem is that beginners tend to think that such books are great, while the experienced players are wary.)

It's not all Grey's fault. I've come to the conclusion that this sort of technical tutor, with great detail and an analytical approach just cannot get you any closer to playing the music right: it is just too tempting to ignore the real work of listening and acquirng the taste. It's much better, I've come to conclude to stick with a basic tutor, even if you have no regular access to a teacher, and to listen, listen, listen.

[regor]

Wow... this thread is certainly stiring the pot... I use Grey's book extensively and I liked it, especially learning on my own with no other reference point. This being said, I am a center-right-brain techno-geek with artistic and perfectionism tendencies...(it does sound like an oximoron doesn't it...!) but I can understand why some people might be put off by it... This being said, if you are like me... and feel the need to understand what it is you're trying to do before actually doing it...and want the benefit of knowing how it is supposed to sound like... get the book..! I find Grey's exercises for Cuts (and all others for that matter) very useful. Perhaps not exactly what one has in mind for entertainement, but I find it helpful once in a while to focus on exercises. But again, perhaps this is too academic for some...

[GaryKelly]

I thought it was traditional to refer to 'snobes', not 'snobs'?

There's a mega-thread around here about it somewhere...

[straycat82]

I can definitely empathize with the folks who say that they don't have access to a good teacher. What I do have though is a small group of people, locally, who are a positive ITM influence on me. Even though they can't help me much on the whistle, I have learned volumes about the music from just being around them. I would say that spending time with other musicians who are BETTER than you is a great way to better yourself while immersing yourself in the culture and traditions, even if they don't play the same instrument. For example, someone needs not be a whistle player to recognize if my timing is off.
I am one who purchased the Grey Larson book. I have learned some valuable things from it but I can't say I've spent a lot of time in that text. It's been more of a reference for me than anything else. I would say more than anything, I spend time listening to the music. I listen to it even more than I play it. I wish I had time to play more but I was told early on (and I truly believe it) that listening can be just as valuable so I don't sweat it too much. I spend a lot of time in the car driving so there is just a lot of opportunity to listen (although sometimes I do whistle in the car... )

[Jayhawk]

One caveat here - I like the back of the book with the transcriptions and stories the best, but...

It's just a book. No one is forced to read it, and many folks are intelligent enough to only use bits and pieces from most books and not expect the book to be divinely inspired and written.

I find it mind boggling the assumption that everyone learns the same way...maybe this book will reach others much more than it did me, but I'd never presume there was only one way to learn or pass on knowledge.

Finally, listening is very, very important, but my dog can listen to trad music all day and never play a lick. Listening, and being able to take what you hear and put that into your playing is key.

OK, brief rant over...gotta go catch the bus.

Eric

[straycat82]

...my dog can listen to trad music all day and never play a lick...

Pun intended?

[Denny]

just shut up and play